Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Killed His Own Parents - The Bart Whitaker Story

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

In 2003, Thomas “Bart” Whitaker orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot against his own family in Sugar Land, Texas, in order to claim his inheritance. After luring his parents and brother home from a celebratory dinner, his friend Christopher Brashear ambushed them inside the house, killing Bart’s mother and brother and seriously wounding his father, Kent.

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and Bart has a big problem. For some reason, he kind of hates his family. I guess they expect way too much from him, and over the years, he has come to resent them. So one day in 2000, he decides he's going to get rid of his family for good, and he's going to do it by hiring a hitman and having them assassinated, which is a win for Bart because he will also then inherit like $1.5 million. So he goes to hire some hitmen, but I guess the best he can find are his two college roommates. So he goes to his two college roommates and he's like, hey, I'll pay you to break into my family's house and assassinate them. And these two roommates are like, alright. All right.

So these guys head over to Bart's family's place. Once they're there, they go to a window in the back of the house because they're going to break in. And as soon as they touch that window, boom, the alarm goes off. And these two roommates are like, oh shit! And they run away. So that plan fails. But Bart is not ready to give up yet. A few months later, he approaches another friend.

And he's like, hey, I'll pay you to break into my family's house and assassinate them. And this friend is like, all right. But as they start talking more about this plan, he can see that Bart is actually dead serious, and he really wants him to commit murder. So ultimately, he gets spooked and he backs out. So another plan has failed. So now it's 2001, and Bart is ready to try a third time.

And while he's looking for any friend he can hire as a hitman, a college acquaintance of his hears rumors about his. assassination plot and she must be like the only decent human being in his friend group because she goes and she reports him to the police and police then tell Bart's family about their son's attempt to kill them but for whatever reason they don't believe it they think it sounds so crazy that it has to be a mistake and of course they go and ask Bart and he lies to them and he tells them like oh no it's just a big misunderstanding and they unfortunately believe him and two

Two more years go by, and it's now 2003. And Bart decides to try a fourth time. And that is when he approaches these two acquaintances of his, Champagne and Brashear. So Bart approaches Champagne and Brasheer, and he's like, hey, I'll pay you to break into my family's house and assassinate them. And Champagne and Brasier are like, all right, all right. And so these guys, they come up with this whole plan for Bart to lure his family out of the house. and once they're out, Champagne and Brasheer are going to break in and mess the place up to make it look like a burglary. Later, once the family comes home, Brashear is going to shoot all of them.

That way, it'll look like a robbery gone wrong. And so they get to work, and they set their plan into motion. And Bart, he goes to his family, and he's like, hey, I'm about to graduate from college. He's actually not, though. He's actually on academic probation, and he's not even enrolled in college this semester. But this is what he tells them so that they offer to take him out to dinner to celebrate. So they all go out to dinner. Once they're out, Champagne and Brasheer pull up to the place.

And Champagne, he waits in the car as the getaway driver, while Brashear enters the house through a door that Bart had left unlocked for him. Now, he's supposed to mess the place up to make it look like a burglary. But for whatever reason, he just doesn't. He just waits. Meanwhile, Bart is out at dinner with his mom and his dad and his brother, and they're all having a good time, and they're celebrating his fake accomplishment. His family even gifts him a $4,000 Rolex as a way of saying,

Good job graduating, son. You know, they actually sound like a really nice family. I don't know why he wants to assassinate them so bad. But anyway, eventually dinner ends and they all head back to their house. And here is where things get dark. So the family gets home. and brother unlocks the door and he walks in first. And suddenly, Brashear is there and he's got a pistol pointed right at him and blam, he shoots him.

Then Mom walks in and blam, Brasheer shoots her too. And dad, he's outside and he doesn't understand what the noise is coming from the inside of the house. So he walks in and blam Brashear shoots him too. Then just as they planned, Bart walks into the house and Brashear shoots him in the arm. You know, to make it look like he's not in on the murder. Then Brashear runs back to the getaway car and Champagne drives them away. Meanwhile, Bart calls 911 and the whole family is rushed to the hospital and unfortunately, mom and brother don't make it.

While Bart's dad actually survives. Now, police investigate this whole thing, and Bart tells them that he, of course, thinks this was all a burglary gone wrong, that some random burglar broke in and his family simply came home at the wrong time. But police, they look over the house. And remember, Brashear was supposed to mess the place up to make it look like it had been ransacked, but for some reason, he didn't do that. So police are immediately skeptical about this being a random burglar. In fact, Bart himself is acting pretty suspicious.

But police have no hard evidence that he did anything wrong. You know, maybe he's just a weird guy. But then, pretty quickly, one of the detectives working on the case gets an anonymous tip. And this anonymous tipster wants to meet in person because they claim that they have information about the murders. So one night, this detective goes to a dark parking lot behind the police station to meet this mysterious tipster. Now, this tipster just happens to be the friend who Bart had asked to assassinate his family the second time back in 2000. The friend who said, all right, but then got scared and backed out. So this friend tells the detective everything from that time.

So now police know that Bart is involved in this plot. And so they set up a whole sting operation. And that friend allows them to tap his phone while he calls Bart. Here's the thing, though. Unfortunately, this friend can't get Bart to admit to anything, except that he is actually acquainted with Champagne and Bresher. So this wiretapping sting thing completely fails. Not only that, but around this time, Bart decides that it's time to flee the country.

And I don't know if friends' weird wiretapped phone call tipped him off or spooked him or what, but seven months after the shooting, Bart steals $7,000 from his dad and he flees from Texas all the way down to Mexico. And there, he starts a completely new life. Like he changes his name to Rudy Rios, which just sounds made up. He also finds an apartment and he gets a job at a local furniture store and he even finds himself a girlfriend. Meanwhile, back in Texas, police bring Champagne and Brasheer each in for questioning. And Champagne, he cracks immediately. He gets all scared and he confesses that he was the getaway driver and that Brasier was the shooter

and that most importantly that Bart himself had planned the whole thing. So, bam, police arrest Champagne. Here's his mugshot. Also, bam, they arrest Bashir. Here's his mugshot. And that's great and all. However, at this point, Bart has fled the country and no one has any idea where he is. So it looks like he's just going to keep living his new life in Mexico and no one will ever find him.

Until. Oh, of course they're going to find him. Come on. At some point, a friend who helped him cross the border actually snitches on him and turns him into police hoping to get some reward money. And so, bam, he gets arrested. Here's his mugshot. And so ultimately, Champagne, the getaway driver, he gets 15 years in prison, Brashear gets life in prison, while Bart also gets life in prison.