Not My Boy! The Crimes of Christopher Porco (re-release)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
True crime Brewery contains disturbing content related to real life crimes.
Medical information is opinion based on facts of a crime
and should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment.
Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
That's I'm pleased.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
My name is Chris Gorgo. I was just called by
a Times Union saying that my parents were found dead.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Teston.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I'm going to have any information, are.

Speaker 4 (00:36):
You I'm at school in Rochester, New York.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Okay. Are you in a dorm there?

Speaker 4 (00:41):
Yes, I am.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Okay. Do you have a dorm.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Name or it's called Monroe?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (00:48):
And you were hearing from the Times Union.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Yeah, they called me and said my parents were found
I guess I don't know. I didn't say how or anything.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Let me try and kind you somebody who may have
some more information for you.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Now, as far as when is the lesson, you said
you came down to sell your parents about three weeks ago.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
It was on the weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I can't give you a the that's a figure.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
I'm not really sure, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Put about three weeks ago, yeah, okay?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
And email?

Speaker 3 (01:16):
What's going on with your email? You said you you
emailed him today, but you didn't get a response.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, I e mailed him this afternoon. Oh my god,
at work.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Okay about college loan stuff. Okay, you're gonna go right
to Albany Med.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
I don't know where my mom is, but yeah, she
is at Albany Med. Okay, you know her condition, No,
because I haven't talked to her. Let me give you
my page, your number. Okay, because when you get there,
I'll come and see if there's anything I can.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Do for you.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Okay, all right, yeah, okay, thanks.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Welcome to True Crime Brewery, TI Grabbers.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
I'm Jill and I'm Dick.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Suspicions turned to college student Christopher Porko soon after his parents,
Peter and Joan, were attacked with an axe in the
middle of the night. This was back in two thousand
and four. It seemed unimaginable. Christopher came from a stable,
middle class family. He did pretty well in high school,
scoring fourteen hundred on his essayts, but Christopher had some

(02:27):
dark secrets. Once Christopher was in college, he created a
false image of himself as kind of a trust fund kid,
buying rounds of drinks for his friends, designer clothes, as
well as a customized ge. He financed this lifestyle with thefts,
and he forged student loans. But Christopher was failing his

(02:47):
classes and his lies were actually catching up with him.
Once Peter and Joan learned that Christopher had forged his
father's name on a thirty thousand dollars loan, they were
shocked and angered. Both parents attempted to reason with him,
but things had already gone too far. When Peter failed
to show up for work one Monday in November, he

(03:07):
was found dead of massive head injuries inside his home.
Joan was still alive, but barely. The case against Christopher
Porko was circumstantial but strong. Today at the quiet end,
we're talking about this brutal murder and attempted murder, planned
and perpetrated by a most unlikely suspect. At the heart
of this case is the love of a mother for

(03:29):
her son and the power of denial.

Speaker 4 (03:33):
So I have a New York beer. This is called
Shape Shifter from Grim Artisanal Ales in Brooklyn. That's a
little bit of a distance from Albany, where this crime occurred.
But I really like Grim. I've done another one or
two of their beers, and I thought i'd do this one.
This is a scotchale, which I haven't reviewed too many
of that style. So shape Shifter is a rusty brown color,

(03:56):
got some reddish highlights to it, light tan head, a
little bit of spotty lace, very nice, sweet mall aroma,
little smoke, a little leather. I haven't had any of
that aroma for a time. Nice new leather. And when
you taste it, it's kind of a caramel toffee taste.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well, that sounds pleasant.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
Excellent, a little smoky, not that noticeable. And some fruit figs, plums,
something like that, some dark fruits. It's kind of medium
feeling in your mouth, creamy, very smooth, greate beer. I
love grim I wish we live closer to them, or

(04:38):
we wish they distributed out here. Put it that way.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yes, I think that I've had some sours from them
that were very nice. You have, yeah, so good brewery.
If anyone's around where they have it, check it out.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Well, next time we're in New York City, we'll have
to head over to Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Okay, so let's open it up and try it.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
Okay, we'll share with some of our quiet end denizens.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
All right, Dick, follow me down to the end. Of
the quiet end, and let's talk about this. This is
fascinating case. It's gotten a lot of publicity, and I
can see why.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
It's really interesting it is. So it was Monday, November fifteenth,
two thousand and four, the people working in Judge Cardona's
office in suburban Albany, New York realized they hadn't seen
or heard from Peter Porco. He was one of their
law clerks. He is a graduate of a law school.
He was a practicing attorney, but he quit doing that

(05:41):
and became a clerk because he wanted to spend more
time with his family.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Wow, that's really isn't It makes you think very sacrificing,
that is.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
So late morning came, there's still no word from Peter.
One of his secretaries called his home and there's no answer.
So then they had some discussion and amongst each other.
One of the court officers, his name was Michael Hart,
was sent to the Porco home to check on the family.
So Heart gets to the home. Nothing looks out of

(06:11):
the ordinary. He gets to the front door, things start
changing in terms of ordinary versus not ordinary.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
That's for sure.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
So the first thing you noticed was that there's a
key in the front door with rubber bands tied around
the end of the key, and then when he looked
down he saw there were drops of blood on the
cement steps. So at this point, Heart's kind of nervous.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Understandably, I think this is the time to call nine
to one one.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Well, he called his boss because these are cops, and
the boss will go ahead, I think you should enter
the house and check. So he goes in. There's blood
everywhere in the entryway. There's a kind of a bifold
closet door that's off its hinges, and his blood all
over that. And then he sees at the bait so
the stairs is Peter Porco lying down is facing up.

