{"id":127296,"date":"2026-01-22T02:38:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T02:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/127296\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T02:38:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T02:38:04","slug":"therapist-community-shaken-after-murder-in-winter-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/127296\/","title":{"rendered":"Therapist community shaken after murder in Winter Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

WINTER PARK, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A story out of Winter Park has sent shock waves across the mental health professional community after Rebecca White, a therapist, was stabbed to death by a former client while she was finishing up a session with a current client on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The suspect died later from an apparent suicide, and the other man who was stabbed is expected to survive.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Rebecca White\u2019s friends and former co-workers describe her as kind, funny, exuberant, strong and passionate about her work
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Friends say she had a reputation in her therapy practices to help clients hold firm boundaries and love themselves
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White\u2019s story is rare, but something that has shaken the entire mental health community
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Those professionals want to remind everyone out there, while this news is scary, take time to grieve and go easy on yourself as you heal<\/p>\n

White\u2019s friends shared about how kind, funny, exuberant and strong she was. But most importantly, they said she was compassionate about the work she did to help others in her office off Lee Road.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe enjoyed being a therapist,\u201d said Cherlette McCullough.<\/p>\n

She used to share an office space with White before she started her own practice, Down to Earth Therapy Solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore she left, she told me she was leaving. She was excited she was getting her own space to build it out how she wanted to,\u201d McCullough said.<\/p>\n

White helped offenders, individuals, and couples.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was really known for her therapeutic process of being able to hold firm boundaries of being able to teach people to love themselves,\u201d McCullough said.<\/p>\n

That self-love is a tough lesson for anyone who knew White.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis light has been taken from us just far too soon,\u201d said Michele Schroeder.<\/p>\n

She worked with White\u00a0several years ago at a residential treatment facility in Illinois.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked with difficult clients, she worked with older adolescents, but she always approached everything she did with the utmost amount of respect for anybody that she was working with and for,\u201d Schroeder said.<\/p>\n

Friends say White loved the beach and her pets, but her passion was always the people she helped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI aspire to bring her characteristics into the work that I do, and so many others have as well,\u201d Schroeder said.<\/p>\n

Her legacy will continue, but her tragic story brings to light safety for therapists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only security tip most of us got in graduate school, sit in the chair closest to the door, that\u2019s kind of it,\u201d said Laura Peddie-Bravo, the president of the Florida Mental Health Counselors Association.<\/p>\n

Peddie-Bravo said after being threatened herself at work, she took self-defense classes and got help from the crime prevention team at the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they went over any risks, vulnerabilities, suggestions that they had was very, very helpful,\u201d Peddie-Bravo said.<\/p>\n

White\u2019s story is rare, but something that has shaken the entire mental health community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be honest about what we are feeling so that we can process this,\u201d McCullough said.<\/p>\n

Those professionals want to remind everyone out there that while this news is scary, take time to grieve and go easy on yourself as you heal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides helping people, White also had a true passion for animals. Former co-workers started a donation drive in Illinois at an animal rescue there but encourage anyone to donate to their local shelter in White\u2019s honor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINTER PARK, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A story out of Winter Park has sent shock waves across the mental health professional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2967,274,115,139,141,140,277,9429,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-127296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-public-safety","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-orlando","12":"tag-orlando-headlines","13":"tag-orlando-news","14":"tag-public-safety","15":"tag-sarah-winkelmann","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}