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They call it the Gold Coast, the sun, the sea, and in this million-dollar home, a mystery.
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He was talking on the telephone when he heard a loud bang. A woman murdered. Her husband left blind.
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Are you bleeding? Do you see any blood? I'm bleeding all over you. Okay. I can't see.
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But who? Everyone is somewhat of a suspect. And why? What brings someone to make a decision that they're going to do this?
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Was it love? What we learned was that he was having an affair with Mrs. Sutton. Was it money?
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Nobody knows what really happened except for him and Garrett. Or was the truth hidden here on this tropical paradise?
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It was an assassination. It was a hit, no question. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
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Here's Keith Morrison with Blind Justice. It was August hot in Coral Gables. The air was shirt-sticking thick as night fell.
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A small damp breeze pushed weakly at limp palm fronds. In the artificial cool of attorney John Sutton's house,
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an intimate party was winding down early. It was Susan Sutton's birthday. attending their son, his girlfriend, and John's law partner.
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Dr. Melissa, just off to college in North Florida, couldn't be there. So she phoned her mother to say she missed her.
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Are you too close? Extremely. That's my best friend. I was going to ask how old your mom was.
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57? No, you can't put that on. She was a nice 45. Let's leave it at that. The guests left.
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The law partner went home. Son, Christopher, and his girlfriend went out to a movie.
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John settled in to watch TV in the master bedroom. Susan, in another bedroom, talked on the phone with a close friend.
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A quiet end to a pleasant evening. Quiet, but not for long. Call I get was 911. I need to please my house.
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I've just been assaulted. What happened, sir? John Sutton, a tough-as-nails-take-no-prisoner's lawyer,
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was barely conscious as he begged the 911 operator for help. He told the operator blood was gushing from his head wounds.
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He couldn't see. Somehow he made it out the front door on his own. He was met by a paramedic.
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The holes in his head and his face, I mean, I couldn't believe how Mr. Sutton made it out of the house walking to us.
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They stabilized Sutton, rushed him off in an ambulance. An hour north of Sutton's home, homicide detective Larry Bellew was just getting home after a long shift.
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I was just pulling into my driveway when I got the phone call. He was critically injured, however, he called 911, and he made his way to the door and opened the door.
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They didn't want to go in until he came out? No one didn't know whether the person or persons involved were still inside.
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They backed off until the SWAT team arrived and made entry into the house. Not knowing if the gunman was still in the house, SWAT teams cleared the house room by room,
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finally entering the bedroom where Susan Sutton had been on the phone. And when they went into the room in which Mrs. Sutton was, they didn't see anybody.
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Miami-Dade prosecutor Karen Kagan was on homicide duty that night and was called out to the scene.
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They saw a mound on the bed covered by a blanket. There were bullet holes in the blankets, and they had to yank the blanket down.
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And when they did that, they found Mrs. Sutton in bed with her hands up. She had been holding the blanket and covering herself,
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Literally ducking under the covers for cover. Susan Sutton was dead. A bloody phone beside her.
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She must have dropped it as she pulled up the covers in her vain attempt to hide from her killer.
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House secured no shooter around, the SWAT team withdrew. A dispatcher warned Detective Bellew
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this might be the deadly result of a domestic dispute. Sutton's 911 call, perhaps an attempt to cover up what he had done.
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When I got the phone call and said that there was a murder-suicide down in the city of Coral Gables,
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we heard that the husband was en route to the trauma center and in critical condition.
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En route with two bullet holes to his head. Had Sutton killed his wife, then turned the gun on himself?
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No. That theory was quickly dismissed when the paramedic who took him to the hospital put out an update over the radio.
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He had wounds to his hands, which would make it clear like it was defense-type wounds that somebody else must have shot because he put his hands up.
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So obviously, first clue, this is not a murder-suicide. This is not a murder-suicide.
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Who or why would anyone want to harm John or Susan Sutton? The Suttons had lived exemplary lives, seemed to have it all.
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A beautiful house with a 31-foot boat out back in exclusive Coral Gables, the upscale
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enclave south of Miami. His law practice, Susan worked as office manager, was booming.
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Just that week he'd received a check for a million dollars for a case he'd settled.
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So was robbery the motive And if so how did the killer get into the house Officers saw a curtain blowing in the wind through a sliding glass door in the rear of the house near the pool
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The door latch showed signs it had been broken long before that night. The killer had gone in through that sliding glass door,
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had walked all the way through that house. No ransacking. Drawers were not opened.
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And in the master bathroom on the vanity was some beautiful diamond and gold jewelry.
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So clearly, early on, it was pretty easy to detect that robbery was not the issue here.
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No. And that it was apparent that they were targeted. It was an assassination. It was a hit.
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An assassination? A hit? That sort of crime just didn't happen and stayed Coral Gables.
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Whatever the motive, there was little to go on. No murder weapon, no fingerprints, no DNA.
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There was, however, one possible lead. Susan Sutton, as it was painfully obvious from the blood-stained evidence,
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had been on the phone when she was shot five times. Someone heard the screams of bullets ripping through the silence of that steamy August night.
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But who? Coming up, what did he know that police didn't? He was given a polygraph, wasn't he?
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He passed on certain information, but he was deceptive in others. Which is a red flag.
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Yes. When Dateline continues. In August morning, 2004, Melissa Sutton, 19 years old, awoke to her new college dorm life in northern Florida,
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unaware of what had happened to her parents the night before, unaware that her mother was dead.
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unaware that in a Miami emergency room, doctors were fighting to save her father's life.
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Who told you and how? I actually got a call from a friend who said, I hope your dad's going to be okay.
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And I just went, what? Like maybe a heart attack or something, you know. This came out of the blue?
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Out of the blue. Pratically, Melissa called every number she could back home. I called my mom.
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She didn't answer. I called Teddy Montoto, my dad's partner and extremely close family friend.
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And he didn't answer. I called my brother. He said he couldn't talk right now. Were you frantic in the sense that you knew something bad had happened?
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I didn't know what. I didn't know what level. Eventually, Melissa reached Montoto, who reluctantly broke the news to her on the phone.
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He brought her back to Miami and the hospital where her father was in intensive care.
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Her brother, 26-year-old Christopher, had already arrived. Both of them were reeling from the loss of their mother,
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and now they kept vigil at their gravely wounded father's bedside. We didn't even know if he was going to live for a long time.
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Yeah, it was pretty touch and go, isn't it? To say gruesome is, you know. If I didn't know his hands and know little intricate pieces of mine,
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you wouldn't have known it was him. You faced the shocking prospect of becoming an orphan.
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I don't think that ever crossed my mind, actually. I don't know. He was still alive in my life.
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Melissa wondered why her parents. Who could have done this? Investigators describing it as a hit.
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Did you have any sense at all of what may have happened? Well, Teddy told me what had happened, but I didn't know who had done it.
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Right. I just thought it was some sort of break-in was my first instinct. It's what I thought for a long time until we started talking about my dad's clients.
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Homicide detectives Larry Bellew and Art Nanny were also thinking about Sutton's clients
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and those he sued on their behalf. At this point, John Sutton couldn't provide any information.
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He was clinging to life in a drug-induced coma. I went several times to try to talk to John Sutton.
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He was on pain medication. He was intubated. I mean, we're looking at maybe incidents in his law firm who he maybe made people angry at him.
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You know, civil attorneys, they take a lot of money from people and they make people mad.
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I said, find out if any of these people have reason for revenge on, you know, John Sutton.
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John Sutton ran his law firm like he ran most things in life. Efficient and hard driving.
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In fact, detectives heard about one woman who lost a $97,000 lawsuit and was so mad she threatened to shoot up John's firm.
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And the very night of the murder, a neighbor heard a boat roaring down the canal just behind John's house,
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and it turned out that woman owned such a boat. She was interviewed down the line also, and she was not the person responsible.
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But what about that phone call Susan was on when she was shot to death? Detectives found the blood-stained handset Susan dropped when the gunman opened fire.
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Who was she talking to? Had that person heard something? Detectives got their answer almost right away.
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John Sutton's law partner, Teddy Montoto, had shown up at the house even before the first report to the shooting hit the news that night.
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He was also armed. He was talking to Susan Sutton on the telephone when he heard a loud bang or what he said, maybe gunshots he didn't know.
