Page 6 - Christopher Patrick Sutton News Today

How old your mom was? >> 57. no, you cant put that on. she was a nice 45. lets put it, leave it at that. >> reporter: the guests laughed. the law partner went home. son christopher and his girlfriend went to a movie. john settled in to watch tv in the master bedroom. susan in another bedroom talked on the phone with a close friend. a quiet end to a pleasant evening. quiet. but not for long. >> coral gables, 911. >> i need the police at my house. i have just been assaulted. >> what happened, sir....

Know any reason why he would want to do this. >> reporter: a belief her father shared. >> i asked him early on. when he was able to talk at jackson hospital. could your son have something to do with this? he said i dont believe so. >> reporter: perhaps garrett kopp act add loan. but detectives were convinced christopher had to be mixed up in the awful shooting somehow. someone must know. and they were right. someone did. coming up -- john sutton survived two bullets to the head. could he survive...

Now you may deliberate. 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? >> we battled for a while. >> reporter: who knew that those 12 were butting heads all day in the jury room. and split down the middle after seven hours. they went home. it was mostly garrett kopp they had trouble with. how could they believe a cold-blooded hit man who rats on a friend to save his own skin. >> he is making the deal b...

Member of the family. john sutton got her a job at his law firm. >> she was what i would imagine if somebody was going to marry into the family. my mother embraced her. she was a great influence on my brother and the family. >> reporter: christopher got his act together. enrolled in college. started working. his parents helped out by buying him a $300,000 condo. >> he started up his own company which -- in retrospect looking at everything he had done from arrests to drugs, you know, this is good...

>> reporter: christopher sutton stood stoned faced as jurors streamed in. were those tears from some members of the jury. >> ladies and gentlemen, i understand you have reached a verdict. >> reporter: judge stanford blake read the verdict. state of florida versus christopher sutton, we the jury in miami-dade, florida, find the defendant christopher patrick sutton, as to count one, guilty of first degree murder as charged in the indictment. >> reporter: guilty. with that christophers head snapped...

We are now -- were now at five years, 11 months, i lost susan, i lost christopher long before that. >> reporter: christopher did not look at his father. had he done so he would not have seen tears. the bullets that tore into his head left john sutton unable to cry. i lost my eyesight. >> reporter: how was it in that courtroom. >> it needs to be over. >> raw. personal. heres the judge. >> its ironic for me. i have a son who was born the exact same day as christopher

Reason. there was a bigger question that needed to be answered. did his friend christopher know anything? was he even, perhaps, involved? shocking question, of course. this was suttons son, the son who devoted himself to nursing his father back to health. but something about christopher bothered them, and had ever since he was interviewed the morning after the murder. he said that, i was at the movies. and said, do you want to see the tickets? just had them, right there, like that. basically to ...

Her son took a deep breath, recoiled. dreadful. but how would the state prove that christopher was behind it all? man: raise your right hand. she will administer the oath. keith morrison: heres how, for starters. this man once worked with christopher-- was an occasional pot customer, too-- but was shocked, he said, when christopher asked him a certain question. what did the defendant ask you? he asked me if i knew of any hit man that would kill his parents. karen kahgan: what reason or explanati...

Playing video games. whatever. >> reporter: in the months after the murder, phone records showed a spike in the volume of calls between the two. 300 calls in three months. >> the that is an awful lot of drugs to be dealing in three months if you have 300 some phone calls. >> reporter: could they have been talking murder? speculation of course. but -- then after the murder when kopp was arrested on the gun charge the prosecutors discovered it was christopher who put up the money to bond him out. ...

Keith morrison: but did that answer the question about guilt or motive? or would she? man: miss driscoll, if youll come forth, stand in front of our clerk here, please-- keith morrison: when juliette-- once his fiance and the love of his life-- walked by him in the courtroom, christophers eyes welled up. he hadnt seen her in years. now, her testimony could send him away for life. karen kahgan: what did the defendant tell you about getting his parents killed or taken care of? same thing id been h...