Remembering A Murder

0:00Music

0:10On a Monday in November 2004, lawyer Peter Porco didn't show up for work. The couple was attacked in their bed. The killer remains on the loose. The attack could be linked to a mafia hit. I would describe the attack as brutal, savage. It was very personal. Peter was a lawyer for a very prominent judge. His wife, Joan, is a speech therapist who works in a local school district. They had two sons. They seemed to be living the perfect life. I'm Mike McDermott. I'm the chief prosecutor for Albany County. The evidence at the crime scene told us that the killer entered the Porco residence sometime after 2 a.m.

0:52He disabled the alarm. He went into the garage where he obtained an axe. goes upstairs to the master bedroom where Joan and Peter Porco are sleeping.

1:06He's standing on Joan's side of the bed, and then he begins to savagely attack them, first Peter and then Joan. He swung the axe dozens of times, striking them in the face and the head, leaving horrific injuries. After the assault, the killer left the axe at the foot of the bed. He went outside and he cut the phone wires. And then he fled into the night. Incredibly, at some point, Peter regained consciousness and got out of bed and went to the master bathroom. We can tell that he stood right in front of the mirror over the basin and bled.

1:49From the master bathroom, he went down the hallway. down the stairs, walked down the first floor hallway. It appears that Peter was wandering around trying to do his normal morning routine. Based on his injuries, I think Peter was in profound shock. He went into the kitchen and walked around, it appears, aimlessly

2:20doing mundane things like trying to empty the dishwasher.

2:27He may even have been trying to make his lunch.

2:33We can tell that he opened the front door and at least poked his head out because there's drops of Peter's blood on the concrete porch out front. At some point, Peter collapsed at the base of the stairs and died. Authorities say even forensic findings may not be enough to solve this case. I'm Detective Chris Bowdish. I'm a crime scene investigator, and I've been one for the past 20 years. My officers were in the house, clearing it, looking for a possible perpetrator, when one of the officers told me that there was somebody still alive upstairs. And I noticed a female laying crossways in that bed.

3:11And as I looked at her, she held her hand up and she was gesturing me over. I was amazed that she could do this. I walked over to her, looked down at her, and noticed these huge hack marks in her face. She could not speak, and I knew that the possibility is that she could die any minute. I asked her a series of questions, and amazingly, Joan Porco could answer the questions through head nods. And the answers that she gave me absolutely blew this case wide open. she did indicate to me who had done this to her.

4:01Detective Chris Boudish couldn't believe what he was seeing. Minutes after discovering the body of Peter Porco, he was certain he was about to learn the identity of the killer from Peter's dying wife, Joan.

4:20And I said to her, can you hear me? And she nodded her head yes. I then started feeling that this woman knows what's going on. Although Detective Bowdish had only been in the house for minutes, he also felt he knew what was going on. I could see there was no breaking. There was no forced entry. Instead of a broken lock, there was a house key in the front door. It was a spare key that was usually hidden in a flower pot by the front entrance. The house wasn't what we call tossed. The drawers weren't pulled out. They weren't dumped. In the dining room, Joan's purse and its contents, credit cards, money, all undisturbed.

5:04It put a creepy feeling right up the back of my spine. because I was looking at the scene, I was looking at how absolutely devastatingly gory it was. But I'm feeling that it was an inside job. But who would want to harm Joan and Peter Porco? Married 30 years, the couple lived in Bethlehem, New York, a bedroom community just outside of Albany. They had two sons, 23-year-old Jonathan in the Navy in South Carolina, and 21-year-old Chris, a student at the University of Rochester. Were they the classic all-American family? Absolutely. Town supervisor Terry Egan knew the family well. You have two boys that did well in high school, both competed athletically.

5:55Joan attended church on a daily basis. Peter was the most giving, generous man I think I've ever known. In a strange coincidence, Detective Boudish had met Joan and Peter Porco two years earlier when they reported the theft of laptops during a burglary. He also learned that they had two sons. Now at the crime scene, Detective Boudish was wondering, where were Jonathan and Christopher? I didn't know if they still lived in town or they were someplace else. But I do know everything that I learned inside that house in those few minutes indicated to me that this was a very good possibility that it could be either a family member or somebody known to the family.