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At least that's what he told the police. Depending on the amount of truth in his statement, he could be a suspect.
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Oh, absolutely. But that, said Melissa, had to be impossible. Teddy and Susan worked together. They talked often and frequently late at night. He was my
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mom's best friend. Call him my godfather pretty much, you know, like a relative. But police were
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suspicious Why had Montoto arrived so quickly after the shooting Why was he armed with a handgun They had a few questions and perhaps more important some testing to do We interviewed him extensively We did take gunshot residue from his hands
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He was given a polygraph, wasn't he? Yes, he was. How'd he do? He passed on certain information, but he showed that he was deceptive in others.
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Which is a red flag. Yes. A red flag this early in the investigation. What exactly did law partner Mototo have to hide?
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Well, perhaps John Sutton could tell, though. Because the survivor of the slaughter, it was clear, was going to live.
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And when he came out of his coma, what story would he tell? What did he see? Coming up, with his victim defenseless in the hospital, would the killer try again?
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John Sutton's son seemed to think so. I do recall him as very adamant that my dad be placed under John Doe,
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so that whoever did this could not finish off what they had started. But was the killer already closer than anyone could have dreamed?
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When Dateline continues. Susan Sutton was dead. shot five times by a killer who invaded her home after her birthday party.
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Her husband, John, an attorney, had been shot in the head twice and was in critical condition at a Miami hospital undergoing multiple surgeries to save his life.
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But soon after the shooting, detectives had a potential suspect, John Sutton's good friend and law partner.
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He had a partner who was on the scene when homicide detectives got there. Teddy Montoto told police he'd been on the phone with Susan,
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heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire rushed over to the Sutton house with a gun of his own to try to help.
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But was that the whole story? They gave Montoto a polygraph. It showed he'd been deceptive, hiding something.
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What we learned was that he was having an affair with Mrs. Sutton. So, Montoto hadn't been straight with them, or with his good friend and partner, John Sutton.
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But was he off the hook for murder? Well, maybe, maybe not. When they checked phone records, it appeared Montoto was still being deceptive.
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He told them the affair had been recent and brief. But that's not what the phone records said.
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Did Teddy Montoto have some secret reason to kill his lover and her husband? They tested him for gunshot residue.
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He told them he might test positive. He was an expert marksman, had been shooting earlier that day.
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Another twist in the story, but what did it mean in terms of the likelihood that he was involved in this incident?
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Again, it was early in investigation. There was a lot of investigating to do. And mostly, for days, they waited with everyone else to see if John Sutton would survive the attack,
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to see if they'd ever be able to ask him what happened. Until now, all they'd heard from Sutton was this.
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Are you bleeding? Do you see any blood? I'm bleeding all over, yes. Okay. I can't see.
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I can't see. It was almost a week after the shooting. When Sutton was awakened from a medically induced coma,
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he was going to live. But he was going to live with the scars of the shooting. He lost an eye, but worse, far worse, was the news the doctors gave him.
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He would never see again. He was blind in both eyes. Shortly before I left the hospital, some ophthalmologist came around and very bluntly told me there was nothing they could do for my eyesight.
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I was very unhappy, very upset about the eyesight. Did you know right away he was going to be blind?
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No, I didn't. We didn't even know if he was going to live for a long time. It would be nice to look into his eyes and know he can see back and see you.
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It's different. It's different to look at someone who's blind. It's a different expression.
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Though for a long time, any expression was masked by truly dreadful injuries. How many bullets had you been hit by?
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I had two in my head, in the right temple, and I'm told out the left jaw. One higher towards my ear and one in the lower part of the jaw.
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Those were only the shots to his head. The tip of his ring finger was blown off.
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Other shots hit his thumb and shoulder. There were six pretty good-sized bullet holes.
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Couldn't remember the name. When he was well enough to talk to detectives, Sutton told them what he could,
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the story of a man who barely witnessed the attack that killed his wife and almost killed him.
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He was a former college swimmer, so he was watching an Olympic diving event in the master bedroom, he said.
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Next thing I know, somebody was standing there in a black hat or visor, black shirt, black pants,
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face shaded by the visor and open fired. All I really remember was one bang. The bullets destroyed his right eye and severed the optic nerve in his left eye.
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The optic nerve connects the eye to the brain. Without it, sight is impossible. But the bad news, of course, didn't end there.
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How did you find out about Susan? At some point, I asked Melissa, how's mom doing?
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And Melissa said, well, she's not doing quite as well as you. they're working on her somewhere else
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so you need to hang in there didn really mean too much to me I think I was hallucinating an awful lot at some point somebody told me that she had died In fact for weeks and weeks Sutton drifted in and out of alertness
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dependent on others to save him. Of course, my son was there. A bunch of my friends were there,
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because I had multiple surgeries in that hospital. And as he lay in that bed, sedated, medicated, breathing through tubes,
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the thoughts, half a dream, terrified him. Was the killer a hitman? Was he coming to try again?
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I thought somebody was trying to kill me one night, so I raised help. I said, you know, call the police, you know, everything I could say to get some assistance.
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He was wrong. There was no killer. Still, Christopher demanded the hospital take special precautions.
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I do recall him as very adamant that my dad be placed under John Doe, so that whoever did this could not find him and finish off what they had started.
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So you were a pretty paranoid guy, Aline, in that. Most certainly. And with good reason.
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Because the killer was still out there. Knew exactly where John Sutton was. Coming up
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Unfortunately, police had no idea where the killer was Everyone is somewhat of a suspect
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You start with the family and you keep working your way out When Dateline continues
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The fact that John Sutton was alive at all after that mystery invader killed his wife and shot him in the face
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was a medical marvel, frankly. The rest of the news was not so good. When he was finally able to talk,
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Sutton received a visit from police detectives. Susan, police discovered, had been having an affair
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with Sutton's law partner, Teddy Montoto. It's upsetting. I'm not excusing Teddy.
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I'm not excusing anybody. So I don't focus on that. I can't change it. I can't change any of this.
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It's like a bad dream. But then the dream got worse. Teddy was a possible murder suspect.
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One of the homicide detectives related to me that there had been a problem with the polygraph.
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Because he was actually a suspect. I suspect so. anybody that was probably anywhere near me was a suspect.
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But as Sutton was absorbing the news of his wife's apparent betrayal, Montoto slipped off the list of top suspects.
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For one thing, he couldn't have been the shooter. He was on the phone with Susan when it happened.
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Records confirmed he actually called the police before rushing to the Sutton house.
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So as detectives eliminated early suspects like Montoto, they went back to the basics of every homicide investigation.
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Everyone is somewhat of a suspect. I mean, you know, you start with the family and you keep working your way out.
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Family. John and Susan met on a blind date, were married a year later. And from the beginning made family a very big deal.
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But even though they were strikingly good looking and financially successful and happy,
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they were stymied. No matter how they tried and oh how they tried, they could not have children.
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She was sure that as much as anybody else wanted a baby, she wanted a baby more than anyone in the world.
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Susan! But if wishing couldn't make Susan pregnant, said her sister Mary, it could make her a mother by adoption.
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She got her wish, and as I said, it was the happiest day of her life when she brought Christopher home.
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Christopher Sutton was born April 13, 1979, and the day they brought him home, John Sutton remembers every minute, every detail,
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even the green suit he was wearing. When Christopher came to us at about two days old,
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very cute, it was a lot of fun. It was a happy time. Absolutely. Susan quit her job to be a full-time mom.
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But Susan kept trying to get pregnant, kept suffering through years of failed fertility treatments and miscarriages.
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And finally, adopted a sister for Christopher, Melissa. She was and always has been a little angel.
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Absolutely. She would probably be upset with me saying this, but she was pretty close to perfect.
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Which seemed to describe the family, too. They told the kids they'd been adopted, didn't seem to worry them at all.
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My mom and my dad were my mom and my dad. You know, there wasn't, you know, these are my biological and these are my adopted.
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And I had a great childhood. And there were advantages to having a brother seven years older,
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especially when he grew to be a six-foot, 200-pounder. He was my defender, my protector.
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You know, if someone made fun of me at school one time, he came and he kind of gave the kid a stern look,
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what a big older brother did. And, you know, I think he was protective of me. After the murder, in fact, Christopher resumed that protective role,
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this time for his father, who insisted that Melissa should return to college in northern Florida.
