Savage Son (20 page)

Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office
Richmond, Texas

Another behind-the-scenes figure played an important part in helping to shape the case of the Whitaker murders—and he did it with several bloodhounds.

Fort Bend County sheriff’s deputy Keith Pikett and his three scent-smelling bloodhounds—Quincy, Columbo, and Jag—appeared at the Whitaker murder scene that night.

It was apparent that the dogs had hit on a scent. Now, with the confession of Steven Champagne and the arrest of Chris Brashear, Pikett’s dogs would be put to the test to determine if the scent they discovered that night would match either one of the two young men.

In 1989, Pikett began working in the K-9 division with the bloodhounds. His job was to help train them to follow invisible scents not discernible to the human olfactory senses. Pikett’s involvement in dog searches began at home with his own personal pet, Samantha, a bloodhound. As he recalled, he and his wife “were just playing with the dogs. We had no intention of doing anything like looking for lost people or doing police work.” Over time, however, Pikett could discern that Samantha was not your average scent hound. She became so good that Pikett developed “a guilt complex and figured we had to work the dog to find lost kids or Alzheimer’s patients.” Pikett decided to take Samantha to the American Kennel Club (AKC) so she would receive the proper training to become a bloodhound scent dog. According to their website, the American Kennel Club is dedicated to upholding the integrity of its Registry, promoting the sport of purebred dogs and breeding for type and function. Founded in 1884, the AKC and its affiliated organizations advocate for the purebred dog as a family companion, advance canine health and well-being, work to protect the rights of all dog owners and promote responsible dog ownership. The objective of the organization is to “advance the study, breeding, exhibiting, running and maintenance of purebred dogs.”

Pikett entered Samantha in a training competition and she bested the other dogs. After her training was complete, Pikett and his wife decided they needed to volunteer her services to help find lost people.

The Piketts were able to find a group of trainers known as The Old Timers, which specialized in bloodhounds. Apparently, these groups were difficult to locate because bloodhounds are not commonly used in law enforcement. Samantha spent over 175 hours in training to perfect her skills as a search dog. Eventually she became schooled well enough to go out and help locate missing persons. She was the first of many dogs that Pikett had trained. He would eventually go on to train them himself, as well as teach others how to train dogs. His services were used statewide, and he was also called up by the FBI to help in training their scent dogs.

Pikett is very fond of his bloodhounds. “They have the best nose of any breed of dog,” he has bragged about his canine companions. “Their olfactory sensing mechanism is twenty-six times that of a human.” He added that the bloodhounds are able to follow a scent trail even when no fingerprint evidence or DNA has been located.

Pikett talked about training new bloodhounds to follow a scent trail. “I get them at eight weeks old, and it takes about seven to eight months to train one to start to go out in the street, work real cases, and verify him with another dog that’s already working well.” He offered up an explanation as to how the dog training works. “If we were to trail to a house, with a young, inexperienced dog, I would run the trail again with an experienced dog, just to verify that the new dog is doing things right. I want them to just be trailing scents and nothing else, that way they gain more experience.”

Once a bloodhound is trained on trailing scents, the dog graduates to more complex levels of scent detection, which include scent pad lineups and human being lineups.

Pikett and his pooches’ services have been widely used across Texas, from Colorado County to Liberty County to Montgomery County, to cities such as Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, and Dallas, to towns such as Wharton and Denton. His services have also been used as far as North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, Kansas, and Montana.

Pikett’s pups have been involved in some of the country’s highest-profile cases including the Texas Railroad Killer, serial murders committed by Angel Maturino Resendiz, aka Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, between 1997 and 1999. They also worked the Atlanta Olympic site bombing, which later was determined to be caused by an abortion-clinic-bombing domestic terrorist, Eric Rudolph. There were several other important cases in which the dogs played a major role in discovering the perpetrators.

