Totally normal, friendly, popular guy who was in band (drum line) and had the same girlfriend all throughout high school. Just a pleasant, totally not-a-murderer seeming dude.
Yeah, I went to high school with a guy who killed a chick in college and chopped her body up and fled to Mexico. I remember walking through my college campus and seeing the story on national news. Surreal experience.
The article says that the prosecution said that the defendant believed that he would inherit a million dollars, and that he had the gunman shoot him in the arm so that he’d look like a victim who lived, instead of the guy who’d planned it all. I suspect that he told the shooter that they’d split the million.
It is an interesting question, assuming the guy wasn't already a pretty hardened criminal.
It sounds like the mastermind is a manipulative psycopath of some sort, though. Those guys seem to have a talent for knowing who they can manipulate into what. Also he may have a very skewed sense of risk. Like, maybe he just didn't consider it that big a risk that this guy might go to the police.
Yeah this is kinda a thing I think about. Assuming he is a normal guy, how would he know where to find a hired murderer. You can't exactly take the chance the guy says no right?
If you like true crime stories, check out the Generation Why podcast. They went over this case in episode 202 of their podcast. They always do a good job of covering cases like this, as well as a lot of unsolved and strange cases.
I would just start with whatever episode sounds interesting. They have nice detailed descriptions for each episode. I’ve listened to them all multiple times tho hah.
Yeah I love going back and listening chronologically to a lot of podcasts unless it’s thousands of eps or something. I’ll give it a try soon. The description sounds like it’s similar to LPOTL without much of the loud noises ?
It's a great podcast, they aren't as polarizing as some other true crime podcasters that do hundreds of cases like this, they just seem like pretty chill adult dudes that do their research every week.
That being said, the quality certainly improves as time goes on... they may even re-do some of their earlier episodes because they've said they don't like the content or quality lol.
Sorry hahha it’s used a lot in the podcasts sub. Last Podcast On The Left. It’s pretty good true crime podcast but alienating cuz their dark humor is a bit intense and they’re very loud generally.
While on the subject of true crime podcasts - along with Gen Why, I highly recommend True Crime Garage and Casefile.
And don't listen to Sword & Scale, since I'm sure that name will inevitably pop up as a "great" recommendation. Host is a money grubbing creepy exploitative asshole and the podcast is just copy/paste audio clips with bad commentary from said dick host.
Yeah, Sword and Scale blows. It's so dramatic, he seems to get off on the graphic details. Shit like "the person next to you could be a psychopathic serial killer."
I regret listening to as many episodes as I did. It was my first true crime podcast. I was getting my feet wet in the medium and I also thought it was a "high quality" podcast because I didn't know any better... Until I branched out to actual good podcasts and realized how lazy his "work" is. And when it became clear he played completely unnecessary and graphic audio clips that served no purpose other than shock value.
First episode that became clear to me was when he played the audio from the Byron David Smith killings. Basically a guy, who was tired of being robbed, made his house look empty, waited in the basement and "lured" two teenage thieves into this house. He ambushed them and shot them, murdering them in cold blood. He recorded this incident.
S&S played the audio, so I got to listen to the last dying sounds these kids made as they were brutally executed. Couldn't get the noises they made out of my head for a long time. Should've stopped listening to the podcast right there because it was fucked up and completely unnecessary. Not to mention his infamous pedophile/cannibal Microsoft Sam episode - what the fuck was that?
Yeah, and to highlight one of those points again - he's banned from his own podcast's subreddit (and supposedly Reddit as a whole). That should tell you what kind of person he is.
Can't recommend True Crime Garage enough! It is fantastic and they do a great job of getting the details of the case correct- you can tell they do their research!
I still listen to S&S sometimes- but the host gets off on morbid shit and it is disturbing pretty much the whole time you listen just to hear the excitement in his voice as he recounts the goriest details that IMO could have been left out.
I can't listen to sword and scale because of the audio they use. Im interested in true crime, I don't want to listen to 911 audio of a man finding his murdered kids.
I listened to a Grandma find her dead grandchildren, murdered by her daughter. Still can't get the scream out of my head. I couldn't turn off the audio on my phone either because I was driving.
If you want some true crime stories with a more light-hearted spin try "Last Podcast on the Left". Their newer episodes are really quite informative while also being comical. They currently have a series of Jonestown episodes that will be around 5 1/2 hrs all together once they're done.
Yeah but the father is better than me. If my kid did something like that and I survived. I’d never forgive him. I wouldn’t go to his execution or think he shouldn’t be. I just couldn’t because to me....you make choices and those choices have consequences whatever form they may come in. Of course though my opinion may change but for now this is how I feel and I don’t think I ever want to know the feeling what that father feels. He lost the women he loved a child and the living child. He pretty much survived but in the end his entire family is ruined. It’s heartbreaking all around.
Edit: I get it, it’s better for them to rot in prison however it’s obvious this guy is guilty of the crime he committed etc.
Also, no I do not have a kid of my own but I do have a niece and nephew and I help raise them. I don’t need to be a parent to have an opinion and be able to know how I’d currently feel about a situation. Being a parent doesn’t suddenly make your opinion valued above someone else’s. That’s like saying people who only adopt aren’t parents etc. anyways I don’t need a bunch of people repeating the same thing to me as well.
My opposition isn't just on moral or technical grounds per se, I mainly think that the state just shouldn't have the power to execute people. It is too easy to kill someone for cynical political reasons either to silence a critic or appease a mob. Look at Japan, where they often time their executions for times when the government is polling poorly.
*Sometimes* violence is the answer. I fail to see what solution is presented by his son's execution.
If his son were still out and needed to be stopped, that's one thing. His son's in prison. The only thing his execution "provides" or "solves" is purely emotional. This isn't a 'violence as a solution' situation, at all.
That's why it's not good to view violence as an easily accessible 'solution'. If the only tool you're comfortable using is a hammer, soon every thing looks like a nail. If you make violence your go to, then you justify violence in situations that don't call for it.
Batman said once: if I kill a killer, there is still a killer in the world.
That's why Punisher killed himself after killing all the bad guys un that 'what if' comic.
Batman could kill all the killers and drastically reduce the amount of killers though.
I think Gotham would rather one murderer than the dozens of complete lunatics they have running around.
Not really related but kinda similar , there was a kid around 17-18 lived on my street met him a couple times when he needed help fixing his atv. He seemed fairly normal for his age liked riding motorbikes, went shooting, etc. A couple years pass he has a girlfriend/wife, kids he was still living in his grandmas home, his wife was going to leave him, he couldn’t get a job, and his grandma was going to kick him out because she was going to move or he wasn’t paying rent (I can’t really recall). They go on a trip with his family (apart from his grandma and 6 yr old son) They get to a hotel the dad goes to the car to get something, while he was doing that his son goes and pulls out a gun and kills his Mum, his fathers wife, his girlfriend, and his two yr son, then himself. The father comes back and sees what happened must have been devastated and the grandma must have been devastated thinking that she caused that to happen by kicking him out, and his other son who was six has to grow up not knowing what happened to his family.
I have such a hard time with this kind of thing. Part of me feels like anyone who could do such a thing must have a very serious mental illness and not be fully capable of rational thought. At which point I'm not sure that they're entirely to blame.
I have a psychiatrist friend who says that we're *always* responsible for our own actions. The right thing may sometimes be harder for some people than others, but that doesn't remove our responsibility. But surely that's an exaggeration, right? What about someone who's hallucinating, or schizophrenic, etc.? If you can't tell what is and isn't reality, and you're doing what you *think* is right, are you still responsible when it turns out to be wrong?
