September 22, 2005, 4:00
P.M
.
Laredo, Texas
One week after Detective Slot received the phone call from Rogelio Rios, and after an arrest warrant was filed for Bart Whitaker, he finally found his man. Based on Rios’s tip, Mexican authorities were able to locate and arrest Bart in Monterrey, Mexico. They, in turn, contacted the FBI and turned him over in the border town of Laredo, Texas, where he was arrested and cuffed. Bart had a “thumb drive” computer memory stick in his pocket “with all the media information about him and the case” on it.
After Bart’s arrest, Sugar Land police chief Steve Griffith and Fort Bend County district attorney John Healey held another press conference to announce his capture. “Hopefully, the recent arrests will bring closure to our community for this heinous crime.” Griffith added, “Our work in this case will continue until convictions have been obtained for all three participants in the murders of Patricia and Kevin Whitaker.”
District Attorney Healey added, “The possibility of the death penalty is definitely in play in this case.”
Sugar Land police captain Gary Cox expected Bart to be brought back to Sugar Land by the following Sunday night. He added that Bart was forced to leave Mexico “for violation of Mexican immigration laws.” Normally, Mexican authorities do not cooperate with United States officials when it comes to extraditing potential death penalty suspects, as the country’s policy is to oppose execution. In this particular case, however, the Mexican police apparently decided to go against that country’s established belief. Cox added, “They basically handled it as if it was an immigration violation,” as opposed to a possible capital murder.
Bart’s arrest warrant also revealed, for the first time, the alleged motive behind the slayings: “Financial analysis [by the FBI] shows that Bart Whitaker stood to inherit in excess of one million dollars in assets with the death of his parents and his brother.”
Cox added, “We probably could’ve gotten an arrest warrant earlier, but we couldn’t prove the capital case.”
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
Fort Bend County Courthouse
Jackson Street
Richmond, Texas
A Fort Bend County grand jury returned indictments on capital murder against all three young men: Thomas “Bart” Whitaker, twenty-five; Chris A. Brashear, twenty-three; and Steven Champagne, twenty-three.
Saturday, October 8, 2005
Fort Bend County Jail
Richmond, Texas
Steven Champagne was finally transferred from the San Diego County Jail to the Fort Bend County Jail by officials from Fort Bend County Sherriff’s Office and the Sugar Land Police Department, bringing all three co-conspirators back together under one roof.
November 1, 2005
FM 1097 Road Bridge
Lake Conroe
Conroe, Texas
Steven Champagne’s excursion to Lake Conroe with Detective Marshall Slot had failed to reap any rewards, not because there was nothing to be discovered, but rather because Mother Nature stepped in the way. The Gulf Coast region was beset with two monstrous hurricanes in the form of Katrina, which came ashore near New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 29, 2005, and Hurricane Rita, which was projected to come ashore near Galveston, Texas, and make its way to nearby Houston.
Hurricane Katrina proved to be an untenable nightmare, with the storm causing the levees to burst, subsequently dumping millions of tons of water into the below-sea-level city of New Orleans. The nightmarish imagery—people stranded on top of two-story rooftops, with water lapping away near their feet; rescue helicopters cherry-picking stragglers from treetops during monstrous winds; and, worst of all, the sight of bloated corpses floating down main streets—was enough to send chills down many Houstonians’ fragile spines.
The result was made relevant three weeks later when the majority of meteorologists predicted that Hurricane Rita, a Category 5 storm, would hit Galveston and march a treacherous path directly for Houston.
To avoid the mistakes of the citizens of New Orleans, the overwhelming majority of inhabitants, from Galveston to Houston to Sugar Land, were determined to get the heck out of Dodge. The mass exodus, however, was horribly coordinated by city and highway patrol, and massive traffic jams plugged up the main freeways from Interstate 10 to Highway 183. Normal drive times were magnified nearly ten times with the wait. A simple three-and-a-half-hour drive from Houston to San Antonio, approximately two hundred miles, was stretched out to an interminable thirty hours of bumper-to-bumper hell.
As a result of all the chaos on the freeways, and the need for diving crews to help fish out survivors, along with those who were not so lucky, official police diving teams were redirected either to New Orleans, Galveston, or the eastern portion of Texas, including the Beaumont/Orange area of Texas, where Hurricane Rita actually came ashore. Subsequently the need for a dive team to fish out two duffel bags from a possible crime scene that occurred more than a year and a half earlier was way down on the priority list.
