Less than two minutes later, however, their plans suddenly changed.
“Come get me!” Justin could hear Will’s voice emanating from the speaker of the walkie-talkie. “Dude, come get me now!” Will sounded urgent, but he spoke in hushed tones.
“What are you talking about?” Justin asked. “It’s only been two minutes. What the hell is going on?”
“Just. Come. Get me!” Will stated through clenched teeth.
Justin drove around to the front of the house. He pulled up to the curb and saw Will slink over to the vehicle. He looked rather conspicuous in the middle of the front yard dressed in all black. Will got into the car and said nothing. Justin drove off and out of the neighborhood.
Several minutes passed before Justin spoke up. “What happened back there?”
“Bart didn’t turn off the house alarm,” Will responded.
“What? What do you mean?”
“When I went to go open the window,” Will continued, “the damn house alarm went off.”
Justin found this unusual, since he did not hear any alarm sound. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“I’m telling you, man, it went off.”
Justin doubted the veracity of his friend’s story, but he did not press the issue. Instead, he drove the two of them all the way back home to Waco. When they arrived, Will silently packed his bags into his own vehicle and drove back home to Arkansas. He wanted nothing to do with Bart Whitaker ever again.
With Will’s departure, Justin believed his nagging suspicions were confirmed—no alarm had gone off. Instead, Will got cold feet and had chickened out.
Justin was not looking forward to hearing from Bart, once everything settled down. He assumed his friend was wondering what the hell was going on, since there was no altercation.
Later that night, Justin finally heard from Bart.
“Justin, where are you?” Bart wanted to know.
“Back at school, Bart,” Justin responded.
“Is Will with you?”
“No, he took off. He seemed pretty spooked about the whole thing,” Justin told his roommate. “Bart, what happened back there?”
“I’m not quite sure,” Bart replied. “We were eating dinner when my dad got a call on his cell phone from the security company. He said that they were telling him that the alarm went off in the house.”
“Wow, so he wasn’t lying,” Justin exclaimed.
“Who? What do you mean?” asked Bart.
“Will. He said that when he opened the back window you left open for him, it set off an alarm. I thought he was full of shit and chickened out on you.”
“How long did you guys hang out there, after it went off?”
“Not long. We took off immediately. Will did not want to have anything to do with it after that.”
“Where is he now?” Bart wondered.
“He took off, man,” Will answered. “Packed his stuff and said he was off to Little Rock. I don’t think we will be seeing him for a while.”
“Fuck!” Bart screamed. “I cannot believe this fucking happened to me! I wonder what he did to trip that alarm?”
Justin simply listened as Bart began to vent his frustrations.
“I can’t believe this didn’t work,” Bart muttered. “I know I turned off all of the alarms in the house. I also know I opened that window and told him which one was the exact one to open. He must have fucked it up somehow!”
Again, Justin listened.
“I think you’re right, Justin,” Bart stated.
“About what, Bart?”
“I think Will chickened out and got cold feet. He had to have screwed this up somehow. Damn pussy!”
Justin had no idea how to respond.
Much later, Bart would claim that this failed attempt was merely a test he had devised to see just how far Justin and Will would be willing to travel with him. “Will was supposed to enter from the back door, only I never unlocked it. Nor did I [turn] the alarm off, my only other duty.” He attempted to justify his actions and make himself appear to be the savior in the situation. “The game had gone on too far. I didn’t turn it off.”
Of course, he kept the ruse up in front of Justin. He wanted to be sure he still had one of the guys on his side.
“He’d better watch his back,” Bart threatened in reference to Will. “If he tells anyone about what we planned together, he’s going to be in some serious shit.”
“Oh, Bart. You don’t need to worry about Will,” Justin tried to comfort him. “He won’t say anything. I know he won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he’s not a dumb guy. He knows we’d be in a world of shit if this came out, and he’d be included. He’s not an idiot.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Bart grumbled. “I can see that pussy talking and blabbering out the entire plan to someone.”
Justin again had no idea what else to say.
“I might just need to tie up some loose ends,” Bart surmised. “Make sure he doesn’t talk.”
Justin kept his mouth shut. He soon realized that he, too, could be considered a loose end by Bart. He did not want to incur the wrath of his friend.
Winter 2001
Hastings Books & Records
Bosque Boulevard
Waco, Texas
Bart Whitaker’s boredom never ceased. Despite his failed attempt at murdering his mother and father, he found no joy in attempting to pursue a life of crime. Nonetheless, he would continue his run—albeit, with somewhat petty crimes in comparison.
One cold February night, Bart and Justin went out for a spell. As usual, Bart was bored and looking for some excitement. He decided he would find it at Hastings Books & Records, of all places.