6:38As the paramedics struggled to get Joan oxygen, Detective Bowdish approached her. I said, did a family member do this to you? And she nodded her head up and down. Clearly, yes. Now, everybody in the room standing there at this point, I've got witnesses. First responders Kevin Robert, Jim Regan, and Dennis Wood couldn't believe it. I've never seen anybody with this massive of facial and head trauma and still be alive and actually able to communicate like she was. Joan had been following directions like, straighten your arm and stop moving your legs. But this was different. Before their eyes, Joan was about to identify the killer.

7:27The paramedics watched as she nodded her head in response to the detective's questions. And I said to her, did Jonathan do this to you? And she clearly shook her head back and forth, no. At this point, I knew she could hear me. I knew she understood the answers, the questions. And I said to her, did Christopher do this to you? And she then shook her head up and down. She nodded. Yes. She said, you did.

8:08Within minutes, Joan was rushed to the hospital. And police began looking for Christopher. Authorities want to question one of their two sons, Christopher, a student at the University of Rochester. More than 200 miles away, Christopher Porco says he didn't know police wanted to talk to him. He says he was sitting in his dorm when he got a phone call from a local reporter. And she, you know, asked me if I had any comment on my parents being killed that day. I kind of dropped the phone and was completely shocked and, you know, disbelief. I called the Bethlehem Police Department. Hi, my name is Chris Borgo.

8:51I was just called by the Times Union saying that my parents were found dead this afternoon. I was wondering if you had any information on me. Hey, Chris, whereabouts are you? And the woman on the phone said that she couldn't tell me anything but that they would call me back. So I sat in my room and waited. Within the hour, police confirmed his father was dead. My father is a fun-loving, wonderful man. and family came first, always. He loved his job, but he always managed to be around for my brother and I. Christopher's brother Jonathan learned the devastating news at his Navy base in South Carolina as an uncle rushed Christopher to the hospital where he was eventually allowed to see his mother.

9:37You know, I saw her, and she was swollen and covered in tubes, and my reaction was, you know, I burst into tears and fell on the floor right there. As Joan underwent emergency surgery, Christopher agreed to go to the police station, where he was questioned for six hours. I wanted to be as helpful as I could. I knew that in cases like this, you know, the quicker the better. So I wanted to give them whatever they needed to figure out who did it. This is a question that people would want me to ask you directly. Did you drive over to your parents' house, go up into their bedroom, attack them with an axe, killing your father and gravely wounding your mother?

10:22You know, I can't say it enough. Absolutely no. I would never do anything like that to anyone, let alone my parents, who I love dearly. Detective Bowdish's number one priority? Finding out where Christopher was at the time of the attack. He told us that he was in the lounge that night, all night, all night long. But was he?

11:08Some 16 hours after Joan Porco identified her son as her attacker, detectives were knocking on doors at Christopher's dorm at the University of Rochester. His whereabouts that night was very, very important to us. But it quickly became clear that none of his frat brothers could back up Christopher's alibi. That he was asleep on the couch in the dorm lounge. It just so happened that some guys were up and we stayed up until like 3.30 a.m. It's a square room and some couches and TV. It's not like maybe he was there, we overlooked him. and he wasn't there. Detectives searched his room, taking clothes and a computer.

11:54They even impounded his car, a bright yellow Jeep Wrangler. Back at Albany Medical Center, Joan Porco remained unconscious, clinging to life. She had many, many hours of surgery the night of the attack. I still didn't think his mom was going to make it at that point. and he didn't see... Former Youth Minister Joe Catalano rushed to Joan's bedside to comfort Christopher. He was struck by his odd behavior. Did you sense any bit of grief with Chris? No. No, that's what was so bizarre. None whatsoever. By now, Christopher had become the prime suspect in the murder. But police had to figure out how he could have done it.

12:42Christopher was here at the University of Rochester the morning his parents were discovered, more than 200 miles from the crime scene. And while his fraternity brothers hadn't seen him the night before, another student did see him out jogging the next morning. The case appeared to hit a wall, until investigators decided to check several campus security cameras. What they saw changed everything. He told investigators that he never left campus. Prosecutor Mike McDermott. As soon as we get the surveillance video, we see that obviously he's lying.