The night of the Whitaker massacre, Pikett was called out to the scene. Upon arrival, he sussed out the situation and immediately set his dogs on to any scents they could find. They received a walk-through of the crime scene by one of the deputies. One of the first pieces of evidence Pikett spotted was the Glock 17 pistol, near the back door of the Whitaker house. Pikett halted his dogs, took out a two-by-two-inch sterile gauze pad from his evidence kit, removed it from its individual wrapping, and then placed it on the can. He purposefully did not wipe the gun down with the gauze pad, in case there were any fingerprints on the weapon. Instead, he merely laid the pad on the gun for ten seconds, removed it, and placed it in a plastic Ziploc bag. He then labeled the bag and stowed it away for safekeeping.

Pikett next went into the master bedroom on the first floor, where he proceeded to take samples from the open dresser drawers, closet drawers, and from the pillowcase that lay on the floor. He then made his way over to Kevin’s room, where he took samples from some more open drawers, as well as a gun lockbox.

In addition to the samples Pikett gathered, Max Hunter also secured a gauze swab of the black glove found in the front yard next to Bart’s SUV.

Once the scent samples were collected, Pikett went outside to begin his work with Quincy, Columbo, and Jag. Realistically, only one dog would be necessary at a crime scene. Pikett, however, liked to be extra cautious, so he brought three dogs to have backups. Pikett liked to be “very sure of what my dog is saying. I use another dog as backup to ensure that the first dog is doing what he’s supposed to do.”

The first dog up was Quincy. Pikett had the dog smell the scent pad used for the Glock. The sheriff started off near the back door of the Whitakers’ home, because it was readily apparent that the attacker had fled through the back door and through the backyard. Once Quincy sniffed the scented gauze pad, he immediately went through the back door, turned left, and then made his way over to the driveway. The dog then made a beeline for Bart’s Yukon, which was parked out in the street in front of the home.

Next up was Columbo. This time, Pikett used a scent pad that had been taken from the pillow and pillowcase found in Kent and Tricia Whitaker’s bedroom. Columbo took off on almost the exact same scent trail as Quincy—directly toward Bart’s Yukon.

Pikett later described this type of behavior as very unusual. He also said of his own dogs that they were very “arrogant” and that “the last thing they would do is something the other dog did.” In other words, for both Quincy and Columbo to scent their respective trails back to Bart’s Yukon made it very clear that whoever had touched the Glock and/or the pillow and pillowcase went back to Bart’s vehicle.

The third dog up was Jag. He received the scent pad from the drawers in the master bedroom. Pikett had swabbed the gauze pad on as many as ten open drawers, making sure to wipe the corners and underneath the handles to ensure scents were taken from the person or persons who had opened the drawers. Once Jag got a whiff of the pad, he took off on the trail. Not surprisingly, Jag also ended up at Bart’s Yukon.

Pikett’s immediate conclusion from the dogs was that whoever had touched the various items had been inside the Yukon parked in the street in front of the Whitaker home. At the time, he had no idea who that might be, much less who even owned the vehicle.

Less than one month later, on January 9, 2004, Pikett brought his dogs in for a “scent pad lineup,” which involved the animals getting a scent from a scent pad and then attempting to sniff out the potential perpetrator. Scents are taken from individuals—whether they be suspects or decoys not associated with the crime in any way—and placed on one of six pylons, which are spread out, about twenty feet apart from one another. In this particular case, scent pads were taken from Chris Brashear and Steven Champagne, and were placed on pylons labeled #4 and #5, respectively.

The first dog up was Columbo, who was then given the scent pad from the Glock. After swiftly getting a whiff, the bloodhound took off and headed directly toward pylon #4, which had Chris Brashear’s scent pad on it.

The second lineup involved Quincy, who was given the scent pad from the pillow and pillowcase found in the Whitakers’ master bedroom. Again, Brashear and Champagne’s scents were included in the lineup. As with Columbo on the first lineup, Quincy also hit on pylon #4, which again contained Chris Brashear’s scent pad.

The third lineup involved Quincy, and was from the bedroom drawers. Once again, the dog hit on Chris Brashear’s scent pad. Quincy also handled a fourth scent that covered another drawer and also the gun lockbox. Again, Chris Brashear.

The fifth scent was done by Columbo for the black glove. It also matched Chris Brashear’s scent pad. Another glove scent was tested for Quincy, and he, too, hit on Brashear.

