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.
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.
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, nor 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.
“Dude, I lost my glove. I have no idea where it is!” The panic in Chris’s voice was apparent.
“Calm down.” Steven attempted to soothe his accomplice. “Do you have any idea where it might be?”
“No, dude. I don’t have a fucking clue.”
Steven’s patience was being severely tested. “Find it!” he snapped.
“Okay, okay. I’ll go look for it right now.”
“Call me when you find it!” Steven ordered, then disconnected the call.
Chris looked at the dead phone and started to search for his missing glove. He scanned the house, to no avail. He had no idea that he had dropped it earlier in the front yard, near the curb.
Steven sat nervously in the Pappadeaux parking lot, as he had no idea which dark SUV belonged to the Whitakers. He watched as group after group of people filtered out of the side door of the restaurant with their bellies sated. Steven began to fret, for he was certain they were not going to leave the building. As a result, he decided to focus his attention on one dark SUV, which he hoped was the right one. After more than an hour, he watched as four people exited the restaurant and made a beeline toward the SUV. He did not realize immediately that the group of people was Bart and the rest of his family.
The concept that three of these four people would possibly be dead in the next fifteen minutes no longer dissuaded Steven. He had made a promise to his friend, and he was going to live up to his end of the bargain.
Plus, he really needed the money.
Steven watched as the Whitakers piled into the TrailBlazer and drove out of the parking lot. He started his mother’s Camry and followed the Whitakers home. When Kevin pulled the SUV into their driveway, Steven continued on, down Heron Way, until he came upon a stop sign at Meadowlark Lane. He turned right and then took another right, onto Cardinal Avenue. He drove until he reached the house located directly behind the Whitakers’ home. He pulled the car up, alongside the curb, checked to see if anyone was eyeing him, realized they were not, and turned the car engine off, killing the lights. Then he sat and waited.
Suddenly his cell phone rang.
“Yeah?” he answered quickly.
“Dude, I think they’re here.” It was Chris.
“Yeah, they’re pulling up right now.”
Chris immediately hung up the phone.
Steven was not sure if Chris could still go through with it. He put his phone down in the passenger seat and waited. He assumed Chris was scared that he was going to leave him behind.
December 10, 2003, 8:00
P.M
.
Whitaker Residence
Sugar Land, Texas
The Whitakers returned home to be greeted with gunfire.
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
Chris Brashear exited through the Whitakers’ back door into their neighbors’ yard. Surprisingly, Chris was rather cool with his gait. He strode confidently, yet briskly, toward Steven’s mother’s car.
Chris immediately opened the door and entered the vehicle.
“Is everything okay?” Steven asked his friend.
Chris appeared calm. He was not freaking out, just determined to get out of the Sugar Lakes Subdivision as rapidly as possible. “Let’s go, Steven,” he replied, and ignored the question.
Steven was not quite sure how to react. He did not hear any shots being fired, nor did he hear any screams. He was not even sure if the shootings had occurred. When Chris remained quiet, Steven drove the car off into the dark December Sugar Land night.
Chris made sure that Bart left his Glock in the glove compartment. According to Steven, Chris “did not want to be without protection.”
Neither young man spoke for the majority of the drive back to Willis. Chris began to rifle through his possessions to see what he had on him. He first pulled out his disposable portable cell phone. He then pulled out a small wad of cash.
“Where’d you get that?” Steven inquired as he saw the money.
“I found it in one of the closets in their house,” Chris replied. He held on to the money. Chris also had a plastic water bottle that he drank from.
Steven continued to drive, until they came upon 610 Freeway and Interstate 45, approximately twenty-three miles from the Whitakers’ home. He pulled the car underneath the freeway bridges, under the dark of night, grabbed his collapsible screwdriver, as well as his own license plates, and proceeded to switch them back. Chris got out of the vehicle to join him.
“So, what happened in there?” Steven wanted to know.
“I shot all of them,” Chris responded coolly. He was not agitated, nor did he seem upset or particularly disturbed by what he had just stated.