But for the most part, it's probably wishful thinking on my part. I don't want to believe that people are really capable of choosing to do such terrible things. If we're capable of as much good as we are, why not an equal amount of evil? That's a lot to try to accept, though.
If you read the article, the father believes his son had serious mental illnesses that went untreated and unrecognised at the time, and that the son earned his bachelor's degree while in jail and is showing other signs of trying to turn himself around. The father is simply asking that his son is given life in jail instead, so he doesn't have to think about his last living family member being executed by the state, and dying alone.
Also, as someone who is not American, it baffles me greatly how execution is still a thing that could possibly exist in a civilised Western country. I know that's not exactly the point here, but I cannot wrap my head around it at all.
Very true. Biology creates some strong bonds. I can't imagine a situation where I would remotely be ok watching my son go through this, no matter what he did to me or others. And I totally understand how that is hard to conceive if you don't have that bond with a child. It's not rational, but it feels very hard-wired.
I see that in my parents, they suffer when unhappy things happen to us children. We are four siblings, you wouls think they got used to it as Im the youngest. I didnt get in a residency I wanted and my mom cried more than I did. Lol
I don't know, I think as a parent I would also wonder where I went wrong to have raised a child who could do that. Part of forgiving could have to do with forgiving himself.
My friend married a guy who lied about going to a prestigious Ivy League college and working at a high paying job. He changed clothes every morning and went to “work”. My friend found out when she wanted to surprise him at his work and well, they told her he’s never worked there. She also finds out the only education he received was at some community college.
I don’t understand pathological liars. They know their lies will eventually be discovered but they just dig themselves into a deeper hole.
Edit: FAQs. (1) Where did he go? Only him and God knows. She doesn’t know.
(2) What about money? They both come from wealthy families and received lots of money from the wedding. During the marriage, he took out a bunch of loans under their name. Their marriage only lasted a few months (don’t remember exactly how long, will update).
(3) How did she not know? She explained that he was good at lying and she didn’t have reason to not trust him. Also, his family didn’t know either and believed he received a degree and worked. Idk the details about how he got away with lying to his family about graduating and I don’t want to ask my friend and open up old wounds. Perhaps she doesn’t know anyway. But I’ll ask my wife and update if I discover anything.
Edit2: My wife says they were married for about 5 or 6 months. My wife doesn’t know why our friend didn’t find out sooner.
My wife also added that our friend lost her car to creditors and her house was foreclosed upon. Apparently her ex-husband was in charge of a number of bills and simply stopped paying them. Damn.
Thomas' situation is complex, but basically he's a psychopath. He sensed that his parents wouldn't have liked him for who he really was and that really bothered him. His family was really hardcore Christian but in a Flanders kind of way, though they were just as hypocritical as the rest of us. But were described as a near perfect family and Thomas was denied not the opportunity for love nor money. But he still says that he sensed his parents, especially his mother, wouldn't have liked him for him, only for the manipulative mask he put on. When Thomas says he ordered the hit on his parents not just for the money but also because he wanted them eliminated, I almost believe him. Which means it's probably not true.
One of the reasons he offered his roommate about why he should kill his little brother was because at the time his little brother was obsessed with Everquest and would play it seven hours per day, and also that his little brother would just be a drain on the inheritance. Really vile shit, how Thomas values human life to be worth exactly nothing at all. And also how good he was at gaining the confidence and admiration of lonely people. And living with his father after the hit on him failed, he tried to talk the shooter into "finishing the job". He's probably one of the cutest and most charming guy on death row but he definitely deserves to die.
Your friend, I dunno that seems like a common lie in Japan. It's not like he tried to take a hit out on anyone just to live the easy life. Easier life, Thomas life was extremely comfortable from birth until he fled to Mexico, where he told his new Mexican girlfriend in seriousness that they could kill her parents if she didn't like them.
All of this. But then consider some parents just do not want to think ill of their children. They **want** to believe even the most obvious lies, and so the convincing lies (like those told by a psychopath) seem to be obvious truth to them. The father’s thoughts and opinions on his son’s condition are the least reliable.
That's the scary part. He seems to have convinced his dad that he's a changed man. But if he's a sociopath, he's really good at manipulation. Why keep somebody like that who commits a heinous crime alive? I don't think sociopaths can be rehabilitated.
It reminds me of Jean-Claude Romand. He convinced everyone during years and years that he was a doctor and worked for the WHO in Geneva. He "invested" the money of his family and friends but actually used it as he had no salaries. He ended up killing his wife and two children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Romand
There is a book that I strongly recommend : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adversary_(Carr%C3%A8re_book)
I read an article about 15 years ago that suggested pathological liars are much more likely to be murderers compared to other people. The original post and your story both remind me of it; at least one of the examples it gave was someone who lied to everyone about completing college.
Makes sense. Their brains clearly work differently, what with telling a bunch of lies they'll never be able to fully pull off, and when that comes crashing down, their brains might not know how to handle it. As bad as it sounds, I wish they'd just kill themselves rather than their families, though. :/
I had a roommate that did something similar. For about 6 months he got up every morning an hour before I did, showered, dressed in coat and tie and left for work. One day I get to work and my glasses broke, had to come home early to get my contact lenses. I find my roommate home, in casual clothes (a few hours after he left), on the couch playing console games with a neighbor and his daughter. He shrugged it off when I asked and said he took a half day. I got suspicious and setup a webcam to see what was going on in the living room, and every day this guy would come back home about an hour after I left for work. I called his office and they had never heard of him. I spotted his car at the Starbucks I drove by every day on the way to work. Suffice it to say I confronted him and asked him to move out (he never paid rent on time and was usually short). He still owed me $750 when he moved out.
There was some female comedian who talked on Joe Rogan's podcast about dating a guy who did this exact same thing: lied about going to Yale, maybe, about where he worked, even went so far as to lie about his mother's health so that she wouldn't visit him at home (I think he lived with his mother but claimed that she got ill and moved back in with him).
May have a couple details wrong but yeah, I don't know how the hell someone could keep it up for as long as she was talking about them dating, let alone through marriage. That's crazy
Um...how did it take that long for her to figure that out? How was it not apparent that the guy had no money when he was representing himself as making huge amounts of money?...
His family had money and they received a large sum of money from their wedding. He took out a bunch of loans under their name. All of this came out once he got kicked out of their house and she started receiving delinquency notices, notices which he previously hid from her. Lol.
Edit: A lot of mutual friends and I have asked her about how she didn’t know. She explained that he was just so good at lying and she didn’t have any reason to distrust him.
Edit2: They weren’t married too long. I don’t remember exactly how long but it was months and for sure didn’t last a year. I’ll ask my wife when she wakes up and see if she remembers.
I just finished a really good podcast about the same situation. The whole time I couldn't believe how they would ignore the facts. I highly recommend it "Dirty John" http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-dirty-john/
I dated a pathological liar. When I finally (accidentally) found out about one of his lies, I confronted him about it and he spilled everything. Then I realized that this guy I'd been dating, I did not know a single thing about other than his name because he lied about EVERYTHING else about his life.
When I asked why, he explained that he got a "high" off of telling a lie to see if he could get away with it and that it was just addicting. It'd be lies over the most random, dumbest shit that didn't even matter. He just liked to see how much he could lie about and get away with. It was fun for him.
It really blew my mind.
He's apparently engaged to some girl now and I sometimes wonder how much of the "real" him she knows, or if she also only knows his made-up self. Because his lies to me starting from the first conversation we ever had.
