Free Savage Son by Corey Mitchell Page B

possible leads in the murders of Tricia and Kevin Whitaker. He had spent almost the entire day at the police station, working on the case. Slot began to pack up his equipment and just as he was leaving, a young man came up and introduced himself to the detective.
    “I’m Adam Hipp, sir.” The young, very tall man extended his hand out. Hipp spent the morning at the funeral for Tricia and Kevin Whitaker.
    Slot reciprocated, shook his hand, and replied, “What can I do for you, son?”
    “I need to speak with you about Bart Whitaker. You are the officer handling the murders of Tricia and Kevin Whitaker, aren’t you, sir?”
    “Yes, sir, that would be me,” Slot answered. “Please have a seat.” The detective gestured to a well-worn chair in front of his desk. Slot put his briefcase down and took his own seat. “So, what do you want to tell me about Bart Whitaker, Mr. Hipp?”
    “I know Bart did it,” a nervous Hipp replied. “And I’m pretty sure I even know how he did it.”
    “Well, son, how would you know something like that?”
    “Because he told me he wanted someone to kill his parents and his younger brother, two years ago, sir.”
    The young man had the detective’s full attention.
    “Go on,” Slot encouraged Hipp.

15
     
    Tuesday, December 16, 2003, 11:05 P.M .
Sugar Land Police Department
Sugar Land, Texas
     
    Adam Hipp sat down across from Detective Marshall Slot’s desk. He had driven all the way from Dallas the night before, late at night, because he felt compelled to let someone in an authority position know what Bart Whitaker had tried to do a few years earlier. He felt tormented by the knowledge, and knowing now that someone had killed Bart’s mother and brother made him feel even more compelled.
    “How did you find out that members of the Whitaker family had been killed, Adam?” Detective Slot asked in an attempt to calm the young man down and get him focused. The officer began to record their conversation.
    “I got a call from my girlfriend.” Hipp seemed to relax a bit. “She told me that she read on the Internet that something had happened in the Sugar Lakes Subdivision in Sugar Land. Since she knew I used to live in Sugar Land, she asked me if I knew where Sugar Lakes was.”
    Simultaneously Hipp received an instant message from a friend through his AOL service. His friend informed Hipp that a shooting had taken place at Bart Whitaker’s house on Heron Way in Sugar Land.
    The following day, Hipp was able to confirm the information via two news articles about the shootings he spotted online from two Houston-based television news stations’ websites. From these articles, Hipp was initially able to glean that the shootings took place at the Whitaker house; that Tricia had died as a result of the attack, and that one of the brothers was dead. The articles did not specifically mention whether it was Bart or Kevin who had died. Soon thereafter, the online news sources did specify that it was Kevin who was dead.
    After speaking with his girlfriend and filling her in on his past with Bart, Hipp realized he needed to speak with someone in the Sugar Land Police Department.
    After explaining to Detective Slot how he met Bart, Hipp got down to business. “I used to go visit him up in Waco, when he was going to school at Baylor. Sometimes we would travel together to Austin over at UT (the University of Texas) and visit his girlfriend, Lynne,” Hipp recalled. After high school, Lynne attended college at the University of Texas at Austin, while Bart went to Baylor, in Waco, Texas.
    In February 2001, Hipp remembered, Bart started to bring up an unusual topic, to say the least. “He started talking about killing his family.”
    Detective Slot leaned in closer to the young man. “Did that surprise you?” the detective wanted to know.
    “Not really,” Hipp replied nonchalantly. “I knew he had grievances with his parents and his brother.” Hipp took a sip of water and continued. “In the