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The day after the shooting was her first day of college. Oh, my gosh. And I was then, and I am still, proud that she managed to stay in school.
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During the long and arduous recovery, the many surgeries, the lingering fear, a protective layer formed around John's demeanor.
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He learned the hard way to keep focus in and emotion safely at bay. It was easier that way.
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Survival mode. He just focuses on putting one foot in front of him. One or the other, and I think I do the same thing.
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And if you were to break down emotionally all the time or dwell on what happened, you wouldn't get out of bed.
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The doctors let him go home finally, but since home was not exactly livable, he moved in with Christopher at his townhouse.
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My house was a mess because it was a crime scene. The most logical place for me to go was not where the incident occurred, because we didn't know who was responsible, but this townhouse, and that's where I went.
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A full-time nurse looked after him during the day. Christopher and his girlfriend Juliet Driscoll were there for him the rest of the time.
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And three months after the August shootings, when John decided he was ready to go home to the house in which the shooting happened,
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Christopher went with him, eyes for his blind father. And at that point, he was more involved in driving me around or some caregiving.
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But now it was almost Christmas. Still no arrests. Detectives Larry Bellew and his partner Art and Andy were certainly following up leads
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trying to find anyone with a motive to kill the Suttons. Though understand the digging they were doing was mostly in mounds of dry, turgid paperwork,
00:25:17
records of phone calls and the like. And then, somewhere in the middle of that pile, there it was.
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and boy was it a doozy. Coming up. He's sitting across from me and I look at him and go,
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pal, we got something here. A phone call from a killer when Dateline continues. There's a reason, of course,
00:25:50
why parents worry about the company their children keep. It was months after John Sutton lost his wife and his own eyesight to an intruder with a 9mm handgun.
00:26:00
Miami detectives were plowing their way through mounds of interview transcripts and tips and emails and phone records,
00:26:07
anything to narrow down their list of suspects. And in the pile of material from the phone company, they came across a name.
00:26:15
We isolated, within a three or four hour period of the murder, five or six different names.
00:26:21
and one of those came back to Garrett Kopp. Who was he talking to? On the 22nd, there was probably,
00:26:30
I want to say maybe 13 phone calls, if memory serves me right, that were made between Garrett Kopp
00:26:36
and Chris Sutton's cell phones. A lot of calls. A lot of calls. Lots of calls on the day of the murder.
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Quite probably meant nothing at all, of course. Still, Garrett Kopp was 20, a frequent visitor around the Sutton house.
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He didn't seem to have a job or any direction in life, but Christopher saw some good in him, apparently.
00:26:59
Hired him occasionally to do odd jobs. In fact, after the murder, Christopher had cop rip up
00:27:05
and remove the bloody carpets from the crime scene. What sort of person did he seem like?
00:27:10
When Garrett was in the house, he was always, shall we say, at a distance. I honestly cannot recall any conversations whatsoever with Garrett.
00:27:20
But Cop and Christopher called each other all the time, even the night of the murder, an hour after the shooting,
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just when Christopher and his girlfriend Juliet were coming out of a movie. We pulled the video from the AMC movie theater,
00:27:36
and it showed him getting right on his cellular telephone, right after all the shooting happened.
00:27:42
Was there a connection with what happened? Again, probably not, but just to cover all the bases,
00:27:49
Detective Nanny ran a criminal background check on young Mr. Cop. And what do you know?
00:27:56
He was arrested on August 23rd. The day after the shooting. The day after the shooting.
00:28:01
You know, and I still get goosebumps when I remember that because he's sitting across from me and I look at him and go,
00:28:09
pal, we got something here. Indeed, they did. One day after the murder, Garrett Kopp was arrested for aggravated assault after an altercation at an apartment complex.
00:28:21
Big no-no. He pulled a gun on a couple of guys. Happened in the town of Homestead, Florida, about 30 miles away from the crime scene.
00:28:29
Detective Bellew called the Homestead Police Department, talked to the arresting officer.
00:28:35
I said, please tell me it was a handgun. He says, it was. I said, now please tell me it was a Glock 9mm. He goes,
00:28:42
It was. I said, now please tell me you have that weapon. He goes, I do. Bingo. We've got to get that. We've got to get that gun.
00:28:50
Yeah. Art went down and picked up the gun and we submitted it to our firearms tech.
00:28:56
The report came back clear as day. This was the gun that killed Susan Sutton and blinded her husband, which obviously connects Garrett Cobb to that murder pretty intimately.
00:29:09
Absolutely. But detectives did not rush out and arrest cop for a simple but very important reason.
00:29:17
There was a bigger question that needed to be answered. Did his friend Christopher know anything?
00:29:23
Was he even, perhaps, involved? Shocking question, of course. This was Sutton's son, the son who devoted himself to nursing his father back to health.
00:29:33
But something about Christopher bothered them and had ever since he was interviewed the morning after the murder.
00:29:40
He said that I was at the movies and said do you want to see the tickets? Just had him right there like that. Basically to me was like red flag there. I want to prove that I'm at the movies
00:29:52
odd Perhaps Might mean nothing at all the gun implicated cop of course but Christopher No real evidence to show he knew a thing I mean there were still a lot of pieces of puzzles that we still putting together
00:30:07
We certainly can't prove it yet. Like, for example, this big tantalizing piece of puzzle.
00:30:14
What in heaven's name might an island in the far-off Pacific have to do with the shooting of John and Susan Sutton?
00:30:21
Coming up, trouble in paradise for a young Christopher and his family. He was kidnapped in the middle of the night and he was 17 years old.
00:30:32
We knew that Christopher suddenly complained that he had been hogtied, beaten. When Dateline continues.
00:30:40
Amazing what that garden variety assault case in Homestead, Florida, led to. Garrett Copp was arrested with a gun that turned out to be the murder weapon in the Sutton case.
00:31:02
The very same Garrett Copp who talked on the phone so often with Christopher Sutton.
00:31:06
the friend who'd called Christopher right after the shooting. So now the complexion of the investigation changed.
00:31:15
We're trying to think, why would Garrett Kopp do this? I mean, he's a, like, 20-year-old kid.
00:31:23
Obviously, there's a tie with Christopher Sutton in him. And as for Christopher himself,
00:31:28
the detectives had no trouble finding people with an opinion about him. The cops should be looking at Christopher Sutton
00:31:36
because of the lengthy family history of problems that John and Susan had had with their son Christopher,
00:31:42
who was a handful from a very early age. A very early age, actually, as John Sutton recalled all too clearly.
00:31:52
Did he get into fights at school? I can remember that happening early on in preschool.
00:31:59
It got worse as Christopher got older. Did he get into trouble? Absolutely. It was vandalism.
00:32:06
Not only of our own things. There were vandalism of other people's property. They sent him off to boarding schools then.
00:32:16
But he didn't last at any of them. Failed or got kicked out. Of course, the whole family tried, said his sister Melissa.
00:32:23
The trouble wasn't a lack of love. Not at all. Was there a sense that Christopher was loved?
00:32:30
was loved. Oh, no, I mean, no doubt about it. But neither love nor money could prevent Christopher
00:32:36
from always ending back in the same place. Trouble. I know that he dealt drugs, and at one point he
00:32:44
was arrested for it when I was younger. And, you know, that was something that my father being a
00:32:50
lawyer and as well as a parent, you know, what do we do? Finally, in 1995, when Christopher was 16,
00:32:58
when counselors and boarding schools and tough love had all been tried and found wanting.
00:33:03
John and Susan looked away, far, far away, to find some help. On the Pacific island of western Samoa, there was a place called Paradise Cove,
00:33:14
a so-called boot camp for troubled kids. Behavior modification, their specialty.
00:33:20
It's a long way away, Samoa. Was that part of it, that it would be a good idea to have them far away for a while?
00:33:27
We weren't focused on finding the farthest place we could possibly send them. And we were very hesitant about Samoa, but we investigated it rather thoroughly.
00:33:38
It was expensive. Paradise Cove charged about $25,000 a year. But we just had enough.
00:33:47
Yeah. What else could we do? But the Sutton's knew there was no way Christopher would agree to go on his own.
