Savage Son

by Corey Mitchell

  After some idle chitchat, Bart and Chris both stood erect and faced Steven. Bart spoke up first. “We need you to drive.”

  Steven looked at his friend quizzically.

  “You need to be our wheelman and pick Chris up,” Bart continued as he nodded toward his roommate.

  “What are you talking about, Bart?” Steven responded with a question.

  “Chris is going to do it, and I need for you to be the one who picks him up and makes sure he gets out of my parents’ neighborhood, without getting caught,” Bart almost commanded.

  Steven had somewhat expected this conversation. Instead of speaking up and angrily denying his part in the scheme, Steven said nothing. His silence equaled acquiescence, and was as good as a yes in Bart’s mind. The conversation ended almost as quickly as it had begun.

  After several minutes of standing outside, Steven finished his smoke.

  “Let’s head over to my place,” Bart stated. He was ready to iron out some details with his newest recruit.

  Inside Bart’s townhome, the two henchmen settled into Bart’s plush couch cushions as he poured drinks.

  Steven looked up at Bart as he returned with glasses in hand. “Chris has agreed to do it,” Bart confirmed Steven’s suspicions. “We want you to drive him there and to pick him up after it’s done.”

  Chris also looked at Steven as if to gauge his reaction.

  “You then need to drive Chris back here,” Bart continued.

  “Bart, I told you, man, I don’t want any part in this.” Steven declined the offer.

  Despite having just believed that Steven had agreed, Bart was nonchalant about his friend’s response. “I understand, Steven.” Bart poured him another drink and added, “But there is going to be a large amount of money in it for you if you help us out.” He nodded toward Chris. “I understand, Steven.” Bart was practically cooing his assurances. “I’m sure you must be very confused about this whole scenario.”

  “No, Bart, I’m not confused,” Steven answered, and the tenor of his voice rose. “I told you, I don’t want to have anything at all to do with this!”

  Bart tilted his head down and then lifted it up to look toward Chris. The mute communication conveyed a bond between them. They both turned to look directly at Steven.

  “You’re already a part of this, Steven.”

  Steven felt like one of the pod people from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He was trapped, and had no way of escaping.

  “You already know what we’re going to do,” Bart added ominously. “You’ve been conspiring to do this with me, just as much as Chris has. As far as the police would be concerned, you’re just as much as involved in this thing as we are. You will be considered an accomplice as well. You might as well get on board with us.”

  Steven was stunned. He had always thought Bart just wanted to vent about his family. He thought he was being a good friend by lending an ear. Instead, he had been sucked into Bart’s malefic plan of mayhem.

  “You’ve been a part of this since day one.” Bart was basically threatening his friend. “If we get caught, you will go down as well. And your sentence will be just as bad as ours, even if you don’t participate directly in it.”

  The unveiled threat was now out on the table. Steven had no clue which way to turn. He was caught. As far as he knew, there was no way out.

  As time went by, Steven never bothered to look up the law that Bart had quoted him. He never bothered to turn Bart in, or give an anonymous tip to the police. He simply believed his friend was telling him the truth about being a conspirator. As a result, he kept his mouth shut and became a willing participant in a crime that would destroy an entire family, and his own life as well.

  “All right,” Steven relented. “I’m in.”

  Bart nodded, a slight grin on his face. His crew was set.

  24

  September/October 2003

  Harbour Town

  Willis, Texas

  The treacherous trio began to make specific plans as to how they wanted to kill Bart’s family.

  The plan was basically the same exact plans that Bart had devised before, but had failed with Adam Hipp, Justin Peters, and Will Anthony. Drive down to Sugar Land. Bart would convince his family to go out to dinner. Steven would follow them to the restaurant and notify Chris when they had finished eating dinner. Chris would lie in wait inside the Whitakers’ home and kill the entire family upon their arrival. He would wound Bart in the process to make it appear as if Bart were innocent. Chris would then escape through the back door and hook up with Steven for their escape.

  Bart began to make sure the tiniest details were attended to, to make everything go off without a hitch this time. He did not want any of them to use their regular cell phones, for fear of them being traced back to the crime scene. Bart planned out their routes from Willis to Sugar Land and back. He wanted everyone to stay off the tollway, known as Beltway 8, for fear that the ever-present eye-in-the-sky cameras would document their travels. They were to drive only on the freeways.

  Bart informed the two young men that he would leave a door unlocked at his parents’ house, thus allowing Chris instant access. Bart informed Chris that his younger brother, Kevin, kept a gun in a lockbox upstairs in his room. Chris was to enter the house, head upstairs, pry open the gun lockbox, and retrieve the weapon.

  To Steven, it appeared as if Bart and Chris had already worked out most of the details of the ambush. Steven was merely along for the ride, so to speak. They informed him—in no uncertain terms—that he was the driver. His sole responsibilities were to get Chris to Sugar Land, watch the family as they ate, alert Chris that they were coming home, pick Chris up, and then deliver him back to Willis in one piece.

  It sounded easy enough. Maybe he could do this, after all, he thought. Maybe, since he was not the one calling the shots or aiming the shots, he could justify his actions. Besides, he really could use the extra money.