Bart and Justin sauntered into the chain store, known mainly for its selection of music CDs and smattering of DVDs. It was after eleven o’clock, and Holly Hansard, the night clerk, who also looked bored, ignored the duo and went about her business of sorting CDs. Out of the corner of her eye, Hansard kept track of the pair’s doings, as she did with most customers who entered the store, especially late at night.
Bart and Justin sauntered about the store, appearing to be interested in the latest releases in the CD rock section. Mindlessly thumbing the plastic protective cases, as if to appear to be looking, the young men then moved over to the DVD section.
Hansard had been with the store for a while and knew how to spot a shoplifter. She had no doubt what was coming next. Sure enough, she spotted Bart checking out the DVDs, when he quickly lifted two movies,
Ronin
and
The Way of the Gun,
and stuck them in his gray coat’s pocket. Hansard saw the whole thing, but she waited until they approached the counter. Sometimes customers will grab items, stick them in the coats or pants pockets, but take them out and pay for them before leaving the store. She hoped this would be the case. Unfortunately, she would not be so lucky.
Bart and Justin made their way to the front of the store and noticed the female cashier move toward the register. There would be no sale made on this particular night. Instead of walking up to the counter and paying for the DVDs, Bart and Justin made a beeline for the exit. As Bart passed through the security railings, an ear-piercing alarm sounded. The incessant squeal triggered an impulse in the two young men that caused them to flee. Bart and Justin tore out of there, not even hearing Hansard’s cries for them to come back and pay for their stuff. They leaped into Bart’s car and took off.
They did not, however, expect Hansard to run outside with a pen and notepad and jot down a description of the getaway car, as well as its license plate.
Hansard knew the routine and knew what to do next. Call the cops, report the incident, tell her boss. It was never fun to be violated in any way. Her brave detective work, however, proved beneficial. Police were able to successfully pinpoint the vehicle as belonging to one Thomas Bartlett Whitaker.
A Waco police officer was able to run a check on the license plate and soon discovered that the vehicle actually belonged to Kent Whitaker, on Heron Way, all the way down in Sugar Land, Texas. The officer contacted the Whitaker household and spoke with Tricia, who confirmed that her son Bart attended school at Baylor, and that she would have him contact the police officer. Soon thereafter, the officer received a phone call from Bart, who admitted the theft of the DVDs. Bart also ratted out his good friend Justin Peters. Justin, however, claimed he did not take the DVDs, nor did he have any idea Bart had intended to steal from the store.
The officer asked Bart to come down to the station and make a statement. The officer wrote up a citation for theft, which Bart agreed to and signed. Bart then returned the DVDs to the officer, who later returned them to Hastings. Bart was arrested but immediately released.
Nothing more came of the arrest.
January to April 2001
Waco Park Apartments
South Fourth Street, Apartment #509
Waco, Texas
Less than one month after the trial run for murder, Bart Whitaker was at it again. He started bending Justin’s ear about killing his parents, and that they no longer needed Will Anthony’s help.
“I’ve got another friend who can help us out,” Bart assured Justin Peters.
“Who?” Justin asked.
“You remember Adam Hipp from the cruise we all went on?” Bart said, referring to his friend from high school. The three of them, along with a few other friends, decided to take an expensive ocean cruise to the Bahamas during the break between Christmas and New Year’s Day. It was Bart’s way of dealing with the depression of the bungled attempt earlier in December.
Justin nodded affirmatively.
“I talked to him after the trip. He is definitely down with the plan,” Bart assured Justin. “There won’t be any problems this time, like we had with Will.” Bart added that “Adam [is] the obvious choice, because he [is] easily the most corrupt person I [know].” Bart tended to lay blame on others for his actions and, indeed, posited that it was Adam who was the ultimate “mask wearer” and informed Justin that Adam was “far more competent at lying than I ever was.”
By this time, Justin Peters’s depression had actually grown more acute. The death of his ex-girlfriend, being asked to participate in the killing of two innocent people, the failure of that plan, and then a lonely Christmas holiday, followed by a dull and uneventful cruise. He felt he had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by helping Bart out with his plan.
“Cool,” Justin simply replied.
It would be more than two months before they actually decided to move forward with a new plan.
Bart would later rationalize his relationship with Justin and the crime they were both willing to commit. “Both Justin and I were drowning, and we didn’t know how to help each other.” He added that the two young men together would “only make things worse.”
Bart, Adam, and Justin met to discuss plans for murdering Bart’s family. One of their more elaborate scenarios involved murdering Bart’s parents and his brother at his grandmother’s lake house in Conroe.
Bart concocted a plan wherein he would get his entire family inside the cabin, along with some cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents—mostly everyone on his mother’s side of the family. Adam and Justin would somehow barricade the lake house with everyone inside, light the entire structure on fire, and only Bart would manage to escape alive from the harrowing inferno.
