O.C. Athletes’ Love Affair Became a Fatal Attraction

Apart from the warm embrace of his family, Thomas White was alone in the world. A standout high school athlete in Europe, where his father was stationed in the Army, he was a nobody when the family moved to Orange County in 1986, a young man mostly without friends.

Then he met Krisden Yoshiko Tanabe, a statuesque high school basketball star from Huntington Beach. The attention White once focused on his jumpshot and major-league fastball was turned toward his new girlfriend.

That love, family members said Friday, eventually became an obsession. When Tanabe broke off the relationship a few months ago, the bespectacled 21-year-old grew so troubled that he committed himself in September to a Long Beach psychiatric hospital. He was released earlier this week, and family members said he seemed renewed, ready to move on without Krisden.

But on Thursday, just days after his release, White confronted Tanabe in front of a friend’s Westminster house. He was carrying a shotgun that family members say he had just purchased with money borrowed from a friend. Tanabe, 18, was shot and killed as she tried to flee, then White turned the gun on himself and took his own life, police said.

Now, friends and family of the young couple are trying to sort out the pieces, to put the terrible tragedy into perspective.

“He was the last person on Earth I would expect to do this,” said Dr. Mark Kopit, a veterinarian at Stanton Pet Hospital, where White worked until earlier this year. “It must have happened in the heat of the moment. I guess he was just very much in love and very hurt. It’s a sad thing, very tragic.”

Tanabe’s teammates at Golden West College, where she was about to begin her first season of college basketball, talked long and deeply Friday about the friend many of them were just beginning to know, agreeing to dedicate their season to her.

The girl’s mother, Anita Tanabe, knew White like a member of the family. He was, she recalls, a good person. There was never any trouble, Krisden was always home on time. But he became “obsessed” with her daughter and fell apart emotionally when she tried to break off their romance, the mother said.

“In my heart I forgive him,” she said. “I know at the time that Thomas shot my daughter that wasn’t Thomas. That was someone who was very sick and distraught.”

White’s family, meanwhile, is grappling with grief and dismay. For them, it all seems improbable, impossible. How could Thomas, so quiet and friendly, commit so violent an act?

“She was like his Madonna. She was everything to him,” said Greg White, a younger brother. “He was addicted to loving her. It was kind of a fatal attraction. . . . We all know someone who would do anything for love. And this is an example.”

The eldest child of Cherry and Wallace White, Thomas was described as a great athlete, a good son and brother. Friends and family say he didn’t smoke, he didn’t abuse alcohol. Though he took care of many of his own bills, he lived at the family’s comfortable stucco-and-wood house in a sedate corner of Cypress.

“He was quiet, sincere, serious,” recalled Greg White, 19, a college sophomore. “If he said he needed to get something done, he’d get it done.”

Although only an average student, garnering mostly Cs in class, White was A-plus when it came to athletics, his brother said. His stage, however, was not the home field of some Orange County sports power, but rather the ball fields and basketball courts of West Germany, where his father, an Army major, was stationed.

When the family moved to Orange County after White graduated from high school, it hardly mattered that the 6-foot, 1-inch, 190-pounder was selected to the All-Europe high school squad in baseball, football and basketball, his brother said. He was a newcomer.

“He didn’t have any friends, he didn’t know anyone,” Greg White said.

But that void was soon filled. In 1987, Greg and Thomas White went to a regional championship basketball game to watch a friend play. White met Tanabe. They talked, and later started seeing each other, Greg recalled. Within a month or so, they were an inseparable couple.

“That was her first serious boyfriend, and it was his first serious girlfriend,” the brother said.

The pair spent most of their free moments together. They often played basketball together, always on the same team, at some neighborhood courts. Tanabe was frequently around the pet hospital, and the couple seemed happy, deeply in love, Kopit said.

“He seemed interested in pursuing a long-term relationship with her,” the doctor recalled. “He talked about getting married. He was very dedicated. I knew he loved her very much, and cared very much, but he never seemed obsessed. Their relationship seemed normal, typical for a couple of that age.”

Indeed, though Tanabe considered athletic scholarship offers from schools including Columbia and Arizona, she ultimately chose to pass them up this year because she wasn’t ready to leave home.