“I was standing in the kitchen, in the dark,” Chris continued on, “and I had just called you on the phone. Right after we hung up, I could hear someone fiddling with the keys to the front door, and the next thing you know, it was opening up. There was light coming in from the porch, and I could see Bart’s brother.”
Steven stopped what he was doing and focused on what Chris was saying.
“I saw Kevin walk inside, and he looked up and saw me.” Chris paused. “He smiled at me! Can you believe that? He smiled at me, like he knew it was me and I was his friend, just there to greet him.”
Chris stopped momentarily, kicked at the gravel, and resumed his recounting of the murders. “I walked right up to him and shot him at point-blank range, right in the chest. Then Bart’s mom walked in, screaming, and I shot her at point-blank range also. I think I hit her directly in the middle of the chest as well.”
Steven was transfixed by Chris’s story. He almost could not believe it had happened.
Chris was on a roll. “I saw Kevin slump down to the floor, and he was immediately followed by their mom. They both looked dead to me right away.” Chris seemed positive.
“The next thing I know, Bart’s dad is near the front door, trying to come inside. I think I shot him in the shoulder or something. To be honest with you, I’m not sure if he was dead or not,” Chris recalled. He sounded a bit nervous for the first time since the shootings.
“You don’t know if Bart’s dad is dead?” Steven replied, shocked. If Chris did not kill Kent Whitaker, then the whole plan would have been for naught. They needed all three of Bart’s family members to die before Bart would receive any life insurance claims.
“No, man. I’m sorry,” Chris pleaded. “I know I shot him pretty good. I just don’t know if he’s dead or not.”
“What about Bart?”
“It went down just like we had planned it,” Chris answered. “He ran into the house and acted like he was trying to tackle me, and I shot him in the shoulder, just like he wanted me to. That worked out perfectly.” A friend later recalled that Bart had taken a martial arts course supposedly so he could sharpen his mind and learn how to take a bullet without completely falling apart.
All of a sudden, Chris was visibly exhausted and stopped talking. Steven finished changing the license plates, hopped back into the Camry, and they continued on their way back to Willis.
The two young men did not speak another word for the rest of the ride.
One hour later, Steven pulled his mom’s Camry onto their street in Harbour Town.
Steven made a beeline for Bart’s townhome car garage. Chris got out of the vehicle, closed the garage door, and grabbed a handheld vacuum cleaner. He crawled back into the car and began to vacuum out the back of the vehicle. Bart had earlier told Chris to do this in the event that he may have transferred something from the Whitaker home to the car—fibers, hair, pet dander, blood. Chris set to work.
Steven gathered together the screwdriver, a flashlight, the license plates, and a few other items. He bundled them together and handed them to Chris, so he could get rid of them.
Chris grabbed two duffel bags, which Bart had left behind in the garage, and began stuffing them with the items Steven handed over. When he finished, he threw both bags into the trunk of Steven’s mother’s car. Steven opened up the garage door and climbed back inside the vehicle, then pulled out of Bart’s garage. Chris headed inside his townhome, while Steven drove to his driveway, parked the car, got out, and entered his townhome.
Steven walked inside and grabbed a glass of water. He could not believe that he had driven home a person who might have killed three people. He was neck deep in it now, and he understood the ramifications of his participation.
Steven finished off the cool glass of water and headed back over to Bart and Chris’s place. He let himself in, and could hear the water running in the bathroom. He waited while Chris finished showering.
After about ten minutes, Chris stepped out into the living room. He had removed his black clothes and had changed into something more casual. Chris took the murder clothes and stuck them inside one of the duffel bags.
The plan, as conceived and ordered by Bart, was for Chris and Steven to stow everything they used at the murder scene into the duffel bags; then they were to drive over to the bridge on Lake Conroe. Bart wanted them to toss both duffel bags into the murky waters below.
They chucked the two duffel bags in the back of Chris’s red Ford Ranger and began the haul, with Steven behind the wheel. Bart had asked them not to drive the Ranger to Sugar Land because it would have stood out due to its candy apple color. Chris begged off from driving, so Steven drove to the bridge on FM 1097 Road West, until they reached the top. He pulled the truck onto the shoulder and parked the car. The men got out of the vehicle. Steven moved toward the front of the truck to lift the hood, to make it look like they were stopped due to an engine malfunction, and hopefully not raise suspicions. While Steven tended to the engine, Chris removed the two duffel bags and tossed them over the side railing of the bridge.
