GUILTY TX - Tricia, 51, & Kevin Whitaker, 19, slain in their Sugar Land home, 10 Dec 2003

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does this case interest any of you guys? I find it interesting because the plan was so well executed and involved something that allays suspicion (getting shot by the trigger-man as a diversion). What I find more interesting is that Bart had an unlikely profile for someone sitting in Polunsky (TX death row). He came from a well liked, religious family where this would be the last thing you'd expect.

Does anyone think the plot could have been snuffed out before it happened? I think there were some warning signs about him (he had stolen computers in high school) and in the five and a half years between graduating from high school and the commission of the crime, he basically lived a slothful life with some friends in there condo, partying and what not. But there is a huge leap from being a ne'er-do-well and callous sociopathy.
 
Well it interests me....just need to research it more.
 
What interests me, or shocks me, is how his father can forgive him and support him like this. He even wrote a book about it (his forgiveness of his son).
 
my general opinion is that Bart has some kind of antisocial personality disorder and that before the shooting (and for a few months after) the parents were either in denial or in the dark about what he was. The phrase "ignorance is bliss" applies here. He had ostensibly been going to college for several years at Sam Houston State and I'm sure his parents wanted to believe he was going to school instead of partying and what not (and I think dropped out). I'm sure they also wanted to believe in 2001 in which the parents were informed by the police about a plot to kill them, that it was just drunk talk. I'm sure they wanted to believe he was graduating Magna *advertiser censored* from Sam Houston in Criminal Justice (or whatever the story was) and that after the shooting happened, that the botched attempt in 2001 and his faking graduation were irrelevant.

I think the his father finally accepted that he is what he is - someone who may be, through no fault of his own, a sociopath. It also helps that Bart is in there and not at-large so there's no worry about Bart having his father hunted down or ordering a hit (since none of the people in Death Row an expect to get out).
 
i wonder if Steve Champagne has gotten out of prison? I looked him up at the TX DOC website and he's not on there. In any event, he was the least involved and basically handed the other two guys on a silver platter so it would make sense.
 
Texas man with scheduled execution uses letters from fellow death row inmates to argue for reprieve

"A Fort Bend death row prisoner scheduled for execution in February for his role in a plot to kill his own family is begging for a reprieve in a request bolstered by 58 letters of support - including seven fellow death row prisoners.

Thomas "Bart" Whitaker is slated to die on Feb. 22 for the 2003 slayings of his mother and younger brother, who the Sugar Land man had killed in a murder-for-hire scheme aimed at snagging a hefty $1 million inheritance. The attack wounded Whitaker's father, who has since fought against his son's death sentence and serves as the centerpiece of the commutation request now before the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles...."

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-...scheduled-execution-uses-letters-12492275.php
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Thomas Bartlett Whitaker

"Thomas Bartlett Whitaker (born December 31, 1979), previously known as Bart Whitaker, is a Texas death row inmate at the Polunsky Unit near Livingston.[1] He is scheduled to die by lethal injection on February 22, 2018 as a result of his conviction for the December 10, 2003 murders of his mother and brother by hitman Chris Brashear at the Huntsville death chamber.[2] Whitaker had employed him and another accomplice Steven Champagne, the getaway driver, to carry out the murders. His father, Kent, was shot but survived. Following a tip-off that police would shortly arrest Whitaker for the murders, he fled to Mexico in 2004. He lived there for over a year under a false name, until he was arrested without incident..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bartlett_Whitaker
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Texas Death Row İnmate Thomas Bartlett "Bart" Whitaker Documentary

[video=youtube;OxmsLhiN4VA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxmsLhiN4VA[/video]
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I am wondering if tonight is the end of the road for him? Any news?
 
He was granted clemency. Commuted to life without parole.
 
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...-could-be-spared-after-unusual-appeal-n850276

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has commuted the death sentence of a man who masterminded the murder of his mother and brother after the inmate's father, who barely survived the crime, pleaded for his killer son's life to be spared.

Abbott's decision, announced just a half-hour before Thomas "Bart" Whitaker was set to receive a lethal injection, is only the third time in four decades that a Texas governor has granted clemency to a death-row inmate on humanitarian ground.

Whitaker, 38, will now serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the 2003 double murder.
 
ABC’s 20/20 did an updated story on this family tragedy last night. Most of the footage was from an earlier episode from several years ago, but it did include Kent Whitaker’s emotional response to the parole board’s recommendation for clemency. We were not shown the family’s reactions to the governor’s last minute reprieve.

I remain stymied by this young man’s psychological make-up. How does a child turn out to be a “monster” when he came from such privileged background? I suppose sociopathy is the only explanation. If, as was suggested in this episode, he also was a narcissist, there could be a root cause in his childhood. This case just makes me feel all kinds of uneasy.
 