(07:05):
His head was severely slashed, and Peter was obviously dead.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
So this was a real horror show. He wasn't just killed,
he was massacred.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
He was massacred and there was just blood all over
the place. And we'll talk about that a little bit later,
because it seems that he wasn't killed instantly. He got
up and kind of wandered around the house, and.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
That's just really interesting to me. So yeah, I'd like
to hear more about that. But Heart did call the
local police department at that point.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yeah, I mean, once he gets in there and he
sees the dead body, he calls the local police department
and they arrived. The first officer arrived and he and
Hart who were searching the house because they you know,
it's a crime scene, right right, there's a dead person,
blood all over the place. So the first floor is

(07:56):
clear outside of the obvious dead body. The family dog,
who is a Golden Retriever named Barrister.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
That's cute, cute little name.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
And that dog was alone in the basement. The basement
was clear, so then the two men went upstairs. In
the master bedroom, they found Peter's wife, Joan. She's lying
crosswise on the bed. Her head and upper body are
nearly unrecognizable. There's blood all over the place again, soaking
the mattress, and there was an axe embedded in the mattress,

(08:29):
so she appeared to be dead. While they're observing her, part,
Footy noticed some head movement.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Which is amazing because this is like a horror movie scene.
And she's still alive. Yeah, just barely, just barely. But
by this time, detectives Christopher Bowdish and Anthony Arduini, as
well as John Cox had arrived as well as some EMTs,
Kevin Robert and Dennis Wood. Bowdish and the EMTs saw

(08:57):
Joan hold up her hand as if she was motioning
to them to enter the room. Her face was actually
hacked open and she had wounds very similar to Peter's.
One of her eyes was split and one side of
her jaw had nearly been severed from her face. This
is a brutal attack. I can't stress that enough. So

(09:18):
as the EMTs worked to stabilize her for transport to
the hospital, they did notice that her one good eye
was following them. Detective Bowdish asked the EMTs if he
could ask Joan a few questions, and they said okay,
but be quick, they need to get her to the hospital.
He ascertained that she could hear and understand them, and
when he asked if a family member had done this,

(09:41):
she nodded yes. When asked if it was her oldest son, Jonathan,
she shook her head no, But when she was asked
if it was her younger son, Christopher, she nodded yes.
So Bowdish followed up asking Joan a second time about Christopher,
and she did nod yes again, so we're taking this.
This is a confirmed eyewitness testimony to the detective.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
Sure right now, I mean it looked like a deathbed
confession kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, it's not a confession, but I see what you're saying.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
She's on her deathbed. There's no reason to say anything
other than the truth.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
I see what you're saying.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
True. So Joan was taken to the hospital, which obviously
was necessary, and they don't even know if she's going
to survive. I mean they're probably thinking she won't.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
No, they were thinking that she was a gonner.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
It's just amazing. I mean, a couple more inches and
her brain would have been severely injured and she wouldn't
have survived. I imagine, Well, probably not.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
I mean, she obviously did have some brain damage looking
at the severity of the axe wounds. Sure, I mean
her forehead and cheek bone with the eye was split open. Yeah,
her joy had nearly been severed from her face. As
just traumatic as hell.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
But I'm just thinking a couple more inches it would
have hit something crucial she couldn't have survived. Yeah, that's
all I mean.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
Then, SAME's her husband. I mean the fact that he
was mortally wounded, he was still able to be up
and moving around, almost beyond thinking.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, but he seemed to be totally disoriented.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Which, yeah, we'll get to that.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, I'm just thinking, if he's totally disoriented, maybe she
was too, and maybe her nodding doesn't mean anything.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
Well, that's one of the key things, right when we
get around to trial. And how how verifiable is that
the word I want to use.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
How believable I don't know.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
Accurate?

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Accurate?

Speaker 4 (11:35):
Sure was the stuff she said.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Right, Yeah, So the crime scene Bowdish called the state
Police forensic unit and they began processing the house out back.
He noted the phone line had been cut and he
was able to lift a fingerprint from the pole there
inside the house. Other than the huge amount of blood,
nothing seemed out of the ordinary. So this doesn't look

(12:00):
like it was a robbery. Things aren't thrown around, things
aren't stolen. I believe there was cash in her purse.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Yeah, her purse was sitting there undisturbed. Right, It wasn't
something that was trying to be faked for a robbery night.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
It wasn't changed. Well, the key in the front door
appeared to have come from a planter beside the front door,
which was kind of the family's hidden key in case
of emergencies. And this wouldn't be known to a lot
of people, but Devil's advocate, a lot of people put
a key under a planter. That's not that original.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
Yeah, I mean it's hidden, yes, but yeah, if I'm
there to rob the house or do something, I'd look
in there.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, that'd be one of the first places you'd chat.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
Right. So, Jones' brother, his name is John Balzano. He
was a retired school administrator, and he lived just outside
of Rochester, New York, and this is what three or
so hours from Albany, across the state. In the late
afternoon of the fifteen the same day, he got a
phone call from Jones's cousin, who his father, David Noon.

(13:05):
Father Noon told Balzano about the attack on his sister,
and Balsano drove away to the University of Rochester to
pick up Christopher Porko. He was a student there, and
together they headed for Albany to see how his mother
was doing.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Right.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
But let's talk a little bit about the call that
Christopher made to the police before that, because he'd heard
from some kind of newsperson had called him.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
He was contacted. Somebody called him from the newspaper. I
think it was the Times Union in Albany, wanting his
comment on the attack or.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
The murder of his papers or worded yeah, and he.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
Called the police station in Albany and seemed not terribly upset.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Well, no, it's an interesting call. He didn't. He sounded
very matter of fact, and he sounded like he was
hedging careful about his answers. It's the nine on one
call that I used in our intro to this episode,
so you can hear how he talks to the nine
one one operator and then the policeman. And to me,
the policeman definitely sounds like he already thinks that Christopher

(14:12):
is their suspect. So I thought that was interesting. But
it's definitely a call that would make me question this guy.
It's not only the casual tone, it's the way that
he kind of was, you know, making his alibi known,
was saying, oh, well, I don't know how it happened,
Like why would you say that? Of course you don't know.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
Well, And as they were driving, toy Balzano got another
phone call from father noon and this time he told
Balzano that Christopher actually might be a suspect in the
attack on his parents, and there is a bolo bolo
be on the lookout for Christopher. Oh okay, so even
before they get there, we know that they're looking for him.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Oh so they didn't hesitate with that. I thought they
might have kept that close to the vest until they
talked to him. They didn't. Okay, Well, in Albany, more
and more people were arriving at the medical center because
they heard of jones injuries. And I believe it was
the policeman on the nine to one one call that
told Christopher that his mom was still in the hospital.