13:27The image is grainy, but one thing is clear. It's Chris's bright yellow Jeep driving through a campus parking lot. What's more, the camera records the time of day. 10.30 p.m. Just hours before the attacks. 10.36 p.m. That same yellow Jeep is captured by a surveillance camera on the roof of a medical center off campus headed east. From this moment, prosecutors develop a theory for how they believe he committed the crime. 10 45 p.m. New York State Thruway toll collector John Fallon thinks he remembers handing a ticket to a young man driving a yellow Jeep Wrangler with big tires. 1 51 a.m. Another toll collector believes she may have seen a yellow Jeep driven by a young white male speeding into her lane at exit 24 in Albany.

14:29The Porco home is just nine miles away. Prosecutor David Rossi. How did he get into the house? What he did was he used a spare key that was kept under a pot in front of the front door.

14:502.14 AM. Police believe Christopher deactivates the burglar alarm using the master code. Later, he smashed the alarm keypad in an attempt to hide that. The information is stored on a box in the basement, which we believe Chris probably didn't know that, so smashing the keypad did nothing. Investigators believe Christopher then grabbed an axe from the garage, crept upstairs and savagely attacked his parents in bed. He was attempting to mutilate his parents and the focus was on their faces. It's clearly a very personal act. 4.54 a.m. Phone company records show the phone line is cut. Before he left, he staged the house so it appeared that an outsider was the one who entered.

15:55Cut the phone line, cut the screen of the garage, got back in his Jeep. 5.12 a.m., Christopher re-enters the New York State Thruway, investigators say, heading back towards Rochester. And finally, at 8.30 a.m., a yellow Jeep is again captured by cameras on the roof of a medical center, headed back in the direction of the university campus. It all fits perfectly. That's Chris leaving to kill his parents, and that's Chris returning after he's done the deed. But how are prosecutors so certain it's Chris's Jeep? We don't have his license plate on the video. We don't have a picture of the driver. But they do have decals and a telltale mud stain.

16:52The same mud stain. it's better than a fingerprint.

17:00On November 4th, 2005, Christopher Porco is charged with the murder of his father and attempted murder of his mother. I can't imagine attacking anyone, let alone my parents, in that way. That's not something I would ever do. Chris admits that's his Jeep on the surveillance video, but says he was just moving it to park off campus. By the time he returned to the dorm lounge, he says his frat brothers had gone to sleep. The surveillance cameras on campus don't show me going to the thruway. They don't show me going home. They show me going off campus. If I wanted to do something like this, if I wanted to sneak home on the thruway, why would I take a big yellow car?

17:45I mean, that makes no sense to me. You've got that surveillance video, but all that tells you is that he left campus. It doesn't tell you where he went. We've got Marshall Gokey who sees the Jeep in the driveway at 4 o 'clock. Marshall Gokey, a Porco neighbor, says he was driving past the Porco home on his way to work at 4 a.m. on the day the bodies were discovered, when he spotted a familiar yellow Jeep in the driveway. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that that was Chris Porco's Jeep. It was the same Jeep that's always been there. You couple Marshall Gokey with the surveillance videos, with the toll takers, with the fact that the alarm was deactivated by someone who knew the master code, then Marshall Gokey fits just like the jewel on the top of the crown.

18:34But a stunning development is threatening to topple the prosecution's entire case. And it involves their star witness, Joan Porco herself. Because Joan, now recovered from the attack but severely scarred, says she has no memory of anything that happened that night, and no recollection of indicating by nodding that her son Christopher was the attacker. And Joan is going on the offensive, publicly claiming that her son is innocent. There you go. It's quite the challenge. We obviously don't want to be antagonistic toward Mrs. Porco. I mean, she is the most sympathetic victim that I've come across.

19:20I'd like to say that I'm absolutely innocent and I'm looking forward to trial. A month after he's charged, Christopher is free again, out on bail posted by a large circle of family and friends, all of whom are convinced of his innocence. Until trial, he'll be living with Elaine Lafort, a veterinarian who Chris has worked with for years and who says Chris is like a son to her. Chris likes animals. He's always gentle with them. He's not a physically violent person. And she's convinced the prosecution has no case against Chris. I'm aware of evidence that they did find at the crime scene that makes me believe that it was not Christopher.

20:09That evidence? A lone fingerprint Chris's attorney says was found just inches from where the telephone wire was cut. Whose fingerprint do you think it is? I think it's the killer's fingerprint.