00:33:53
So Attorney Sutton did what attorneys do best. and got a court order to have Christopher forcibly sent to Samoa.
00:34:01
He was kidnapped in the middle of the night, and he was 17 years old. They actually kidnapped him to take him to this time?
00:34:06
Put him on a plane. He was sent to Western Samoa. But Christopher would not break so easily.
00:34:13
And Paradise Co. was no paradise. In fact, there were many reports of physical abuse
00:34:19
and restraints used on those who were uncooperative, something Christopher learned when he first arrived.
00:34:25
We knew that Christopher Sutton had complained that he had been hogtied, beaten.
00:34:31
When his family was allowed to visit him about a year later, there did seem to be a distinct change, a huge improvement.
00:34:39
They found a buff, cleaned-up young man who excelled at sports. It was a happy family reunion.
00:34:47
It was a really happy event. We cried, we hugged, we said our hellos and loved each other.
00:34:54
and he was proud of, you know, what he'd learned and showed off at least to us. Then, five months after this reunion, Christopher turned 18.
00:35:04
Time for him to come home. Or so he thought. He was banking on getting out when he turned 18.
00:35:11
But we also learned that John Sutton, being a lawyer, had an order signed by a judge that said when you turn 18,
00:35:18
if you haven't completed the course, you're going to stay. Which infuriated Christopher Sutton.
00:35:23
Why did you decide to keep him there when he turned 18? We had concerns that he wasn't ready to return.
00:35:32
He had not, quote, graduated the program. How did he feel about that? He was quite upset.
00:35:39
He wanted to come home. He wanted things his way. He always wanted things his way.
00:35:43
But this time, finally, tough love seemed to work. Christopher was 19 and a changed man when he returned from his protracted stay in Samoa.
00:35:52
We met him at the airport at LAX on his birthday April 13th He was happy to see you Absolutely It was a joyous reunion Thrilled
00:36:05
The Sutton's went on a family cruise, a reward for their son. That's where he met his future fiancé,
00:36:11
a young woman from Boston named Juliette Driscoll. Juliette moved to Miami and quickly became a member of the family.
00:36:19
John Sutton even got her a job at his law firm. She was, you know, what I would imagine if someone was going to marry into the family.
00:36:28
My mother embraced her. Julia was a great influence on my brother and on the family, you know.
00:36:34
Christopher got his act together, enrolled in college, started working. His parents helped out by buying him a $300,000 condo.
00:36:44
He started up his own company, which in retrospect, looking at everything he'd done from arrests to drugs,
00:36:51
You know, this is good behavior. We were all happy that things were better. And anyway, by the time of the murder, Christopher was 26,
00:37:00
and Samoa had receded into his distant past. I interviewed Melissa in the very beginning.
00:37:06
All she knew about her brother was that he was a little bit rebellious, as most teenagers are at that age.
00:37:14
I think I said something along the lines of, no, I don't know any reason why he would want to do this.
00:37:20
I believe her father shared. I asked him early on when he was able to talk at Jackson Hospital,
00:37:26
could your son have something to do with this? And he says, I don't believe so. So perhaps Garrett Cobb acted alone after all.
00:37:34
But detectives were convinced Christopher had to be mixed up in that awful shooting somehow.
00:37:40
Someone must know. And they were right. Someone did. Coming up, John Sutton survived two bullets to the head.
00:37:52
Could he survive being home alone with his son? Christopher made comments that his parents were going to pay.
00:37:59
When Dateline continues. Miami homicide detectives Larry Bellew and Art Nanny had a problem.
00:38:15
They were pretty sure the man who shot John and Susan Sutton was even now a frequent visitor of the Sutton home.
00:38:21
Here a cop. Gets arrested. And they at least suspected that the Sutton's own son, now John's caregiver, was all mixed up in it somehow.
00:38:32
I was becoming more concerned. Was John Sutton a sitting duck for another attack? One that might finish him off?
00:38:39
you must have found it a little worrisome that john sutton was actually living with absolutely
00:38:46
his son christopher and being cared for by christopher sure still they worried but did not
00:38:52
act even though they knew full well that garrett copp the shooter they were sure
00:38:56
was still hanging around isn't that right that cop was there absolutely and again we still didn't
00:39:02
want to tip our hand but should christopher have been a suspect at all after all does this sound
00:39:08
like the behavior of guilty men? Garrett Kopp and Christopher Sutton, while ripping up bloody carpets,
00:39:13
actually called detectives to tell them they found new evidence at the crime scene,
00:39:18
a bullet casing under the carpet. Yeah, it's a helpful handyman. So, by the way, I found another casing.
00:39:24
You know, I mean, come on. It's an indication maybe they didn't do it, right? I didn't think so.
00:39:29
But, I mean, that's what any good defense attorney is going to point out. The casing was underneath something,
00:39:35
and I don't know how, you know, we all missed it, but we missed it. We were a little pissed.
00:39:41
Detectives remain convinced that Christopher harbored a lingering anger at his parents
00:39:46
for sending him to that boot camp in Samoa. So they talked to Camp Alumni. This former Paradise Cove resident was there when Christopher got the news
00:39:55
that he would have to stay well beyond his 18th birthday. I know he was upset. I know he was mad at his family for that.
00:40:02
But when detectives tracked down another Paradise Cove resident, but he said Christopher was a lot more upset than that.
00:40:09
Christopher made comments that his parents were going to pay for sending and taking years out of his life.
00:40:14
Then when they took a closer look at Christopher's more recent history, they could easily see that his improved behavior wasn't exactly lasting.
00:40:22
Even girlfriend Juliet's influence couldn't keep Christopher from slipping up. Yes, he went back to college after he returned from Samoa,
00:40:30
but soon dropped out, and he did form a company, but the company folded. And he didn't seem to be motivated.
00:40:40
We tried to get him to stay in jobs. Nothing seemed to be working. What John Sutton didn't know
00:40:46
was that his son had gone back to the one job he seemed to be good at, selling drugs.
00:40:53
Nor did he know that Christopher's friend Garrett Kopp was one of his best clients.
00:40:57
Kopp, it turned out, had been buying and sometimes reselling the drugs, mostly marijuana and Xanax.
00:41:05
And he and Christopher spent plenty of time sampling the goods, according to prosecutor Kathleen Hogue.
00:41:11
But it wasn't just drug deals. They hung around a lot, doing drugs, playing video games, whatever.
00:41:18
In the months after the murder, phone records showed a spike in the volume of calls
00:41:22
between the two, 300 calls in three months. That's an awful lot of drugs to be dealing in three months
00:41:29
if you have 300-some-odd phone calls. Could they have been talking murder? Speculation, of course.
00:41:35
But... Then, after the murder, when Cop was arrested on the gun charge, the prosecutors discovered it was Christopher who put up the money to bond him out,
00:41:44
even drove him to court. Hardly the sort of thing a drug dealer would do for a mere customer.
00:41:50
Going to court with him, bonding him out. There was more to this friendship. John and Melissa Sutton knew nothing of what police were discovering Christopher and his girlfriend were still living with John Garrett Kopp was still coming around
00:42:05
So, solid evidence or no, detectives decided it was time to act. They needed a confession to make their case.
00:42:13
I told the investigators, bring him to me. Coming up, a showdown with a killer. What did he want you to do?
00:42:22
Go in the back door, walk in, and shoot. Case closed? Far from it. When Dateline continues.
00:42:39
Detectives Larry Bellew and Art Nanny had a theory to explain the shooting of John Sutton
00:42:44
and the murder of his wife Susan, which was that Christopher Sutton hired his dope-smoking buddy Garrett Kopp to kill his parents.
00:42:52
But it was really just a theory, and while the case against Kopp was fairly strong,
00:42:57
remember the murder weapon was found in his possession, the evidence against Christopher was purely circumstantial,
00:43:03
little more than guilt by association. The Samoa boot camp might have given Christopher a motive, but...
00:43:10
I certainly needed more than that to make the arrest. I decided it was time to act.
00:43:14
We're going to need a confession, I believe. And given what they had against cop,
00:43:20
detectives gambled that the shooter might roll over on the sun. And he denied all.
00:43:26
That wasn't my gun at all? It wasn't my gun. And I said, looks like we're going to be here a long time today.
