“This isn’t just a case of a dad who is ignoring the truth about his son. “I feel the whole decision to pursue the death penalty was an overstep,” Kent said. His son’s sentence was flawed because no one - neither Kent nor Tricia’s family - pushed for his execution. The board’s role is to provide a check on the justice system when it fails, Kent explained this week. Kent’s forgiveness is the bedrock of the petition. With time running short, the Whitakers have filed a request with Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend a sentence commutation, to life in prison, to Gov. Throughout the appeals, however, Kent has stayed by his son’s side - and remains there today, as the state prepares for Bart’s Feb. During the attack, Bart was purposely shot in the arm as a way of diverting suspicion. In spring 2007, Bart was convicted of orchestrating along with two accomplices the murders of his mother, Tricia, 51, and younger brother, Kevin, 19. What Whitaker didn’t realize then was that the man he would have to forgive was his surviving son, Thomas “Bart” Whitaker. “As soon as that happened, there was a warm glow that flowed over me,” Kent said. Lying in the hospital bed, it seemed impossible. “Vengeance is mine I will repay, saith the Lord.” Revenge was a dark path he did not want to step down, Kent realized, so he resolved to forgive the shooter. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,” he recalled. “Just thinking about how I could inflict pain on him.”īut Bible verses also pushed into Kent’s thoughts. “All I could feel for this person was an incredibly deep and powerful hatred,” Kent told The Washington Post this week.
His anger tightened specifically around the unknown shooter who had ambushed the four as they came home from a family dinner. A man of faith, he was burning at God for letting tragedy strike. A father of two college-age boys, one was dead while the other was recovering from his own gunshot wound. A husband of 28 years, now he was a widower. It was December 2003, and the pillars of the Houston-area man’s life had just been ripped down. Rage and faith were at war inside Kent Whitaker as he lay in a hospital bed with a 9mm bullet hole six inches from his heart.
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