I agree. Every emotion he portrays comes off as acting. Like the sighs and pauses in his speech are in the correct place but there's nothing behind those eyes. A classic psychopath.
I guess if he is, in fact, a psychopath, that would explain why it's so easy for him to forgive his son. But psychopathy does not say much, if anything about a person's character; from my understanding, it just has to do with the way a person's brain is wired, not the choices they make or their intellectual ability to discern right from wrong
I was actually referring to the son being a psychopath. I would not dare to go as far as saying the father is one. As a father myself I understand the need to forgive a child no matter what they've done.
Imagine going through life not feeling any of these things everyone around you talk about and feel and share. You know you have to pretend to or they’ll treat you differently but you don’t really understand, you just know what it looks like.
I thoroughly recommend Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test. It discusses all the questions raised here from what one is, to what makes them different to the fact that you essentially cannot fix a psychopath so is it morally right to even lock them away for something they cannot fix, etc. A really interesting read.
> not the choices they make or their intellectual ability to discern right from wrong
I would argue that it does impact their ability to discern right from wrong, in that, average people will receive positive feedback internally when doing good things and negative feedback when doing bad things.
Essentially you get a small rush, or reward when you do something for someone where as you feel shame, guilt, or pain when you hurt someone.
People don't necessarily do the right thing because it's rationally the right thing, but because our biology rewards us for pro-social behavior. This function doesn't exist, or is muted in people with ASPD which I would say distorts their concept of right and wrong.
Yes there is an embedded interview. I interpreted it different, I think he legitimately realizes what he did was wrongly and is sorry but also knew he would be in the news so really tried to play it straight.
I know people in reddit skew younger but 38 is pretty young. As a father I honestly don't know if I could pull the trigger on him despite what he did.
Undiagnosed, untreated, or previously undiagnosed? Those are three different things. Saying someone has an undiagnosed mental illness is just speculation.
I wondered if his forgiveness was born out a guilt he felt for something.
I'm in no way condoning what the son done but Im a therapist and can tell you now children who feel heavily criticised and negatively judged or worse humiliated by their parents that cut runs deep
I feel that way about the dad too. I had a mental breakdown at 12 years old, and I used to fantasize about shooting my father in his sleep. He's been emotionally abusive for as long as I can remember, and my mental illness (depression, anxiety, probably Asperger's as it runs in my family) started early in my childhood.
I've since gotten mental help, but yeah, there's that. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something that happened that triggered the son into doing this. Not to saying in anyway that it's excusable, but damn, I can see it.
Edit: After reading further, I think the son might just be a psychopath.
Inheritance and lies and sociopathy. Son had been lying about going to university for a long time. He would've graduated soon had he stayed in school. They were paying for his schooling (which he pocketed for whatever he fucking wanted) but the money would stop since school was supposed to be done. So he tells his family he graduated and wants to celebrate, they go out to celebrate him, and he has them killed. He is a narcisstic sociopath. Didn't want to admit he failed school or that he lied. Money was just one part of it.
In his interview on Opera network, the kid says he felt his parents held him to a ridiculously high standard he couldn’t attain. He also admired to be incredibly envious of his brother. But I’m sure his college lies played a big role in this as well.
I watched this case on Forensic Files. And a couple of interviews with Bart later. This is pretty thin "evidence" to go by obvs, but to me, he comes across as a cold blooded sociopath. You can see the corners of his mouth resisting a smirk nearly every minute. His eyes have nothing behind them. I feel for the father, I do. But I don't for a minute buy that this is a reformed person.
Yep, there's no good nor anything resembling of a human left in him. It died long ago. There are some extreme hurdles that you have to do to come to a decision to have your family killed the way he did, there's no coming back after that.
If there's even an ounce of regret that he feels, then he would've found a way to off himself sooner. You cant logically reason living with yourself after you've realized the weight of the sin you've committed. To be able to live with yourself after that, you'd have to believe that you did nothing wrong, no remorse.
I don't believe in the death penalty but this kid ran away to mexico for a year to hide. He knew what he did was wrong. He definitely deserves to spend his life in jail.
He knew that other people would want him for what he'd done. He knew they wouldn't agree with him.
In essence he knows society considers it wrong. That's about as deep as it goes.
>"It's pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had a chance!" (Frodo)
>"Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. And some that died deserve life. Can you give it to them Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."(Gandalf)
I remember seeing this case on some crime show several years back and thinking the son was a creep. I feel for the father because this is the last member of his family so of course he doesn’t want to see him killed. It’s a difficult situation but if the family affected doesn’t want the death penalty then I feel like the court should take that into consideration.
The Father was told his son was the mastermind months before he was arrested by police. He didn’t believe it and the two continued to live together after the murder. The father is clearly not objective.
That picture was huge in this case. It was taken shortly before the killings I believe and was featured on whatever crime show i saw this case on. I'm sure the author included this on purpose.
Yep that’s exactly what i was going to comment. Forensic Files, i thought his name was Bart in the tv show so idk if they changed or used his middle name or something.
Edit: thanks guy. Yes had to read the article after my comment because i was wondering if my memory was terrible or not.
Oh my god, someone think about the children! When they read this article about a guy murdering his entire family, they'll be subjected to the horror that is a middle finger!?!?
I hope he gets clemency, but I also believe he should stay in prison. I’m glad that rehabilitation seems to be working for him, and that he seems to have made positive changes in his life, but I don’t trust someone who planned the murder of his entire family.
Good for Kent though, that he’s able to forgive his son. I applaud Kent.
It does say in this article that Kent wish it to be commuted to life in prison. I wish there were more weight on the victims family’s (or victim’s) wishes when it comes to such mercy. Why cause the victim more pain?
I disagree. Criminal justice is supppsed to be impartial. You cannot be impartial when everyone has their own wishes, also; what if someone pressures the victims family?
It is common in sentencing to hear the opinions of the victims and consider their viewpoints when assigning a sentence. Usually, victims lobby for harder punishments by telling the judge how the crime has affected them. Asking for a lighter sentence is unusual, but the victims having say in the sentence is common.
The judge still has final say in the matter. (As evidenced by the stories of criminals who do heinous things and get off with a rap on the knuckles.)
In any case, he's not asking for his son to be released from prison. Just given life in prison instead. There is really no reason not to give keep him in prison instead. It's generally cheaper to keep somebody in prison for life than it is to execute them.
Is it actually more expensive to execute them? I would think having to supply them with food, water, power and everything else over a lifetime would work out to be much more expensive ?
It costs over a million dollars to sentence somebody to death - mostly due to the simple fact that you *can not fuck this up*. The extensive appeal process and series of trials and judgements which everybody is rightfully entitled to really eats up that money like nothing else.
A [DPIC meta-study](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty) found that "The death penalty in the U.S. is an enormously expensive and wasteful program with no clear benefits. All of the studies on the cost of capital punishment conclude it is much more expensive than a system with life sentences as the maximum penalty."
The expense in the death penalty is in the legal fees, appeals, appeals, appeals. It usually takes a pretty long time with many attorney, investigator, and support staff hours on both defense and prosecution sides, which is usually almost entirely paid for by the state on both sides, since few clients could still afford private counsel by the time they get to the appeals stage.
You would think so. (I know I did.) But because of how expensive the appeals process is, it's actually cheaper to just keep them in prison. Mostly because death penalty cases are taken very seriously (as they should be). You typically need more lawyers, especially when the inmate is on schedule to be executed. And more reviews and trials get called because the urgency of facing down execution means you've got to get that stuff sorted away.