According to Adam, Bart had a specific reason why he wanted to kill his entire immediate family, as well as the Bartletts. It was because his mother’s family actually owned the construction company, and he knew if he could eliminate all of the family members with an ownership in the company, then everything would go to him.
Adam would later claim that while he listened to Bart’s plans on murdering his family, and even offered advice on how to make it work better, as well as offering to participate directly, he eventually agreed to do so only because of the “simple fact I was kind of interested to see how far he would take it, and to see if it was something that was legitimate.”
The goal was to eliminate Bart’s family and his cousins who stood to inherit the Bartlett Construction Company, so he could have it all. As a reward for their participation in committing the murders for hire, Adam and Justin would be paid a substantial amount of money. There was, however, no discussion of how much money either young man was going to receive for their part.
The three young men spoke several times about the fire massacre plan—possibly as many as six times—before they decided to scrap it. There was no guarantee that everyone else would actually die in the conflagration, and they believed it would be too easy for the authorities to pinpoint arson.
Soon the various scenarios discussed among the three young men would lead to arguments, as they could never agree on the proper plan.
Eventually Bart decided it was best to break out the old chestnut—the bungled burglary attempt, which, of course, was the exact same plan that he, Justin, and Will had attempted earlier.
This time around, Bart would give Adam a key to his parents’ house, as well as the access code numbers to their home alarm system. Adam was to unlock the door, disable the alarm system, and wait inside Bart’s parents’ home until two people came through the door. Adam would then shoot them.
Adam was then supposed to run out the back door, jump the fence, run through their neighbors’ yard, and hightail it out of there by jumping into the getaway car commandeered by Justin.
Basically, it was the Bart/Will/Justin plan—except Adam would have the keys and the alarm codes. Seemingly, there would be no accidental triggering of alarms, as with Will. Bart had also suggested that Adam was to shoot him inside the house, to make it look like the killer was trying to eliminate the entire family, but Bart had attempted a heroic move to thwart the criminal. Bart and Adam discussed the various locations on Bart’s body where he could take a bullet and suffer the least amount of permanent damage yet still appear to be legitimately wounded. Bart wanted it to be an area that could grow sufficient scar tissue to help heal the gunshot wound and, hopefully, he would still be able to maintain his mobility.
There were little to no specifics discussed, however, among the three aspiring criminals. No details on how Bart was going to get his parents to their house; no information on how Adam was to get a gun—nothing. No firing-range practice so Adam would be able to use the gun properly. They never returned to Bart’s parents’ home to walk through the various scenarios while they were away. Bart basically assured Adam and Justin that he would handle everything, and they should patiently wait for further instructions.
Adam later claimed when asked why he continued to talk about the plans for murdering the Whitakers, why he did not cease the discussions, or warn Bart’s parents, was because he was afraid. He believed the deeper the discussions got, the more he was in over his head, and he feared that Bart would come after
him
if he tried to thwart the plans.
Jennifer Japhet, Justin Peter’s friend from junior high and high school, attempted to reinsert herself into Justin’s life over the previous two months. She began to call him on the phone more, would stop by to visit him, and generally attempted to engage him in the outside world.
Jennifer had a far more successful career at Baylor than Justin. In addition to her busy social calendar at school, she was also performing well with her studies. She was set to graduate in the spring of 2001, a semester early, with a degree in English Renaissance drama, which she described as “utterly useless.” Jennifer knew, however, that she would have a job with her father’s company when she graduated, which would allow her to put herself through a master’s degree program in psychology.
Regardless of her busy schedule, Jennifer made it a point to reconnect with her friend Justin. She knew how depressed he had become after his ex-girlfriend’s death and that he was struggling in school. She also knew that she did not like Justin’s roommate Bart Whitaker.
Justin and Bart moved into the same apartment complex that Jennifer lived in during their second year at Baylor. That was the first time she had ever met Bart. She had heard about him from Justin, but she was never actually introduced to him until their second year.
Jennifer had also met Justin’s other good friend at Baylor, Will Anthony. She was not a big fan of Will’s, either. “Will wasn’t necessarily the caliber of person I thought Justin would normally hang out with, in the past,” she recalled. Jennifer remembered what it took to make it in their Health Careers High School back in San Antonio—the drive and passion that was necessary to succeed there. “I didn’t see that in Will. He just seemed adrift.”
Jennifer’s feelings for Bart were not much better. “He just seemed to be kind of going to college,” she explained. “He just didn’t seem to have any goals at that time.”
Jennifer was disappointed that Justin spent so much time hanging around his apartment with Bart and playing video games. “They had networked their apartment so they could all play video games on a network together.” She felt they spent way too much time playing video games and slacking off. Jennifer was also extremely upset with Justin that he had skipped so many classes.