20:35Every single person who has known him has said he didn't do it. He loved his parents. His parents loved him. Attorney Lori Shanks, a professor at Albany Law School, and her law partner and husband Terry Kinlan, say the police have cooked up a flimsy circumstantial case against Christopher Porco. What links Christopher to this crime is the malignant imagination of the police department, which decided within the first, we think, five minutes, that Christopher was the person who killed his father and attacked his mother. But Kinlan says that rush to judgment is based on their misguided belief that Joan Porco knew what she was doing when police say she identified her son as the killer with a nod.

21:27She is horrified and she keeps saying to me, how can they do this? How could they say that I said this? Were these the movements of a woman in shock? No, I think that she was able to meaningfully communicate. The EMT spoke to her, giving her instructions to move a certain way, to stop doing things, and that she was responding appropriately. It is certainly quite possible that she would be able to follow simple commands, but being able to follow a simple instruction doesn't require memory. Dr. Mary Dombovey is one of the most respected neurologists in Rochester. She's been treating Joan and will be testifying for the defense at trial.

22:12You're saying that Joan could have followed commands, raise your arm and she'd raise her arm, but if they're asking questions of memory, that's a different part of the brain? Very different. Very different function, and that is universally what is disrupted after a traumatic brain injury. She could have simply been responding to the name Christopher. The defense believes prosecutors are relying on Joan's nod because there's a major flaw in their case. Not a shred of forensic evidence links Chris to the crime. You're telling me with all the blood that's in that house, there's not a single bloody fingerprint?

22:50There's not a single bloody footprint? that puts Christopher inside that house? No. Just as significantly, the police took possession of his Jeep and bolt by bolt, they disassembled it. No blood, no hair, no clothing, nothing. And what about that surveillance video, which the prosecution considers a key piece of evidence? We don't think it's a problem at all. The fact is that Christopher's Jeep was parked off campus. So you're saying that may very well be his vehicle, but he was just moving it to park it off campus. Right. That's all that the tape could possibly establish. And after parking his car, Shanks and Kinlan say Chris wandered around until sometime after 3.30 a.m.

23:36when he returned to the dorm lounge and fell asleep. Chris Porco is not a ghost. If he was on the couch in the lounge, someone would have seen him. When the lounge was empty, he went in there, he laid down, he went to sleep. and Kinlan says he knows why the Porco's alarm was disabled using the master code Peter Porco had the habit of shutting down the alarm to let the dog go out and neglecting to put the alarm back and Schenck says it was most likely Peter barely conscious and bloodied who put the key in the front door may very well be that he believed that he was locked out and used that key to get back in in his disoriented state and as for neighbor marshall goki's eyewitness jeep sighting we think that he was desperately trying to help the police there were two yellow jeeps that normally parked and traveled through that neighborhood false memory false memory the real killer say chris's lawyers may be the person who left a fingerprint on the telephone box in the backyard just inches from where the phone line was cut.

24:45Whose fingerprint is it? We know it's not Christopher's, it's not Jones, it's not Peter's, it's no one from the phone lines and whose fingerprint do you think it is? I think it's the killer's fingerprint. What's more just weeks before the attack Chris's attorneys say Joan Porco saw a stranger in her driveway. Joan had told more than one person that she was very frightened. A stranger was there and ran when the light came on. But prosecutors say they've checked out all these possibilities and none of them lead anywhere. There was a slow, painstaking, methodical investigation to reveal every scintilla of proof that he committed this crime before he was charged.

25:30And they dispute the defense notion that Christopher Porco was a sweet, innocent young man. Police discovered it was Chris who stole his parents laptops and later sold one on eBay. Christopher Porco has shown one face to his friends and family and has shown another face that we've uncovered during the course of this investigation. He had portrayed a persona of wealth to all of us. Chris even deceived his fraternity brothers inventing a phony life as a rich kid. It wasn't so strange that he'd go and bankroll a party. It's like, yeah, well, he's very wealthy. He said his grandmother was a wealthy landowner, owned much of the land in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

26:15His parents had a lodge in Vermont and a house down in the Bahamas or something, right? Aruba. Aruba. But in reality, prosecutors say, Chris was flunking out of school here at the University of Rochester and deeply in debt. His extravagant lifestyle was pure fantasy. And in the days leading up to the attack, Christopher's father discovered that Chris had forged his signature to obtain a car loan and a$31 ,000 loan to pay for school. Peter Porco sent Chris a series of angry emails. calling his son out of control and Joan told Chris his father was about to have a nervous breakdown at one point Peter tells his co-worker that he thinks his son Christopher is a sociopath