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[Music] up next a home invasion and murder the injuries that she sustained are unimaginable it was what they call a
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signature killing was a family member involved allegations of mafia involvement the relative is frankie the
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fireman porco the press says the police can't solve it every day on the news
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talking about they've botched this investigation they can't do anything right
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but the police are one step ahead of the press and the killer [Music] working for the supreme court of new
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york state is a prestigious job for 52-year-old peter porco a clerk for an appeals judge
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it was the perfect way to end his legal career until one day everything changed it started off as any other day
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until peter porco didn't show up for work and people began to get worried because
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that wasn't like him a court officer went to the parcco's home and immediately saw signs of
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trouble he walked up to the front of the house and in the door he saw a key a key by
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itself in the door lock the door was ajar he looks down and he sees on the cement
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steps some drops of blood inside was a bloodbath he looked over to his right and he saw a
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body laying there whom he recognizes peter parkou peter porco had been bludgeoned to death
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it was a scene of shocking horror something that most people who saw it find it difficult
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to talk about upstairs in the master bedroom was his wife joan who was still alive but just barely a
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three-foot axe was next to her investigators could see her brain while they were trying to save her life
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she was also hit with the axe along her arms to give oxygen they're supposed to put a
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bag over her mouth and they couldn't figure out where her mouth was joan was rushed to the hospital her life
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hanging in the balance blood spatter analysis showed that joan porco was struck three times
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in the head with the axe while sleeping peter parkout had been struck 16 times in the head
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but why was peter's body found downstairs apparently sometime after the attack
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peter regained consciousness and started to go about his morning tasks he had actually pulled on some clothes
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over the top of some wounds and began walking around the house that's because
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the top part of peter's brain the neocortex which controls higher functions like
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thought language and reasoning was severely damaged in the attack the autopsy revealed
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his paleocortex underneath was intact this controls his primal instincts and second nature habits
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this explains why he got up went downstairs made breakfast performed the same tasks
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he did each and every morning unaware he was mortally wounded the blood evidence shows
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he even went out to get the morning newspaper and that the front door locked behind
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him he used the house key hidden in the flower pot to open it then lost consciousness due to blood
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loss and died i am surprised that he was able to move around the residents as he did
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before joan porco went into surgery an alert investigator who was also a friend of the family asked joan a key
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question while she was still conscious i said to her can you hear me and she shook her
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head visibly up and down in the yes notion that she could the officer asked her if she knew who attacked her she shook
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her head again in the yes notion up and down i asked her did christopher do this to you
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and she clearly again sh nod her head up and down yes christopher was her 21 year old son
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[Music] the medical examiner concluded that peter porco was the intended target of the brutal
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axe attack in his home since he was struck 16 times in the head joan was hit three times
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nothing was missing from the porco's home either which pointed to only one conclusion leads them to believe
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that maybe this is someone who was angry with someone in the family that there was something more to this
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peter and joan porco had two children 23 year old jonathan was a lieutenant in the u.s
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navy serving on a nuclear submarine hundreds of miles away 21 year old christopher attended the
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university of rochester a three-hour drive away both had alibis for the night of the
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attack but why did joan parco tell police her son christopher was responsible your mother
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is communicating she's saying you were there i don't know why she said she knows i hope she does i was not
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there he was cooperating he let them take a dna sample he let them look at his body to make
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sure that there weren't marks or signs of a struggle like bruises three weeks after the attack joan porco
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regained consciousness everybody was very surprised it was a miracle she obviously had a strong will to to
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live and the doctors just did an amazing job and joan now told police that christopher
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had nothing to do with the attack she said it couldn't have been christopher leave
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my son alone joan also made a public statement supporting her son i am absolutely positive that my son was
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in no way involved in this heinous crime i implore the district attorney's office to leave
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my son alone and to search for peter's real killer and the forensic evidence or lack of it
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corroborated christopher's story investigators found nothing in christopher's jeep the yellow
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jeep was searched for blood and or bloody clothing any type of blood transfer whatsoever which would be
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indicative of the attack there was no no blood located in the vehicle whatsoever
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police also found no evidence that christopher had been on the highway between his school and