(15:14):
And he didn't sound too thrilled. Let's not read too
much into his tone of voice, but I think he
was a little surprised that his mom was alive. But
you know, he went to the hospital. So among the
people there were John and Lynn Polster, who were probably
the Porko's best friends. John and Peter had gone to
law school together, and the family saw each other quite
a bit.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
Yeah, I mean, they had kids that were all kind
of the same age ages. They did a lot together.
They'd been to New York City together, very good friends.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
So I'm thinking if they went to law school together,
they probably knew each other good twenty years.

Speaker 4 (15:48):
Yeah, they did.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
So let's talk about Joan's injuries because they were horrific,
and of course her condition was very critical. So when
she first got to the hospital, she was unresponsive, but
doctors did note that she was able to shake her
head yes or no once they got her in there.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
Yeah, and they didn't do any more questioning in terms
of who did this to you and things like that.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Well, no, I think they need to concentrate now on
saving her.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
Yeah, you know. So she's intibated, she's prepped for surgery,
but she was in such horrible shape that she has
given last rites by the priest.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
So John Polster approached one of the detectives working the
case and gave him his card and told him that
he would be Christopher's attorney if Christopher wanted him to be.
He then met with Christopher and told him he would
be his attorney. As Polster was talking with Christopher, Elaine
LaForte and John Kearney arrived. They were two veterinarians for

(16:44):
whom Christopher had worked, and they were concerned that he
could be considered a suspect. They also told Christopher that
he needed to have an attorney. As they were speaking,
two police officers arrived to take Christopher to the police
station for some questioning.

Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, and this is going to be one of the
big topics of contention once we get to trial. What
is whether Polster had notified people that he was his lawyer,
okay or not, Whether Christopher had been given his rights
a miranda rights, whether Christopher said he wanted Polster to
be his attorney. A lot of confusion, and it's kind

(17:20):
of like Pollster says one thing, the police say another thing.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Now, did Polster have experience in criminal defense law? No,
so he's really not the appropriate person.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
Well he's not the appropriate person to represent him long.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Term, right, but he could have covered him, but at.

Speaker 4 (17:38):
Least in terms of if you wish to have a
lawyer present talking to Christopher, he says, yes, I would,
and mister Polster's my attorney. Now he never said that, right,
although again he told the police that he was Christopher's
attorney if that's what Christopher wanted. He told Christopher he'd
be his attorney if that's what Christopher wanted.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
So, en route to the police station, Polster says that
he phoned one of the detectives, spoke briefly with Christopher,
then spoke with the detective. He said he explained to
the detective that he was representing Christopher and Christopher should
not be questioned in his absence. So nobody knows what
really happened.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
Yeah, because this was denied by the police.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
So they did speak with Christopher without an attorney.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
They did speak to him without an attorney. They didn't
really read him Miranda right, So, I mean it was
kind of from the book I read, kind of an
abridged version, you know, sort of like you're doing this voluntarily.
You don't have to talk to us if you don't want.
You can stop the interview at any time.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
But is that cool? Can you do that?

Speaker 4 (18:40):
Well, the way they were looking at it was this
was just to gather information.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Well that's they always say that it wasn't a suspect. Well,
but that's that's shaky to me, that shaky ground, I
think it is. But I wonder why Christopher did that.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
They say that guilty people sometimes can't help but talk
to the police because they want to hear what the
police know. They're so curious.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
That's one thing, And the other thing is he wants
to get out in front of things and explain why
he wouldn't have done it.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah. And a lot of people think you look guilty
if you won't talk without a lawyer.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
Yeah, And we've talked about that time and time again.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, you have to get past that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah, I mean, no matter what you think about questioning
or what the motive of the police is, it's best
to be represented by an attorney.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yes, right from the beginning.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
So he was interrogated for six hours.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
I think questioned, interrogated depends on what nuance you want
to put on it.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Right, but not charged. The thing that is funny though,
is John Polster had been in the police station almost
the whole time, but didn't speak with Christopher until afterwards.
So that's where I think maybe a criminal defense attorney
would have known better than to do that.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
I don't know what kind of law Polster practiced.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
I would agree with that. I think that even though
he said he'd been trying to stop the question in
the whole time, he probably wasn't aggressive enough to get done.
And I don't know, maybe he was and he was
just ignored. Christopher said he wasn't aware that Polster was
even there, but.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Christopher had agreed for him to represent him. Is what
Polster said.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
That's what Polster said.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (20:25):
Christopher never said I have a lawyer.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Okay, So that's interesting.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
It is.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
It's something to ponder here.

Speaker 4 (20:32):
We'll get back to that too.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
So the next day, police continued their investigation at the
Porco house. On the side of the house, they found
a garage window that was opened just a few inches.
The top window had been bolted to the bottom, so
it was just in one single piece. The Whome alarm
system had been smashed, but police knew that they could
still extract information from it, most likely because there was

(20:56):
actually a separate box that held that information.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
Well, there's a set box and even though the keep
head was smashed, it could still give times when it
was turned on and turned off. So whoever smashed it,
it was wrong in the impression that I've killed it.
It's not going to give out any info. Yeah, it
still gave out plenty of information.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
And why would you ever make that assumption. It's a
lot to assume.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Well, I don't know, there is sitting there and you
smash the hell out of it, and you figure you
broke it, it's dead, and then you're going.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
To trust your life to that. If you're trying to
get away with.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
Murder, well you probably should have taken it with him.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
I don't know, but Peter Porco had managed to move
around the house as if he was up and getting
ready for work that morning. Yeah, that was interesting.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
This is just such an eerie description. But the trail
of blood matches what the idea is pretty well. That
he got up, he went to the kitchen, he's tried
to get coffee going, he went to the front door
to get the newspaper, he checked on the dog in
the base, just following bloodstains, blood trails around the house.

