Nearly a year after the slain body of 5-year-old Kenneth White was found in a roadside snow bank in Knox, his cousin Tiffany VanAlstyne has pleaded guilty to murder.

She pleaded Tuesday morning in Albany County Court before Judge Stephen W. Herrick to one count of second-degree murder, a Class A-1 felony. She faces 18 years to life in state prison.

“We will not be making comments about the Van Alstyne plea today,” Cecilia Walsh, spokeswoman for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office wrote in an email to The Enterprise. “The judge had previously issued a gag order in this case. We will be available for comment after sentencing.”

VanAlstyne is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 14, 2016.

She was arraigned in Knox Town Court on Dec. 19, 2015 the day after the murder, and pleaded “not guilty” before Justice Jean Gagnon. She was 19 at the time.

“I take lithium for my bipolar,” VanAlstyne told Gagnon as she began to cry.

Her mother, Brenda VanAlstyne, was at the arraignment. “It was a shock to me,” she said then of being told her daughter had killed Kenneth White. She said Kenneth White was Tiffany’s “favorite” and she frequently looked after him.

Tiffany VanAlstyne has been in Albany County’s jail since the arraignment.

Kenneth White, a kindergartner at Berne-Knox-Westerlo, was murdered on Dec. 18, having been left in the care of Tiffany VanAlstyne. She called her mother and said that two men in ski masks had broken into the trailer they shared, held her down, and took the boy, Albany Sheriff Craig Apple said when first announcing VanAlstyne’s arrest. They called 9-1-1 to report what Mrs. VanAlstyne thought then was an abduction. Police then issued an Amber Alert for three states.

But interviews with relatives later were contradictory, and Kenneth White’s 45-pound body was found that night across from his family’s trailer at 994 Thacher Park Road when a police dog picked up the scent.

He was asphyxiated and strangled, Apple said, and the boy’s head showed blunt-force trauma.

Kenneth White had been legally under Brenda VanAlstyne’s guardianship for several months, since September, Apple said; his biological mother, Christine White, lived in Amsterdam, New York, and his biological father, Jayson White, lived in western Massachusetts. Kenneth’s twin sister, Cheyanne, and another sister, a year younger, Christine, were also under Brenda Van Alstyne’s care. After Kenneth’s death, his sisters were placed in the care of Child Protective Services.

A candlelight vigil was held at Kenneth’s White’s elementary school in Berne the week he died.  As snow fell in the dark, about 900 people, among them Kenneth’s parents, heard prayers and sang carols.

His father, Jayson White, told The Enterprise at the vigil, “It was amazing. It shows Kenneth has got a lot of friends.” His mother had this message about her 5-year-old boy who loved the superhero Spider-Man: “Let everyone know that Spider-Man is looking down on them.”

One of those at the vigil was Katrina Stevens, a Berne-Knox-Westerlo alumna who had known Tiffany VanAlstyne at school. “She was always quiet,” said Stevens. “She never talked to anyone. She wore a lot of princess clothes,” she said, referring to the Disney princesses. “People thought it was strange.”

Following Kenneth White’s murder, a series of court hearings to determine the placement of Cheyanne and Christine White as well as to establish if their aunt, Brenda VanAlstyne, and their parents could visit them, revealed problems in the VanAlstyne household. Brenda VanAlstyne was not allowed to visit her nieces, and the Whites were granted supervised visits.

Attorney James Green, representing the county’s Department for Children, Youth and Families in Family Court, said the girls’ parents hadn’t gone to their scheduled family assessment appointments ordered by the court in January, and hadn’t called to reschedule; their supervised visits to the girls in foster care had been intermittent, he said.

Two other children of Jayson White, Jaydon and Jaylize, were removed by child protective services in Berkshsire County after the investigation into Kenneth White’s death, Green said, with similar court proceedings in Massachusetts.

The girls’ foster mother testified in family court that one of them reported the other was beaten with a baseball bat by their cousin Tiffany VanAlstyne. The reports of abuse were echoed in testimony by the family’s caseworker.

“Christine had bruises from her cheek pretty much covering her entire body, right down to the bottom of her legs,” the foster mother, Linda Dunn, testified in March.

Brenda VanAlstyne faced abuse and neglect allegations brought by the Albany County Department of Children, Youth and Families.

Family Court Judge Gerard E. Maney in March cited Brenda VanAlstyne’s awareness of her daughter’s mental health issues and that she and her daughter were not involved in adequate treatment for medication while Tiffany VanAlstyne was left with the children and Kenneth White was murdered.

The trailer where Kenneth and his sister lived with Brenda VanAlstyne was described by Sheriff
Apple as unsuitable for children; he said clothing was dangerously near space heaters and a woodstove was poorly ventilated. Dan Sherman, Knox’s assistant building inspector at the time, visited the trailer on Dec. 20 and found it in violation of 14 sections of state property maintenance law.

A group called “Kenneth’s Army,” led by Michelle Fusco formed; members raised funds for a gravestone for Kenneth White, and frequently a half-dozen members would stand outside the courthouse during hearings involving White, holding signs.

The annual 5K run held by the sheriff’s office to raise funds for an annual Christmas program, which toys and clothes to needy children — as program Kenneth White participated in— was named in his memory this year.

And, legislation was signed by the governor on Friday (see related story) that would make it easier for police to get records from Child Protective Services if a child is missing or thought to be kidnapped, as Tiffany VanAlstyne first alleged Kenneth White was.