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his home there was no recording of his easy pass going through the tolls that night
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forensic analysts found no fingerprints or blood other than the victims on the axe
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then police learned that peter parker had once received a death threat it was from a man who lost custody of
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his children in a case before the new york state supreme court the man had vowed revenge
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the man told him he was going to get a gun and he was going to come and kill the judge and peter porco
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but that man had an alibi for the night of the murder then there was an anonymous letter sent
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to the local newspaper from someone claiming to be peter porco's killer peter porca was not even a challenge
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once i got inside i repeatedly hit him in the head and neck with a small axe i brought with me
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i ignored all his pleading screams also i beat joan porco but unfortunately she survived
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the writer took credit for another local murder and warned he'd kill again if you ever want to find
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me you might want to stop going after easy suspects show me some respect i deserve catch me
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if you can police found no fingerprints on the letter and they needed to find out who wrote it
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while searching for the person responsible for the brutal acts attack investigators first tried to uncover the
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motive we don't have ax murders here it was just an alarming tremendously alarming case police
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learned that peter parker had a relative and organized crime who'd been in trouble with the law
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the relative is frank porco known as frankie the fireman porco frankie porco was serving time in
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federal prison for loan sharking there were rumors that frankie parker would turn state's evidence
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and provide information in return for a lighter sentence it was what they call a signature
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killing you know that the mob would do and it was the fireman's act because it
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was retaliation for frankie the firemen but a background check on frankie the firemen cast doubt on this theory
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he was in prison because he wasn't a snitch you know he had been made the offers to cooperate
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with the authorities to avoid prison and he didn't so he ended up in prison then investigators learned that peter
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and joan porco had life insurance policies totaling one million dollars investigators also
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learned that christopher parker asked for investment advice before the murder christopher had gone
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to a financial counselor and asked him to write up a portfolio for him he told him he was receiving millions of
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dollars from a relative and before his father's death christopher emailed him
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asking for all sorts of personal financial information yo pops if i could have you and mom's
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social security numbers and your new york state driver's license numbers i need them for paperwork related to
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financial info for next semester hope you're having a good day love chris then investigators checked the code
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numbers used to deactivate the porco's home security system on the night of the attack
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[Music] the security system's computer showed that whoever deactivated the alarm and presumably
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cut the phone lines was someone known by the family the alarm had been disarmed at approximately two o'clock in the
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morning so this was the master code that was used um which was the code the family had as
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well as possible possibly one or two other people so despite joan porco's claim that her
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son christopher wasn't responsible for the attack investigators took a fresh look
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at where he was on the night of the crime christopher claimed he was in his dorm
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room 220 miles away investigators obtained security video from the university of rochester campus
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and from all the major highways and toll booths in between the parco's home and the campus they screened all of it
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looking for christopher's yellow jeep the average person is videotaped 18 to
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22 times a day so there's a tremendous amount of media that's available to the
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to law enforcement at 10 30 p.m they saw a yellow jeep leaving the university campus
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the security alarm at the porco's home was deactivated a little more than three and a half
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hours later at 2 14 a.m the porco's phone line was cut at 4 59 a.m and the same
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yellow jeep returned to the campus three and a half hours later at 8 30 in the morning the timeline
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fit perfectly but was this christopher's jeep there are actually more yellow jeeps than you might imagine
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in the state of new york there are thousands of yellow jeeps video analyst james kennedy ran the
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security camera images through a computer filter so it's not like our filtering software
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all of a sudden makes this stuff appear what it does it provides us with in some cases subtle in some cases
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dramatic clarifications kennedy found specific details on the jeep like mud on the passenger side door
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the passenger side window had a torn parking sticker and there was a political sticker on the
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back tire cover those were compared to photographs of christopher's jeep taken by police
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the day of the murder we were able to conclude that it was in fact the suspect's jeep unfortunately
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the photographic analysis couldn't identify who was driving was it christopher
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or someone else through forensic analysis investigators now knew that christopher parkou's jeep left the
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university of rochester four hours before the axe attack on his parents [Music] and returned to the campus ten hours
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later it was possible for him to get down to albany do what happened at the house
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and then make it back up to the campus in the morning for him to make it in that time he would