(22:02):
He's strange, trying to follow his normal routine. Yeah, I
guess it's strange. But he was again mortally wounded. He
was just flying kind of on autopilot.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Well, I mean, that's the interesting thing is the part
of his brain that was on autopilot was still kind
of working, still functioning, right, but maybe the higher reasoning
of what had really happened was not there anymore. So
that is fascinating. The human brain is just fascinating.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
Because if that was the case, he could have picked
up the phone and called nine to one one.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yeah, if you knew what happened, that's the first thing
you do, right. So obviously his entire brain wasn't working. Nope,
So that was just something else.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
Yeah, it was very interesting.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, but really sad when you think about him wandering
around the house like that. Just really sad, Yes, because
you just seem like a regular, great guy, a guy
who was smart enough to go to law school, worked hard,
and then probably accepted less money so he could be
with his kids and his wife. Exactly Who does that?

(23:02):
Not many people?

Speaker 4 (23:04):
Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
So Christopher's jeep was impounded and taken to Albany for evaluation.
It was a pretty distinctive vehicle, right, yellow with extra
wide tires and a winch with fog lights on the
front grill.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
Yeah, it's one of those jeep wranglers, those ultra cool
little jeeps. A lot of them have canvas tops. You
can take the top off and have an open air vehicle,
you can.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
So Christopher really want to just be a normal, regular guy,
flowing under the radar. He didn't want to show off
or get any attention, right, Okay, I.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
Don't know, least right bright yellow that whole the winch
and fog lights. Like, what's he going to do with
that for his jeep?

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (23:45):
Weird, Yeah, but it looked good. As he would say,
it's a bitching vehicle.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Ew he talked like that.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
We probably should cut that out.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
I'm leaving it, okay, all right. So investigation found out
that almost a year before these attacks, police had been
called to the Porko home to investigate a burglary. The
screen in the garage window had been cut. The robber
entered through there and had taken two laptop computers. The
burglar had never been caught, but that's when the Porko

(24:17):
family installed an alarm system, and that's when Peter had
bolted that window.

Speaker 4 (24:22):
Yeah, this is that garage window that could be slit
up and down a couple inches. What he did by
bolting it was effectively making at one piece so it
didn't move very much. So you weren't going to gain
entry to the house or in entry to the garage
through that window unless you smashed it.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
So that burglary was significant to them. Kind of scared them,
I guess it did.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
So four days after the attack on the Porcos family
members hired an attorney to represent Christopher. Again, he hasn't
been arrested or charged, but he's certainly the person of interest.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
So who are these families members? His parents aren't capable,
his father's dead, his mom's in the hospital, but.

Speaker 4 (25:04):
He had other family members and probably the pollsters. So
the attorney that was hired was a guy named Terence Kindlin.
He was the owner of a pretty prestigious law firm
in Albany called Kindlin and Shanks. Kinlyn told the police
from now on, you don't talk to my client unless
I'm with him. He's not going to do any more

(25:25):
interrogations or questioning or whatever you wanted to call it.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
And that's what that's his job. That's his job.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
That's exactly it.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Miraculously, Joan Porco survived this axe attack. She was in
a medically induced coma for two to three weeks, and
when she woke up, she was able to talk.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
Well, yeah, she was able to communicate. The speech appeared
a little bit later, but she was able to communicate.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
With people okay, yes and no, yeah, okay, But.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
She couldn't remember anything of.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
The attack, so she didn't remember to the police that
Christopher had done it.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
And she certainly did not remember that, and not just
that he couldn't have done it because he was her son.
He would not have ever done anything like that.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
So they told her that she'd nodded her head.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
She was told that she appeared to have implicated her son,
not true according to her.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
According to her right, Okay, so what about this. If
you're immediately injured, how's your memory then compared to your
memory after a two to three week medically induced homa,
you know anything about that?

Speaker 4 (26:33):
Well, let's look at this, and I think she was
aware enough at the time of the attack that probably
what she said was true. But then she's had surgery,
tons of brain swelling, drugs, all sorts of things, so
it wouldn't be a surprise that her memory was gone

(26:55):
for you, retrograde amnesia back to the attack. But I
don't think that's unusual at all.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Which could be a blessing for her, because would you
really want to remember your son killing your husband and
trying to kill you with an axe? Right, I mean,
as much as the police would like her to remember,
I think it's really best for her that she didn't
remember that.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
And besides the police at the time of the attack
who said that she seemed to be cognizant, the er
doc who got her evaluated and prepped for surgery said
that she was also aware of what's going on.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Around her, so that's important.

Speaker 4 (27:36):
However, Jones, her neurologists said, you know, what she might
have said at the time of the attack was kind
of fifty to fifty whether it was true.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Or not, Okay, So she just dearly didn't know.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
So neurologically, her doctor said she probably didn't have any
clue what was going on, And everyone's in agreement that
you certainly can have amnesia for the event, kind of
after the fact.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
So I think we can almost just toss that out.
Is if we're looking at evidence if Christopher committed this crime,
I think we can take her nodding that he did
it out of the equation and still have a well
put together case. Although prosecutors didn't throw it out, they
kept at it. They used it right, that.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
Was used in trial. That again was one of the
big discussions between the defense and the prosecution as to
whether that should be allowed as evidence. That that was
allowed and we'll find out, I mean the jury said
that that played no role at all in the verdict
they arrived at.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Well, that's kind of how I have to look at
it is. Yeah, I probably believe that she knew that,
but we don't know, so I don't really feel like
that's genuine evidence that you can really weigh completely into
your equation. Right, So a grand jury was convened by then,
it was December of two thousand and four.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
That's pretty quick.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
It is quick, and they would decide whether Christopher Porko
would be indicted for the murder of his father in
the attempted murder of his mother. In his initial interview
with the police, Christopher had said that he spent the
night in the lounge area of his dorm with several
of his fraternity buddies, but when they were interviewed, none
of them recalled him being there that entire night.

Speaker 4 (29:17):
Even though the grand jury was unpaneled fairly quickly, it
took quite some time before any results came from them.
So days became weeks, weeks became months. No word from
the grand jury in August of two thousand and five,
so we're looking at like nine months, eight nine months
from that. Joan Porco wrote a letter to the Albany

(29:38):
Times Union, the town the city newspaper.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
I think that's the same one that had called him, right,
that's the one the paper.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
Right, that's the one that called him the day of
the attack. And she was unequivocal in her defensive Christopher.
She said, I am absolutely positive that my son was
in no way involved in this Hanna's crime. Now, despite
Jones assert most people living in the area, at the
Albany area felt Christopher was the one who had done it.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
No, I wonder what they were basing that on. Was
he just not well liked? Did people know he was
a little shady? What do we know about this kit?