Again, neither young man said anything as the deed was completed. They simply got back into Chris’s Ford Ranger, and Steven drove back onto FM 1097, but with a different destination in mind. Instead of heading back to their townhomes in Harbour Town, Steven kept driving all the way to Houston. He pulled up to a local haunt known as The Ginger Man, a favorite college hangout for Rice University students, located on Morningside Drive, in Rice Village, near Rice Stadium, home to the perpetually hapless Rice Owls college football team.
Ensconced inside, Steven and Chris ordered the first of many beers. They were going to need some serious cooling off that only a cold brew could initiate. Beers paid for with the money stolen from the closet of the home of Kent and Tricia Whitaker.
Steven and Chris stayed at the bar for nearly three hours. They drank the entire time they were there. They never once mentioned what they had just par-taken in. It was strictly a time for crawling inside the bottle.
Around midnight, Steven started to get paranoid. He was afraid that since they had been drinking that if they went out on the road and got pulled over by police officers, they would, at the least, get popped for a DWI. At the worst, they would get nabbed as accomplices to murder.
“We gotta go, man!” Steven blurted out.
“Calm down, Steven,” a fairly inebriated Chris snapped back at him. “Be cool, man.”
“No, we gotta get out of here,” Steven responded. “We’ve got to get the hell out of Houston right now. I don’t want to get too drunk and have to drive all the way home. C’mon, let’s get out of here.” They paid their tab and left. Steven drove back toward Willis, but not until they first stopped in another bar, in The Woodlands, to continue their drinking binge.
Finally, at 2:00
A.M
., as the bar was closed down, Steven and Chris were forced to head back to their homes. Steven pulled Chris’s Ford Ranger into the driveway, and the two young men went to their separate residences to finally call it a night. They both went to sleep, even after having possibly participated in triple murder.
Surprisingly, both Steven and Chris slept well that night. They both went about the following day as if it were simply just another ordinary, run-of-the-mill day in their lives. They purposefully avoided watching the news on television, because they did not want to hear anything about the murders. Later that evening, Steven hooked up with his girlfriend to go out on a date. He called up Chris and invited him along. The trio headed out to another bar and began drinking again. Neither one of them talked about the previous night’s events in front of Steven’s girlfriend.
While sitting in the bar, nursing yet more drinks, Steven received a call on his cell phone from a close friend of his. The friend had called to tell Steven that he had heard his friend and boss, Bart Whitaker, had been shot, and that at least two of his family members were dead in Sugar Land. Almost simultaneously, Steven’s mother also called him on the cell phone to share the same news. She had just watched a report on a local affiliate news broadcast and had immediately perked up when she heard the Whitaker name, since she knew Bart. Steven hung up his phone and played dumb in front of his girlfriend by telling her and Chris that Bart had been shot. The trio gathered their belongings and went back to Steven’s townhome.
The following morning, Steven made a trip down to the hospital to check in on Bart. When he arrived, he noticed that many members of Bart’s family were there, as was Bart’s girlfriend, Lynne Sorsby. Steven had not seen Bart since he followed him from the restaurant to Bart’s parents’ house. He had no idea how Bart was doing. He realized that they would not be able to discuss what had happened because of the present company, so he simply played the role of the concerned friend.
The ensuing weeks after the murders led to upheaval in the three young men’s lives. Bart, of course, underwent surgery; then he moved back to Sugar Land and into his former home with his father. The two men planned on supporting one another as they dealt with their grief over the loss of Tricia and Kevin. As a result, Chris Brashear was forced to move out of the townhome he had shared with Bart, and back home with his parents in Lake Jackson.
Bart did not want his townhome to go belly-up, so he asked Steven if he wanted to move in while Bart lived with his father. Steven, who was sleeping on his mother’s couch at her place, jumped at the opportunity. He moved into Bart’s townhome.