00:43:30
Oh, and they were. Ours and hours. You know how the house was set up? Yeah. Finally, I said, I don't believe you did this on your own.
00:43:38
So give me a reason as to how Chris got you to do this. it basically said look you know you gotta you have to look out for me and my family because
00:43:47
i'm afraid of him christopher's gonna go kill him yes if he didn't do this christopher was
00:43:51
going to take care of him and his young son i didn't believe it but that's the story he wanted
00:43:55
to give me and having given himself an excuse cop finally confessed said christopher was behind it
00:44:02
all gave him the gun the money to buy the black clothes he wore hired him as a hit man did he
00:44:08
Did he formulate this plan or was it a combined effort between two of you? He did.
00:44:14
What plan did he tell you? What did he want you to do? Go in the back door, walk in, and shoot.
00:44:21
Did it upset him to tell you this story? No, not really. Not that I could tell. Did he seem relieved that he finally had told someone?
00:44:28
No. And during this time, I'm talking to him, and he was pretty calm, as a matter of factly, talking about it.
00:44:35
After that confession, Copp was charged with first-degree murder. He was allowed to see his father, his girlfriend, and their son, and then taken off to jail.
00:44:46
So, case closed? Well, you'd think, given what Copp told the detectives, but it did not give them what they needed to arrest Christopher.
00:44:55
There's a feature in Florida law which says that the things a person says in a confession about somebody else could be labeled as hearsay.
00:45:05
They needed more. So they turned to the person closest to Christopher, his fiancée, Juliette Driscoll.
00:45:12
The two were engaged to be married in a few weeks. Dress bought, invitations in the mail.
00:45:17
She sat there and said, I don't know anything about it, Christopher doesn't tell me.
00:45:22
Didn't tell her anything? Or so she said. That was my reaction, and I didn't buy it.
00:45:28
Guess not, because he went on grilling this young woman for more than 12 hours. At the end of which, the detective played to her heart her relationship with Susan and John Sutton.
00:45:40
I said, look, Susan really cared about you. She basically thought of you as a daughter.
00:45:46
This woman didn't deserve to die like this. John doesn't certainly deserve to be blind the rest of his life.
00:45:53
And I know for a fact Garrett did this under the direction of Christopher. Finally, she started crying.
00:46:00
I go, I think I might have her. With the tears came a story, what Christopher had said to her that just might nail him from murder.
00:46:10
Parents deserve to die for taking years out of his life. She said that this went on for years.
00:46:16
She interjected, she goes, I knew it was going to happen, I just didn't know when.
00:46:21
That night they put Juliet, who was living with Christopher, into protective custody.
00:46:25
The next day I prepared an arrest warrant for Christopher Sutton. and a female officer paid a visit to Christopher's father, home alone.
00:46:35
She says, well, I've got good news and bad news. And the good news is that we have arrested the assailant.
00:46:44
He's admitted it. The bad news is he's inculpated your son and said your son set him up.
00:46:51
I go, man, oh, man. Well, that was a bad night, a real bad night. What was it like to hear that?
00:46:57
Was it a shock or did you have at that point some kind of an idea? It was 50 emotions all at the same time.
00:47:05
One of which is, well, I finally know. Two was, I can't believe this. John, ever the attorney, wanted to know what the evidence was,
00:47:15
had the reports read to him, and was convinced. I think that I was somewhere in between being completely outraged and upset
00:47:27
and somewhere where I knew that he had done it. But Melissa, so grief-stricken, wasn't focused on who did it
00:47:35
so much as what she had lost. A lot of people chased the killer, and I think I chased missing my mom.
00:47:42
Police are looking for 25-year-old Christopher Patrick Sutton. And Christopher was nowhere to be found.
00:47:49
Day after day, as police looked for him, John Sutton had time to think and remember.
00:47:53
One event in particular, which perhaps he'd suppressed, It happened nine years earlier when Christopher was just six
00:48:00
it was the deciding factor in sending him off to Samoa. Susan was going through Christopher's room and found a handwritten note planning our murder.
00:48:12
What did it say? Well, it talked about killing us for insurance. A week after a warrant was taken out for his arrest, police found Christopher
00:48:23
and brought him to the Miami-Dade Homicide Bureau. There he learned that both his alleged co-conspirator Garrett Kopp and his fiancée Juliet Driscoll had somehow implicated him.
00:48:33
I showed him certain excerpts out of Juliet Driscoll's statement saying, I knew it was going to happen, I just didn't know when.
00:48:42
At that point he immediately began to sob, put his head on the table and said, I'm f***ed.
00:48:48
But did that mean he was guilty? or merely that he understood the police believed he was guilty.
00:48:56
He made comments like, there's no magical way I can tell you where to go to find the truth.
00:49:04
Christopher Sutton and Garrett Cobb were charged with first-degree murder, a possible death penalty case.
00:49:09
Both pleaded not guilty. And John Sutton got busy. He had a mission, two in fact.
00:49:17
One, to seek justice, no matter what that might mean for his son. and the other and perhaps even more impossible, to simply see again.
00:49:27
Coming up, Garrett Copp's confession should be enough to put him behind bars. But did prosecutors have enough to convict Christopher Sutton?
00:49:38
This was a circumstantial case, extremely circumstantial, really based on motive.
00:49:43
When Dateline continues. John Sutton had survived gunshot wounds to his head, the death of his wife,
00:49:59
and his own son's arrest for murder. And to top it off, he was blind, apparently permanently.
00:50:07
It still is unbelievable. I mean, it's like a big bad dream. A nightmare from which there was no awakening.
00:50:17
but john if you hadn't noticed by now is a determined man he'd been a champion swimmer
00:50:25
in college now he swam again he'd been a skier now he learned to ski blind he fell in love again
00:50:35
her name is kathy henry how'd you meet her blind date am i supposed to laugh at that line
00:50:44
Yeah, it's true. What has it meant to you to have her with you? It's meant a great deal.
00:50:51
It's just tremendous. I wish I could see her. And he went back to the thing he'd always done best.
00:50:59
He went back to court to practice law. We did not sue for breach of that contract.
00:51:07
where his blindness became not exactly the handicap some opponents seem to expect.
00:51:14
I like to put myself down, so I say, you know, poor old blind guy, you know, I'm just trying to do the best I can.
00:51:22
And then I go in and memorize all the citations and let them decide if I know what I'm doing.
00:51:31
Not long after returning to work, he won a $9 million judgment for one of his clients.
00:51:37
I think the blindness is just, I couldn't even imagine. I don't even, I can't even try to think what that would be like.
00:51:45
Yeah. It's heavy. Memorizing things and going into court. He is a pretty determined guy.
00:51:52
Yeah, he's great. But adapting, even successful adapting, using a talking typewriter, for example,
00:51:59
wasn't enough for John Sutton. As he waited for his son's long-delayed trial, he pursued with something like an obsession, a quest to regain his eyesight.
00:52:11
And most people might have given up by then. Can't do anything, that's it, you live with it.
00:52:15
Not even close. No, I won't take no for an answer. At some of the best hospitals in the country, Sutton had been told there was simply nothing to be done.
00:52:24
He'd be blind for life. The bullets had permanently destroyed his optic nerve. But John had heard about a landmark breakthrough
00:52:31
at the Harvard-affiliated Scapins Eye Research Institute in Boston, where a renowned researcher had successfully regenerated the optic nerve in mice
00:52:40
using stem cell therapy and drugs. Human trials would be next. One step up. And so in March 2008,
00:52:48
almost three years to the day after his son was arrested, Sutton and his girlfriend Kathy were on the cold, rain-swept streets of Boston
00:52:56
on the way to an appointment at Scapins. Okay, so there's a chin rest in front of you.
00:53:03
A doctor evaluated Sutton's one intact eye and discovered that even though the nerve was destroyed,
00:53:10
the rest of the eye, theoretically at least, could work. My son is in jail, charged with first-degree murder.
00:53:18
They listened to the awful story of the way John lost his eyesight. They explained to him the amazing things they were doing
00:53:25
by growing corneas in a Petri dish, and of course, working on optic nerve regeneration.
00:53:31
John took it all in, amazed. And for the first time since the shooting, he felt a surge of positive excitement,
00:53:39
and a little germ of hope lodged itself in his stubborn mind. And you were thinking, maybe they can do it for you?
