Kirstie Alley deserves ‘nothing but peace’, says Cherrie White who killed late actress' mom in 1981 crash

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Alley called her agent and said, “You call Paramount and tell them my mother is dead, my father is dying. And if they want to see me, I’ll see them Wednesday.” She further added, “Don’t candy-a** around. This is the greatest tragedy of my life. But if I get ‘Star Trek,’ that will be my happiest day.” Talented Alley did land the breakout role of Lt Saavik before going to star in even bigger roles like 'Cheer', 'Look Who’s Talking', and 'Veronica’s Closet'.

Who was Cherrie White?

White, at the time of the incident, went by the name Cherrie Glymph and was only 27 years old when she collided with a car driven by Alley's father Robert in Kansas on Interstate 135 in the Wichita area. In the tragic crash, Lillian, 58, was thrown out of the vehicle due to impact, and Robert, 57, was rushed to a local hospital with chest injuries on October 23, 1981. After the incident, White moved to Arlington, Texas, and told the National Enquirer in 2011 that she “shouldn’t have been driving that night.”

“I had a lot of things on my mind, and I was intoxicated,” White recalled, adding, “I was going through a divorce. I stopped by a local club to get something to eat, and I had a few drinks.” The newspaper published a picture of White standing next to the gravestone of Lillian Alley. White said that she and the Alleys were trying to avoid a separate car when she slammed into the back of Alley's car.

“I blacked out, and when I came to, I saw a woman’s body on the side of the road covered in a sheet. Then I saw paramedics working on a man. I was told later that the female passenger had died and the male driver was taken to the hospital in critical condition,” White recalled the death of Lillian Alley, also known as "Mickie".

“But I never knew the name of the woman I killed. The authorities never told me the victims’ names because the driver was still in the hospital, and they couldn’t release his name. For 30 years, I’ve carried the burden of not knowing who I killed,” White said.

White pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of vehicular homicide and spent about six months behind bars before serving the rest of her yearlong sentence in an alcohol recovery center and a halfway house. In a tweet in 2021, Kirstie Alley alleged that White only spent three months in jail.

White claimed she tried to reach out to the two-time Emmy winner to express her apology but the actress reportedly refused to see White. White said she even wrote a sad note from rehab to crash survivor Robert Alley, whose name she allegedly did not know at the time, but the letter was not sent out. “The letter was never mailed, but in it, I asked for forgiveness for what I’d done,” White said. Robert, a lumber company owner, survived the crash and died in 2007, an online obituary stated.