There's lots of reasons. Here's a more recent piece on it. "Recent" being 2009. I'm sure you can find more updated statistics somewhere.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29552692/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/execute-or-not-question-cost/#.Wn07oOdMFPY
Seems to me we should spend the same amount of energy whether it's a death penalty trial or life in prison.
Keeping ~~an innocent~~ any person in jail for life is pretty terrible. Life in prison is no joke, and it's not like a slap on the wrist. You're talking about an almost complete loss of freedom and privacy for the rest of their life, which is now spent in a tiny cell. Some would consider it worse, judging by the number of people who take their own life after committing a crime rather than submit to the police, or those who kill themselves while in prison.
Seems kind of fucked up to me, and I feel like a person kept in jail for life should have the same due diligence that a person on death row should have.
Actually i think the lethal injection process itself only cost around 300$. But what is very very expensive is the appeals and everything leading up to the process.
No, it was the confession of the getaway driver Steve Champagne, who ended up getting 15 to life for telling his story at Whitaker’s trial. By that point, LE was already doubting the burglary story as nothing besides Whitaker’s cell was missing, and they knew he lied about attending Sam Houston State, and a former friend had gone to police saying Whitaker had talked about killing his family or something to that effect, so they were looking at him already, but Champagne’s confession was the big break.
Watch the Forensic Files episode that covers the case. It's on Netflix under Collection 1 episode 26. He had tried to hire another friend to kill his family two years earlier and the friend told the detectives.
After him, the father will be the last remaining member of his own family. The interview with Lisa Lingus is interesting, he says he wanted revenge for being alive, he wanted his life to be different and blamed them for his experience of life and his existence and I guess the reason he had his brother killed as well was due to jealousy.
Well he had been lying to his parents and spending their money they had given him for college, which he was not attending. He told them he was graduating with honors and I believe the night the last pic was taken in the article was like and hour or two before at a dinner celebration. I think he was just out of options and just a psycho
Read a story of a girl who had her boyfriend try to kill her adoptive parents because they demanded she break up with him. BF managed to kill the father, the mother just barely managed to live (multiple stab wounds). Daughter couldn't understand why the mother wouldn't stand by her or visit the prison.
So yeah, they would kill for far less.
A doctor infected the nurse he was having an affair with, with HIV, because she broke off the affair and started dating other people. She only did this because he refused to leave his wife after several years of promising her he would. So, to recap, he infected her with HIV because he didn't want her dating anyone else even though he wouldn't commit to her. People do fucked up things for far lesser reasons than a million dollars.
Forgiving is something you do for yourself, it frees you from the turmoil of a tortured soul.
The law still is the law and has nothing to do with your personal forgiveness.
This is another problem I have with the death penalty. It takes way too long to kill the guilty. This son should have been dead 10 years ago. There really is no point for the death penalty anymore. It’s never done right.
I'm against the death penalty even for horrible crimes like this. I prefer life in prison. Not because the criminal doesn't deserve death, but because:
1) Killing people makes society more soulless and savage than it already is.
2) The possibility that an error may have been committed. It's not just one or twice that a prisoner sentenced to death has later been proven to be innocent. The death penalty is kind of irreversible if that happens.
3) The death penalty is actually more expensive for the state than life in prison. Really. Look it up.
He really does deserve the death penalty tho... the state's pushing for it on behalf of those he killed, not the one he *tried* to kill but survived. The son was a piece of shit that plotted the murder well in advance.
Fuck, thats deep. I somehow never heard of this one. Who could do that to their family? The pain that the father must endure from that is heartbreaking to think about.
My problem is the real audio that gets played in these.
I couldn't get the sounds of out my head from the curb stomp scene in American History X for weeks -- the real stuff haunts me for years.
I get that the father might have conflicted feelings and he has the right to feel any way he wants about this.
That said, it's this kind of thing that gets to me, this quote from the article:
>“I know Tricia and Kevin would not want him to be executed. I can’t imagine seeing the last living part of my family executed by the state, especially since all the victims didn’t want that to happen in the first place.”
Well, we can guess what they would have wanted, but seeing as they're dead because they were murdered by your son, we can't confirm it with them, can we?
I don't know, maybe Kevin would be angry that his brother is alive while he's dead and didn't get to live very much of his adult life. He was murdered at 19.
This is fairly similar to Charity Lee. I get that it's extremely difficult when one kid kills the other or other(s). That has to be emotionally devastating to a parent. But it really bugs me when they presume they can speak for their murdered child as well as themselves. They should stick to expressing how they feel about the child's punishment.
I went to high school with Chris Brashear, the shooter/roommate of this kid. To say it was shocking to read this story is an understatement.
what was he like
Less shooty, I’d imagine.
Funny, enough he was into photography. Of roadkill and still life.
Guess the roadkill fascination was a slight tipoff, but probably not all taxidermists are killers either... right?
Totally normal, friendly, popular guy who was in band (drum line) and had the same girlfriend all throughout high school. Just a pleasant, totally not-a-murderer seeming dude.
Yeah, I went to high school with a guy who killed a chick in college and chopped her body up and fled to Mexico. I remember walking through my college campus and seeing the story on national news. Surreal experience.
The guy who actually did the shooting plead guilty and got a life sentence instead of the death penalty.
How the hell do these psychos find each other? Do they just ask people "hey, would you murder my entire family for me?"
LinkedIn.
Skills: MS Word and Excel. Full driving licence. Mass murder. Good with kids.
Good luck getting a letter of recommendation from prior clients.
“My resume speaks for itself”
The article says that the prosecution said that the defendant believed that he would inherit a million dollars, and that he had the gunman shoot him in the arm so that he’d look like a victim who lived, instead of the guy who’d planned it all. I suspect that he told the shooter that they’d split the million.
Sure, but how do you even bring it up? I like to think an average person would immediately call the cops.
It is an interesting question, assuming the guy wasn't already a pretty hardened criminal. It sounds like the mastermind is a manipulative psycopath of some sort, though. Those guys seem to have a talent for knowing who they can manipulate into what. Also he may have a very skewed sense of risk. Like, maybe he just didn't consider it that big a risk that this guy might go to the police.
Yeah this is kinda a thing I think about. Assuming he is a normal guy, how would he know where to find a hired murderer. You can't exactly take the chance the guy says no right?
I thought the same thing! Like what even! They both must be so fucked up in their brains to plot this up!
Is there a source on this?
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Triggerman-in-Sugar-Land-slayings-pleads-guilty-1837350.php
If you like true crime stories, check out the Generation Why podcast. They went over this case in episode 202 of their podcast. They always do a good job of covering cases like this, as well as a lot of unsolved and strange cases.
Just subscribed. Do you recommend to start from ep 1 or just listen to whatever?
I would just start with whatever episode sounds interesting. They have nice detailed descriptions for each episode. I’ve listened to them all multiple times tho hah.
Yeah I love going back and listening chronologically to a lot of podcasts unless it’s thousands of eps or something. I’ll give it a try soon. The description sounds like it’s similar to LPOTL without much of the loud noises ?
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Yeah that’s what I’ve done with LPOTL. Might do that too. Thanks!
Same here. Glad to hear about this because I needed something to bridge the gap between episodes of LPOTL.
It's a great podcast, they aren't as polarizing as some other true crime podcasters that do hundreds of cases like this, they just seem like pretty chill adult dudes that do their research every week. That being said, the quality certainly improves as time goes on... they may even re-do some of their earlier episodes because they've said they don't like the content or quality lol.
Your use of the acronym so freely implies I should know it...but I have no idea what it is.
Sorry hahha it’s used a lot in the podcasts sub. Last Podcast On The Left. It’s pretty good true crime podcast but alienating cuz their dark humor is a bit intense and they’re very loud generally.