Speaker 4 (30:14):
You got to realize that besides the grand jury working
on him, there's all sorts of stuff being published in
the papers about him, and a lot of these aren't
real complimentary. No, he did a lot of crappy things, which.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
You're going to tell us about that.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Oh yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Well, word had leaked out that one or two of
the computers that were stolen. Word leaked out that one
of the two computers stolen from the Porco residents had
been traced back to Christopher. In addition, several other electronics
had been found in a safe Christopher had in his
house stolen electronics.

Speaker 4 (30:50):
Stolen electronics, and among the stolen electronics were things from
the veterinary clinic where he worked.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Now, he'd been working there for years, well two oh
two years, okay, But they really liked him, they seemed
to really, they really liked him.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Not to him. He actually kind of lived there and
worked there while they worked there, Yeah, and didn't live
at home really.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, So there was an apartment or something there.

Speaker 4 (31:14):
They had something for him, and I guess that was
so that he could help out with the surgeries and stuff.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
And they thought he was a good worker.

Speaker 4 (31:21):
Oh, they loved him.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
So that's interesting because he really wasn't doing that well
in school, but he did okay at his job, so right, well.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
He failed abysmally at school. So November fourth, two thousand
and five, and this is now eleven months after the
grand jury was convened and a year after the murder
and wounding, the grand jury indicted Christopher for the murder
of his father and the attempted murder of his mother.
Twelve days later, a bail hearing was held. Now both

(31:52):
Christopher's mother and brother had written letters to the judge
requesting Christopher's release on bond. Now, the prosecution obviously was
opposing this, and they were leaking some emails between Christopher
and his parents and they want to show kind of
Christopher in a bad light, so will deny bail.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
So these were emails that were pretty close to the
time of their deaths.

Speaker 4 (32:18):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
There were problems.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
Well, the biggest ones were that Christopher had forged his
father's name on a thirty thousand dollars loan which was
to pay tuition at the University of Rochester. And he
also forged his father's name on a car loan so
that Christopher could get his nice little jeep.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
This was all done without Peter.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
Knowing about it, at least initially.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
And the student loan was not used to pay tuition.
He just blew it on stuff to show off, that's what.

Speaker 4 (32:49):
He was doing. In the process of doing Peter Porko
canceled the loan and paid the tuition out of his pocket, okay,
and made a few of the car payments because Christopher
had pretty quickly fallen behind with the car payments and this.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Was a burden to these people. They weren't rich.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
Well, yeah, he did, okay, but again I mention that, right,
he was a law clerk. He wasn't making the big bucks.
His wife was a speech pathologist, which is a good job,
a good steady income. But again they weren't dripping in money.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
No, and college is expensive, it is.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
But the end result that judge did grant bail either
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash or a
one million dollar bond.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
So where did that come from?

Speaker 4 (33:35):
So I don't know where it came from, but the
money was paid somehow. People came up with the quarter
million dollars and Christopher was out on bail.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah. I think the veterinarian contributed some money and.

Speaker 4 (33:47):
Some of our family money. Lots of people did.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, So the money was paid and he's free. So
pre trial there's a lot of maneuvering going on, and
Christopher seemed to be enjoying himself going out to the
bars in downtown alban And he wasn't in school anymore, right,
he was just kind of Yeah. His lawyer, Terrence Kindlin,
filed a motion to dismiss the charges, which is pretty routine,

(34:10):
and that was tonight.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Yeah, that's what you're going to do as a defense attorney.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
The prosecution filed an affidavit from a physician at the
medical center who stated that Joan Porko was lucid enough
to answer his questions and therefore her head nods to
the detective should have been allowed, right, And that was allowed.

Speaker 4 (34:30):
And then the prosecution also introduced a statement of facts memorandum.
So these are simply kind of bullet points of things
that were known unequivocally known.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
So Christopher entered University of Rochester as a freshman in
the fall of two thousand and two. He was placed
on academic probation after his first semester, and after his
fall semester of two thousand and three, he flunked out
and was dismissed from school. There's no bargaining around that.
So he enrolled at Hudson Valley Community College but didn't

(35:04):
go to any classes. Then in the summer of two
thousand and four, he reapplied to the University of Rochester,
and in support of his application, he sent the university
a forged transcript from Hudson Valley Community College which showed
him getting basically all a's on his courses that he
never attended.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
He's a slippery little fuck, isn't he.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
He sure is, so he's reaccepted. Then he told his
parents at the university he had agreed to pay his
tuition for the fall semester due to an error on
their part. Come on, the parents took that face value
at least to begin with, all right. So that's when
Christopher forged his father's signature on the thirty thousand dollars loan,
which when his father found out, he canceled the loan

(35:49):
and he paid the fall tuition bill. And he told Christopher,
if you do well, I'll pay the spring tuition when
that gets due, fair enough. And if you don't do well,
well we're done with the University of Rochester. You'll have
to go to some state school.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Well he didn't care though, I mean, he pourched his
father's signature and bought a jeep.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
Yeah, he did.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
So this kind of gives me a glimpse that they
were very trusting parents, And that kind of gives us
a hint that she would be in denial and she
would take her son's side.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
Well, that's to me. The interesting thing is she a
mom who is just going to deny the obvious and
say it's not my son who did this. What does
she really believe he's innocent?

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Oh, I think she really believes it. I think she
has to. If you really need to believe something, you
can convince yourself.

Speaker 4 (36:40):
Yeah, I don't know. It's tough.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
It is tough because I think his brother felt like
he was guilty, although he never came out and said it.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
No, he didn't. He said that his relationship with Christopher
was strained. Never never came out and said I think
he's guilty.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
His brother was in the military and he was older than.

