Savage Son (6 page)

Tuesday, December 16, 2003, 10:00
A.M
.
Sugar Creek Baptist Church
Southwest Freeway
Sugar Land, Texas

Nearly a thousand people showed up at the cavernous Sugar Creek Baptist Church, just two miles from the Whitaker home. Sadly, it was not for a joyous occasion, such as the marriage of one of its parishioners or a baptism of a newborn. Instead, it was to mourn the deaths of two of Sugar Land’s most beloved members, Tricia and Kevin Whitaker.

Family members, friends of the family, and complete strangers intermingled inside the church, most in tears. When Kent and Bart Whitaker entered, in slings as a result of their gunshots, some in attendance gasped as they caught sight of both men for the first time after the murders. Others cried upon their entrance, shocked to see them in their injured states. Kent and Bart took their seats in the front pews and attempted to listen to their friends sing the praises of Tricia and Kevin.

Family friend and church pastor Matt Barnhill likened the murders to an earthquake. “In some communities in California, they have earthquakes. This is Sugar Land’s earthquake. Our lives are shaken and our sense of safety and well-being is shattered.” The eulogy was especially difficult for the confident and calm pastor, as he was so close to the Whitakers.

John Flores, one of Kevin’s best friends, spoke to the assembled masses about his buddy and Tricia. “They signified Christ in all that they did and all that they were.”

Brittany Barnhhill, Matt Barnhill’s daughter and Kevin’s good friend, spoke directly to Bart about his younger brother. “I cannot tell you how much Kevin looked up to you.” Bart was somewhat taken aback, but remained stoic. “He wanted so badly to be like you.” Bart blushed and fought to hold back yet more tears.

Finally another family friend spoke to the crowd, asking for donations to a reward fund to help find Tricia and Kevin’s murderer. He concluded by adding, “The killer is still out there.”

Tuesday, December 16, 2003, 11:00
P.M
.
Sugar Land Police Department
Highway 6 South
Sugar Land, Texas

Detective Marshall Slot was ready to call it a night. He continued to pursue all possible leads in the murders of Tricia and Kevin Whitaker. He had spent almost the entire day at the police station, working on the case. Slot began to pack up his equipment and just as he was leaving, a young man came up and introduced himself to the detective.

“I’m Adam Hipp, sir.” The young, very tall man extended his hand out. Hipp spent the morning at the funeral for Tricia and Kevin Whitaker.

Slot reciprocated, shook his hand, and replied, “What can I do for you, son?”

“I need to speak with you about Bart Whitaker. You are the officer handling the murders of Tricia and Kevin Whitaker, aren’t you, sir?”

“Yes, sir, that would be me,” Slot answered. “Please have a seat.” The detective gestured to a well-worn chair in front of his desk. Slot put his briefcase down and took his own seat. “So, what do you want to tell me about Bart Whitaker, Mr. Hipp?”

“I know Bart did it,” a nervous Hipp replied. “And I’m pretty sure I even know how he did it.”

“Well, son, how would you know something like that?”

“Because he told me he wanted someone to kill his parents and his younger brother, two years ago, sir.”

The young man had the detective’s full attention.

“Go on,” Slot encouraged Hipp.

Tuesday, December 16, 2003, 11:05
P.M
.
Sugar Land Police Department
Sugar Land, Texas

Adam Hipp sat down across from Detective Marshall Slot’s desk. He had driven all the way from Dallas the night before, late at night, because he felt compelled to let someone in an authority position know what Bart Whitaker had tried to do a few years earlier. He felt tormented by the knowledge, and knowing now that someone had killed Bart’s mother and brother made him feel even more compelled.

“How did you find out that members of the Whitaker family had been killed, Adam?” Detective Slot asked in an attempt to calm the young man down and get him focused. The officer began to record their conversation.

“I got a call from my girlfriend.” Hipp seemed to relax a bit. “She told me that she read on the Internet that something had happened in the Sugar Lakes Subdivision in Sugar Land. Since she knew I used to live in Sugar Land, she asked me if I knew where Sugar Lakes was.”

Simultaneously Hipp received an instant message from a friend through his AOL service. His friend informed Hipp that a shooting had taken place at Bart Whitaker’s house on Heron Way in Sugar Land.

The following day, Hipp was able to confirm the information via two news articles about the shootings he spotted online from two Houston-based television news stations’ websites. From these articles, Hipp was initially able to glean that the shootings took place at the Whitaker house; that Tricia had died as a result of the attack, and that one of the brothers was dead. The articles did not specifically mention whether it was Bart or Kevin who had died. Soon thereafter, the online news sources did specify that it was Kevin who was dead.

After speaking with his girlfriend and filling her in on his past with Bart, Hipp realized he needed to speak with someone in the Sugar Land Police Department.

After explaining to Detective Slot how he met Bart, Hipp got down to business. “I used to go visit him up in Waco, when he was going to school at Baylor. Sometimes we would travel together to Austin over at UT (the University of Texas) and visit his girlfriend, Lynne,” Hipp recalled. After high school, Lynne attended college at the University of Texas at Austin, while Bart went to Baylor, in Waco, Texas.