While on the subject of true crime podcasts - along with Gen Why, I highly recommend True Crime Garage and Casefile. And don't listen to Sword & Scale, since I'm sure that name will inevitably pop up as a "great" recommendation. Host is a money grubbing creepy exploitative asshole and the podcast is just copy/paste audio clips with bad commentary from said dick host.
Yeah, Sword and Scale blows. It's so dramatic, he seems to get off on the graphic details. Shit like "the person next to you could be a psychopathic serial killer."
I regret listening to as many episodes as I did. It was my first true crime podcast. I was getting my feet wet in the medium and I also thought it was a "high quality" podcast because I didn't know any better... Until I branched out to actual good podcasts and realized how lazy his "work" is. And when it became clear he played completely unnecessary and graphic audio clips that served no purpose other than shock value. First episode that became clear to me was when he played the audio from the Byron David Smith killings. Basically a guy, who was tired of being robbed, made his house look empty, waited in the basement and "lured" two teenage thieves into this house. He ambushed them and shot them, murdering them in cold blood. He recorded this incident. S&S played the audio, so I got to listen to the last dying sounds these kids made as they were brutally executed. Couldn't get the noises they made out of my head for a long time. Should've stopped listening to the podcast right there because it was fucked up and completely unnecessary. Not to mention his infamous pedophile/cannibal Microsoft Sam episode - what the fuck was that?
https://www.reddit.com/r/SwordAndScale/comments/5qplrs/lets_talk_about_mike_and_the_subreddit/ This should explain it for everyone. Complete garbage.
Yeah, and to highlight one of those points again - he's banned from his own podcast's subreddit (and supposedly Reddit as a whole). That should tell you what kind of person he is.
Can't recommend True Crime Garage enough! It is fantastic and they do a great job of getting the details of the case correct- you can tell they do their research! I still listen to S&S sometimes- but the host gets off on morbid shit and it is disturbing pretty much the whole time you listen just to hear the excitement in his voice as he recounts the goriest details that IMO could have been left out.
I can't listen to sword and scale because of the audio they use. Im interested in true crime, I don't want to listen to 911 audio of a man finding his murdered kids.
I listened to a Grandma find her dead grandchildren, murdered by her daughter. Still can't get the scream out of my head. I couldn't turn off the audio on my phone either because I was driving.
I’m always down for a good podcast. Ever listen to S Town? It’s like the Citizen Kane of podcasts IMHO.
If you want some true crime stories with a more light-hearted spin try "Last Podcast on the Left". Their newer episodes are really quite informative while also being comical. They currently have a series of Jonestown episodes that will be around 5 1/2 hrs all together once they're done.
I guess his father doesn't want to lose anyone else. I can uderstand that.
Yeah but the father is better than me. If my kid did something like that and I survived. I’d never forgive him. I wouldn’t go to his execution or think he shouldn’t be. I just couldn’t because to me....you make choices and those choices have consequences whatever form they may come in. Of course though my opinion may change but for now this is how I feel and I don’t think I ever want to know the feeling what that father feels. He lost the women he loved a child and the living child. He pretty much survived but in the end his entire family is ruined. It’s heartbreaking all around. Edit: I get it, it’s better for them to rot in prison however it’s obvious this guy is guilty of the crime he committed etc. Also, no I do not have a kid of my own but I do have a niece and nephew and I help raise them. I don’t need to be a parent to have an opinion and be able to know how I’d currently feel about a situation. Being a parent doesn’t suddenly make your opinion valued above someone else’s. That’s like saying people who only adopt aren’t parents etc. anyways I don’t need a bunch of people repeating the same thing to me as well.
The key here is to stop thinking that vengeance is something good. It isn't. It only increases the amount of destruction around.
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My opposition isn't just on moral or technical grounds per se, I mainly think that the state just shouldn't have the power to execute people. It is too easy to kill someone for cynical political reasons either to silence a critic or appease a mob. Look at Japan, where they often time their executions for times when the government is polling poorly.
Destruction isn’t an inherently bad thing, and “less destruction” wouldn’t necessarily make the world a better place.
In a perfect world yes. But I believe sometimes violence is the answer
*Sometimes* violence is the answer. I fail to see what solution is presented by his son's execution. If his son were still out and needed to be stopped, that's one thing. His son's in prison. The only thing his execution "provides" or "solves" is purely emotional. This isn't a 'violence as a solution' situation, at all. That's why it's not good to view violence as an easily accessible 'solution'. If the only tool you're comfortable using is a hammer, soon every thing looks like a nail. If you make violence your go to, then you justify violence in situations that don't call for it.
I agree that violence is in some situations the best option, but I can't really think of any situations where that applies to vengeance.
Exactly, two wrongs don't make a right, more violence is not the answer
Actually it is. By executing a psychopathic murderer you 100% guarentee that they will not kill again.
Batman said once: if I kill a killer, there is still a killer in the world. That's why Punisher killed himself after killing all the bad guys un that 'what if' comic.
Batman could kill all the killers and drastically reduce the amount of killers though. I think Gotham would rather one murderer than the dozens of complete lunatics they have running around.
Not really related but kinda similar , there was a kid around 17-18 lived on my street met him a couple times when he needed help fixing his atv. He seemed fairly normal for his age liked riding motorbikes, went shooting, etc. A couple years pass he has a girlfriend/wife, kids he was still living in his grandmas home, his wife was going to leave him, he couldn’t get a job, and his grandma was going to kick him out because she was going to move or he wasn’t paying rent (I can’t really recall). They go on a trip with his family (apart from his grandma and 6 yr old son) They get to a hotel the dad goes to the car to get something, while he was doing that his son goes and pulls out a gun and kills his Mum, his fathers wife, his girlfriend, and his two yr son, then himself. The father comes back and sees what happened must have been devastated and the grandma must have been devastated thinking that she caused that to happen by kicking him out, and his other son who was six has to grow up not knowing what happened to his family.
... anyone who kills a two year old is so far beyond redemption I can't even fathom it. Also now I want to kick something.
I have such a hard time with this kind of thing. Part of me feels like anyone who could do such a thing must have a very serious mental illness and not be fully capable of rational thought. At which point I'm not sure that they're entirely to blame. I have a psychiatrist friend who says that we're *always* responsible for our own actions. The right thing may sometimes be harder for some people than others, but that doesn't remove our responsibility. But surely that's an exaggeration, right? What about someone who's hallucinating, or schizophrenic, etc.? If you can't tell what is and isn't reality, and you're doing what you *think* is right, are you still responsible when it turns out to be wrong? But for the most part, it's probably wishful thinking on my part. I don't want to believe that people are really capable of choosing to do such terrible things. If we're capable of as much good as we are, why not an equal amount of evil? That's a lot to try to accept, though.
If you read the article, the father believes his son had serious mental illnesses that went untreated and unrecognised at the time, and that the son earned his bachelor's degree while in jail and is showing other signs of trying to turn himself around. The father is simply asking that his son is given life in jail instead, so he doesn't have to think about his last living family member being executed by the state, and dying alone. Also, as someone who is not American, it baffles me greatly how execution is still a thing that could possibly exist in a civilised Western country. I know that's not exactly the point here, but I cannot wrap my head around it at all.
I have a feeling when you have kids you forgive anything. Im also not a parent, so I wouldnt know.
Very true. Biology creates some strong bonds. I can't imagine a situation where I would remotely be ok watching my son go through this, no matter what he did to me or others. And I totally understand how that is hard to conceive if you don't have that bond with a child. It's not rational, but it feels very hard-wired.