Sum total: five scents, two dogs, all Chris Brashear matches. It would become apparent to Pikett, based on the work of his bloodhounds, that “Chris Brashear touched the items in that house” and that “his scent was on the gun, the drawers, the pillowcase, the lockbox drawers upstairs, and the black glove.”

January 30, 2006
Fort Bend County Courthouse
Richmond, Texas

Fort Bend County DA John Healey announced to the press that his office would seek the death penalty for Bart Whitaker for the murders of his mother and brother. “The facts and the circumstances surrounding the murder of two members of the Whitaker family merit the citizenry of Fort Bend County having the opportunity to consider exacting the most severe penalty.” It would be the first death penalty case to pass through the Fort Bend County Courthouse doors since April 2003, when Steve Charles McKinney was convicted of killing three people, including a five-year-old girl. McKinney did not receive a death sentence, however, but rather a life sentence.

First Assistant District Attorney Fred Felcman, a boisterous sort, with a shock of white hair and a corresponding walrus moustache to boot, informed the court of the district attorney’s decision. Felcman would be the lead prosecutor against Bart Whitaker.

Kent Whitaker, on the other hand, was mortified by the announcement. He was furious because he and his family had practically begged and pleaded with the prosecution not to sentence Bart to the execution chamber. “A little over two years ago, I lost my wife and my son, and today I found out the state is going to try and take the life of my only other son,” Kent spoke before a throng of reporters outside the courthouse. “Tricia would not want this. Neither would Kevin, and those of us who are closest to them don’t want it, either.” Kent concluded his public statement by saying, “If the state is successful, the last living member of my family will be put to death by the state.”

It was a conundrum for the prosecution: how to get the death penalty for a man whose only surviving victim did not want him to be executed. The prosecution team knew they would be walking a precarious tightrope before a jury potentially sympathetic to the defendant.

As a result of Felcman and Healey’s announcement that they would seek the death penalty, Bart Whitaker refused to make a plea of not guilty before Judge Clifford J. Vacek. Bart’s attorneys blamed the state for not agreeing to a plea bargain as the reason why Bart did not take responsibility for the murders. Judge Vacek entered a plea of not guilty on Bart’s behalf.

It would be several months before talks of trial dates would surface. In April 2006, the first dates were penciled in for January 2007. By May, Bart Whitaker’s trial was solidified for January 16, 2007. No trial dates were secured for Steven Champagne and Chris Brashear. Felcman, however, was in negotiations with attorneys for both men. The prosecution did not inform the press as to whether or not they would seek the death penalty for Bart’s two accomplices.

By December 2007, the first talks of legal ramifications for Steven Champagne cropped up. Only, it wasn’t for an actual trial, but, rather, for a plea bargain. Champagne declared that he would “testify truthfully” against both Bart Whitaker and Chris Brashear in their respective trials in exchange for a fifteen-year prison term for his participation in the murders. The announcement was made by Fort Bend County ADA Jeff Strange, who stated, “This agreement was appropriate after examining the evidence in this case and the roles each party’s played in the murders.”

Gordon Dees, Steven Champagne’s attorney, seemed pleased with the result of the plea deal for his client. “We feel like what we are doing is right. The agreement speaks for itself.”

Champagne’s willing participation would come soon enough. Bart Whitaker’s trial date had been pushed back slightly, to January 22. It would be less than a week before a jury would be chosen, and Bart Whitaker would finally face a jury of his peers for masterminding the murders of his mother and brother.

December 29, 2006
Richmond, Texas

A few weeks before Bart Whitaker’s trial was scheduled to commence, First ADA Fred Felcman received something very unusual in his work’s mail pile. It was a Christmas card from Bart Whitaker.

The card was postmarked December 27, 2006. Inside was a note from Bart that wished the ADA happy holidays. However, Bart also made a reference to how ADA Felcman should pay special attention to his family:
I hope you are able to compartmentalize all of the nastiness you are made to see on a daily basis, and concentrate on your family.
Felcman thought this could potentially be viewed as a threat to his loved ones.

At the bottom of the card was a quote from the Bible:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.
—John 3:16