WINFREY: This picture that you're looking at right now was taken by a proud father on the eve of his oldest son's college graduation. Thirty minutes after this photo was taken Kent and Tricia Whittaker's family was changed forever. WINFREY: He was a successful accountant; she was a teacher. Together they had two sons and a loving 28-year marriage. JULIE BARNHILL: They were one of the kindest, most generous, loving, funny, outgoing family. And they loved their children. They loved each other. WINFREY: In Sugar Land, Texas, an upscale suburb of Houston, the Whitaker's big brick house was a neighborhood gathering spot. BRITTANY BARNHILL: The Whittaker's house was the home we went to in high school. We hung out at the Whitaker's every single weekend. And that was because Tricia and Kent were so loving. WINFREY: The oldest son Bart was smart, good-looking, and athletic. His younger brother Kevin was outgoing and popular and looked up to his big brother. BRITTANY: He thought his brother was the greatest thing. He wanted to be just like Bart. WINFREY: On December 10, 2003, the Whitaker's went out for dinner to celebrate Bart's upcoming college graduation. They'd given him his graduation present, a Rolex watch, earlier that day. Around 8:30 that evening the family arrived back home. FEMALE: Sugar Land 911. State your emergency. BART WHITAKER: I've been shot. We were walking in the house, my brother and my mom and my dad. FEMALE: We have one subject right now who's shot in the arm. Apparently the whole family's been shot. WINFREY: Police Sergeant Marshall Slot was among the first to arrive on the scene. SERGEANT MARSHALL SLOT: Kevin and Tricia were shot almost immediately upon walking through the front door. They were both shot in the center of their chests. Kent ran towards the front door. He was shot at that time. Bart, he ran into the living room. That's where he was shot. There were only four shots fired and there were four hits. WINFREY: Well, Tricia and her youngest son Kevin died that night. Bart and his father Kent survived the shooting. Hours after the attack Kent made a promise to himself-- that he would forgive the person who killed his family. So if you have somebody to forgive in your life it should be easier after today's show, because you'll find out that what he was able to do was seemingly impossible. The close- knit upscale community was shaken by the news of this violent attack. What happened that night to the Whitaker family? Was there a killer on the loose? Could you imagine if that happened in your neighborhood? Nobody would able to sleep. You'd be, you know, wondering what is going on. Our Lisa Ling went down to Sugar Land, Texas to report. LING: I met with Sergeant Marshall Slot, the lead investigator on the Whitaker case. Srgt. SLOT: The community's perception was that there was this wild crazed killer out there. And we knew fairly soon after the investigation started that that wasnt the case. In any homicide you start looking at the people closest to the people who were killed. Well, the only two surviving victims of this situation were Kent and Bart. We did the walk-through interviews with Kent and Bart. We did them separately so that neither one of them could taint the other's walk-through. When I spoke with Kent, Kent was very exact. Kent was very expressive in talking about the shots. Mr. WHITAKER: Bang. Bang. And I think I knew that it was gunshots. Srgt. SLOT: Bart was very guarded in his words. BART: Like, I dont know why I said that, because I honestly dont remember. Srgt. SLOT: He wouldn't commit to anything. LING: Then a bombshell. Remember, the night of the murders the family had been out celebrating Bart's upcoming college graduation. Srgt. SLOT: A day or two after the shootings we received information from Sam Houston Sate University that Bart was not a student there. And so bells and whistles started going off at that time. Why would this kid who's a victim, an innocent victim of a shooting, lie to me about where he was going to school or what he was doing? Because the information we had from him was that he was graduating. The information we got confirmed was from the school was that he was on academic probation and still in his freshman year. WINFREY: And that wasn't the only bombshell, Lisa. What else? LING: That's right. Well, two years before the murder the cops came knocking on Kent and Tricia's door to say that an informant had told them that their eldest son Bart had been plotting to kill his family. So Kent and Tricia... WINFREY: Two years before. LING: Two years before. So Kent and Tricia allegedly confronted Bart and he said that it was part of a drunken joke and they believed him. WINFREY: And did nothing, obviously. LING: They did nothing. I mean, Tricia apparently told a friend that she was concerned about it, but she couldn't believe that it could be true. WINFREY: So did police immediately suspect that it was Bart? LING: They immediately suspected that it could be Bart. He was a suspect from the get-go, but they were learning things that they just couldn't possibly reveal to the family, because it was in the course of this investigation. WINFREY: So as the investigation continued police began to focus on Bart Whitaker's friends. MALE: This murderer is still out there. Police need our help. So for your own families, for everybody's sake, let's catch him. LING: The public didn't realize it, but one of Bart's friends had already given them the break in the case they'd been looking for. After being brought in for questioning, 21-year-old Steven Champagne confessed Bart had convinced him and another friend, Christopher Brashear, to kill his family. REPORTER: Detectives from Sugar Land Police say that they have learned more about the crime that happened in this subdivision Wednesday night. FEMALE: As police began to close in on Bart, he disappeared without a trace. WINFREY: So for more than a year police had no leads. They suspected that it was Bart, but they had no leads as to where Bart had gone. So a tipster led authorities to Mexico where they found Bart. He was living under an alias, had been working at a furniture store, and dating his boss's daughter. Bart was arrested and convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. Remember that hours after his wife and youngest son were shot dead, this is Bart's father, Kent Whitaker vowed that he would forgive the killer, but at the time he didn't realize that the killer was his son. So we're going to talk to Kent Whitaker in just a moment. LING: I met Kent Whitaker at his home in Sugar Land, Texas. He still lives in the same house where his wife and son were murdered. So what happened that night? Mr. WHITAKER: Kevin opened the door and got about this far. And there was a gunman standing right here and he shot him. And Kevin fell into the entryway right here. Tricia then was at the threshold. I heard her say, Oh, no, and there was another loud noise and she fell down and somehow ended up with her head right here on the threshold of the house. Now, I was still out here on the porch and I just didn't understand what those noises were. At that point, I was hit hard in the shoulder and that's when I knew what had happened. They were gunshots. By the way, it's a strange feeling when you look down there and you see your white shirt turning red and you know I may be dying. I don t know. I may be dead in another minute or two. I just didnt know how bad it was. WINFREY: That was Lisa Ling with Kent Whitaker who joins us today. Thank you for being here. How hard was it to go back to that house and live in the same house where your wife and son were murdered? Mr. WHITAKER: When we drove up to the house the first time after leaving the hospital I wondered, Am I going to be able to go back in? Because I knew I'd be passing where my wife and son had died, it was horrible. And I wasn't sure I would be able to pass it, but I'd reached a zone when I got up to the front door where I was just numb. And it was like I was a robot and I passed by the spots and -- people ask me how I could possibly live in that house and while there was something very horrible that happened there it was still my home and had been my home for 25 years. There were a lot of great memories there and it was still my house. WINFREY: Right. And how soon were you able to go home? How long were you hospitalized? Mr. WHITAKER: We were in the hospital about four days. WINFREY: How did you first feel when you were told that Bart had not been enrolled in the school and was on academic probation? After your family had been out celebrating what you thought was his graduation? How did you first feel? Mr. WHITAKER: Well, it was, as you can imagine, a parent's worst nightmare. I didn't believe it for a minute. WINFREY: That he wasn't enrolled? Mr. WHITAKER: Yeah, I didnt believe it, but, at the same time, the police were telling me and I had to believe it. It just didn't make sense. WINFREY: And so in that moment did you start to think, Well, now ...?" Mr. WHITAKER: Well, sure. WINFREY: Well, now, being suspicious of why he had lied and perhaps maybe he could've been involved. Mr. WHITAKER: Right. WINFREY: Yeah. Mr. WHITAKER: Yeah. As soon as I heard I confronted him with it and he said it had been the result of scheduling problems at work and some people had left and he thought that he'd be able to make up the deficit the next semester. It didn't make sense. WINFREY: It