  He did, however, find it unusual that Bart never came up with a definite dollar amount for their participation in the killing of his entire family. Steven found it even stranger that he personally never asked Bart how much money he was going to be paid. He also thought it strange that Chris never specifically asked Bart how much money Bart would pay him, either. Steven simply figured that all three men would move in together and live life like rich bachelors.

  Once the plans were set into motion, Steven tended to lay low. None of the three guys spent much time together, as they had done during the summer and early fall. “It was more secluded,” Steven recalled. “We didn’t hang around as much. It was just more of Bart checking in to make sure that we were not talking [to anyone else]. That we were still in on the plan.” Bart would continually call Steven to make sure everything was all right and to see if there was anything he needed. Bart seemed to be checking Steven’s “state of mind” to make sure his friend was “not running to the police.”

  Bart needed everything to be perfect, which meant he needed his crew to be focused and not willing to crack under pressure.

  If anything, Bart’s constant surveillance of Steven made the latter more nervous and paranoid. He recalled a bizarre phone call he received at work one day in October.

  “Hello,” Steven answered his cell phone. The number came up as Bart’s.

  “Today is the first day of the systematic destruction of your life,” Bart mysteriously intoned. He immediately hung up before Steven could respond.

  Steven had no idea what Bart’s cryptic message meant. He only knew it just made him a bit more freaked out than he already was.

  Steven began to receive more and more similar calls from Bart, who would never explain what he meant, or what he was trying to get at. “I believe he felt he had to prove that he was smarter than everybody else,” Steven theorized.

  Bart was not above physical intimidation, either. He confronted Steven one day in an attempt to make sure he was still on board. “Getting cold feet?” he asked his friend.


  Steven did not answer.

  “You know,” Bart informed him, “I know where you live.”

  Steven took it as a joke. He knew Bart’s sense of humor was usually very dry and somewhat morbid. He assumed Bart was merely messing with him a bit to lighten the mood. Again, he did not respond, merely nodded.

  Bart looked Steven directly in the eye and, in a less than jovial tone, said, “I know where your mother lives. I know where she sleeps.” He grinned, and left it at that.

  Steven was not quite sure what to make of Bart’s statements. He deduced, however, that if Bart was willing to go to great lengths to murder his own parents, he probably would not hesitate to bat a white eyelash to take out Steven’s mother. Bart’s thinly veiled threat against Steven’s mother finally did the trick for him. He knew he was in way too deep.

  “I took it as, if he was willing to kill his own parents, he would not hesitate to kill mine. Also, if I brought any more attention to what was going on, or if I opened my mouth, or if I called the cops,” their lives would be at risk as well.

  Steven Champagne was very afraid of Bart Whitaker.

  25

  November 2003

  Harbour Town

  Willis, Texas

  Steven Champagne overheard Bart Whitaker screaming inside Bart and Chris’s townhome. It was obvious Bart was furious about something. After a few moments, Steven walked into Bart’s room to see what was going on. He first saw Chris in the bedroom holding a Glock. He was busy loading a magazine with bullets into it.

  “Everything all right?” Steven asked.

  “No! I’m fucking pissed!” Bart screamed.

  “What’s wrong, man?”

  “That was my fucking dad. He can’t make it out to dinner tonight.”

  Steven was confused. “What do you mean, Bart?”

  “I wanted to do it tonight!” Bart barked.

  Steven had no idea Bart was ready to set the plan into motion. He was shocked by the reality of what was transpiring. “Do what?” Steven asked sheepishly.

  “Take care of my problem.”

  “So, what happened with your dad?”

  “I told him I wanted to come home and go out to dinner, but he has to work,” Bart fumed. “He said there was no way he could go out tonight. This messes up everything!”

  Steven simply stood silent. He was somewhat taken aback by Bart’s intensity. He now fully realized Bart was deadly serious about wanting to kill his family.

  26

  November/December 2003

  Harbour Town

  Willis, Texas

  As the month of December rolled ever closer, the leaves had only just begun to turn colors. Winters in south Texas are demarcated by two things: deer-hunting season and the Texas/Texas A&M classic Thanksgiving football rivalry. Both events require lots of preparation and extensive planning to pull off successfully. So it was that Bart prepared for his own winter rite of passage.

  As a target date came closer into view, Bart began to shore up the smallest of details with Chris and Steven. Bart purchased two disposable cell phones for Chris and Steven to use on their excursion. He assured both men that the phones were untraceable. Bart also informed his friends that he would provide them with Nextel Direct Connect walkie-talkie phones so they would be able to communicate with one another during the commission of the crime.

  Bart also spoke with Steven about making sure his car would not be traceable, either. He planned on securing license plates from another vehicle to switch out on Steven’s car. However, he did not want to make the change until the actual day of the murders.

  27

  December 10, 2003, 4:00 P.M.

  Harbour Town

  Willis, Texas

  Steven walked over to Bart and Chris’s townhome to prepare for their trip. Chris was dressed very casually in blue jeans and a T-shirt. Apparently, ninja wardrobe was not the sartorial choice for the ride down. He would change into an all-black outfit later that evening.