More than two months after Steven Champagne clued Detective Slot in as to the whereabouts of the bags, dive crews finally became available for a search. The weather in south Texas was, once again, on the cusp of turning frigid. Diving into Lake Conroe at this time of year was not going to be a quick, brisk dip into soothing warm water. The team was prepared for some miserable, murky, near-freezing waters, with practically no visibility whatsoever.
The lead person on the dive team was Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) state trooper Brandon Curlee, who was stationed in Edna, Texas, nearly 140 miles from Conroe. Curlee’s main beat was working the highways of Texas for speeders and accidents. The dive team was something he did on the side.
Curlee was one of fourteen dive team members statewide whose job it was to recover evidence and/or human bodies from the water. According to the trooper, “We’ve recovered bodies that are found in the water in homicides—where bodies were weighted down and placed in the water—evidence recoveries, as far as weapons and guns, knives, and any other evidence involved in any type of crime.”
Curlee and eight other divers arrived in Conroe on November 1. He received the call just the day before. Upon Curlee’s arrival, he was briefed by two Sugar Land detectives that he would be searching for two canvas bags located on the north or northeast side of the FM 1097 Bridge.
Curlee’s description of the team’s diving methodology was that they were “kind of like commercial divers.” He added, “We don’t use normal scuba-diving equipment.” They used “a Superlight 17 helmet with surface-supplied air” so they could stay underwater as long as necessary. Basically, the men would dive in their gear and have a giant hose attached to the top of the helmet, called an umbilical line, which would pump air from above the water down into their suits. The helmets were extremely bulky, weighing almost thirty pounds. The suits were even heavier at nearly fifty pounds apiece. In addition, they would be sporting a twenty-pound backup tank on their backs. Going into the water, they were already lugging almost one hundred pounds of equipment.
The dives were to take place in water approximately twenty to thirty feet deep. Curlee estimated their time of underwater availability would be ninety minutes to two hours apiece. They would be down on their hands and knees, in the dark, murky waters, so, despite unlimited air, the men were destined to become fatigued just from the sheer weight of their gear and the amount of exercise they would undergo. There would always be two divers in the water at the same time. Rotation shifts were implemented to keep the divers fresh and safe.
Curlee and the dive team have a predetermined method of searching underwater, using what they call a “grid pattern.” Once the diver jumps into the water, fully weighted down, they immediately sink to the bottom. At that point, in the pitch-black water, a diver would have to rely on the dive tender, who stays in the boat with radar. The dive tender then guides the diver either left or right, backward or forward, so that the diver can search the bottom. The diver then takes the umbilical line, lays it underneath his stomach, and lays flat on the ground on his stomach. Then he begins a sweeping motion, from right to left and back again, sifting through the mud, silt, rocks, whatever lies at the bottom. The dive tender is then able to follow the diver’s motions by observing the air bubbles that rise from the diver’s helmet to the surface. This method is used to track the diver’s position along the grid. This routine is repeated over and over until the body or items in question are discovered.
According to Curlee, Lake Conroe’s bottom was filled with debris. He encountered all sorts of trash, including concrete, rebar, fishing rods, beer bottles, and beer cans. He even discovered a motorcycle at the bottom of the lake.
After almost three days of searching the black waters, at a quarter to noon, the Department of Public Safety dive team found what they were looking for—by using the sweeping motion, Curlee discovered one of the large canvas bags. He realized it was one of the bags because he could tell “it was lengthy and kind of bulky with different items inside it.” Using an underwater verbal communications system, he was able to contact the dive tender about the presence of the bag.
Curlee attempted to wrap the bag as close to his body as possible. As he snuggled it next to his diving suit, he waited as the men on the boat hoisted him to the surface. He had no idea if, after nearly two years at the bottom of a lake, the bag would still hold together. It did, however, and he was able to bring it to the surface. He then laid it down gently on the diving platform attached to the boat. He was then lowered back down to begin looking for bag number two.
As Trooper Curlee searched underwater, Sugar Land detective Tracy Taylor commandeered the duffel bag that had been safely recovered. Detective Taylor and Sergeant Yolanda Davis were responsible for maintaining the integrity of the duffel bag. Davis placed a call to Sugar Land crime scene investigator (CSI) Max Hunter, who retrieved the evidence the following day and took it back to his lab in the Sugar Land Police Department.
Meanwhile, back in the water, Curlee and another diver, who had joined in on the search, gave up on looking for the second duffel bag. They called it a day.