didn't make sense, but then what did you tell yourself? Mr. WHITAKER: Gosh, what do you do? I knew that the police might be right, but at the same time I wasn't going to discard my only son just because they said that he was a suspect. I thought, well, I'll just work with both sides. I'll help Bart, because he needs help. And I'll help the police, if I hear of something then I'll tell them. WINFREY: Mm-hmm. So did the police ... Mr. WHITAKER: I maintained my neutrality on it. WINFREY: At what point--you write about this in the book. The book is fascinating, may I say, Murder by Family. At what point were you told that it was dangerous for you -- because you and Bart went back to the house, as you described this earlier. Mr. WHITAKER: Right. Right. Yeah. WINFREY: And at what point were you told by the police that it was dangerous for you to be in that house, that you were risking your life? Mr. WHITAKER: Oh, very early and many times. LING: And it's important to note that Bart actually came and lived with Kent ... Mr. WHITAKER: Yes. LING: ... for seven months after the murders took place. WINFREY: Did you believe that he was a suspect? Were you suspicious yourself? Mr. WHITAKER: Well, if the police tell you that of course there's a certain amount of suspicion. And it changed. From early on I thought, well, maybe there's a five percent chance that he may have. Maybe he'd gotten involved with some bad crowds and he had offered to let the house be open for a robbery as a payback attempt or something. WINFREY: Okay. But this is what I couldn't understand while reading this, and it must've been very hard for you to write, too, but what I couldn't understand is the police had already told you two years before. Isn't that a strange thing to be told by the police ... Mr. WHITAKER: Of course it is. WINFREY: ... that your son was plotting to kill you? Mr. WHITAKER: Anybody in the room, what would your... WINFREY: Yeah. Mr. WHITAKER: What would you think if the police knocked on your door at 1:00 in the morning and said, I'm sorry, but your college son is on the way to kill you? WINFREY: Yeah. Mr. WHITAKER: Would you believe that? I mean, I'd never seen any purpose or any reason to suspect. WINFREY: Yeah, I know. But it would make me think... Mr. WHITAKER: Well, of course. WINFREY: ...big question mark. Mr. WHITAKER: And that's why I questioned the police so deeply. And the official explanation from them was there was nothing to it. There was an argument between roommates that had been increased by alcohol and overheard by somebody and misunderstood. WINFREY: Did you confront Bart about that? Mr. WHITAKER: Well, sure. WINFREY: What did he say? Mr. WHITAKER: I'm not a -- Oprah, I'm a good dad and I was very active in my family's life and of course I can... WINFREY: I can see this. I can see this. Mr. WHITAKER: Of course I confronted him. I mean, if there's a problem you want to find out about your kid so that you can step in and help them correct it. WINFREY: Right. Mr. WHITAKER: And we did everything we could, both Tricia and I, to get to the bottom of it. And in this situation it was a matter of whether you believed the police, who made the final decision that there wasnt anything wrong ... WINFREY: Yeah, Kent, I'm not here to try to attack you or judge you. Mr. WHITAKER: I know that. WINFREY: The thing is, I've read the book. They haven't. Mr. WHITAKER: Yeah. WINFREY: So that's why I'm asking when you confronted your son about the police questioning, the police coming to you and saying, We suspect that your son is on his way to kill you," what did he say? Mr. WHITAKER: Well, he said that it -- well, he explained it as he and his roommate had been arguing, because he and a girlfriend had been watching television loud. He asked them to turn it down and they wouldn't, and the program was on the Menendez brothers. WINFREY: Yeah. That's right. Mr. WHITAKER: And he made the comment, "Well, they went about it all wrong, anyway. If you were going to do it, this is how you'd do it. And that's what she heard. WINFREY: So that's what he told you? Mr. WHITAKER: That's what he told us. WINFREY: The Whitakers had a tight-knit circle of friends who were devastated by these murders. Lisa Ling sat down with Julie and Matt Barnhill and their daughter Brittany, who all say they're still trying to piece together what went wrong here. LING: Okay. So what was your relationship like with the Whitakers? JULIE: Family friends. Just really good family friends from high school. BRITTANY: We knew each other since second grade. LING: What was the family like? MATT: He was an engaged dad doing, you know, guy things with the boys. He took them rafting and trips to the mountains, hiking. BRITTANY: That