Bart Whitaker: The Son Who Staged a Hit on His Own Family

Bart Whitaker: The Golden Boy with a Cracked Foundation

Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, or Bart, was born into comfort. He grew up in a wealthy Houston suburb, surrounded by everything a kid could want. His dad, Kent, ran a successful construction business. His mom, Patricia, who went by Trish, was a former teacher turned full-time mom who still volunteered at the school out of habit or maybe hope.

Both parents poured their energy into raising Bart and his younger brother Kevin. They wanted their boys to be happy, healthy, and set up for success. And it mostly worked. For Kevin.

Bart, on the other hand, was a different story.

Years later, Bart would be diagnosed with a delusional paranoid disorder. But before anyone had a name for it, the signs were already there. As a teenager, Bart organized a string of burglaries at his own high school. He was more than nvolved. He was the one calling the shots. When the truth came out, he was expelled.

Kent and Trish were worried, but ironically, that expulsion looked like it had flipped a switch. Bart straightened up, got into Baylor, then transferred to Sam Houston State in Willis. It seemed like he had turned a corner.

His parents were thrilled. They paid for everything. Tuition, books, and even a lakeside townhouse near campus so Bart could stay focused and comfortable.

From the outside, it looked like things were finally falling into place.

Except they were not.

A Celebration Turns Deadly: The Night Everything Fell Apart

Three years into Bart’s supposed college career, it looked like he was finally about to cross the finish line. It was December 2003, and graduation was around the corner. To celebrate, the Whitaker family went out to dinner in Houston. Over the years, Kent and Trish had already gifted Bart more than most kids could dream of—including a collection of luxury cars—but this time, they wanted to mark the milestone with something special.

They gave him a Rolex. A $4,000 watch. A moment of pride and congratulations. Smiles all around. Graduation was that weekend, and everything seemed to be going right.

After dinner, they pulled into the driveway at home. Bart went to grab his phone from his car and said he was going to call his girlfriend. The rest of the family went inside.

Kevin was the first through the door. He walked straight into a masked man holding his own gun.

The shooter fired. Kevin took a bullet to the chest. Trish was next. Shot in the chest as well. Kent was hit in the shoulder. Bart ran in, wrestled with the intruder, and got shot in the arm.

The man took off. He jumped the fence into the neighbor’s yard and escaped in a waiting car.

Next door, Cliff Stanley and his family heard the gunfire. They rushed outside. Cliff saw Kent on the ground yelling, “I’m bleeding.” Cliff grabbed his own shirt and tried to stop the bleeding while his son called for help.

Trish was kneeling on the front steps, her head resting on the porch. Her position looked painful and unnatural, but Cliff didn’t want to move her. The bleeding had started to clot. She was moaning, still conscious, and told Cliff to get away. To save himself.

But Cliff stayed. He tried to find the boys. He had never met Bart, but he knew Kevin. He could see Kevin’s body inside the house. It was too dark to tell how bad it was.

He didn’t need to see it.

He could hear it.

The Aftermath: Loss, Survival, and a Vanishing Act

Cliff Stanley would later describe the sound he heard coming from inside the house as a “death rattle.” Kevin Whitaker was nineteen years old, and Cliff could tell from his breathing and faint moaning that he was dying.

But Cliff could not reach him.

Trish had collapsed in front of the door, and moving her might have made her condition worse. Cliff stayed with her, listening, as Kevin’s life slipped away just beyond his reach.

First responders arrived, and Trish was airlifted to the hospital. She died in the helicopter. Kevin had already passed.

Kent survived. So did Bart.

Bart’s injuries were minor, and he was discharged shortly after. Kent, still recovering in the hospital, said Bart told him he needed to get out for a bit. Try to shake the trauma. Go to a club. Take his mind off what had just happened.

But Bart never came back.

For more than a year, he disappeared. No one knew if he was hiding or if something had happened to him too. Then someone came forward with information that changed everything.

It was one of Bart’s old high school friends. The same one who had helped him rob the school years earlier. He told investigators that Bart had paid him three thousand dollars to help him get to the Mexican border.

And that is when everything started to fall apart.

The Lie Behind the Mask: Bart’s Final Plot

So why did Bart vanish? Because the entire college story he had sold his family was a lie. He dropped out after his first year and spent the next three pretending to be a student while living in a lakeside townhouse his parents paid for.

As graduation got closer, the truth started closing in. Bart knew he was about to be exposed. Instead of admitting it, he came up with a plan. He decided to have his family killed.

He hired Chris Brashear as a hitman and gave him everything he needed. Bart explained how to get into the house, where to find Kevin’s gun, and even arranged a getaway driver.

Chris was told to stage a robbery and wait inside. Kevin walked in first. Chris shot him, then shot Trish and Kent. As planned, he and Bart faked a struggle. Chris shot Bart in the arm to make it look real.

Even the phone call Bart made outside the house was part of it. He wanted the rest of the family to walk in first. That way, he could arrive after the attack started and play the victim.

What he did not expect was Kent surviving.

His lie was about to unravel anyway. And now his mother and brother were dead.

So he ran.

After Bart’s old friend came forward, investigators tracked him to Cerralvo, Mexico. Bart was using the name Rudy Rios, working in a furniture shop, and living with a new girlfriend.

He had built himself a second life.

But that life was over.

Exposed and Extradited: Bart Whitaker Faces Justice

In Cerralvo, Mexico, Bart Whitaker had done what a lot of fugitives only dream about. He disappeared, changed his name to Rudy Rios, got a job at a furniture store, and started a new relationship. He blended in. No college scandal. No murder investigation. No past.

But the illusion cracked the moment his former friend came forward.

With his location confirmed, Bart was arrested by Mexican authorities and extradited back to the United States. What followed was not a quiet return. This was national news, a privileged young man from an upper-class family accused of staging his own murder and orchestrating the execution of his mother and younger brother. The motive? To avoid being exposed as a fraud and collect the family’s life insurance.

The state of Texas wasted no time. Bart was charged with capital murder. Prosecutors refused to offer a plea deal. They made it clear they were pursuing the death penalty. Not because Bart pulled the trigger, but because he planned it all. The law in Texas holds the mastermind equally accountable.

The trial lasted six days, and the evidence painted a clear picture. The fake graduation. The staged robbery. The calculated timing of Bart’s phone call outside the house. The setup with the hitman. All of it was laid out for the jury.

Bart sat quietly through most of it, emotionless. His defense team argued that he had shown remorse and had a diagnosed mental disorder, but the facts were too damning. The jury took only two hours to reach a decision.

Guilty.

Bart was sentenced to death.

But the story did not end there. Years later, during the lengthy appeals process, Kent Whitaker—who had lost his wife and son and nearly his own life,  stood in court and asked that his remaining son be spared. He told the judge that taking Bart’s life would only deepen the pain, not bring any closure.

It was an extraordinary act of forgiveness, and one the court took seriously.

Bart’s sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He remains behind bars in Texas, serving time for a crime he spent years planning and pretending to survive.