But first Bart spent more than ten years on death row.
And something happened during those years that made Kent's argument stronger: even people living and working inside death row began writing letters asking Texas to spare Bart.
Bart entered the Texas prison system as inmate number 999522.
His death sentence was affirmed on direct appeal in 2009.
Further post-conviction challenges followed.
Legally, the case moved slowly through the machinery typical of capital punishment.
Personally, Bart's life became extremely narrow.
Death row.
A cell.
Visits.
Correspondence.
Books.
Writing.
According to later clemency materials, Bart became active in helping other prisoners.
He wrote.
He participated in educational programs.
He became associated with the prison-writing project Minutes Before Six, named for the hour at which executions were traditionally scheduled.
He completed college work through correspondence.
By the time his execution approached, supporters said he had earned undergraduate and graduate-level education in English literature.
That transformation became part of the clemency campaign.
Former prison guards wrote letters.
Fellow prisoners wrote letters.
Teachers and religious figures wrote letters.
Supporters described someone very different from the twenty-three-year-old who orchestrated the murders.
Prosecutors remained skeptical.
Transformation is difficult to prove.
A person can behave well in prison because prison removes many opportunities to do otherwise.
A manipulative person can become even better at presenting reform.
The original prosecutors continued to believe Bart understood how to influence people.
Kent believed the change was genuine.
He had visited Bart over years.
Their relationship had rebuilt itself under conditions neither could have imagined in 2003.
No ordinary father-son future remained.
No vacations.
No family dinners.
No grandchildren gathering at Kent's house through Bart.
Their relationship existed across prison barriers.
Yet Kent believed that relationship had value.
He also believed Bart had value to other people.
That belief became urgent when Texas finally set the execution date.
February 22, 2018.
After fourteen years of visiting the son who had destroyed his family, Kent learned the state had chosen the day Bart would die. He decided to fight harder than ever.
The clemency petition posed an unusual moral question.
Who would Bart's execution punish?
Obviously Bart.
But Kent argued he would suffer too.
He had already lost Patricia.
He had already lost Kevin.
Execution would remove the last member of his immediate family.
The petition asked officials to consider whether killing Bart was more important than sparing Kent additional suffering.
More than sixty letters reportedly supported the request.
Some came from relatives.
Some from teachers.
Some from counselors.
Some from religious leaders.
Some from former prison personnel.
At least several came from other men living on death row.
The clemency effort did not argue that Bart should eventually return to society.
That option was deliberately removed.
Bart agreed to permanently waive claims to parole if his death sentence were commuted.
Life without parole.
No release.
No future hearing at which he could argue he had served enough time.
Texas could punish him until death.
It simply would not choose the date.
The original prosecution opposed clemency.
Felcman argued that the parole board should not allow one forgiving father to outweigh the murders.
A juror also opposed mercy.
They emphasized that Bart was the mastermind.
Chris Brashear had pulled the trigger, but prosecutors considered Brashear a weapon Bart had chosen.
At trial, the state had described Bart as the person who could substitute one shooter for another because the central constant was Bart himself.
That point mattered in 2018 because Brashear had received life, while Bart faced execution.
Governor Abbott would later mention that disparity.
The actual gunman had not been sentenced to death.
The planner had.
That alone did not make Bart deserving of mercy, Abbott said.
But combined with Kent's opposition, Bart's parole waiver and the parole board's recommendation, it mattered.
First, however, the Board of Pardons and Paroles had to vote.
Texas clemency recommendations in death cases are rare. What happened next surprised even people who had spent years working on Bart's case.
The seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles considered Bart's application.
Members met separately with Bart and Kent.
On February 20, 2018, two days before the scheduled execution, the board announced its recommendation.
Unanimous.
Commute the death sentence.
Do not execute Thomas Bart Whitaker.
For Kent, it was an extraordinary victory.
But it did not save Bart yet.
The board could recommend.
Governor Greg Abbott had to act.
Abbott was not known as an opponent of capital punishment.
By that point in his governorship, he had allowed roughly thirty executions to proceed.
He had never commuted a death sentence.
Texas itself had not seen a governor accept this kind of recommendation in more than a decade.
There was no guarantee he would start with Bart Whitaker.
So the clock continued.
February 22 arrived.
Bart was moved toward the death chamber process.
Kent waited.
Attorneys waited.
Officials waited.
The scheduled time approached.
According to later reporting, Bart had already eaten what would have been his final meal.
At approximately 5:30 in the evening, the execution was only about half an hour away.
Then the decision arrived.
Abbott accepted the parole board's recommendation.
Thomas Bartlett Whitaker's death sentence was commuted to life without the possibility of parole.
The execution stopped.
Abbott issued a detailed explanation.
The murders were reprehensible.
Bart deserved severe punishment.
He would never leave prison.
But several factors justified mercy.
The actual shooter had received life.
Kent Whitaker, a surviving victim, passionately opposed execution.
Bart had permanently waived parole.
The parole board had unanimously recommended commutation.
Abbott concluded those circumstances together were enough.
Bart was removed from death row.
His new sentence guaranteed he would spend the rest of his life imprisoned.
The state had spared Bart's life. But that did not answer the question people had been asking since 2003: why had a son from a comfortable Texas family wanted all three of them dead in the first place?
There is no single answer everyone accepts.
The prosecution's answer was straightforward.
Money.
Bart stood to benefit financially if his parents and brother died.
Police estimated the family estate and business interests could be around $1.5 million.
Earlier recruits testified that inheritance had been part of Bart's discussions.
Steve Champagne testified about financial incentives.
Bart had told accomplices there would be money.
That made greed a logical prosecution theory.
But Kent later objected.
He said the family's wealth had been exaggerated.
He did not believe money explained his son's behavior.
Bart eventually rejected the simple inheritance motive too.