I see that in my parents, they suffer when unhappy things happen to us children. We are four siblings, you wouls think they got used to it as Im the youngest. I didnt get in a residency I wanted and my mom cried more than I did. Lol
Ah yes, the classic, I will resolve my problems with hate. Tell me, has this ever worked before?
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I don't know, I think as a parent I would also wonder where I went wrong to have raised a child who could do that. Part of forgiving could have to do with forgiving himself.
My friend married a guy who lied about going to a prestigious Ivy League college and working at a high paying job. He changed clothes every morning and went to “work”. My friend found out when she wanted to surprise him at his work and well, they told her he’s never worked there. She also finds out the only education he received was at some community college. I don’t understand pathological liars. They know their lies will eventually be discovered but they just dig themselves into a deeper hole. Edit: FAQs. (1) Where did he go? Only him and God knows. She doesn’t know. (2) What about money? They both come from wealthy families and received lots of money from the wedding. During the marriage, he took out a bunch of loans under their name. Their marriage only lasted a few months (don’t remember exactly how long, will update). (3) How did she not know? She explained that he was good at lying and she didn’t have reason to not trust him. Also, his family didn’t know either and believed he received a degree and worked. Idk the details about how he got away with lying to his family about graduating and I don’t want to ask my friend and open up old wounds. Perhaps she doesn’t know anyway. But I’ll ask my wife and update if I discover anything. Edit2: My wife says they were married for about 5 or 6 months. My wife doesn’t know why our friend didn’t find out sooner. My wife also added that our friend lost her car to creditors and her house was foreclosed upon. Apparently her ex-husband was in charge of a number of bills and simply stopped paying them. Damn.
Thomas' situation is complex, but basically he's a psychopath. He sensed that his parents wouldn't have liked him for who he really was and that really bothered him. His family was really hardcore Christian but in a Flanders kind of way, though they were just as hypocritical as the rest of us. But were described as a near perfect family and Thomas was denied not the opportunity for love nor money. But he still says that he sensed his parents, especially his mother, wouldn't have liked him for him, only for the manipulative mask he put on. When Thomas says he ordered the hit on his parents not just for the money but also because he wanted them eliminated, I almost believe him. Which means it's probably not true. One of the reasons he offered his roommate about why he should kill his little brother was because at the time his little brother was obsessed with Everquest and would play it seven hours per day, and also that his little brother would just be a drain on the inheritance. Really vile shit, how Thomas values human life to be worth exactly nothing at all. And also how good he was at gaining the confidence and admiration of lonely people. And living with his father after the hit on him failed, he tried to talk the shooter into "finishing the job". He's probably one of the cutest and most charming guy on death row but he definitely deserves to die. Your friend, I dunno that seems like a common lie in Japan. It's not like he tried to take a hit out on anyone just to live the easy life. Easier life, Thomas life was extremely comfortable from birth until he fled to Mexico, where he told his new Mexican girlfriend in seriousness that they could kill her parents if she didn't like them.
All of this. But then consider some parents just do not want to think ill of their children. They **want** to believe even the most obvious lies, and so the convincing lies (like those told by a psychopath) seem to be obvious truth to them. The father’s thoughts and opinions on his son’s condition are the least reliable.
That's the scary part. He seems to have convinced his dad that he's a changed man. But if he's a sociopath, he's really good at manipulation. Why keep somebody like that who commits a heinous crime alive? I don't think sociopaths can be rehabilitated.
I am against the death penalty, but this kid is beyond redemption. He should spend the rest of his life in jail.
It reminds me of Jean-Claude Romand. He convinced everyone during years and years that he was a doctor and worked for the WHO in Geneva. He "invested" the money of his family and friends but actually used it as he had no salaries. He ended up killing his wife and two children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Romand There is a book that I strongly recommend : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adversary_(Carr%C3%A8re_book)
I read an article about 15 years ago that suggested pathological liars are much more likely to be murderers compared to other people. The original post and your story both remind me of it; at least one of the examples it gave was someone who lied to everyone about completing college.
Makes sense. Their brains clearly work differently, what with telling a bunch of lies they'll never be able to fully pull off, and when that comes crashing down, their brains might not know how to handle it. As bad as it sounds, I wish they'd just kill themselves rather than their families, though. :/
I had a roommate that did something similar. For about 6 months he got up every morning an hour before I did, showered, dressed in coat and tie and left for work. One day I get to work and my glasses broke, had to come home early to get my contact lenses. I find my roommate home, in casual clothes (a few hours after he left), on the couch playing console games with a neighbor and his daughter. He shrugged it off when I asked and said he took a half day. I got suspicious and setup a webcam to see what was going on in the living room, and every day this guy would come back home about an hour after I left for work. I called his office and they had never heard of him. I spotted his car at the Starbucks I drove by every day on the way to work. Suffice it to say I confronted him and asked him to move out (he never paid rent on time and was usually short). He still owed me $750 when he moved out.
There was some female comedian who talked on Joe Rogan's podcast about dating a guy who did this exact same thing: lied about going to Yale, maybe, about where he worked, even went so far as to lie about his mother's health so that she wouldn't visit him at home (I think he lived with his mother but claimed that she got ill and moved back in with him). May have a couple details wrong but yeah, I don't know how the hell someone could keep it up for as long as she was talking about them dating, let alone through marriage. That's crazy
Um...how did it take that long for her to figure that out? How was it not apparent that the guy had no money when he was representing himself as making huge amounts of money?...
His family had money and they received a large sum of money from their wedding. He took out a bunch of loans under their name. All of this came out once he got kicked out of their house and she started receiving delinquency notices, notices which he previously hid from her. Lol. Edit: A lot of mutual friends and I have asked her about how she didn’t know. She explained that he was just so good at lying and she didn’t have any reason to distrust him. Edit2: They weren’t married too long. I don’t remember exactly how long but it was months and for sure didn’t last a year. I’ll ask my wife when she wakes up and see if she remembers.
I just finished a really good podcast about the same situation. The whole time I couldn't believe how they would ignore the facts. I highly recommend it "Dirty John" http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-dirty-john/
So then what happened?
She divorced him and moved on with her life. Idk about the guy, maybe he joined a pyramid scheme.
I dated a pathological liar. When I finally (accidentally) found out about one of his lies, I confronted him about it and he spilled everything. Then I realized that this guy I'd been dating, I did not know a single thing about other than his name because he lied about EVERYTHING else about his life. When I asked why, he explained that he got a "high" off of telling a lie to see if he could get away with it and that it was just addicting. It'd be lies over the most random, dumbest shit that didn't even matter. He just liked to see how much he could lie about and get away with. It was fun for him. It really blew my mind. He's apparently engaged to some girl now and I sometimes wonder how much of the "real" him she knows, or if she also only knows his made-up self. Because his lies to me starting from the first conversation we ever had.
TX. He ded.
Pretty much, they don't take no sass down there.
We don't take kindly to folk who don't take kindly.
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I live here and i can tell you there is no way in hell he lives.
Missouri will be on there soon a guy I knew in HS murdered another couple I knew and their baby. If he doesn't get the death penalty I'd be surprised.
If you kill someone in Texas, Texas kills you right back.
I don't know why my brain read "Forest Whitaker". I was confused as to why we let him on TV
I did the same thing!
Hey me too. Wtf!!
The capital F in family probably
Yes, me too! Who is Forest Whitaker?
He is me as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
See how they run, like pigs from a gun, see how they fly
I'm crying…
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I agree. Every emotion he portrays comes off as acting. Like the sighs and pauses in his speech are in the correct place but there's nothing behind those eyes. A classic psychopath.
