Savage Son by Corey Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

brown loafers. He began the walk-through videotaping session by turning off the light switch in the foyer so that the room was nearly pitch black.
    Bart calmly walked out of the front entrance, where half his family had been murdered, made his way out onto the front porch, and then turned right onto the poorly lit driveway and headed toward the garage. He was reenacting what had occurred just after the family pulled into the driveway—after they returned from the restaurant, and before they headed inside.
    Bart and three officers stood in the driveway as if they were seated in the car. Bart was in the back driver’s side, next to his father. Kevin was the driver and Tricia sat up front in the passenger seat. As they imaginarily exited the vehicle, Bart calmly walked back up the driveway and pointed out where his Yukon had been parked in the street.
    Though the murders had occurred only four nights before, Bart did not appear distressed in any way. Instead, he looked like he was giving directions to a lost tourist by pointing out some of the town’s unique landmarks.
    Bart directed the officers playing the roles of his family members to walk along the front of the house, while he made a beeline for the street to go to his vehicle. Bart turned around to the camera and replied, “I heard Bang…. ” The complete lack of emotion could not have been more apparent.
    Bart continued the reenactment by traipsing through the fallen dry leaves in the front yard. “I paused,” he continued, “seeing my dad on the ground.” Bart moved forward and then directed the officers where to lie on the ground so as to resemble his dead mother and dead brother. As he pointed out their respective fallen spots, again not a single ounce of emotion was evident on his face. It felt more like a choreographed dance as opposed to the supposedly most traumatic experience a young man could have ever gone through in his short life.
    As Bart directed the officer playing Kevin where to lie down, he said, “You weren’t that much in the way, so maybe you were somewhere over here, instead.”
    Another officer played the suspect. When Bart spotted him, he said, “I saw you running,” as though actually talking to the killer. “When I ran into the door”—he recalled his alleged heroic motion—“I could see you running away. I ran in this way.” Bart headed into the dark living room. “I guess somewhere in here, I got shot. I fell back into the couch, onto the floor, and I remember I got up to use the phone to call 911.”

10
     
    Fall 1996
Sugar Land, Texas
     
    Adam Hipp met Bart Whitaker at Clements High School in Sugar Land, Texas, back in 1996. Hipp was a junior, and one year older than Bart. The two boys were introduced to one another via a mutual friend from a journalism class they all shared. While working on the school’s yearbook and newspaper, Adam and Bart became friendly acquaintances. They mostly hung out together on the school’s campus and in class, but they seldom spent time together away from school, at first.
    The two students, however, did seem to run in the same circle of friends at Clements. The two handsome young men considered their circle to be the elite among the rest of the students at Clements, an already wealthy school, thus making them the elite of the elite—at least in their own minds.
    Despite such a high opinion of himself, Hipp apparently did not do well enough in school to attend a four-year college, such as Rice, Texas, or Texas A&M. Instead, he settled for a satellite school, the Sugar Land campus of Wharton County Junior College.
    Meanwhile, Bart would advance to his senior year at Clements High School.
    Bart and Adam became closer friends that same year. Their main bonding experiences would come during casual weight-lifting sessions. Adam had expressed his desire to work out and talked to Bart about partnering up with him. Bart suggested that Adam move his weight equipment into the Whitaker house. He