00:53:48
I said, I am in the right spot. He talked to the leading researchers working on optic nerve repair.
00:53:55
Have you done any studies with severed optic nerves He peppered them with questions like he was cross witnesses
00:54:05
Mike Gilmore, then president of Scapins, offered Sutton a glimmer, at least, of hope.
00:54:10
We will be able to regenerate an optic nerve. It's not so much a question of can we, but when can we.
00:54:17
And it was a good news, bad news sort of day. I do not want to mislead you or provide false hopes.
00:54:25
Yes, there might be a cure, but perhaps not for five or ten years or more, quite possibly too late for John Sutton.
00:54:33
How are you doing? Okay. How soon depends on how much funding we can get, how many scientists we can put behind the problem to solve it.
00:54:42
So Sutton told the scapins doctors he would somehow help make it happen. He wrote checks.
00:54:48
He joined the board of directors. he offered himself as a voice of hope for desperate patients even though it may never
00:54:58
help him as long as he lives he's okay with that there's a chance that uh we may not be able to
00:55:05
restore his vision uh there is a chance uh on the other hand that we may but uh if he doesn't get
00:55:12
behind it he does know that uh we're not going to move it as fast as we could well it's my
00:55:19
pleasure to be here today. As you will hear, I almost didn't make it here today. Sutton traveled
00:55:27
the country speaking at fundraiser, using what he calls his shock and awe presentation to tell
00:55:33
his story, complete with his 911 call and news footage. I want to flip this tragedy, this
00:55:42
catastrophe into a positive. Meanwhile, in Miami, it was decision time. The alleged shooter, Garrett
00:55:50
Kopp, had finally agreed to plead guilty and testify against Sutton's son, Christopher,
00:55:57
in exchange for a 30-year sentence and no death penalty. Sutton confronted the killer the day he
00:56:05
entered a plea. During the next days, months, years, 20 years, 30 years, I want you to think about
00:56:15
what you planned and what you did that night. You can be assured that with my blindness,
00:56:23
every minute of every day, that I will not forget you. All right, please. And with that,
00:56:29
the murder trial of Christopher Sutton could begin. And now, Florida law again. Now prosecutors could use the sworn testimony in court
00:56:38
of both the girlfriend and the hitman. But even with that, the case was, as prosecutor Kathleen Hogue knew all too well,
00:56:46
rather weak. This was a circumstantial case, extremely circumstantial, really based on motive.
00:56:53
John Sutton wanted the law to convict his son of murder. But was Christopher actually guilty?
00:57:01
Coming up, in court, a killer returns to the scene of the crime. What did you do at the end of the hallway?
00:57:09
See you just shoot. Who did you shoot at first? John. And what did you see Mr. Sutton do when you shot him?
00:57:16
Flip off the bed. When Dateline continues. Summertime in Miami. Pounding heat. Unavoidable sun.
00:57:34
Unavoidable except, of course, inside. All right, please. And six years inside a cell in the county jail.
00:57:41
Had produced a doughy Christopher Sutton. By the time his trial finally began, it was July 2010.
00:57:49
A son charged with hiring the hit man who murdered his mother, blinded his father.
00:57:53
And he sat apparently confident, highly prepared, ignoring most of the time the surviving members of his family a scant few feet away.
00:58:04
You know, we locked eyes, but I have nothing to say to him. Melissa sat with her father, their father, front row seat.
00:58:14
Prosecutor Karen Kagan told the jury a horror story, the state's version of what happened the night of the murder.
00:58:19
The man for whom the gunman had signed on to commit a double murder. A man who was intimately familiar with John and Susan Sutton.
00:58:31
That man, their son, Christopher Sutton. Then, graphic evidence. A crime scene soaked in blood and littered with bullet casings.
00:58:41
The medical examiner placed knitting needles in a mannequin to show where Susan was shot six times.
00:58:46
Her son took a deep breath, recoiled. Dreadful. But how would the state prove that Christopher was behind it all?
00:58:55
Raise your right hand. She will administer the oath. Here's how for starters. This man once worked with Christopher, was an occasional pot customer too,
00:59:03
but was shocked, he said, when Christopher asked him a certain question. He asked me if I knew of any hitman that would kill his parents.
00:59:11
What reason or explanation did he give you? He said that his parents were worth about $500,000 to $1 million.
00:59:18
dollars worth a lot more actually it was house insurance law practice christopher stood to
00:59:24
inherit millions so was money a motive or was it the stint at the boot camp in samoa or both
00:59:32
detective bell you told the jury he tried to find out when he questioned christopher
00:59:36
i said did you hate your parents that much and his answer i said you tell me he says you you just
00:59:42
don't know. But did that answer the question about guilt or motive? Or would she?
00:59:50
Miss Driscoll, if you'll come forward, stand in front of our clerk here, please.
00:59:54
When Juliet once his fianc and the love of his life walked by him in the courtroom Christopher eyes welled up He hadn seen her in years Now her testimony could send him away for life
01:00:06
What did the defendant tell you about getting his parents killed or taken care of?
01:00:11
Same thing I'd been hearing for the last six years. Which was that he could find someone to kill them?
01:00:17
Find somebody. They deserved it. This wasn't easy for Juliet. as she recalled the last time she saw Susan Sutton
01:00:25
the night of that birthday celebration a few hours before she was killed. We went over.
01:00:31
It was me, Chris, John, Susan, and Teddy. We had dinner. Do you remember that Melissa was there?
01:00:44
Do you need a minute? This might be a good time for a break anyway. That night, whether Juliet knew it or not,
01:00:54
Christopher and his drug-dealing hitman Garrett Kopp were already leaving a trail for detectives.
01:00:59
A trail of phone calls. Seventeen in all, one just an hour after the murder as Christopher and Juliet left the movie theater that August night.
01:01:08
This day will call Garrett Kopp to the stand. And here was the man on the end of that phone.
01:01:13
The man who said he did it, Garrett Kopp. 25 years old, short, scruffy. The self-confessed killer shuffled into the courtroom and told a horrifying tale.
01:01:25
How Christopher instructed him to enter the house through a sliding glass door near the pool.
01:01:30
How he'd made a sketch of the house to guide Garrett down a hallway to John and Susan's bedrooms.
01:01:35
What did you do at the end of the hallway? See the shoot. Who did you shoot at first?
01:01:40
John. Is that Mr. Sutton? Yes. Where was Mr. Sutton when you shot at him initially?
01:01:48
On the bed. And what did you see Mr. Sutton do when you shot him? Flip off the bed.
01:01:55
After you fired at Mr. Sutton, what did you do? Proceed to shoot in the other room.
01:02:01
And who was the person with whom you were in a plan to shoot John and Susan Sutton?
01:02:06
Chris Sutton. And what do you remember the defendant telling you about how much money you might expect to get?
01:02:15
Upwards of $100,000. Until this moment, John Sutton had been a spectator at his son's trial,
01:02:21
his thoughts and feelings his own. But he was a victim, too. Staying out of it wasn't an option for him.
01:02:28
And now came the moment he'd both dreaded and demanded. He testified against his own son.
01:02:35
First, about the night his world went dark. The only thing I saw was for an instant a snap.
01:02:44
I didn't even see the gun. But in an instant, bam, and then next thing you knew, I woke up and I was on the floor.
01:02:53
John Sutton answered the questions as if the defendant sitting before him was a man he had never met,
01:02:58
as if this was not the boy he had raised from birth. Neither father nor son displayed the slightest emotion.
01:03:06
It doesn't make any sense to get on the witness stand and cry in front of the jury.
01:03:12
It can cause a mistrial. so I dealt with it I did what I had to do so he did but was he right about his son
01:03:22
did the state really have the puzzle solved or had its key witness been forced to lie
01:03:30
coming up now it was the defense's turn and Christopher's old girlfriend one of the prosecution's star witnesses against him
01:03:41
had a new story to tell about how she was threatened by police. They told me that if they didn't hear what they wanted to hear,
01:03:50
that they were going to arrest me instead. They threw my purse across the room. What would that do to the prosecution's case when Dateline continues?
01:04:01
It takes a special sort of skill to defend a man facing a charge of first-degree murder.