The Justin that Jennifer saw before her was not the same young boy she had met in seventh grade. Sure, he had always been a bit shy, and maybe even a tad socially awkward, but he always had drive and ambition. Justin was an intelligent man with plenty of skills to succeed in life, and she believed he was wasting away his time hanging out with Bart and Will.
Jennifer knew that a large portion of Justin’s change in demeanor was a result of his ex-girlfriend’s fatal car accident. She said of Justin’s reaction to her death, “He sank into a really deep depression. He dropped out of school for the semester. He gained a lot of weight. He became very antisocial.” She also noted that when he moved into the apartment with Bart, Justin “pretty much stayed in his room and painted it this really dark blue and always had the shades down.”
Despite her misgivings about her good friend’s current state, she knew he was someone worth fighting for: “Justin’s a little shy. He’s a little insecure being around people he doesn’t know.” Jennifer always managed to see the best in her friend. “He has a very good heart, and anytime I needed to talk to someone, even at three o’clock in the morning when I was upset, he’s always been there for me.”
One problem Justin had—in Jennifer’s estimation—was that he was easily led astray. “He can definitely be the type of person who is easily influenced by others.”
Jennifer sensed that Justin was being influenced by Bart Whitaker, and not in a good way. “His dropping out of school being the most obvious,” the young woman recalled. “Smoking marijuana and drinking. He hadn’t done those things before.”
Jennifer also noted that Justin’s once-infectious go-get-’em attitude had all but disappeared. “He took on a definite ‘I don’t care about what happens’ attitude and ‘I’m only out to do what’s best for me’ mentality.”
In addition to the negative influence Bart exerted over Justin, Jennifer had problems with the way Bart comported himself. “Bart was really into intelligence, like spy-type intelligence. He was very paranoid that someone was out to get him.” Jennifer added that Justin talked to her about Bart’s state of mind. Bart believed that outside people were listening in on his conversations and that they had planted eavesdropping devices, or “bugs,” all around Bart and Justin’s apartment. “Justin used to never act like that,” Jennifer added. “He was into EverQuest and medicine, not smoking pot and being afraid that people were out to get him.”
On April 4, 2001, Jennifer Japhet made it a point to stop by and see her friend Justin Peters. Jennifer’s sorority, Alpha Phi Omega, was holding a rush party to spark up interest for new inductees for the following fall semester. Her sorority was part of a national service fraternity that did volunteer work for people in need. The party was located in the meeting room at Justin’s apartment complex.
Jennifer wanted to make sure Justin came with her to the rush party. She was hoping to introduce him to a crowd of people she believed were more along the lines of the types he should be hanging out with, instead of Bart Whitaker and Will Anthony. Maybe the positive influence of some of her sorority members would rub off on Justin. She also hoped that the concept of putting others’ needs before one’s own would resonate with Justin.
Jennifer pulled herself away from the party to seek out Justin. She made her way across the complex up to his apartment. As she approached the front door, she overheard loud voices coming from the living area in the medium-sized apartment. She hesitantly knocked on the door. She almost didn’t think anyone heard her. Suddenly the voices stopped and a
woosh
of air hit her face as the front door was hurriedly opened.
Standing before her was Justin. “Hey, Jennifer. What are you doing here?” he asked in a less than pleasant tone of voice.
“I thought you’d like to go with me over to the Alpha party. They’re having a rush and I thought you’d like to meet a few people,” Jennifer stated, somewhat dejected by his decidedly rude greeting.
Justin stood in the doorway for a moment and did not respond. Finally he stepped aside and asked her to come inside.
Jennifer stepped into the apartment and realized she had incredibly bad timing.
Staring back at her, and not very happy about it, were Bart and a fellow Baylor student, Felicia Guel. Justin had met Felicia during their freshman year at college and instantly fell for her. He then introduced her to Bart, which turned out to be a big mistake for Justin. Felicia was much more interested in Bart than she was Justin, and she began to pursue the former. Over time, Felicia won Bart over, and the two became an item. They had been dating, on and off, ever since, even though Bart was still seeing Lynne Sorsby, who was away at college in Austin. Jennifer had listened to Justin talk about Felicia and Bart, and how much it ate him inside to see them together.
It was no wonder why Justin basically gave her the cold shoulder when he answered the door.
As Jennifer slowly entered the apartment, she could sense the tension in the air between the three of them. “When I walked into the room,” Jennifer recalled, “everyone was staring at me. They were all very uncomfortable that I was there.”
Jennifer assumed she had walked into the middle of an argument that somehow involved the alleged love triangle. She looked over to her friend to see if she could get his attention. “Justin, can I talk to you, please?”
Justin did not answer her immediately. Instead, he looked to Bart, who did not acknowledge him.
“Justin, can we go in your room and talk, please?” Jennifer insisted.