Savage Son (23 page)

“If it’s a life sentence, there will be no appeal?” McDonald asked.

“No, no. That’s what we’ve been pursuing ever since the day he was arrested.”

McDonald wrapped up his initial round of questions for Kent Whitaker. “Pass the witness.”

After a short break so the jurors could stretch their legs and attend to any bathroom needs, the court resumed with First ADA Fred Felcman taking over. He seemed to be in no mood to coddle Mr. Whitaker.

“Mr. Whitaker, I’ve listened very intently to your testimony, and also to the previous witness, Mr. Bo Bartlett. How does y’all’s feelings about whether or not Bart deserves the death penalty aid the jury? The defendant is the one on trial. These people judge the defendant by his actions, okay? I have not heard from you or Mr. Bartlett talk about the defendant and his actions.”

“I think I spoke directly to that,” Kent Whitaker countered.

Felcman was not satisfied with the answer. “Let me talk about the actions of the defendant then,” he declared, obviously miffed at Kent Whitaker’s stance. “On the night that he had your wife and son killed, y’all went out to eat, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“He celebrated with you, broke bread with you, knowing that you were supposed to be dead, that your wife was supposed to be dead, that your son was supposed to be dead, in a matter of minutes. You understand that?”

Kent seemed flustered by Felcman’s demeanor. He stumbled over his words in response. “I have…this is what I’ve been saying all along. I don’t understand where we’re getting off—”

“Because the testimony that you have just given to this jury,” Felcman countered, “really had nothing to do with his actions. It had to do with the way you felt, and the way Mr. Bartlett felt, but it did not have anything to do with the defendant.”

Kent attempted to defend himself. “Well, first of all, that was what I was asked to answer.”

“I understand,” the moustachioed Felcman responded.

“And secondly, I believed I answered that when I said that nobody was trying to absolve him of the responsibility of this crime. It wasn’t a matter of guilt or innocence. It never has been.” Kent continued in almost a defiant manner, though the timbre of his voice remained calm. “It has been a matter of what the appropriate response is for the state.”

“Then you know what the defendant’s plea was in this particular case?” Felcman prodded.

“I understood that the defendant did not plead at all,” Kent answered, using the same description of his son as the “defendant,” as used by the prosecution.

“So, instead of the defendant pleading guilty to something you knew he did, that meant this jury had to wrestle with the decision of whether he was guilty or not?”

“I’m not an attorney, Mr. Felcman, but I have been told that there’s a very good reason why a person chooses not to lie and say, ‘I’m innocent,’ but to stand silent and for the state to prove he’s guilty.”

Felcman decided to refocus the attention on Bart Whitaker. “The defendant, as he was growing up in your household with you and your wife and your other son, was never abused by you. You didn’t physically abuse him, sexually abuse him, or anything else like that?”

“No, we did not,” came Kent’s terse reply.

“Fact is, as everybody said, he’s lived a good life.”

“Yes.”

“Then, when he was seventeen years old, he started burglarizing the schools?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t have any idea that he was doing that?”

“No, we did not.”

“How did you find out, Mr. Whitaker, that your son had been burglarizing schools?” Felcman asked.

“We found out when he was arrested, and the school police called to say so,” Kent admitted, still embarrassed to this day.

“Did you talk to the defendant about these burglaries at the school?”

“Of course, I did,” Kent replied, annoyed. “At length, and many times. Tricia and I both did.”

“What did the defendant tell you about the burglaries at the school?”

“It was more of a prank than anything else. He said that they figured a way how to do it, so they did it.”

“It was a joke, or a prank?”

“Well, it was not a very smart prank, and it was a very stupid joke,” Kent responded.

“Did he tell you how they went ahead and accomplished burglarizing these schools?”

“I heard they went on the roof and through a skylight.”

Felcman pressed on. “Did he tell you he actually rented a storage room to store the items they stole?”

“Yes, I learned that after the fact.”