is at prom. That's our senior prom. LING: What was Kevin like? BRITTANY: He was a great friend. LING: Tricia? JULIE: She was really funny and welcoming and she was such an incredible friend. LING: Did you know Bart well? BART: Close your eyes. Close your eyes real quick. Okay? Make it work. MATT: I don't think any of us knew him well. LING: Did you think you knew him? MATT: He was aloof. And I saw him as insecure and kind of cocky and overcompensated. I think he's a stereotypical sociopath. He may be the most narcissistic person I've ever known personally. LING: So did Kent and Tricia confide in you all about any problems that they may have ever had with the boys? JULIE: Well, Tricia and I talked a lot. LING: The cops came to the Whitaker's home because they had unhatched a plot that Bart was planning to kill them. Did Tricia tell you about that? JULIE: She did. And on one hand she was very troubled about it and on the other hand she completely dismissed it and kind of laughed about it. She would say things like, Why in the world would they think Bart would do something like that? I know it bothered her. It was on her mind a lot, because she talked about it for a while. And I don't know if she ever truly trusted him. WINFREY: That's interesting. Did you fully trust him? Mr. WHITAKER: I did. WINFREY: You did. Mr. WHITAKER: Yeah. WINFREY: And that thing that they were describing, that narcissistic, cocky thing, trait. Did you sense that in him? Mr. WHITAKER: I knew he was kind of self-centered, yeah. I saw a lot of myself in him, when I was younger. I was very cocky and very sure. WINFREY: But narcissistic is a pretty strong word. Mr. WHITAKER: It is. It is. I wish I was schooled enough to say I recognize that. Matt's a psychologist. He does this. And honestly, I never was told that by anyone. WINFREY: Mm-hmm. Coming up, he's never spoken publically before. Bart Whitaker's first death row interview. -Why did you do what you did? -Lisa Ling reports, next. WINFREY: Okay. So remember that the night of the attack the family was celebrating Bart's college graduation, that he'd even gotten a Rolex watch as a gift. But Bart had been living a lie. He hadn't even completed his freshman year. Yeah. So all this time he had been pulling the wool over your eyes. Mr. WHITAKER: Yeah. WINFREY: Yeah. Mr. WHITAKER: Wasn't nice. WINFREY: Freshman, sophomore, junior. Had you seen grades or had you... Mr. WHITAKER: He submitted grades and he falsified them. One of the problems is when a kid gets to be 18 years old he becomes an adult and you can't--or in some states it's 21--but you cannot-- even though you're paying the bills and you're the parent, you can't get transcripts directly from the school. WINFREY: Okay. So what I'm asking and as you talk about in the book is, though, clues along the way that something was off. Because now as you sit back as a father and you look back and the reason to have this conversation with our viewers is not just so that they are a voyeur in your life, but so that they can, you know, look for clues in their own, you know, lives. So what are the clues that you think you missed? Mr. WHITAKER: Honestly, there weren't a whole lot of flags. Trish and I were very hands-on active parents. And .... WINFREY: But one of the things you say on page 85 here is, I wonder if Tricia and I had been too quick to accept excuses and overlook things. It was becoming clear that my son had a side that none of our family had seen and I was furious, hurt, and worried about how far the deception had gone. Mr. WHITAKER: Right. And that's very true. That concern came obviously after the shootings and after the police told me that he were not enrolled and that they feared for my life living with him. But at the time, I suppose if there had been someone living with us that wasn't part of the family they could see that there might be something here or there, but he was a good kid. I mean, he and I spent a lot of time together. WINFREY: So even after you realized that he had lied and was not even -- was still a freshman and wasn't graduating and your wife and other son had been shot. And even after you realized that, you still were not suspicious enough or believing that he could have done this, committed this crime. Mr. WHITAKER: I didn't believe my son would've done that, no. WINFREY: Well, it's been just over a year since Kent Whitaker's son Bart was sentenced to death for masterminding the murders of his own family. Bart now lives on Death Row in a Texas prison and has never spoken publicly until now. Lisa Ling was there talking to him. LING: I've covered many stories in prisons and jails around the world, but I've never interviewed anyone on Death Row before. I have to say that