01:04:19
And in Miami, Bruce Fleischer has honed the skill as well as anyone. But what he could see right away knew it long before the trial,
01:04:27
was that the scene in that courtroom was about as bad as it could be. Because there they were, just feet apart,
01:04:34
his client and a blind father, the survivor of Christopher Sutton's alleged plot to kill his parents.
01:04:41
The fact that John Sutton survived and was blind, to me, was the greatest prejudice in the case.
01:04:50
And there he was, right behind the bar the whole time. The jury would hear something bad, and they'd look over at John Sutton.
01:04:56
they had to be thinking, this poor man, look what he has to go through life with.
01:05:02
For the victim, Fleischer knew, he must display only sympathy. So instead, he'd attack the murder
01:05:09
investigation itself, the way the police came up with their two star witnesses, Juliet Driscoll
01:05:15
and Garrett Kopp. After all, without them, the state's case was weak. And why do you suppose they
01:05:22
came forward anyway because they were forced to, or so reason Fleischer. Juliette Driscoll, for example, why did she tell police Christopher talked about killing his parents?
01:05:34
They eventually tell her, if you don't tell us what we want to know, you're going to be arrested in this murder conspiracy.
01:05:43
And what does she do? She tells them what they want to know. Can you please have a seat over here?
01:05:50
In fact the defense attorney got Juliet to admit the state wouldn even have had that if detectives hadn intimidated and threatened her They told me that if they didn hear what they wanted to hear that they were going to arrest me instead
01:06:06
They threw my purse across the room. They slammed their hands on the desks. Did they tell you it was going to be for first-degree murder?
01:06:15
They told me they were going to arrest me for murder. And you eventually told them what they wanted to hear?
01:06:23
After 13 hours, yes. Before Christopher was arrested, the two planned a wedding and honeymoon in Samoa, of all places, which begged the question.
01:06:34
If he was going to take the lives of his parents, why would you stay with him and why would you marry him?
01:06:43
I can't think of how many times I've heard somebody say, oh, my God, I hate this person so much.
01:06:48
I could kill him right now. And when you hear it for six straight years, you just don't believe it.
01:06:53
Finally, Juliet testified, detectives lied when they said she told them, I knew it would happen, I just didn't know when.
01:07:02
I never believed he was going to do it, and that's why the whole thing with my statement,
01:07:06
that I knew he was going to do it, and which I've said, I didn't know he was going to do it.
01:07:10
I'm still confused about the whole matter. I don't know if he did it or not. Nobody knows what really happened except for him and Garrett.
01:07:16
Thank you. That's what I've been saying. So, why not just play a tape of the interrogation?
01:07:24
Well, they couldn't. The police didn't record a word of their long talk with Julia Driscoll.
01:07:31
She said, certainly he said those things. But whether he did it or not is up in the air as far as I'm concerned.
01:07:37
Right, and I think that gives rise to a major reasonable doubt in this case. But remember, Garrett Kopp, the confessed shooter,
01:07:45
testified that he was merely Christopher's puppet on a string when he killed Susan
01:07:50
and tried to kill John. How do you get a jury to doubt a statement like that? We now had to go after him with hammer and tongs.
01:07:59
Oh, and he did. Fleischer went after Garrett and the cops. Every time you denied being involved in this,
01:08:09
they got aggressive with you, didn't they? Somewhat. They just like got pushy a little bit.
01:08:15
Got pushy. You mean they walked over to you and they pushed you a little bit on the shoulder?
01:08:20
Getting in my face. Did they touch you? Leaning up against me. Yeah, like this? Yeah.
01:08:26
And when they got close to you like this, what are they saying? Garrett. Garrett.
01:08:32
Something like that. You need to tell us something, Garrett, because they're going to fry your ass in the electric chair.
01:08:37
I begs. Excuse me. Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Pleasure. Thank you. Is that an objection?
01:08:42
That is an objection. Okay, well, the question is, is that what they said to you?
01:08:47
Something like that. I'm going down for murder. You're going down for murder. I'm going to get the death penalty.
01:08:54
You're going to get the death penalty. What finally made you give them some information?
01:09:01
Saying that Juliet was confessing in the other room. Well, they told me I was going to go to jail for murder already.
01:09:08
already, so I ended up confessing. There was no doubt that Kopp committed the murder.
01:09:15
But maybe the case against Christopher wasn't quite so watertight after all. Maybe Christopher himself could set the record straight.
01:09:25
We're calling Chris Sutton. Would jurors listen? Coming up. Accused of murdering his mother and blinding his father,
01:09:35
a son sheds tears on the stand for himself. I was what they called in denial. When Dateline continues.
01:09:58
Judge, we're calling Chris Sutton. Jurors had to be deeply curious about the man accused of putting a hit on his own parents.
01:10:07
For one thing, in his button-down shirt and wire-rimmed glasses, he looked more law student than murder suspect.
01:10:13
And besides, for two weeks, they'd watched his careful note-taking, his whispered asides to attorney Fleischer.
01:10:19
He felt that he was wrongfully prosecuted, and the only way that we could tie up a lot of things
01:10:24
and actually prove things or disprove things was by him testifying. How would he convey his innocence?
01:10:35
First, by describing his hospital vigil, a concerned son on the night of the shooting.
01:10:41
Did he acknowledge that he was there? Yeah, he could squeeze your hand, but he couldn't speak.
01:10:47
How did you feel when you saw your father at the Ryder Trauma Center? Shocked, hurt, worried, scared.
01:10:55
Not that Christopher was claiming to be a perfect son. In fact, he told the jury he was a drug dealer.
01:11:05
Garrett Kopp was one of his best customers, but had good reason to turn on him. Why?
01:11:11
Because years earlier, Christopher said, he turned police informant to get drug charges dropped.
01:11:16
And who did he finger? Garrett Kopp. What happened, if anything, with your relationship with Garrett Kopp after he was arrested?
01:11:25
I didn't speak to him for a while. Or he didn't speak to me, I should say, for a while.
01:11:29
Was he mad at you? Yes. So was it payback time now? Yes, says Christopher, it must have been.
01:11:36
And thus, his theory of the murder. Christopher said he had nothing to do with it.
01:11:41
Told the jury he never asked Cop to kill his parents. Cop made it all up. The police had it all wrong.
01:11:48
What really happened, he said, was that Cop stormed into the house that night to steal Christopher's hidden stash.
01:11:54
Boxes full of drugs. How much marijuana did you store in these boxes? In the top box, about two pounds.
01:12:03
What was the value of that? Seven thousand bucks. In fact, the very day of the murder, said Christopher, a hopped up cop called him again and again, desperate to buy drugs.
01:12:15
Christopher told him that between his mother's birthday party and a movie that night, he couldn't do it.
01:12:20
Why did you tell him that you couldn't get the drugs? Overruled. I told him that I had left it in my room at my parents' house.
01:12:28
And that's what gave Kopp the idea as to where to go to get the drugs. But that still doesn't explain why he would, in cold blood, murder and attempt to murder these two people.
01:12:39
He went to get the drugs. He found the Sutton's home, and they could recognize him.
01:12:46
He panicked. He was in a drug stupor, and he shot them both. So if you were Garrett Kopp, wouldn't you try to implicate the man who turned you into police?
01:12:58
And here's the thing, said Christopher. He could understand cop turning on him. But Juliet, his own fiancé, when he heard what she told police, he said he broke down in tears.
01:13:09
Not because of what she said, but why she must have said it. As soon as he started reading parts of Juliet's statement, yeah, I started crying.
01:13:19
And why were you crying? I was crying because the woman I was going to be marrying in five weeks had lied to save herself.
01:13:26
His were tears of frustration, too, said Christopher. How could he defend himself against lies when his police interrogator kept accusing him of murder?
01:13:35
I told him he's not going to believe anything I say. He's just going to try to twist my words to use them against me or, you know, like he did with Juliet.
01:13:44
Because there's no proof that I did anything because I know I didn't do anything.
01:13:49
So there it was. Another theory for the jury to consider. But there was one more thing the defense had to do, if possible.
01:13:58
Knock down the allegation that his banishment to Samoa had given him a motive to kill his parents.
01:14:06
But what you'll hear probably wasn't in the defense strategy. A level two is allowed to go to the bathroom on his own, is allowed to have some more privileges.