“Would you say that it was well-planned, executed burglaries to gain property that he is not entitled to?”

“Yes, that’s correct. You’re right,” Kent agreed with the prosecutor.

“After he’s done these things, you then take him to see a counselor, to see if you can help him out?”

“Yes, we did. Tricia took him to Brendan O’Rourke.”

“Was she a family friend?”

“Yes, we knew her before, or, at least, Tricia knew her.”

“And this Dr. O’Rourke counseled the defendant about what, exactly?”

Kent looked down, shifted in the witness stand, and spoke. “This is going to sound awful, but the truth is, I don’t know exactly what she talked to him about that. Tricia took him, and while Tricia and I talked, it was all thirdhand information to me.”

“But did you ask Dr. O’Rourke to write a letter to try to get the defendant back into Clements?” Felcman asked in regard to Bart’s onetime high school.

“Yes, we did.”

“Did the defendant tell you he was sorry for what he did with the burglaries?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And do you know he [pleaded] nolo contendere?” per the burglaries.

“Probably on the advice of counsel,” Kent surmised.

“Got placed on probation?”

“Correct.”

“When he got arrested for that, do you remember how many days he spent in jail?”

“One,” Kent answered.

“One day?”

“One night,” Kent corrected the prosecutor.

“And y’all had to bond him out?”

“That’s correct.”

“Had your son ever been in jail before?”

“No.”

“Did he appear to be or tell you that he was scared to have been in jail?”

“He did not say he was scared to be in jail.” Kent seemed uncomfortable. “He said that he was apprehensive, but that it was just an experience he had.”

“An experience,” Felcman repeated.

“Yeah.”

“You realize in his confession that he said he burglarized these schools because it was an adventure?” Felcman noted a recurring theme with Bart Whitaker and his need for excitement, adventure, and experience.

Kent merely nodded his head. “Probably, that’s what it said.”

“It was absolutely mortifying on y’all’s part, wasn’t it?”

“It affected Tricia greatly. There was a deep shame she felt, and it took a long time before she felt comfortable going out in public,” Kent recalled.

“Did y’all forgive him at the time?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You realize, Mr. Whitaker, that while he was on probation for the four years, he was plotting to kill your family?”

“I did not know that at the time,” Kent responded.

“Did you know he actually plotted to kill the Bartletts at their lake house also?”

“I did not know that (at the time).”

“Nothing you did, nothing the court system did, prevented the defendant from continuing to try to kill you, correct?”

“I never knew he was trying to kill me,” Kent simply answered.

“You found out in April of 2001 that there was a plot?”

“It was just an episode that was just beyond bizarre to Tricia and I.” Kent shook his head at the memory. “We had seen absolutely no indication of any hatred on Bart’s part, any interest in having us killed. And the results of the investigation by the Waco Police Department indicated there was nothing substantive to it, because there
was
nothing to it.”

“That’s after you talked to the defendant, who lied to you about what happened out there, correct?”

“Yes. Everybody talked to the defendant after this happened,” Kent answered, unconsciously referring to his own son again as “the defendant.”

“And he lied to everybody?”

“In retrospect, we see he did.”

“Didn’t it strike you as strange that your son had been able to carry out burglaries on a sophisticated level, and how he had run after a plot that was exposed? Didn’t that strike you as sort of strange? Maybe your son’s not telling you the truth about things?”

“It struck me that three or four years earlier, when he had gotten in trouble in school, that he had changed,” Kent answered. “That he had turned from the stupidity of something that was very foolish. Between that time and the night of the call from the police department saying that he was on his way down here to kill us, there were no indications that there was anything wrong. There were, quite the contrary, positives. And when the police department came to the conclusion that it was a misunderstanding between roommates, and that there was nothing substantive to it, there was no reason why I should have placed any particular value on it.”

“That’s because the defendant lied to you, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Now, in August 2002”—Felcman shifted gears yet again—“the defendant was in some kind of psychotherapy, or something, where he talked to a Lynne Ayres. Do you know who she is?”