In February 2001, Hipp remembered, Bart started to bring up an unusual topic, to say the least. “He started talking about killing his family.”

Detective Slot leaned in closer to the young man. “Did that surprise you?” the detective wanted to know.

“Not really,” Hipp replied nonchalantly. “I knew he had grievances with his parents and his brother.” Hipp took a sip of water and continued. “In the beginning, it seemed to be all talk. I just thought he was talking shit, you know. Just trying to act tough.”

“How did this come up in conversation?” Detective Slot inquired.

“It just sort of came up out of the blue. He practically spat it out. He said to me, ‘Are you still interested in getting lots of money?’ Of course, I said, ‘Yeah, I’m always going to be interested in making a lot of money.’”

“Then what?”

“That’s when he said we should kill his parents.”

“How did you respond?”

“Like I said, I thought he was full of shit, so I just sat there and listened to him,” Hipp continued. “He started laying out the details of how he was going to kill his parents and collect their insurance money. It seemed to me as if he had thought about this before, but had not spent much time thinking about the plan.”

“What exactly was his plan?” Detective Slot asked the young man.

“He had wanted to set his grandparents’ lake house on fire with the entire family inside,” Hipp recalled. “There was no doubt that his intention was to kill every single person inside there.”

“Whose lake house did it belong to?”

“It was Bart’s mother’s side of the family,” Hipp answered. “The Bartlett family, his grandparents, cousins, everyone.”

“What about his parents and brother?” the detective followed up.

“They were all supposed to be there.”

“What’d you say to him?”

“Nothing. I just kind of nodded my head.” Hipp nodded his own head yes. “I didn’t take any of it seriously. I mean, it seemed to me at the time that
he
wasn’t taking it seriously. It was definitely not well-thought-out, so I figured he was just venting off some steam.”

Hipp explained how Bart planned to deflect attention away from himself. “He would be in the lake house when the fire was set. He would also make sure that he got burned in the process.”

“Why would he want to get burned?” Slot asked.

“So as not to be suspicious for having survived the fire,” Hipp replied.

“What was the motivation for wanting to do this?”

“His first cousins were in line to inherit the family company, Bartlett Construction Company,” Hipp recalled. “He wanted to position himself to be in control of that business.”

“He obviously didn’t follow through with the plan that time, did he?” Detective Slot asked Hipp.

“Correct. He did not.”

“So, did you guys ever talk about it again?”

“Yes, sir,” Hipp replied. “He brought it up again, not too long afterward. He asked me if I wanted to help him and make some money. I told him no, and that there was no way I could do something like that.”

“How did he react to that?”

“He didn’t seem too pleased, but he kept talking about how he was going to do it, like it would convince me to change my mind or something,” Hipp added.

“Did he say how he planned on killing his family?” Detective Slot needed to know.

“Yes, sir. He said it would be a fake robbery. That he would get his family out of the house, and that one of us would hide out inside. When they returned to the house, our other guy would shoot them as they came in. And Bart would get shot, too, to make it look real.”

Detective Slot had difficulty keeping the stunned look off his face. This was the exact same story Bart told him the day after the murders. And now, here was an old friend of his corroborating the details, but implicating Bart directly in the murder of his mother and brother.

“Now, when did you say you guys first talked about killing Bart’s family?”

“February 2001, sir,” Hipp answered.

“Do you know any of the specifics on how he wanted to accomplish this?” Slot asked.

“He said his family would be out of the house, and he would provide someone else with a key and an alarm code to go into the house and stay in the living room and wait for his family to return,” Hipp remembered. “He said it wouldn’t be that hard to do, and that the shooter would just have to wait for the first two people to come in the door, all the way in, and they’d be able to shoot them at close range.”

Slot sat quietly, checking to make sure that his tape recorder still worked properly.

“Bart said that after it was over, the shooter would take off through the back door, run through their yard, jump a fence, and meet up with another person who had a car ready to go.”

Hipp began to unspool even more aspects of the supposed murder plot by Bart Whitaker. “He even told me where the shooter would stand, to make sure he maximized his efforts. He even talked about what kind of clothes the shooter should wear. He suggested black clothing, along with a mask to hide the shooter’s face.”

“What did he say about shooting him?” Slot asked.

“He said he wanted someone to shoot him in the arm,” Hipp responded. “He wanted it to be where it would heal, like muscle tissue or something. He mentioned it could be in different places, like the arm or shoulder, just so long as it was in a spot that could heal relatively easily.”

“Was there supposed to be some kind of struggle?”

“Yes, sir. He was interested in making it look like he was in the position of tackling the shooter. Almost as if he were apprehending the shooter. He wanted it to look like the shooter had to shoot at him to try and get away.”

“What else did Bart say about this?” Slot inquired.