I have been eagerly and nervously anticipating this interview with Bart Whitaker, because I've interviewed so many people about him and he has been described as a master manipulator, as a pathological liar, someone who led a double life. So I can't help, but wonder who we're going to be getting when we interview him. Hi. BART: Hi. How are you? LING: You hear me okay? BART: Yes, ma'am. LING: Okay. I'm Lisa. I was only granted an hour with Bart so I started with the question on everyone's mind. Why did you do what you did? I mean, why did you want to kill your family? BART: I can go back and tell you why I felt so inadequate and why I felt that my parents didn't love me. And I recognize so many of the errors now. There's a difference between an excuse and a reason and I don't try to make excuses for what I did. I try to -- you can't. You can't make an excuse for this, but, yeah, there were things that happened that were reasons for it. LING: From what we hear from friends of the family and so on, you seem like you had very loving parents who really gave you a lot. Is there something that we just don't know? BART: Well, even from a very young age I believe that what my parents loved was an idealized version of me, and that I kept telling myself if I worked really hard and I succeeded that I would be that person. But I knew in my heart that I wasn't that person and I felt like if they knew who I really was that affection would dry out. And you can only go through that for so long before you start to bear a grudge against the people you think have set that high standard. LING: Did you love your family? Did you love your brother Kevin? BART: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I was envious. He had so many of the qualities that I tried so hard for over the years. You know, people just loved him always. LING: So you loved them, but you also hated them at the same time. BART: Yeah, yeah, we humans are kind of messy like that sometimes. LING: At what point in your life did you realize that you wanted to kill your father, your mother, and Kevin? BART: I don't think my dissatisfaction turned to outright hatred until high school. There was a point in there, I guess sophomore year, where I was just so tired of being me. I was tired of feeling like a failure all the time and I started to blame them for the way I felt. And it wasn't something that I just decided one day, hey, I want to kill my parents. It was just something to try to ease the pressure a little bit. I wanted my life to be different. And however my thought process got there, I blamed them for me. I blamed them for me being in existence. I wanted revenge for being alive. WINFREY: How does it make you feel hearing your son say he wanted revenge for being alive? Mr. WHITAKER: It hurts, but then I'd like to know why. If you don't know who you are, and you dont like who you are ... WINFREY: You're a danger to yourself and to other people. What do you want to say, Lisa? LING: I mean, I have no frame of reference, because I had never met Bart before this interview, but he seemed to be very candid and my sense is that he still doesn't know who he is. And I think that he, for years, he was deceiving everyone, even the people closest to him. He started living this lie and he no longer could make a distinction between what was a lie and what was reality. WINFREY: Well, he says in the book here on page 136, he wrote a letter to you saying, I wish I'd been different. I wish I could've made you proud. I wish I'd done other things, other than take all the time. I say I love you but what I really feel is mainly respect for the man you are. I loved Mom and Kevin, but I also felt a lot of hatred and I have no idea why. I think I really don't know what anything feels like. Im a bad copy, a rippled reflection of what a human being should be. I have all the external characteristics of being a man but under the skin I cannot identify anything. Mr. WHITAKER: Thats tragic, isn't it? WINFREY: Yes, it is tragic. Mr. WHITAKER: It's horrible. WINFREY: It is tragic. LING: Do you feel like you know him yet? Mr. WHITAKER: I think he's changed, but I don't know that he has. I can't truly read his heart. I thought I'd read his heart for all these years, but I think I know him much better now than I did before because ... WINFREY: What makes you think he's changed and that he's not just manipulating you? Mr. WHITAKER: Could be. He's good at it. He's proven he has. But my love for him and my forgiveness for him isn't based on him changing. That's between him and God and himself. WINFREY: That's powerful, actually. That's really powerful, because your forgiveness is based upon what you're doing to release yourself from the revenge