Mysterious Galveston yacht captain living under false identity gets 3 years in prison

For years, Captains John Litchfield, center, Christina White, right, and Tim Mattison, left, together ran the three yachts for Majestic Ventures, Inc. which specializes in special event, wedding and quincenera cruises. But recent revelations show that White wasn't using her real name. less For years, Captains John Litchfield, center, Christina White, right, and Tim Mattison, left, together ran the three yachts for Majestic Ventures, Inc. which specializes in special event, wedding and quincenera ... more Photo: Nathan Lindstrom, Freelance Photo: Nathan Lindstrom, Freelance Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Mysterious Galveston yacht captain living under false identity gets 3 years in prison 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

GALVESTON — The Galveston yacht captain caught living a double life under a secret alias was sentenced Wednesday to three years in federal prison, resolving one case but leaving unanswered questions about the mysterious deaths of her husband and young child nearly three decades ago.

Cynthia Knox — known for years to island residents as Capt. Christina White — choked up in court before the sentence was handed down over her use of a dead child's name in an effort to start over amid investigations at the time into the family members' deaths in California.

The 53-year-old League City woman mouthed desperate last words to her supporters as she was led away after offering a somber statement framing her arrest as a chance at a "clean slate."

But prosecutors described the motive in the case as "egregious" and the background as "perhaps even gruesome," citing ties to the two deaths, which together netted a hefty insurance payout.

"Your Honor, she changed her identity to hide from her relationship to these deaths, and the financial windfall she gained from this should not be ignored," Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Goldman said as he argued for a three-year prison term.

Knox's attorney, John T. Floyd III, heartily objected, pointing out there was "not a shred of evidence" connecting his client to the deaths.

"Honestly, I was disgusted by their attempts to allude that she had anything to do with the death of her daughter," he said in response to the prosecution's claims.

From HoustonChronicle.com: Captain's false identity held secret

The chain of events that sparked Knox's transition into the locally beloved "Captain Christina" started back in November 1988, when her then-husband, Harold "Skeeter" Lyerla, was found brutally stabbed to death in the couple's Lompoc home, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

The following year, a landscaping contractor named Victor Perea was convicted of first-degree murder in the slaying and sentenced to 56 years in prison. But a police investigator in the case remained convinced that Knox and another man — her lover, John Litchfield — were somehow involved.

For years, Perea maintained that he'd been "set up," but in a 2012 parole hearing he alleged that Litchfield had paid him $4,000 for the slaying.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that there's evidence Litchfield forked over at least $2,000. But they said Litchfield maintains that money was for landscaping work — not for murder.

Litchfield bought Knox a $12,500 diamond ring and they married on May 6, 1989, just as Perea's murder trial got underway. The pair divorced two months after the trial ended, but apparently stayed together.

"What happened next is a matter of court record," Goldman told the court. First, Knox's infant daughter Kajsa nearly died from swallowing too much Advil, the prosecutor said.

Then, the toddler — a beneficiary of her slain father's life insurance — almost died in a bathtub, prosecutors said.

"Then finally the child died in (Knox's) sole care in a fishing pond," Goldman said.

Harold Lyerla's mother sued Knox and Litchfield in 1992, accusing them of conspiring to kill Harold and the baby in order to get $279,000 from Lyerla's life insurance policy. The case eventually was dismissed after an appeals court ruled that Lyerla's mother did not have legal standing to sue.

The same year the civil lawsuit was filed, Knox obtained the birth certificate of a day-old infant named Christina White, who died in 1965, and used that document to establish a new identity. Using the dead baby's document, Knox snagged a Social Security number, state ID, a passport, a merchant mariner's license and transit worker identification credentials, prosecutors said. She even used the fake name to buy a firearm.

Slowly, Knox and Litchfield built a new life for themselves. In the mid-1990s, the pair moved to the Galveston area and launched a League City-based cruise business offering yacht charters and dinner cruises out of Kemah and Galveston.

Knox worked her way into the community, becoming a friendly and regular presence in the South Shore Harbor Marina.

It was initially thought that her years of deceit caught up with her when she went to renew her mariner's license.

But officials with the Diplomatic Security Service, a law enforcement arm of the U.S. Department of State, said Wednesday that her scheme began to unravel when she applied for a passport. Something on the application — authorities won't say what — ignited suspicion.

A Diplomatic Security Service investigation confirmed that the real Christina White was long dead. After searching investigative databases and cross-checking information on the falsified application against other records, authorities connected White to Knox, according to Michael Perkins, special agent-in-charge of the DSS Houston Field Office.

Then, agents spotted another red flag when they came across old news reports surrounding the 1988 killing.

To shore up the evidence that Knox and White were one and the same, DSS asked the U.S. Coast Guard for fingerprint records associated with her mariner's license application. And those prints turned out to match older ones taken in California at the time of the Lyerla murder investigation.

After uncovering Knox's hidden identity, authorities swarmed the South Shore Harbor Marina in March 2016 to arrest the party boat captain for identity theft.

While prosecutors allege the duplicitous mariner launched her new life to avoid connections to the deaths — and the ensuing life-insurance payouts — Knox has argued the motive was less sinister.

"I understand your explanation for why you did what you did, to start fresh," Judge George C. Hanks, Jr. told her in court. "But, respectfully, you just can't do that."

Hanks sentenced the former captain to 36 months in prison — 12 months for making false statements in a passport application and 24 months for aggravated identity theft. Afterward, she'll have a year of supervised release. She was also ordered to pay a $15,000 fine.

Now, Knox has the option to file an appeal, but there's still a trail of damage to clean up.

In her duties as a party boat captain, Knox sometimes performed marriage ceremonies. "The problem is that there are approximately 20 couples in the Houston area that were married by a dead one-day-old child," Goldman told the court.

Hanks asked whether those marriages would still be legal — and Goldman said it's not clear.

"That's being litigated now."

But as the legal system deals with such technicalities, Lyerla's surviving relatives are celebrating.

"We're overjoyed," his niece, Tamara Pickarts, said Wednesday. "We've been waiting and waiting for this day to come."