Dating & Relationship status

The State of Texas executes by overdosing the condemned with pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy and Whitaker’s defense lawyers had claimed the state’s first two executions of 2018 were botched because of old lethal injection drugs. Whitaker withdrew his appeal pending at the Supreme Court of the US, pertaining to the purity of the drug used in Texas executions just before the Governor granted clemency and commuted his sentence.

In a rare decision on February 20, 2018, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously recommended that the death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. The recommendation from the seven-member panel was sent to Republican Governor Greg Abbott. Abbott accepted their recommendation, and commuted Whitaker’s death sentence, noting that Whitaker had “voluntarily and forever waived any and all claims to parole in exchange for a commutation of his sentence from death to life without the possibility of parole”. Abbott cited the fact that Whitaker did not fire the gun and that his father Kent “insists that he would be victimized again if the state put to death his last remaining immediate family member”, as the reasons for the commutation. Whitaker responded to the commutation of his sentence by saying, “I am thankful for this decision, not for me but for my dad”. In 2012, Whitaker had stated his strong opposition to the idea of life without the possibility for parole, and wrote in his blog from prison:

He won prizes in PEN America’s prison writing contests for “Hell’s Kitchen”, “Manufacturing Anomie” and the essay “A Nothing Would Do as Well”. He was named a PEN America Writing for Justice Fellow in 2018 for writing about incarceration and criminal justice in the US.

In April 2017, his appeal against prosecutorial misconduct was dismissed by the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

On October 10, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal based on his claims that his trial lawyer was deficient and that Fort Bend County prosecutors engaged in misconduct by improperly referring to discussion of a plea deal that never was reached. The justices provided no explanation for their refusal. On November 1, 2017, his death warrant was signed, scheduling his execution for February 22, 2018.

A 2009 psychological evaluation of Whitaker noted that after high school he was given, “More of the unearned trappings of wealth” while his thoughts became even more disorganized. Whitaker’s affluent parents had bought him several luxury vehicles and paid for his tuition at Baylor University and Sam Houston State University. They also bought him a lakeside townhouse in Willis, Texas, and a $4,000 Rolex watch was given to him as a graduation present hours before the murders, despite the fact that he was not enrolled at college at the time. Whitaker also had access to an $80,000 trust fund from his grandparents, although he testified in court that he did not know he could access it. He had dropped out of university but did not notify his parents.

At his trial in March 2007, prosecutors alleged that although it wasn’t Whitaker who shot his family members, he was responsible for the murders because he played the leading part in the conspiracy to commit murder. Whitaker was refused a plea bargain by the District Attorney in return for his admission of guilt and was tried for capital murder. The prosecution claimed that Whitaker had wanted his family dead so he could capitalize on a million-dollar life insurance payout. Whitaker denies this and says that the only life insurance policy the family had was for $50,000 on his father’s life. Whitaker claims that a mental disorder, exacerbated by drug abuse, caused him to want his family eliminated.

In 2007, he founded an inmate blog, entitled Minutes Before Six which publishes articles, poetry and art from inmates held in prisons in the US, maintained by volunteers. Texas inmates are typically executed at 6 pm in the Huntsville Unit.

Whitaker had employed Brashear to carry out the murders. Whitaker’s father Kent was shot but survived. Whitaker fled to Mexico in 2004 following a tip-off that he would shortly be arrested for the murders. He lived there for over a year under the false name of Rudy Ríos. On September 15, 2005, a capital murder warrant was issued against Whitaker. Cooperating with US authorities, Mexican authorities arrested Whitaker without incident under immigration charges. In September 2005 Whitaker was handed over to US authorities at the border town of Laredo, Texas, where he was arrested for capital murder.

On December 10, 2003, Whitaker falsely told his family that he had just taken his final exams and would soon be graduating from Sam Houston State University. They drove to the nearby Pappadeaux restaurant in Stafford for a celebratory dinner. Meanwhile Chris Brashear, dressed in black, including a ski mask, had entered the Whitaker family home, taken Kevin’s gun and ammunition from a locked box in his room, staged a burglary, and then waited near the front door for the Whitaker family to return home.

Whitaker attended Clements High School, but had to leave as a result of burglaries he had committed with other students. As a result, he was evaluated by a psychologist who stated that he was “experiencing the clinical symptoms of a delusional (paranoid) disorder”. Whitaker had previously recruited others in a plot to murder Whitaker’s family in 2001 which ended up being aborted. At the trial, one of the recruits from 2001 said that he had contacted the Sugar Land Police Department with Find out more about the previous plot when he heard about the murders in 2003. This individual was given immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying for the prosecution against Whitaker.

Thomas Bartlett “Bart” Whitaker (born December 31, 1979) is a Texas prisoner who spent nearly 11 years on death row at the Polunsky Unit near Livingston. He was convicted for the December 10, 2003 murders of his mother and brother by hitman Chris Brashear and sentenced to death in March 2007. On February 22, 2018, 45 minutes before the scheduled execution at 6:00 pm, Whitaker had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment without parole by Governor Greg Abbott, the first time Governor Abbott has done so.