Page 48 - John Sutton News Today

The case was, as prosecutor kathleen hogue knew all too well rather weak. >> this was a shirk shall says, extremely circumstantial based on motive. >> john sutton wanted the law to convict his son. murder but was christopher actually guilty? coming up, in court. a killer returns to the scene of the crime. >> what did you do at the end of the hallway in. >> shoot. >> who did you shoot at first? >> john. >> and what did you see mr. sutton do when you shot him? >> flip over a bit. >> what "dateline...

Germ of hope lodged itself in his stubborn mind. and you were thinking maybe they can do it for you? >> i said im in the right spot. >> he talked to the leading researchers working on optic nerve repair. >> have you done any studies with severed optic nerves? >> he peppered them with questions, like he was cross-examining witnesses. >> mike gilmore, then the president, offered sutton a glimmer at least of hope. >> we will be able to regenerate an optic nerve. its not such a question of can we bu...

Missing my mom. >> police are looking for 25-year-old christopher patrick sutton. >> and christopher was nowhere to be found. day after day as police looked for him john sutton had time to think and remember. one event in particular which perhaps he had suppressed, it happened nine years earlier when christopher was just 16. it was the to siding factor in setting him off to samoa. >> susan was going through christophers room and found a handwritten note planning our murderer. >> what did it say?...

Parents. >> the fact that john sutton survived to me was the greatest prejudice in the case. >> and there he was right behind the bar the whole time. >> the jury would hear something bad and they would look over at john sutton. they had to be thinking, this poor man. look what he has to go through life with. >> for the victim, fleisher knew, he must display only sympathy. so instead, he would attack the murder investigation itself, the way the police police came up their two star witnesses, juli...

>> what did the defendant tell you about getting his parents killed or taken care of? >> same thing id been hearing for the last six years. >> which was that he could find someone to kill them? >> find somebody, they deserved it. >> this wasnt easy for juliet as she recalled the last time she saw susan sutton, the night of that birthday celebration a few hours before she was killed. >> we went over. it was me, chris, john, susan and teddy. we had dinner. >> dewer that melissa was there, or do yo...

Room. >> who was the room who arranged to have you shoot john and susan sutton? >> christopher. >> how many money were you expected to get in. >> upwards of 100,000. >> up until this moment john sutton had been a spectator, his thoughts and feelings his own. he was a victim, too. staying out of it wasnt an option for him hand now came the moment that he both dreaded and demanded. he testified against his own son, first about the night his world went dark. >> the only thing i saw was for an insta...

>> melissa sat with her father, their father, front row seat. the prosecutor told the jury a horror story, the states version of what have happened the night of the murder. >> 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, that man, their son. christopher sutton. >> then, graphic evidence. a crime scene soaked in blood and littered with bullet casings. the medical examiner placed knitting needles in a mannequin t...

♪ now you may deliberate. all eyes for the jury, please. >> not an easy task, these people were given. did christopher sutton master mind a plan to kill his own parents. >> we battled for a while. >> who knew those 12 were butting heads in the jury room and split down the middle after seven hours they went home. it was mostly garrett ko p, p they had trouble with. how could they believe a cold-blooded hit man who rats on a friend to save his own skin. >> hes making a deal. >> which would mea...

Happen and i dont know when. at that point he immediately began to sob, put his head on the table and said im [ bleep ]. >> but did that mean he was guilty? or merely that he understood the police believed he was guilty? >> he made comments like theres no magical way i can tell you where to go to find the truth. >> christopher sutton and garrett kopp were charged with first-degree murder, a possible death penalty case. both pleaded not guilty, and john sutton got busy. he had a mission, two, in ...

To think what that would be like. >> yeah. >> its heavy. >> memorizing thing an going into court. he is a pretty determined guy. >> yeah, hes great. >> but adapting, even successful adapting, using a talking typewriter, for example, wasnt enough for john sutton because he waited for his sons long-delayed trial. he pursued with something like an obsession a quest to regain his eyesight. >> most people might have given up by then. cant do anything. >> not even close. >> not you. >> i wont take no ...