I guess I am working through my uneasiness about this case here on this thread. I live in Houston and work in Fort Bend County where this took place. I think what has me most agitated by this is that if it could happen to the Whitakers, it could happen in any family. Sociopathy is an equal opportunity horrendous disorder without rhyme or reason. Watching this young man’s death row interview from the 20/20 piece several years ago (replayed in last week’s update), you see a man devoid of emotion for the most part. When questioned about his motive, he denied it was money, as he had all of the financial support he needed. Instead he said he hated his life, and how he “was”, and blamed his family for bringing him into the world. As awful as this case is, and no disrespect to the victims, I can’t help but be grateful that he did not take his rage out on more people, like a school full of students. However, the fact that he enlisted someone else to commit the actual murders tells me he was unable to pull a trigger on his own. Such a confounding awful case this is.

2 weird things I noticed from the interview:
- this man has n unusual albino-looking physical trait that was not present in photos before the murders. Part of his right side eyelashes are white, and that travels down to part of his facial skin on that side. I can’t imagine that it was make-up for the interview, but I do know that there is a phenomena that can result in one’s hair turning white due to extreme stressful situations. I guess that would fit this sad story, if indeed he has ,ost the color in his eyelashes and skin.

2nd, in the interview, when asked how he feels about his father, he qualifies the answer by saying if he IS incapable of love, he CAN say he has deep respect for his Dad. And then he says something chilling, “I love him to death”. I don’t think he realized how ironic that statement is. I have never been a fan of that phrase “love you to death”,because it seems to convey a mixed message. “love you TILL death” makes much more sense, but then this is just semantics in a horrendous situation.

Thanks for letting me talk this out with myself!!
 
I guess I am working through my uneasiness about this case here on this thread. I live in Houston and work in Fort Bend County where this took place. I think what has me most agitated by this is that if it could happen to the Whitakers, it could happen in any family. Sociopathy is an equal opportunity horrendous disorder without rhyme or reason. Watching this young man’s death row interview from the 20/20 piece several years ago (replayed in last week’s update), you see a man devoid of emotion for the most part. When questioned about his motive, he denied it was money, as he had all of the financial support he needed. Instead he said he hated his life, and how he “was”, and blamed his family for bringing him into the world. As awful as this case is, and no disrespect to the victims, I can’t help but be grateful that he did not take his rage out on more people, like a school full of students. However, the fact that he enlisted someone else to commit the actual murders tells me he was unable to pull a trigger on his own. Such a confounding awful case this is.

2 weird things I noticed from the interview:
- this man has n unusual albino-looking physical trait that was not present in photos before the murders. Part of his right side eyelashes are white, and that travels down to part of his facial skin on that side. I can’t imagine that it was make-up for the interview, but I do know that there is a phenomena that can result in one’s hair turning white due to extreme stressful situations. I guess that would fit this sad story, if indeed he has ,ost the color in his eyelashes and skin.

2nd, in the interview, when asked how he feels about his father, he qualifies the answer by saying if he IS incapable of love, he CAN say he has deep respect for his Dad. And then he says something chilling, “I love him to death”. I don’t think he realized how ironic that statement is. I have never been a fan of that phrase “love you to death”,because it seems to convey a mixed message. “love you TILL death” makes much more sense, but then this is just semantics in a horrendous situation.

Thanks for letting me talk this out with myself!!

Actually you're talking it out with me as well! We watched the show last night and it left me feeling uneasy and glad he's in prison and will never get out. There's just something "off" about him. And YES - when he mentioned he loved his father to death - I too remarked out loud to my husband about that comment. A very poor choice of words all things considered.

The show actually leaves one with a lot more questions about Bart Whitaker doesn't it?

He's lucky to have such a caring, forgiving father. I am of the firm belief it was the father's pleas that kept him from being executed.
 
Any chance someone is still thinking about this case because I have a burning question...how did the Whitakers not know Bart was not enrolled, wouldn't they have been paying his tuition?
 
I still think about it. I watch/listen to the original Forensic Files incessantly and the Whitaker case came up again in my regular rotation through the 360+ episodes on Netflix. It also happened in my neck of the woods. I try to make sense if it, and how this family could not have seen through the facade of their terribly flawed son/brother. Apparently they were aware of a claim that he had tried to hire someone to murder them several years earlier, and chose to discount it. I have concluded they were just in such strong denial and hope that he would turn out OK. As for the tuition, I think they could have possibly been handing over the money for it to Bart every semester, blindly trusting whatever he told them and believing that it was indeed going toward tuition when instead he pocketed it. It is truly a southern gothic tale of family tragedy.
 
Hmm, I just don't know. I just feel like who would not know for 3 years? I hate to say it but I wonder if Kent knew
 

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