and the hatred. Mr. WHITAKER: Right, right. WINFREY: Well, we have the Barnhills. What do you want to say, Julie and Matt watching that? They are joining us from their home in Texas. Their daughter Brittany joins us from college in Virginia. Julie and Matt, does it surprise you that Kent has been able to forgive Bart? MATT: No, I'm not surprised. Kent, I mean, Kent's a man of faith and everyday he makes decisions where he's trying to honor God. So the last thing I am is surprised that he wants to be a guy who's got forgiveness in his heart. I mean, that's just the man I know him. WINFREY: You know him, because you're his pastor, right? Yeah. MATT: Well, we were good friends before I was his pastor and I am also his pastor, yes. WINFREY: Yeah. So watching that tape, when we heard you earlier say that what you saw in him, in Bart, was that he was a sociopath and a narcissist. Julie, you'd seen that also, correct? JULIE: Yes, ma'am. I sure have. WINFREY: And so did you... MATT: We came to that conclusion after the shootings. I didn't believe he was a sociopath prior to that. But I visited him in jail and the way he led me through just our talks in jail, the way he continued to lie after the shootings, the seven months before he ran off to Mexico. WINFREY: When Tricia would talk to you about Bart and this whole incident, did she sense some of this? Because I know all, you know, mothers and family members watching you want to know was there something you felt or sensed. I know you said earlier that you believe that she didn't trust him fully. JULIE: I do believe that. I do believe that there was a part of her that was still cautious about him. Even the week before he was graduating she kept saying -- she said to me on Sunday morning at church, she said, I just can't believe he's going to graduate. I can't believe this is really going to happen to him. I just feel like the bottom's going to fall out any minute. And I do think sometimes a mother's heart feels when something's just not quite right. WINFREY: Yeah. JULIE: At the same time, she wanted to believe so desperately in her child that she loved so very much. WINFREY: I hear what you're saying. Did you ever have any of those feelings, Kent? Mr. WHITAKER: It's hard -- here I am on national television. And, yes, I have -- you see things, but you don't believe them. There are so many other positive things that happen that convince you that you want to believe your kids. And I do know that it's probably wrong, but a lot of times I think Tricia told her girlfriends stuff that she didn't tell me. LING: Do you feel sorry for what you did? BART: Sorry is just a word. It doesn't even come close to what I feel. I would do anything to change it, but, you know, I can't, so ... LING: Why should we believe what you're saying? I mean, so much of your life has, frankly, been a lie. BART: That's ultimately a decision that you have to make. I mean, I can only tell you what I'm feeling inside and you can, just like everybody, choose to believe that or not. LING: Did it surprise you when your father forgave you? BART: Yeah, I don't mean to say that I didn't think he was capable of it, but when somebody does something that amazing, yeah, it's always a little surprising. LING: Do you think you deserve that forgiveness? BART: It's very easy for me to forgive other people. It's incredibly difficult for me to forgive myself, so. LING: Do you have any idea what your last words will be? BART: I know that there's some things that I'll talk about to my dad during our last visit, but I don't want anyone there at my execution. It's an ugly thing to have to see and I wouldn't want them to carry that for the rest of their lives. WINFREY: So would you want to be there? Mr. WHITAKER: Of course I'll be there. I'll be there. WINFREY: And, Matt, you will probably be saying the last words, right? WINFREY: Yeah, so Lisa did you believe him? I'm looking at the audience. The audience isn't buying it. I'll tell you that right now. LING: It's a hard question, I mean, Bart was very... WINFREY: Especially when he says, It's easy for me to forgive other people, but hard to forgive myself. You didn't forgive your own mother for bringing you into the world. You didn't forgive your brother who loved and adored you. So what is he talking about, it's easy for me to forgive others? LING: You know, it's a hard question for me to answer, because he was very convincing and he seemed in that hour-long interview very remorseful. But I sincerely had to keep checking myself, knowing that -- I don't know that there has been a single person who's been able to really know who the real Bart is. So was he remorseful? He seemed so, but whether he is in fact, only he knows.