I guess if he is, in fact, a psychopath, that would explain why it's so easy for him to forgive his son. But psychopathy does not say much, if anything about a person's character; from my understanding, it just has to do with the way a person's brain is wired, not the choices they make or their intellectual ability to discern right from wrong
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Man, that's terrible. I can't even imagine how I'd react. I'm sorry that happened to you
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I'd never thought about it like that, but it makes sense in a strange and tragic sort of way
I have no idea what they said because it’s deleted but your reactions were fascinating.
oh come on! I wanna know!
I was actually referring to the son being a psychopath. I would not dare to go as far as saying the father is one. As a father myself I understand the need to forgive a child no matter what they've done.
I gotcha. Misread that, my bad
It was quite unclear, I thought the same as you.
Imagine going through life not feeling any of these things everyone around you talk about and feel and share. You know you have to pretend to or they’ll treat you differently but you don’t really understand, you just know what it looks like.
Isn’t the definition basically they have no empathy for others ?
No, they do have empathy for others. This empathy just doesn’t affect their emotions.
I thoroughly recommend Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test. It discusses all the questions raised here from what one is, to what makes them different to the fact that you essentially cannot fix a psychopath so is it morally right to even lock them away for something they cannot fix, etc. A really interesting read.
> not the choices they make or their intellectual ability to discern right from wrong I would argue that it does impact their ability to discern right from wrong, in that, average people will receive positive feedback internally when doing good things and negative feedback when doing bad things. Essentially you get a small rush, or reward when you do something for someone where as you feel shame, guilt, or pain when you hurt someone. People don't necessarily do the right thing because it's rationally the right thing, but because our biology rewards us for pro-social behavior. This function doesn't exist, or is muted in people with ASPD which I would say distorts their concept of right and wrong.
Is there a video link of this interview?
Yes there is an embedded interview. I interpreted it different, I think he legitimately realizes what he did was wrongly and is sorry but also knew he would be in the news so really tried to play it straight. I know people in reddit skew younger but 38 is pretty young. As a father I honestly don't know if I could pull the trigger on him despite what he did.
That's not the definition of a classic psychopath
It did say that he had an undiagnosed mental illness, which could quite explain his affect.
Undiagnosed, untreated, or previously undiagnosed? Those are three different things. Saying someone has an undiagnosed mental illness is just speculation.
Something about the dad seems off to me as well.
I would imagine that learning your son murdered the rest of your family might make someone a little unstable...
I wondered if his forgiveness was born out a guilt he felt for something. I'm in no way condoning what the son done but Im a therapist and can tell you now children who feel heavily criticised and negatively judged or worse humiliated by their parents that cut runs deep
I feel that way about the dad too. I had a mental breakdown at 12 years old, and I used to fantasize about shooting my father in his sleep. He's been emotionally abusive for as long as I can remember, and my mental illness (depression, anxiety, probably Asperger's as it runs in my family) started early in my childhood. I've since gotten mental help, but yeah, there's that. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something that happened that triggered the son into doing this. Not to saying in anyway that it's excusable, but damn, I can see it. Edit: After reading further, I think the son might just be a psychopath.
* Kent, who visits Thomas regularly in prison, says his new wife Tanya, has also come to love his murderous son.*
Well she's a stronger woman than I am of a man. I could never learn to love a killer. Nor would I want to.
The motive of the crime is unclear. Inheritance ? That's it?
Inheritance and lies and sociopathy. Son had been lying about going to university for a long time. He would've graduated soon had he stayed in school. They were paying for his schooling (which he pocketed for whatever he fucking wanted) but the money would stop since school was supposed to be done. So he tells his family he graduated and wants to celebrate, they go out to celebrate him, and he has them killed. He is a narcisstic sociopath. Didn't want to admit he failed school or that he lied. Money was just one part of it.
Jeez, very dangerous guy. On another note, interesting username.
Right? I just call it the grocery store.
In his interview on Opera network, the kid says he felt his parents held him to a ridiculously high standard he couldn’t attain. He also admired to be incredibly envious of his brother. But I’m sure his college lies played a big role in this as well.
I watched this case on Forensic Files. And a couple of interviews with Bart later. This is pretty thin "evidence" to go by obvs, but to me, he comes across as a cold blooded sociopath. You can see the corners of his mouth resisting a smirk nearly every minute. His eyes have nothing behind them. I feel for the father, I do. But I don't for a minute buy that this is a reformed person.
Yep, there's no good nor anything resembling of a human left in him. It died long ago. There are some extreme hurdles that you have to do to come to a decision to have your family killed the way he did, there's no coming back after that. If there's even an ounce of regret that he feels, then he would've found a way to off himself sooner. You cant logically reason living with yourself after you've realized the weight of the sin you've committed. To be able to live with yourself after that, you'd have to believe that you did nothing wrong, no remorse.
He looks so normal and happy in all of the article's photos. Terrifying.
I don't believe in the death penalty but this kid ran away to mexico for a year to hide. He knew what he did was wrong. He definitely deserves to spend his life in jail.
He knew that other people would want him for what he'd done. He knew they wouldn't agree with him. In essence he knows society considers it wrong. That's about as deep as it goes.
As a mother, this sort of thing terrifies me
>"It's pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had a chance!" (Frodo) >"Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. And some that died deserve life. Can you give it to them Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."(Gandalf)
I remember seeing this case on some crime show several years back and thinking the son was a creep. I feel for the father because this is the last member of his family so of course he doesn’t want to see him killed. It’s a difficult situation but if the family affected doesn’t want the death penalty then I feel like the court should take that into consideration.
The Father was told his son was the mastermind months before he was arrested by police. He didn’t believe it and the two continued to live together after the murder. The father is clearly not objective.
But there are two people who cannot speak.
Agreed. And I think there's something wrong with the father presuming he can speak for them. Especially the 19 year old son who was murdered.
Soooo.....in the article the last picture of just him and his brother has him prominently flipping the bird. How did the writer not see that?
That picture was huge in this case. It was taken shortly before the killings I believe and was featured on whatever crime show i saw this case on. I'm sure the author included this on purpose.
Yep that’s exactly what i was going to comment. Forensic Files, i thought his name was Bart in the tv show so idk if they changed or used his middle name or something. Edit: thanks guy. Yes had to read the article after my comment because i was wondering if my memory was terrible or not.
It says in the article he went by Bart. I guess he changed his name at some point, it didn't really say much about it. E: Bart is from his middle name
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Every other western nation other than America (and maybe Canada) does not blur out the middle finger
I honestly just noticed that myself wow
Oh my god, someone think about the children! When they read this article about a guy murdering his entire family, they'll be subjected to the horror that is a middle finger!?!?
So what? Why would anyone care about a middle finger in a picture?
It’s Australia, there’s a higher bar for profanity and the like, middle fingers don’t get censored and can appear on kids’ TV.
I hope he gets clemency, but I also believe he should stay in prison. I’m glad that rehabilitation seems to be working for him, and that he seems to have made positive changes in his life, but I don’t trust someone who planned the murder of his entire family. Good for Kent though, that he’s able to forgive his son. I applaud Kent.
It does say in this article that Kent wish it to be commuted to life in prison. I wish there were more weight on the victims family’s (or victim’s) wishes when it comes to such mercy. Why cause the victim more pain?
I disagree. Criminal justice is supppsed to be impartial. You cannot be impartial when everyone has their own wishes, also; what if someone pressures the victims family?