“Yes.” Kent nodded. “Tricia arranged for that, too.”

“Did you ever talk to Lynne Ayres?”

“I don’t remember if I ever talked to her about Bart or not. We did visit with her about Kevin and testing for ADD, which I also tested positive for.”

“Didn’t she tell you that the interview she had with the defendant was very disturbing?”

“Yes, I guess she did. I’m sure your next question was that Bart said that he got angry at her for being so plodding, and in a perverse reason, [he] just answered the questions wrong.”

“She told you that interviewing him was so disturbing that she labeled him narcissistic, didn’t she?” Felcman pressed forward.

“I don’t remember, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“He got irritated with her, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you how he thought his relationship with the family was like?”

“No,” Kent answered brusquely.

“She didn’t tell you that he found no use to have a relationship with friends or family?”

“I don’t recall that.”

“When she told you how disturbing the interview was, how did you react? What did you do about it?”

Kent scooted back in his chair. “Mr. Felcman, I don’t remember. I promise you, if I could remember, I’d tell you the truth. I don’t recall the details of that conversation.”

“What happened, basically, is that you confronted the defendant, he gave you a reason, and you accepted it?”

“That’s sounds about right.”

“In other words”—Felcman paused dramatically—“he lied to you again?”

“Yes.” Kent nodded.

“So, since the age of seventeen, this defendant has basically been lying to you about how his true personality is at this point in time, correct?”

“Correct.”

“You told the jury earlier if you had found out that your son had not been going to school, you would have—what?—sought more counseling for him?”

“I would have done that and we would have pulled him back from where he was and brought him back home.”

“What was the reason the defendant gave you for not going to school?”

“He told me that the country club he worked at had gotten very busy, some people had left, and he spent a lot of extra time at work.”

“You understand that would have been a good year and a half of extra work, and that he hadn’t been going to school or doing anything during that period of time?”

“I did not know that,” Kent responded, seemingly nonplussed by the assessment. “I thought it was just one semester.”

Felcman decided to return to the night of December 10, 2003. “Let me get to the murders specifically. The defendant, in order to get into the house, had to step across your wife’s body. You realize that?”

“Yes,” Kent agreed. His demeanor never changed. “Yes.”

“And to get farther into the house, he had to step across your other son, Kevin’s body. You realize that?”

“I honestly don’t know where he fell, but he either stepped over him or past him.”

“Then, after that, he concocted a lie to you and to the police about what happened out there that night?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Of course, you believed him?”

“I did. He was my son,” he declared with a possible Freudian slip.

“You believed him in regard to the burglaries?”

“Yes.”

“You had believed him in regard to the interview with Lynne Ayres, correct?”

“Correct.”

“You had believed him in regard to his lie about why he was not working, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you believed him that, even before then, that he was going to school and graduating and going into the FBI, or having an internship in the FBI?”

“Correct.”

“That this defendant was so good at lying, that he could fool the one person who should probably know him better than anybody else, right?”

Kent became defensive and responded, “At the time, I had no idea that any of these things had happened. My antennas were not up.”

“That’s not the question,” Felcman countered. “It’s not that your antennas are up—”

“Oh yes, it is,” an adamant Kent butted in. “I think it is important. Because, after the fact, we can sit here in the courtroom and say these things happened in this sequence, and you did not recognize it here or there, and all the way down the line. There was no reason for me to have this expectation of guilt, and so I did tend to give him the benefit of the doubt. After the fact, after the shootings, after he became a suspect, it was totally different.”

“That’s not my question,” a frustrated Felcman repeated. “You’re not on trial here.”

“Well, I feel like it,” an exasperated Kent responded in kind.

“You’re not on trial. The defendant is the one on trial.”

“Yes, he is,” Kent agreed.

“What I’m trying to get across is that the one person he should care the most about—his family, his father, and the people who should know him the best—[he] was able to lie to y’all and cover all these things up, correct?”