Hipp paused and looked directly at the detective. “He basically warned me that I was not supposed to talk to anyone else about what he had said. He then added that if I were to talk to anyone else besides him about the plot, that either I or someone important to me might get hurt.”

“He threatened you?”

“Not in so many words, but, yeah. He threatened me.”

“What’d you do?”

“I just nodded and told him it was strictly between the two of us.”

Detective Slot decided to change the direction of the conversation. “This plan did not, however, come to fruition, either, correct?”

“Correct,” Hipp replied.

“So, was that the end of it for you two?”

“No, sir. There was a third plan.”

“A third plan?” Slot asked incredulously.

“Yes, sir,” Hipp responded. “For whatever reason, he decided to change it up a little bit. It was a further maturing of what we had talked about before.” Hipp paused, took a deep breath, and continued. “Only this time, it was more geared to him wanting me to be the shooter. Having me catch his family early in the morning to do it.”

“Was this the first time that he asked you to participate [directly] in killing his family?” Detective Slot asked.

“Yes, sir. For the earlier incarnations, I was simply his sounding board. Now he wanted me to be the triggerman.”

“Now, when you say ‘his family,’ who all was he referring to?”

“Kevin, Tricia, and Kent.”

“Tell me how he wanted you to kill his family.”

“I was supposed to do it before Kevin would leave for school, or his dad left for work,” Hipp recalled. “He told me if I was there before eight in the morning that the whole family would probably still be there, or I would catch his mom and brother on their way out to school.” Hipp continued, “Bart told me, ‘If my dad’s there, then you can catch him off-guard as well. If not, I’ll drive you over to my dad’s place of business, and you or I can shoot him there.’”

“Did you take him seriously this time?” Slot asked.

“Since he was trying to get me involved, absolutely. Yes, sir. And I didn’t want to have anything to do with it,” Hipp protested. “He told me he was going to get the weapon, drive me from Waco to Sugar Land, and take me to his parents’ house and his dad’s place of business, in case we had to go there.”

“How did he want you to do it?”

“Just shoot them as they walked out of the door.” Hipp shook his head in disbelief.

“Do you remember when you and Bart had these most recent discussions?”

“Yes, sir. It was April 2001.”

“How much further did this plan go?” Slot asked.

“Like I said, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Bart said he would call me when he was ready for us to do it, but I continually begged off,” Hipp continued. “Finally, sometime in April, I got a call from him late one night. He told me I had missed his initial call to let me know it was going down. He then said that he had been on his way down to Sugar Land, but that something had come up and he had to turn around. He didn’t tell me what had happened.”

Hipp told Slot that he had been staying with his girlfriend at her apartment when he received the call on his cell phone from Bart. When she asked who it was, Hipp told her everything that Bart had tried to get him to do. The couple was scared and not sure what to do.

“I didn’t talk to Bart again for, like, three or four weeks,” Hipp recalled. “I was scared he was gonna go after my girlfriend or my family or something. After that, I did everything in my power to separate myself from him. I ignored his phone calls. I avoided any contact with him. I just made sure to focus on my studies and to graduate from Wharton County Junior College. I never really spoke to him again.”

“So that was the last time you had any contact with Bart?”

“Yes, sir. And then I heard about his mom and brother getting killed. It just seemed too similar to what he had always talked about with me to be a coincidence. So I knew I had to talk to someone about it.”

“Did you drive down here?” Slot queried.

“No, sir. I drove down here for Patricia and Kevin’s funeral.”

“Did you see Bart while you were there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“Yes, sir. I just told him how sorry I was to hear what had happened to his mom and brother.”

“Did you say anything about his previous plans to kill his family?”

“No, sir. I just acted like someone who would be at a funeral.”

After nearly two hours of conversation, Detective Slot decided to give the kid a break. They stood up from their chairs, stretched their legs, and got something from the soda machine. When they returned, however, Slot decided to bring up an unusual topic. “Are you aware that Crime Stoppers is offering up reward money for information leading to the arrest of the killer or killers in this case?”

“Yes, sir,” Hipp replied. “I heard that there was reward money for helping to catch the killer.”

“Do you know how much it is?” Slot asked.

“I thought I heard from someone that it was somewhere between twenty and twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Are you interested in the reward money?”

“No, sir. I’m not interested in that. My grandmother helps me pay my rent,” Hipp responded. “She also helps me out by taking me out to eat a couple of times a week. My car is paid for, and my student loans are being taken care of.”

“Well, that doesn’t answer my question,” Slot said pointedly. “Do you want the reward money?”

“Well, sir, I spoke with my girlfriend earlier today about it. I told her that the reward money should be much greater.”

Slot was intrigued.

“I told her it should be more around one hundred thousand dollars,” Hipp continued. “I figured the life insurance company stood to lose a heck of a lot more money on this.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question, Mr. Hipp,” Slot countered. When he did not get a response back from Hipp, he added, “If you had this reward money, what would you do with it?”

“I don’t know. I guess I would pay off the rest of my school loans and get those all cleared up.”