  The young men were quiet as Steven entered. After a few moments, Bart broke the quietude by handing Steven a pair of license plates, which he had stolen from a nearby shopping mall’s parking garage. “Here, you’re going to have to put these on your car in case you get snapped by a freeway camera.” Steven was actually driving his mother’s white Toyota Camry.

  Steven took the license plates but did not say anything.

  Bart then distributed the disposable cell phones to his friends. He added, “We need to be sure that we leave at separate times.”

  “Okay,” Steven responded. “How come?”

  “Because we live in a gated community, we need to make sure the cameras don’t videotape both of our vehicles leaving at the same time,” Bart assured him. “It will look more normal if we leave the neighborhood in a staggered fashion.”

  “Okay, that makes sense,” Steven replied.

  “Of course, it does,” Bart stated authoritatively. “All right, Chris and I are going to take off in my SUV. We’ll meet you at the parking garage next to Woodlands Mall.” (This was located in Spring, Texas, approximately twenty-two miles from Bart’s townhome.)

  Bart and Chris packed their items together and headed outside to Bart’s Yukon. They loaded the SUV and drove off, out of the neighborhood. Steven left almost twenty minutes later.

  Steven pulled his mother’s car into the parking garage near the mall, approximately thirty-five minutes after he left Harbour Town. He drove around until he spotted Bart’s SUV. He then pulled beside the Yukon, from which Bart had exited. Bart handed Steven a screwdriver to replace the license plates. Steven replaced the plates and tossed the originals in the trunk of the Camry.

  Bart and Chris drove off and continued their sojourn to Sugar Land. After Steven finished with the license plates, he drove his mother’s car around the parking lot, wasting time. He finally pulled out a substantial amount of time after the other two, then began his trek south.

  Bart and Chris were headed for the Sugar Lakes Subdivision in Sugar Land, where Bart’s parents lived. Bart’s plan was to drop Chris off on the street behind his parents’ house; then he would pull his Yukon up to his parents’ curbside. Steven was to drive to the Pappadeaux seafood restaurant, where the Whitakers were to celebrate Bart’s impending “graduation” from Sam Houston State University.

  The three young men drove more than seventy miles south, on Highway 59. Chris and Bart peeled off to the frontage road that led to Sugar Lakes Drive, to head to the home where he was born and raised.

  Steven, meanwhile, still had an hour to go before he was supposed to be at the Pappadeaux parking lot, so he continued south on Highway 59 and drove for a half hour. He then turned the car around and made his way back to the restaurant. Finally he took the feeder road north, back up to Pappadeaux. He pulled into the seafood restaurant’s back parking lot and waited patiently with his cell phone in hand. Bart had decided earlier that they would not use the walkie-talkies, as he did not feel that they were going to be secure lines and someone might overhear their conversations.

  Steven sat quietly, yet nervous, as he waited for the Whitakers to show up. Bart had informed him that they would be pulling up in either a white or black TrailBlazer. Not the most detailed of descriptions as SUVs, many of which look almost identical to a TrailBlazer, oversaturated Houston and the Sugar Land area.

  Inside Pappadeaux, the Whitakers were enjoying themselves immensely. They kidded with one another, enjoyed their seafood, and snapped pictures in full celebration. The waiter then brought out a large white plate for Bart with a special graduation celebration dessert of strawberries and whipped cream in a white bowl. The word “Concratulations” [sic] was spelled out with chocolate syrup on the rim of the plate.

  It was like any other night that the Whitaker family got together and feasted, only with the added bonus of Bart’s big news.

  Bart Whitaker played his role perfectly. No one inside the restaurant would recall any unusual behavior by the young man, no
r would his father. Bart seemed as if it was just another normal fun day in a life filled with them.

  The Whitakers’ last supper was memorable for its camaraderie, yet not that unusual for the seemingly close-knit, loving family.

  Meanwhile, back at the Whitakers’ home, stress was the order of the day. Chris Brashear made his way inside and was making sure he was adhering to the script. The first part of his job was to rifle through the family’s belongings, making it appear as if a burglar had broken in and stolen items from their home. Chris set about his chore by first going into Kent and Tricia’s bedroom on the first floor, near the foyer. Chris walked up to their dresser and began to pull out the drawers, only instead of doing it haphazardly, as one would think a nervy burglar would do when desperately searching for some unknowable riches, he pulled each drawer out very methodically and almost all the exact same distance. So, instead of a chaotic scene, it was all very controlled-looking. He then continued the neat ransacking of drawers that led from the parents’ bedroom into their large bathroom.

  After Chris finished the first part of the plan, he glanced down at his hands. He had pulled on two gloves, to avoid leaving identifiable fingerprints inside the house. He only now realized that one of his gloves was missing. He had no idea when or where he had dropped it. He grabbed his cell phone.

  “Hello?” Steven answered his phone while sitting in the Pappadeaux restaurant parking lot.

  “It’s me,” Chris stated, out of breath.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I lost one of my gloves!”

  “What do you mean?” asked a baffled Steven.