Speaker 4 (36:59):
Christopher, couple years older, and he was excluded pretty quickly
as a suspect because he was down in South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, but I mean Christopher is the one who's lying
and forging and right just doing horrible things. And I
have a lot of empathy for making mistakes when you're young,
but when it gets to the point of this kind
of stuff, when you're being violent and having no respect
for your parents and no respect for anyone for life,
really I have no empathy anymore. There's a difference between

(37:32):
being as stupid and young and being evil. And I
think he's evil.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
So you're thinking that his statute of limitations had expired. Yes,
he couldn't get away with us anymore.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
No, I think he's gone too far for sure.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
So and there's a couple other things that the statement
of facts memorandum said. Okay, One was a Christopher had
this eBay scam going, and he got into a fair
amount of difficulty with that. He was offering items on eBay,
probably the stolen eye items, and then people would send
him money and he'd never give goods.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
To them, right, Well, he'd just make stuff up and
get people to pay for it and not send it. Yeah,
as well as trying to sell stolen things, right, I mean,
I think the Vets office noticed some things missing, but
never you know, had the heart to blame him or
never considered him.

Speaker 4 (38:19):
Eventually they had to. They knew that. I think it
was the male veterinarian cell phone that was found among
the stolen items and the safe that Christopher had, and
even knowing that so, well, we still like them.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Well, I mean, that's the thing. I could see a
stupid kid stealing a cell phone and forgiving that. But
this is, you know, so much beyond that.

Speaker 4 (38:39):
I think in the overall scheme of things. Yeah, you're right, right,
But I.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Mean that's just a drop in the bucket for his
thefts and larceny.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
And then he moves on to trying to kill his
parents and murdering his father.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Now.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
What he had been doing, though, is he'd been telling
friends and acquaintances at college that he was this really
wealthy guy. His family at a huge home in the
Outer Banks and had several large investments. So he said
that he was going to inherit a ton of money.
He pointed out houses that he'd never lived in and said, yeah,
we lived there, but we decided to downsize. Yeah, he'd

(39:14):
said that to this pretty girl that he'd gotten to
be his girlfriend, and I think a lot of them
were skeptical. I mean he said crazy things like let's
go on a trip and I'll just lease out half
the plane or something. We do it all the time.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
Yeah, it was over the top.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Yeah, he was watching Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
too much.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
So. The defense had their own memorandum that they countered
prosecution with, and they wanted the whole interview with Christopher
at the police station excluded because he was not properly
informed of his miranda rights. They were also arguing vigorously
for a change in venue. Their most common complaint was
any potential jewelry pool in the Albany area was going

(39:55):
to be tainted. The news coverage had certainly been biased
toward Christopher for his guilt, and I think from what
I've read and looked at it, it was both TV
and print.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, I mean, he'd done things to make himself look
that way, like a dishonest person.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah, he was not acting like an innocent guy, was he?

Speaker 2 (40:15):
So are you going to go over for me? The
series of events the night his parents were killed that
led him to be the prime suspect, in addition to
his mother's nodding, we will okay, good because I think
that's what does it for me. That's what convinced me, That's.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
What convinced the jury.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Right.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
So the prosecution didn't want to change in venue. They
didn't think it was necessary. And the additional thing was
that a change in venue was going to be both
the hardship for people and expenses. Yeah, and the first
place they thought of to move the trial was where
the district was that Peter worked as a clerk, So
they obviously couldn't move to there. No, So they ended

(40:55):
up moving several hours away. But again we'll get to
that took so and the venue debate is swirling around.
Two of the investigators involved in the murder case died.
One of them was Anthony Ardouweni, who had a sudden
death that was apparently a cerebral aneurysm that decided to
blow and he just was walking down the street and boom,

(41:18):
fell over dead.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
That's sad.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
Now, Christopher's lawyer started to imply that Arduini had some
information that was favorable to the defense. The only difficulty
with that is the guy's dead, so he can't answer
to or refute anything said about him.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, right, so that's convenient, it was, huh. So they
had the pre trial hearings in May of two thousand
and six, and the first order of business was whether
the press would be allowed inside the courtroom, and the
presiding judge, Jeffrey Barry, ruled that the press maybe in
the courtroom, but cameras wouldn't be allowed. So for the
next few days, three questions dominated these proceedings. Would Christopher's

(41:57):
interrogation be allowed in, would jones Head not be allowed in?
And would Christopher's prior behavior like the thefts be allowed.
These questions were argued back and forth.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
Yeah, but the judge didn't make a ruling. He said, basically,
once the trial is underway and we have a jury seated,
will address those issues.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Well, I don't know, gee, I think it would be
important to know that sooner. I think i'd be disappointed
if I was the attorney, especially prosecution. You want to
put your case together. Are these things you're going to
be able to use or not?

Speaker 4 (42:32):
Well? Yeah, but at the same time, you're going to
put your case together as if it was all going
to be allowed in.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
Well, okay, but that could be a rude awakening.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
It could be, and it did in the end make
it a little difficult for the prosecution. So then we
set off a little bit of a firestorm. In June,
there was an article in the local newspaper that said
the prosecutors had a toll ticket with mitochondrial DNA on it.
And this was going to be implicating Christopher.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Right because he's in college three hours away, yep. And
they're putting together proof that he went home that night
and did this. Right, and we know that Jones sent
a letter to the editor decrying the publication of that
information and said its only purpose was to try and
taint the jury pool. Christopher's lawyer, Kindlin, took it one
step further. He questioned the validity of the DNA results

(43:25):
and also questioned the chain of custody of the ticket.
So in fact, he implied that the DNA evidence had
been planted by who else but the poor man who
died of an aneurysm, Anthony Arduini. So of course he's
unavailable to testify, and no one can be sure of
the validity of the DNA evidence, So he's just thrown
a wrench into this on purpose, of course, right.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
The defense lawyer said that our Dueni had it in
for Christopher because he had dated one of Urdueni's daughters
no way, and wanted to date the younger one after
the older and broke up with him.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
He probably shouldn't have been working the case, and.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
He said that Ardueni had it in for Christopher.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
They shouldn't have let him run that be in that case, right,
because that just causes problems.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
It does, and I don't think he was in a
major role, but nevertheless, but that's that's where the defense
was coming from. The prosecution said that Ardoueni never handled
the toll ticket. He was given a photograph of the ticket,
but not the actual ticket.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Well, sure, because the ticket's going to go to be
tested for DNA, right.

