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Meanwhile, Burkhart had married at 20. But once Whitsett was transferred to the treatment center, Burkhart became a regular visitor, and last month he divorced his wife. At the Rainforest Cafe in Sunrise, where Burkhart waited tables, co-workers recall an obsession with Whitsett's case. "He talked about it a lot," says a co-worker, "about how unfair it was that this friend of his had served his time and didn't get out. It wasn't just casual conversation. He could get really angry, with veins popping out of his neck and everything." Unknown to anyone, Burkhart was taking helicopter lessons. He also pulled together $10,098 and two 9-mm handguns and hid a getaway van in a field near the center. He leased a chopper and rented a motel room in sparsely populated Okeechobee, where he stashed fresh clothes, hair dye and porn featuring the type of boys Whitsett favored. He also bought Amtrak tickets to New York City. Meanwhile, Whitsett shipped home his CD player and headphones and gave most of his clothes away to fellow "residents." On Monday, Whitsett got a haircut and, bragging that his attorney had won his freedom, said his goodbyes.
The small two-seat 1993 Robinson V made it cleanly over the center's fence. It was Burkhart's second solo flight. But when Whitsett jumped on, the chopper teetered at its weight threshold, landing in a citrus grove 100 yds. away. "It was just like a movie," said Jenell Atlas, a representative for the Martin County Sheriff's Department, "except for the crash." Says Susan Burkhart: "I don't know if he really thought they would get away with it or whether they were going to die trying." Her son now faces 20 years in prison; Whitsett is looking at 30. They are unlikely to be together behind bars.
--Reported by Brad Liston/Fort Lauderdale