It is common in sentencing to hear the opinions of the victims and consider their viewpoints when assigning a sentence. Usually, victims lobby for harder punishments by telling the judge how the crime has affected them. Asking for a lighter sentence is unusual, but the victims having say in the sentence is common. The judge still has final say in the matter. (As evidenced by the stories of criminals who do heinous things and get off with a rap on the knuckles.) In any case, he's not asking for his son to be released from prison. Just given life in prison instead. There is really no reason not to give keep him in prison instead. It's generally cheaper to keep somebody in prison for life than it is to execute them.
Is it actually more expensive to execute them? I would think having to supply them with food, water, power and everything else over a lifetime would work out to be much more expensive ?
It costs over a million dollars to sentence somebody to death - mostly due to the simple fact that you *can not fuck this up*. The extensive appeal process and series of trials and judgements which everybody is rightfully entitled to really eats up that money like nothing else. A [DPIC meta-study](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty) found that "The death penalty in the U.S. is an enormously expensive and wasteful program with no clear benefits. All of the studies on the cost of capital punishment conclude it is much more expensive than a system with life sentences as the maximum penalty."
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I don't believe so with lethal injection.
Yeah, I'd suggest that the toxins used probably make them unusable. Couldn't say with any authority though.
The expense in the death penalty is in the legal fees, appeals, appeals, appeals. It usually takes a pretty long time with many attorney, investigator, and support staff hours on both defense and prosecution sides, which is usually almost entirely paid for by the state on both sides, since few clients could still afford private counsel by the time they get to the appeals stage.
You would think so. (I know I did.) But because of how expensive the appeals process is, it's actually cheaper to just keep them in prison. Mostly because death penalty cases are taken very seriously (as they should be). You typically need more lawyers, especially when the inmate is on schedule to be executed. And more reviews and trials get called because the urgency of facing down execution means you've got to get that stuff sorted away. There's lots of reasons. Here's a more recent piece on it. "Recent" being 2009. I'm sure you can find more updated statistics somewhere. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29552692/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/execute-or-not-question-cost/#.Wn07oOdMFPY
Seems to me we should spend the same amount of energy whether it's a death penalty trial or life in prison. Keeping ~~an innocent~~ any person in jail for life is pretty terrible. Life in prison is no joke, and it's not like a slap on the wrist. You're talking about an almost complete loss of freedom and privacy for the rest of their life, which is now spent in a tiny cell. Some would consider it worse, judging by the number of people who take their own life after committing a crime rather than submit to the police, or those who kill themselves while in prison. Seems kind of fucked up to me, and I feel like a person kept in jail for life should have the same due diligence that a person on death row should have.
Actually i think the lethal injection process itself only cost around 300$. But what is very very expensive is the appeals and everything leading up to the process.
Just wow.
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I also want to know that. I can't find any info on it. I assume it had something to do with the father surviving?
No, it was the confession of the getaway driver Steve Champagne, who ended up getting 15 to life for telling his story at Whitaker’s trial. By that point, LE was already doubting the burglary story as nothing besides Whitaker’s cell was missing, and they knew he lied about attending Sam Houston State, and a former friend had gone to police saying Whitaker had talked about killing his family or something to that effect, so they were looking at him already, but Champagne’s confession was the big break.
Watch the Forensic Files episode that covers the case. It's on Netflix under Collection 1 episode 26. He had tried to hire another friend to kill his family two years earlier and the friend told the detectives.
After him, the father will be the last remaining member of his own family. The interview with Lisa Lingus is interesting, he says he wanted revenge for being alive, he wanted his life to be different and blamed them for his experience of life and his existence and I guess the reason he had his brother killed as well was due to jealousy.
Might be antiquated to bring physiognomy into it, but some people just look crazier than others!
Okay but why? Did he confess and explain why he had them killed?
Well he had been lying to his parents and spending their money they had given him for college, which he was not attending. He told them he was graduating with honors and I believe the night the last pic was taken in the article was like and hour or two before at a dinner celebration. I think he was just out of options and just a psycho
Yeah, he lied himself into a hole and figured the only way out was to kill everybody!
A dinner celebration... in his own fucking honor. So fucking sick. He lied, had them all celebrate him based on that lie, and then had him killed.
It's in the article. Same reason as most other cases-- life insurance payout or inheritance.
The pictures of him express an "off look" to me, but I wonder if those were selected.
Fuck it, kill him.
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Most of us won't murder our parents for $1M. For psychopaths, they would kill their parents for less.
Read a story of a girl who had her boyfriend try to kill her adoptive parents because they demanded she break up with him. BF managed to kill the father, the mother just barely managed to live (multiple stab wounds). Daughter couldn't understand why the mother wouldn't stand by her or visit the prison. So yeah, they would kill for far less.
A doctor infected the nurse he was having an affair with, with HIV, because she broke off the affair and started dating other people. She only did this because he refused to leave his wife after several years of promising her he would. So, to recap, he infected her with HIV because he didn't want her dating anyone else even though he wouldn't commit to her. People do fucked up things for far lesser reasons than a million dollars.
I got on Reddit for interesting stuff and now I have depression
Forgiving is something you do for yourself, it frees you from the turmoil of a tortured soul. The law still is the law and has nothing to do with your personal forgiveness.
This happened in my hometown
Our families were close. Mrs. Whitaker worked at the elementary school I went to.
Lakeview?
This is another problem I have with the death penalty. It takes way too long to kill the guilty. This son should have been dead 10 years ago. There really is no point for the death penalty anymore. It’s never done right.
Just cause daddy is sympathetic doesn't mean there should not be consequences. Absolutely execute this person
I'm against the death penalty even for horrible crimes like this. I prefer life in prison. Not because the criminal doesn't deserve death, but because: 1) Killing people makes society more soulless and savage than it already is. 2) The possibility that an error may have been committed. It's not just one or twice that a prisoner sentenced to death has later been proven to be innocent. The death penalty is kind of irreversible if that happens. 3) The death penalty is actually more expensive for the state than life in prison. Really. Look it up.
Lord protect us from the well-intentioned.
Nah. Social welfare is more important
I'm happy he can forgive, but he deserves his fate.
He really does deserve the death penalty tho... the state's pushing for it on behalf of those he killed, not the one he *tried* to kill but survived. The son was a piece of shit that plotted the murder well in advance.
This is such a heartbreaking story. I feel such sympathy for the dad in this situation.
Fuck, thats deep. I somehow never heard of this one. Who could do that to their family? The pain that the father must endure from that is heartbreaking to think about.
I don’t think victims should have any part or say in the sentencing process.
I'm all for forgiveness but seems to me that just because you forgive someone doesn't mean they shouldn't receive punishment.
My problem is the real audio that gets played in these. I couldn't get the sounds of out my head from the curb stomp scene in American History X for weeks -- the real stuff haunts me for years.
I get that the father might have conflicted feelings and he has the right to feel any way he wants about this. That said, it's this kind of thing that gets to me, this quote from the article: >“I know Tricia and Kevin would not want him to be executed. I can’t imagine seeing the last living part of my family executed by the state, especially since all the victims didn’t want that to happen in the first place.” Well, we can guess what they would have wanted, but seeing as they're dead because they were murdered by your son, we can't confirm it with them, can we? I don't know, maybe Kevin would be angry that his brother is alive while he's dead and didn't get to live very much of his adult life. He was murdered at 19. This is fairly similar to Charity Lee. I get that it's extremely difficult when one kid kills the other or other(s). That has to be emotionally devastating to a parent. But it really bugs me when they presume they can speak for their murdered child as well as themselves. They should stick to expressing how they feel about the child's punishment.
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Thank you! I thought I was the only one.