Speaker 4 (44:31):
It's getting chopped up so they can extract DNA. So
it's kind of a mood point.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
So he couldn't have rigged it, right, And how would
he rig it anyway? Well, that's a stretch to me.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
It's a bit of a stretch. I guess he could
take some article of clothing or something and rub it
on the ticket.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Is that mitochondrial DNA touch DNA? I thought it had
to be. I think it had to be actual his
hand on the ticket.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Well, then we're not going to change.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
So it changed. Venue was granted and the trial would
be held in Orange County, New York. Judge Barry said
that his official rulings on the many issues before him
would be announced after the trial had begun and after
the jury had been seated. The very next day, the
Times Union newspaper said that the judge was not going
to allow Christopher's interrogation to be considered. This had implications

(45:21):
for both the prosecution and the defense. Prosecution had to
make sure their evidence came from a source other than
the interrogation.

Speaker 4 (45:29):
Right, As the defense attorney said, you can't use the
fruit from the poisonous tree. So any information that they
got strictly from the interrogation couldn't be used in the
testimony or in the trial.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
Well, if he wasn't read as rights, I can see, Yeah,
you know that's fair.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
I really don't have any issue with that. I get
the impression from reading the book that the author's kind
of pro prosecution and that the stuff should have been
allowed put it.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Well, you're going to bring a book, you have to
tell us what it is.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
We will it's at the end.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Okay, you're holding all kinds of secrets today, We're not
going to get anything till later.

Speaker 4 (46:08):
We give credit at the end of the discussion. But
it's a good book, all right. So no, I don't
have any problem with the judge saying that that wasn't
going to be allowed.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
The interrogation, right, he.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
Wasn't read as miranda rights. And regardless of whether Polster
was there and notified police or Christopher that he was
his attorney, he wasn't given proper instructions, right, So that's
that's for sure, okay. So and then the defense on
their part had to make sure it didn't allow some
admission of excluded evidence and basically that they didn't do

(46:45):
the same thing and kind of slip up and ask
something that would allow the prosecution to open up bigger areas. Well.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Yeah, I mean that's how it is.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
Kind of a two edged sword.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
So the trial began on June twenty six, and he
got tried for the murder and attempted murder in one trial,
right same.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
Trial he did. That was the trial. One trial, So.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
They selected the jury. That took three days. They had
twelve jurors and six alternates. In a bit of a
surprise move, the defense mentioned some of Christopher's prior bad
acts while questioning potential jurors. Now, I don't know why
was this a strategy to mitigate some of the effect
because those were going to be.

Speaker 4 (47:27):
Allowed in that's the thinking that they were going to
be discussed anyway. So the defense said, well, we might
as well put them right up front and.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Maybe see the jurors reaction to it. See if that's
the kind of jury you want, if it's someone that
shrugs their shoulders you're allowed in. If you look shocked
by it, then we don't want you exactly. Yeah. So
Michael McDermott, that's the prosecutor who gave the opening argument,
and he took the jury through the scene of the crime,

(47:55):
telling how Peter had been on autopilot after the attack
and how he collapsed and died in his home. He
told how Joan had nodded yes to the question of
whether Christopher had done this, answering the question of whether
that might be excluded. He talked also about how Christopher
had the opportunity and the motive to commit the crimes.
As he neared the end of his presentation, the defense

(48:17):
attorney Kinlin jumped up and demanded a mistrial, and the
judge excused the jurors but rated. Kinlin denied the mistrial
and then called the jurors back in. So, what's with that?
Give me some background.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
The prosecution gave some information in the presentation that the
defense attorney felt had come from the interrogation that was
not going to be allowed. I see, So that's why
I jumped up for the mistrial.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
But the judge disagreed, right he did.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
And the other thing is that pretty much every day
that the trial was in session, or every week the
defense attorney asked for a mistrial constantly objected and said,
I declare a mist tree. Well so it was kind
of like, well, I'm getting tired of this stuff.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, that's kind of seems a bit much. So when
he made his opening statement, he basically refuted everything the
prosecution had said. Then he offered alternative theories.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
Yeah, this is where it gets interesting.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Well, you have to have your alternative theories. You have
to create reasonable doubt.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
Well you don't, really, you just have to put enough
doubt on the prosecution's theory.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Well technically, but I think when you're dealing with jury,
you're dealing with people.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
No, I agree, they need.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
An alternate thing that could have happened.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
Always be nice to have another theory about how it
could have happened.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
You want to paint a different scenario for them to
think of. Yeah, but yeah, this is a little far fetched,
but they were.

Speaker 4 (49:48):
Yeah, Peter had a cousin in the mafia who was
called Frankie the Fireman, and he was a snitch. So
the attack on Peter and John could have been a
mob hit in ret alliation. Now, why would you hit
a cousin and his wife and not the guy who
did the snitching. But anyway, yeah, so that was one.

(50:09):
And then they also had some other alternatives, and one
was that Peter had been threatened by a man in
family court. Now forget the fact that this was ten
years before.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Why was he in family court ten years earlier.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
That's when Peter was an attorney practicing attorney.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Okay, I see, yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
So but ten years from the time that the threat
had been made, with no succeeding threats or evidence of
contact between this guy and Peter. And then so we're
being asked to believe that the guy waited ten years.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Well, they take this revenge. Revenge is a dessert best
served cold.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
That's the saying that would be cold.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Well. Finally, he noted that Joan had seen a strange
man in their driveway a few months before the attack.
So Kinlin offered three theories of this attack. And I
would just say that Joan might have made that up
to save her son, and I wouldn't blame her.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
Well, possibly, but there was a neighbor who said that
Jonah discussed the stranger with her. Okay, so maybe there
had been But again.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
The months before the attack.