The following day, CSI Max Hunter picked up the duffel bag and its contents and shuttled them off to Sugar Land. He arrived at the police station and combed his way through the contents of the large canvas bag. The list of items discovered in the bag included:
- one Black & Decker DustBuster
- one can of KILZ latex primer
- one plastic grocery bag
- one baseball cap
- one Sony Walkman, with headphones
- one athletic shoe, size 9½
- six latex gloves
- one rubber mallet
- one roll of clear plastic sheeting
- one Mini Maglite
- two Motorola Talkabout handheld radios
- two Virgin cell phones
- one metal chisel
- one Smith & Wesson Lockback pocketknife, with a blade on each end
- one cigarette pack cellophane wrapper
- five rounds of Cor-Bon nine-millimeter ammunition
- four Texas license plates
- one expandable ASP tactical baton, similar to what police officers use
- one Leatherman tool
- five additional rounds of loose Cor-Bon ammunition
- black nylon cord
- one deteriorated shirt
- nylon straps with metal buckles
- nylon rope
- clear plastic sheeting
- one clear plastic water bottle
- an undetermined amount of United States currency, which was severely deteriorated
The items discovered in the duffel bag were covered in a strange milky white substance that had since dried up. It was later determined that the substance was primer from the primer paint can.
As Hunter sifted through the items, he began to make sense of what was used in the commission of the murders. He assumed the chisel had been used to pry open Kevin Whitaker’s gun lockbox. The lab had already run tests on the lockbox and determined that a flat-head pry tool had been used. He was even able to run transfer paint tests taken from the safe to determine what brand of tool was used—it was a Dasco. When he looked at the tool from the bag, he noted that it was indeed a Dasco pry tool.
One cell phone that had been recovered was a Nokia, the same brand as Bart Whitaker’s, which was not found at the scene of the crime. The cell phone was later submitted to a company called Forensic Telecommunications Services to see if they could actually retrieve any phone call data from the microchip inside, even though it had been submerged in lake water for nearly two years.
The plastic water bottle still contained water inside and was sealed by a plastic twist cap. Hunter determined he would be able to send out the bottle for possible DNA analysis. They might be able to find out who drank from the bottle.
Hunter also made sure to submit the Black & Decker DustBuster hand vacuum to the Texas Department of Public Safety Lab for fiber analysis. The goal would be to locate various carpet fibers, possibly from the crime scene or the killer’s vehicle. Oftentimes murderers will vacuum out their car in hopes of getting rid of any evidence. Usually, trace amounts of fibers will remain. Hunter was also able to directly inspect Steven Champagne’s mother’s Camry, which had been delivered to the Sugar Land PD. Champagne’s mother had been asked to remove any personal items from the vehicle, to which she readily complied.
Hunter also processed the rubber mallet. It was a safe bet that the mallet was used, along with the chisel, to open up Kevin Whitaker’s gun lockbox.
Hunter also submitted the shirt to the lab for testing. Unfortunately, the clothing was too severely deteriorated to be of any use. He also submitted the shoe for DNA analysis, but it, too, had been underwater for too long, and was not useful for tracing any DNA.
Hunter’s focus of the examination centered on the backseat of the car. His belief was that some of the blood from any of the Whitakers might have ended up on the shooter, and subsequently had been transferred to the backseat. The first step in the process was to videotape the backseat by using a camera and an alternate light source, which allowed the investigator to scan visually for any potential clues. According to Hunter, the alternate light source was “a wavelength that allows you to see things that wouldn’t be readily available to the naked eye.” He also used a barrier filter, or colored blue light, to assist in the examination. While searching the backseat with the alternate light source, Hunter also employed a chemical agent known as fluorescein, which allowed him to check for finite and infinite traces of blood. He was able to discover traces of blood in the back of the Camry, on the floor carpet, as well as on the upholstery of the backseat. The samples were bagged and tagged and sent off to the lab for testing.
Hunter also took a control sample from Champagne’s mother’s Camry that consisted of a portion of the floor carpet from the car’s back. He wanted to check the carpet samples with the fiber samples located inside the DustBuster that had been recovered from the bottom of Lake Conroe. He removed carpet from one area where he expected to find evidence and another area where he did not expect to get anything. The samples were bagged and tagged and shipped off to the DPS lab for further inspection. The tests would reap huge rewards, as the DNA from the water bottle matched Chris Brashear’s, and the fiber matched the carpet in Bart’s Yukon, among other findings that would provide enough evidence for the prosecution of Bart Whitaker.