Bart himself offered to plead guilty in exchange for life terms.
The Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office refused.
Prosecutors believed the crime deserved death.
They also believed Bart was manipulative and that his apparent remorse could not be trusted.
So in February 2007, the case went before a jury.
The first major witness against Bart was the man he had tried to have killed. His own father took the stand and told the jury he believed Bart was guilty.
Kent did not protect Bart from the truth.
He described December 10.
The dinner.
The front door.
Kevin entering first.
The shots.
Tricia.
His own wound.
Then he described the later jail meeting.
Bart's apology.
The realization.
His son had been behind it.
For prosecutors, Kent was the most powerful possible witness.
No detective could describe the betrayal better than the surviving father.
Yet Kent's testimony would later become equally powerful for the defense during punishment.
He believed Bart was guilty.
He still wanted him alive.
Steven Champagne also testified.
He described Bart's planning in detail.
He explained how discussions that sounded like dark jokes became a real conspiracy.
He described waiting at Pappadeaux.
Following the Whitaker vehicle.
Parking behind the neighboring house.
Waiting for Brashear.
Driving away after the attack.
He told jurors what Brashear said.
He told them about the stolen cash.
The evidence disposal.
Then prosecutors brought in participants from the earlier plots.
Adam Hipp.
Justin Peters.
Will Anthony.
Different years.
Different young men.
Same central person.
Bart.
The message was difficult to escape.
If December 2003 had been the only evidence, perhaps the defense could portray the murders as one terrible collapse.
The older conspiracies suggested persistence.
Bart had allegedly been looking for the right people and the right circumstances for years.
The prosecution also emphasized how Bart selected vulnerable acquaintances.
Some were experiencing academic or personal difficulties.
The state's theory was that Bart recognized weaknesses and exploited them.
Bart's defense challenged the way prosecutors interpreted those relationships.
But by then the evidentiary problem was enormous.
Bart himself eventually took the stand during the punishment phase.
He no longer seriously denied responsibility.
At one point he plainly acknowledged that he had put the plan in motion.
The central battle was shifting.
Not guilt.
Life or death.
Bart had spent years creating fake stories about school, murder scenes and innocence. Now, to save his life, he had to convince twelve jurors that his newest story about himself was finally true.
Bart told jurors that money was not the full explanation.
The prosecution saw approximately $1.5 million in potential inheritance as an obvious motive.
Bart said something darker.
He described irrational resentment toward his family.
Years later, he would explain it as blaming his parents for who he believed he had become.
He said he wanted revenge for being alive.
That admission complicates the clean financial-motive version.
A million-dollar inheritance gives the public a simple answer.
Money.
Greed.
Kill family.
In reality, Bart had access to significant family support already.
His parents paid expenses.
He had received opportunities.
Evidence showed access to an $80,000 financial account or annuity.
Kent later insisted the prosecution exaggerated the family's wealth and that Bart's motive could not be reduced to inheritance.
Bart's own explanation focused more on alienation, inadequacy and hatred.
The prosecution argued that whatever language Bart used after the fact, he had repeatedly discussed financial benefit with the people he recruited.
Both can be true.
Money can be part of a plan without explaining the entire psychology behind it.
Jurors did not have to solve Bart completely.
They had to answer Texas's capital sentencing questions.
Would he represent a future danger?
Was there enough mitigating evidence to justify life instead of death?
Kent took the stand again.
So did Patricia's brother.
Family members asked for mercy.
They told jurors Tricia and Kevin would not want Bart executed.
Kent asked the court to leave his remaining son alive.
But prosecutors argued that Bart remained manipulative.
They pointed to his history.
His lies.
The repeated plots.
His efforts to interfere with the investigation.
The fact that even after Kent survived, Bart allegedly discussed finishing the job.
The jury deliberated for about ten hours.
When they returned, some jurors were crying.
Bart Whitaker was sentenced to death.
Kent Whitaker had survived his son's murder plan. Now he began a second fight: stopping Texas from killing that same son.
For many people, Kent's decision was almost impossible to understand.
Forgiveness is easy to discuss abstractly.
The Whitaker case forced the idea into its most extreme form.
Kent was not forgiving someone who stole from him.
Not someone who insulted him.
Not even someone who accidentally caused a death.
He was forgiving the person who deliberately arranged an attack on his family.
A son who knew his mother was going to be shot.
A brother who knew Kevin was going to be shot.
A child who knew his father was supposed to die too.
Kent's forgiveness developed through his Christian faith.
He later wrote publicly about choosing not to let hatred become another consequence of the crime.
The decision did not mean he believed Bart should be free.
He supported permanent imprisonment.
The distinction mattered.
Forgiveness did not mean absence of punishment.
Kent believed Bart should spend his life behind bars.
He simply opposed execution.
To Kent, death would not resurrect Tricia.
It would not resurrect Kevin.
It would only create another death.
And this time Kent would know the exact date and hour in advance.
That belief separated him sharply from the prosecutors.
Fred Felcman, one of the prosecutors, continued to view Bart as dangerous and manipulative.
When clemency was eventually discussed, Felcman argued that the father was only one person affected.
Patricia's death mattered.
Kevin's death mattered.
The jury mattered.
Other relatives mattered.
The community mattered.
Why should Kent's forgiveness override the sentence twelve jurors imposed?
Kent's answer centered on victimhood.
Texas often speaks about victims' rights.
What happens when the surviving victim asks for mercy?
Does victim voice matter only when it asks for harsher punishment?
That philosophical question would become central in 2018.