01:14:20
And then, as Christopher described the program, something in the memories on that island struck a nerve.
01:14:30
How were you feeling physically during that time? I was what they called in denial.
01:14:46
You need a break? Yep. Strange. Stoic for the rest of his testimony, yet in the process of trying to dismiss Samoa as a murder motive,
01:14:56
he cried about his experience there. So, revealing? Attorney Fleischer put the best spin on it he could.
01:15:04
I think that showed his honesty as a witness. I cried when I got off the plane. When court resumed Christopher told the jury that while he was initially upset about being sent to Samoa he got over it made the best of it and when his parents and Melissa came to visit they all had a wonderful time together
01:15:22
Hardly a dysfunctional family. Were you happy to be with your parents? I was very, very happy to see my parents.
01:15:27
You know, I love them very much. So, he'd given the jury an alternative. He'd tried, at least, to defuse the Samoa motive.
01:15:36
Enough? Not nearly, said Prosecutor Kagan. What motive did Garrett Kopp have to go in and attempt to assassinate both those people? None. What motive did Christopher Sutton have to want both his parents dead? Plenty.
01:15:53
And what's the story here? They have the statement of Garrett Copp, the drug-crazed little thug who gives this story to save himself from the death penalty, and the coerced statement of Juliet Driscoll.
01:16:10
Where's the evidence in this case? What do they have? Nothing. Seven men, five women on the jury, and real doubt in the air.
01:16:20
When he first started saying his testimony, I mean, he put God in my mind. Coming up, the jury speaks.
01:16:27
We have the jury. And so does Christopher Sutton. I'm sure I could have been a better guy.
01:16:32
As his father hopes for a miracle when Dateline continues. Now you may deliberate.
01:16:48
And all rise for the jury, please. Not an easy task these people were given. Did Christopher Sutton mastermind a plan to kill his own parents?
01:16:57
We battled for a while. Who knew that those 12 were butting heads all day in the jury room
01:17:04
and split down the middle after seven hours. They went home. It was mostly Garrett Copp they had trouble with.
01:17:12
How could they believe a cold-blooded hitman who rats on a friend to save his own skin?
01:17:17
He's making his deal because he doesn't want to go to the death penalty. Which would mean what?
01:17:21
That you can't really believe what he's going to say because he's an opportunist.
01:17:25
Yeah. He's going to save himself. Yeah. Next day, they tried again. Ten hours went by.
01:17:32
Sweat in the air-conditioned hallway. A deadlock. And then, 7 p.m., two words set the halls abuzz.
01:17:39
A verdict. John and Melissa Sutton took their seats in the front row. Bring in the jury, please.
01:17:44
Christopher Sutton stood stone-faced as jurors filed in. Thank you, good to see you.
01:17:50
Were those tears from some members of the jury? All right, ladies and gentlemen, I understand you have reached a verdict.
01:17:56
Judge Stanford Blake read the verdict. State of Florida v. Christopher Sutton. We, the jury in Miami-Dade, Florida, this 21st day of July 2010,
01:18:07
find the defendant Christopher Patrick Sutton. As the count one, guilty of first-degree murder is charged
01:18:13
in the indictment. Guilty. With that, Christopher's head snapped back as if he'd been struck.
01:18:19
As the count three, guilty of attempted first-degree felony murder. Melissa wept Her father their father locked his jaw stared ahead sightless Sentencing would be immediate John Sutton was offered time to speak And years of stoic resolve crumbled
01:18:40
Regardless of the result, this is a bad case. We are now... We're now at five years, 11 months.
01:19:10
I lost Susan. I lost Christopher long before that. Christopher did not look at his father.
01:19:22
Had he done so, he would not have seen tears. The bullets that tore into his head left John Sutton unable to cry.
01:19:29
I lost my eyesight. How was it in that courtroom? It needs to be horrible. Raw, personal. Here's the judge.
01:19:42
Also ironic for me, I have a son who was born the exact same date as Christopher Sutton
01:19:46
when I heard his date during the trial. remembered the joy of bringing my son home, just like Mr. Sutton had.
01:19:57
So at this time, as the count one, Mr. Sutton, the court, poses a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
01:20:06
And that was that. Christopher Sutton will die in prison. A result he found so shocking, he decided he needed to explain
01:20:16
that they got it so very wrong. The verdict did seem to be a big surprise. Yeah, I definitely wasn't expecting to be found guilty.
01:20:25
I mean, I was shocked, you know, like to know you didn't do something, but yet to have people feel you did, you know.
01:20:31
The words fairly gushed from his mouth, as if there just wasn't time to say everything that needed to be said.
01:20:37
Well, I mean, like a lot of this comes down to there's me and there's Garrett. And then everybody else is just kind of talking about, you know,
01:20:43
what I did years before or maybe after or, you know, even Juliet said that, like the only people
01:20:49
that could know anything are Christopher and Garrett. But this idea that he would break in
01:20:53
looking for drugs. Yeah, absolutely. You wouldn't have drugs there, though. I had stuff in my
01:20:57
bedroom still that I was moving out and in of that room. Garrett Cobb helped me move some of that
01:21:02
stuff. You need some water? The jury told us Christopher's tears on the witness stand when
01:21:09
he talked about Samoa, made some of them believe his incarceration there on the island was a motive
01:21:16
for murder. You seemed kind of broken up talking about the camp, but not so broken up when you
01:21:22
talked about your parents' death. When I initially talked about it, I would cry a lot. It would be
01:21:25
really hard. Now, the program, I mean, like, I've done my best to seal that away and forget about it.
01:21:30
Still all of a sudden, boom. That was the first time I had sat there in a long time and been like,
01:21:33
wow, what really did happen, you know, there? How do you feel about your dad now? I mean,
01:21:37
I'm devastated that he said things against me are bad. But my dad turning on me in hard times isn anything new And then he talked about his circumstances his fate and his self abandoned him The way it set right now this is home You never get out
01:21:56
Well, at some point in time, I mean, like, if you have integrity inside yourself, you know, you have to stand up for what you believe in, even if your life's online.
01:22:04
How does that feel? It's hard. It's hard to know that I'm going to go to jail for something I didn't do.
01:22:11
You know, I mean, like, I'm not going to sit here at the night and I had problems with my parents.
01:22:15
I heard any of that stuff happen. That's why I wanted to get up there and explain.
01:22:20
Explain to the people that, you know, it's like I might not be the best person. I mean, I'm sure I could have been a better guy, you know,
01:22:26
but I mean, I was trying, and I didn't have anything to do with this. I didn't create this system.
01:22:30
I'm just stuck in it. Trapped. That's why I'll fight all the way till the end. I mean, like, I'm innocent.
01:22:39
I always maintain my innocence. And they make a whole time. Show me how it looks like the lion.
01:22:44
John Sutton still recalled the suit he wore when he brought Christopher home from the hospital.
01:22:50
And now it had all come to this. When we last sat down with him, he shared his thoughts about the boy he did his best to raise.
01:22:59
What about Christopher? Do you still think of him as your son? I guess technically he is, but someday I may go see him and confront him.
01:23:09
Say, what were you thinking of? you know what a stupid criminal ridiculous crazy thing all this was reconciling if it ever comes
01:23:21
is a long long that ain't happening no way no way it's complicated says melissa ridiculously difficult
01:23:33
but what choice does she have i have a brother you know i'm not going to ignore that fact you
01:23:41
You know, I have a billion family pictures with him and them. A brother who blew up your whole family.
01:23:47
But in that same picture, I have a mom who passed away, a brother who's in jail, a dad who's blind.
01:23:53
You know, that's my family, and that's kind of what it is. But at the same time, you know, I believed he did what he did, and I have no intention of ever speaking with him again.
01:24:07
But life indeed did go on. Melissa moved up north and found a career in media services.
01:24:15
Detectives Art Nanny and Larry Bellew retired from the force. Bellew adopted a little boy, just like John Sutton did all those years ago.
01:24:24
And John Sutton continued to pursue his dream to see again. Are you prepared or has it sunk in that you're going to be blind for the rest of your life?
01:24:37
Well, that's not my plan. I may not be that smart, but boy, I'm motivated. I mean, the enthusiasm coming out of you is kind of inspirational.
01:24:48
I'm ready to roll. I got plans for this ice. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.