As graduation neared for Tanabe, however, there were signs of trouble, White’s brother said. Tanabe told a girlfriend that she wanted to date other people, and the girlfriend told Greg White.

Tanabe even tried to force a breakup by making White angry, his brother said. But the tactic never worked with White. He pursued her despite the coolness.

Even when the couple split up about four months ago, they still saw each other, their friendship seemingly surviving the rocks that shattered their romance.

But for White, it wasn’t enough. Friends of Krisden’s say he continually called, asking where Krisden was, what Krisden was doing. The unwanted attention bothered Tanabe, they said.

White also began contemplating suicide, his brother said. “At first, I think he was saying it to get her back, to get attention,” he said.

Ultimately, White decided last month to sign himself into Los Altos Hospital and Mental Health Center in Long Beach. He stayed nearly a month, his brother said.

When he arrived home at the beginning of the week, White seemed better, the brother said. His singular focus on Tanabe had apparently dissipated. Just weeks before, White called up a coach at San Jose State and talked about playing basketball for the Northern California college, Greg White said.

“Everything seemed to be OK,” the brother said. “We went out and played some basketball when he got back. She seemed out of his mind.”

Through it all, White remained a close family friend with the Tanabes. He was planning to move into an apartment with Tanabe’s brother in a week, according to Anita Tanabe. It was Krisden Tanabe who talked him into getting help. She had driven him to the hospital.

“He kept telling her he was going to kill himself. She was quite concerned,” Tanabe’s mother said. “She kept saying, ‘I can help him.’ ”

After he checked himself out of the hospital on Tuesday, White came by to talk to Tanabe’s mother about his obsession with her daughter. By the end of the conversation, White seemed to have accepted a life without Krisden.

On Wednesday, however, White confronted Tanabe at her friend’s house and accused her of giving her phone number to another guy, Tanabe’s friends said. The verbal sparring quickly escalated into a violent slapping and shoving match in the front yard.

Then came Thursday afternoon. White’s mother was at home watching the local news when word of a murder-suicide in Westminster flashed across the screen. She saw her son’s car and two bodies draped with yellow covers. She knew, even before authorities could come knocking on the door, what had happened.

“I never pictured something like this happening to this family,” said Greg White. “It was like the ideal Cosby family. We laughed a lot, we cracked jokes. My parents were always very understanding with us.”

In the kitchen of her Fountain Valley home Friday, Krisden Tanabe’s mother clutched a pink Kleenex in her hand and seemed to have trouble following what a woman from her church was saying. The woman promised to help her get through the excruciating arrangements of burying her daughter. Together they would pick out nice psalms and music that Krisden would have liked for the funeral Mass.

“I don’t think it’s hit us yet that we won’t be seeing her anymore,” Krisden’s mother said. “She gave me so much joy and so much laughter--everything a mother could want out of a child. She was so full of life. She needs to be remembered like that.”

Other members of the Tanabe family started coming home early Friday morning. Her sister, Kim, 24, an Air Force navigator, flew in from Washington. Her brother, Mike, 19, had come home from college. A funeral Mass is to be celebrated Wednesday at 10 a.m. at Saints Simon & Jude Catholic Church in Huntington Beach.

Tamie, 16, the youngest, sat in the middle of the living room and looked through her big sister’s yearbook and cried. There seemed to be picture after picture of Krisden Tanabe, wide-eyed and bubbly, a popular, pretty high school basketball star.

“She loves her sister,” Anita Tanabe said. “She’s so proud of her sister. Krisden did leave her mark behind.”

Family members said Friday they felt the system had failed both young people. They wondered why White, so obviously distraught, had left the hospital.

“We just assumed that the professionals were taking care of him,” Lisa Barros, Tanabe’s aunt, said. “He just got out of a mental hospital and he was able to walk in and buy a firearm. That, to me, seems criminal.”

Police said they were still trying to determine how White obtained the gun. Greg White said his brother had borrowed money from a friend, saying he needed it to pay some bills, then apparently purchased the shotgun sometime during the days after he left the hospital.