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have had to use the new york state throughway but investigators had no proof that
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christopher porco's jeep was on the throughway that night or if it was christopher who was driving
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there were no easy pass records of christopher coming home that night but investigators found christopher's
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easy pass tag on the floor of his jeep on the morning of the attack they tell me if you take it off the
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windshield and you get it down on the floor and or you know put it away somewheres it won't register
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was it possible christopher paid the highway tolls with cash to avoid leaving a trail i don't believe
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that those lanes are surveilled with video cameras investigators asked the toll collectors
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if they recalled seeing a yellow jeep that night one toll collector said she remembered a
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yellow jeep driving through right before quitting time around 11 pm but she couldn't remember anything about
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the driver when they hand you the ticket it's stamped it's got the time on
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only a dozen cars went through that tollbooth around that time investigators sent those 12 toll tickets
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to the forensic lab for testing what we were looking for were any kind of skin cells if your hands
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are sweaty and you touch a toe ticket there's a possibility that dna sources such as epithelial cells
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may be transferred onto these toll tickets scientists found skin cells on several tickets
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they performed mitochondrial dna testing on those skin cells and compared those dna profiles
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to christopher parco's dna profile one ticket contained christopher porco's
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dna we have a toll ticket that ultimately has christopher's dna on it when that dna came in that was the top
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of the mountain it was what i considered a mountain of circumstantial evidence the possibility that the dna on the toll
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ticket belonged to someone other than christopher porco was very small you would expect to see
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that sequence and 0.04 percent of the population prosecutors believe the motive was money
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investigators found evidence that christopher had forged his parents signatures on bank loan documents and borrowed 31
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000 without their permission they also found evidence that peter and joan porco knew about the
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forgery chris i want you to know that if you abuse my credit again i will be forced to file forgery
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affidavits in order to disclaim liability you should come home so we can talk we
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may be disappointed in you but your mother and i still love you and care about your future
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christopher was not only spending huge sums of money on luxury items like his jeep
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but he was also failing his college courses his world was crumbling around him a
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world he had created a persona he'd created a lifestyle he'd created and he had to do something to try to
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salvage it prosecutors believe christopher was desperate for money after his father had
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cut off his funds so christopher chose to murder his parents for their life insurance money
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surveillance video shows christopher left his college campus around 10 30. [Music]
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he removed the easy pass tag from his car because he knew this would leave a trail of his
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movements so he paid cash for the tolls and left his dna on a ticket [Music] he entered his parents home a little
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after 2 a.m and deactivated the security system with a code known only to family members
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prosecutors say christopher used an axe to attack his parents [Music] he struck his father 16 times and his
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mother three times and left them both for dead christopher smashed the security system
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panel thinking this would destroy the evidence that he used the master code but that information was stored
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elsewhere he cut the phone lines into the house at 4 59 then drove back to the campus
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in full view of the cameras at 8 30 a.m perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the case
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was that peter porco regained consciousness and walked through the house after the
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attack even going outside for the morning paper before he died in the foyer there still remain unanswered questions
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i think one of the main questions that we just don't have the answer to is where are the bloody clothes and why did
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joan porco implicate christopher on the morning of the attack but had no recollection of it
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following surgery it's not uncommon when you have a head injury to lose memory in the time surrounding the event
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a year after the attack christopher porco went on trial for the murder of his father
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and the attempted murder of his mother with their face surgically repaired joan parco stood by her son during the entire
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trial steadfastly maintaining his innocence it was going to take a lot to convince a
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jury ultimately that the kid in front of them could have taken an axe to his parents
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but the evidence was simply overwhelming the jury found christopher parker guilty and he was
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sentenced to a minimum of 50 years in prison we really wanted to find something that made him innocent you
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know and that we could say that no the prosecution's evidence just doesn't add
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up it doesn't match up he didn't do this to his parents thank god but we didn't find that that's not
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how we found our verdict to this day his mother believes he's innocent i spoke with her immediately after that
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verdict she was stunned and shocked and that's all she really had to say at that point
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she hasn't really spoken with anyone since i've never seen a case like this
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before this and i hope to never see a case like this after this