Speaker 4 (51:13):
Yeah, they are.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
And then he concluded by saying that Chris couldn't have
done it because it just didn't make sense.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
Yeah, not to me. That's kind of the kiss of
death if you have to resort.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
A lot of defense attorneys say that. I've heard it many.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
Times, this excuse, Well, why would he do that? It's
just stupid. He didn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Okay, he's a smart guy. Why would he do that
stupid thing? Murder is stupid, right, Yeah, murder is stupid.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
So anyway, we got three alternative theories, and Christopher is
a smart kid and he couldn't have done it anyway.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
So when the trial resumed, one of the jurors had
been excused. We don't know why. The first witness called
by the prosecution was court officer Michael Hart, and this
was the person who had found the bodies. Well, I
guess they're not bodies because she's still alive. So he
had found the porkos.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
Well, he found their bodies when was a live body
and when it was a dead.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Body, and he gave them a narrative of what he
had found. He was cross examined by Laurie Shanks for
the defense, and she wanted to know if Hart had
done anything to contaminate the scene. He said he hadn't.

Speaker 4 (52:18):
Let me just interject quickly, okay. Laurie Shanks and Terry
Kinlin are the attorneys for the defense, and they are
married to each other.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
Because you hadn't mentioned her earlier, no, I am now okay.
So Laurie wanted to know if Hart had done anything
to contaminate the scene. He said no. But the next
witness was police officer Charles Radliffe, and his testimony was
similar to Heart's. So the defense again wanted him to
comment on the possible contamination of the scene. So where

(52:50):
are they going with this?

Speaker 4 (52:51):
Well, they're trying to find ways to discredit the investigation.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
But you should never ask a question you don't know
the answer to.

Speaker 4 (52:59):
Well in theory, and.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
They're asking questions they're not getting the answer that would
benefit their client. The next witness was E.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
Mt.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Kevin Robert. He recounted the scene in gristly detail of
that master bedroom. He said that Jones seemed responsive to
verbal commands. Detective Bowdish asked her if Jonathan had done it,
and she shook her head no. There was no response
when Bowdish asked about Christopher, so Robert asked the questions again.

(53:28):
No to Jonathan, Yes to Christopher. She indicated by moving
her head in her hand. Robert repeated the questions and
got these responses again. So Robert then told Joan they
were going to intubate her, and she nodded to that.
The defense spent time trying to show that Joan's responses
were very nonspecific and were meaningless.

Speaker 4 (53:49):
Yeah, they said that nobody had asked her a question
that they already knew the answer to, things like do
you know what day it is? Do you know where
you are? Things like that.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
So after Robert testified, the other emt Dennis Wood, gave testimony,
and he said much the same as Robert, although to
his recollection, it was Bowtish who was asking the questions
of Joan and not Robert. But they all agreed that
the questions were asked and answered.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
So, following that day's testimony, both the prosecution and the
defense claimed victory.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
Yeah, but they did that pretty much every day.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah. The trial resumed a week later because there was
a fourth of July holiday, and the first witness was
Sarah Fisher, Christopher's former girlfriend. This is the pretty blonde
I was talking about, right.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
And she dumped him pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Well, good for her. So she had believed his lies
about being rich up until this happened, or was she skeptical?

Speaker 4 (54:46):
No, she was okay with him, okay to begin with,
and then once apparently she started finding out information about
the crime, she distanced herself from him.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
So she said that she and Christopher were home the
weekend the murder, and they had spent most of the
time together and had not seen Christopher's parents. The next
witness was Kurt Meyer, a Time Warner security system worker,
and he discussed how the porko's security system worked. He
explained that the keypad would still work even after being smashed,

(55:18):
that the alarm had been turned off at two seventeen
am Monday, November fifteenth. The defense asked if a dog
wandering the house could set off the alarm and if
that could be a reason for shutting the alarm off now.
The technician said that that was possible, so the defense
story would be that Peter got up and turned the
alarm off so he could let the dog out in

(55:40):
the middle of the night.

Speaker 4 (55:40):
Right that the dog had been up and wandering around.
As far as I know, the dog was in the
basement and wasn't able to get up the stairs.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Why was the dog in the basement anyway, that's just weird.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
Now. The dog slept all over the place, But.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
They shut him in the basement, didn't they.

Speaker 4 (55:57):
I think it was closed into the basement.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Well, my dogs always liked to be in my room.
I think that's strange.

Speaker 4 (56:02):
Yeah. The other thing, and I don't know, this is
what fifteen years ago when this happened, And maybe your
alarms are different, but we have two fifty pound dogs
and they don't trigger the alarm at night. No, when
they're up roaming around.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
It's true, they go out to get water and things.

Speaker 4 (56:21):
Yeah, anyway, so it's a possibility that the dog could
have been up in the wandering around and triggered the alarm,
and that Peter had turned the alarm off at two
seventeen to go back to bed.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
I'm really disappointed that the technician couldn't tell if that
had gone off because of movement in the house or
an open door. That's kind of lame. But the final
witness of the day was State Trooper Drew McDonald, and
he was the one in charge of the crime scene processing.
The important parts of his testimony were that the attack
was carried out by one person and that it had

(56:54):
occurred in the master bedroom. When the prosecution had finished
the testimony, Judge Barry learned for the day he also
had a couple of announcements. One was that the taped
interrogation would not be allowed in and the other was
that the toll ticket with the DNA wasn't going to
be allowed either. So there's two big things. And the
other was that the toll ticket with the DNA would

(57:16):
be allowed. So we've got one thing in Christopher's favor,
one in the prosecutor's favor.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
Right, the defense didn't have anything they had when they
crossed examine McDonald. Then we had doctor Paul Spergus, and
he was the neurosurgeon who had operated on Joan. Now,
he said that Joan could have been quite capable of
communicating after the attack, So we're to believe that what
she told the police people and what she spoke to

(57:44):
the er doc could have been possible.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
So this doctor was for the prosecution.

Speaker 4 (57:50):
He was called by the prosecution. Okay, Now the defense
when they questioned him, did get him to concede that
she could have lost some of her memory after surgery? Well, certainly,
of course. Okay. Now you wanted to know how they
were going to reconstruct the movements of Christopher.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Yes, because we know that he had stolen money, you know,
in essence, forged his father's signature and stolen things. Why
do we think that it was him?

Speaker 4 (58:17):
Okay, So here's the meat of.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
The case, all right, what we want yep?

Speaker 4 (58:22):
Okay. So as the trial starts this third week, we're
going to learn about the New York State Thruway toll system.
Now at the time, you got a ticket when you
entered the throughway and surrendered the card in money when
you exited. So you pick up a ticket that has
the different exits and how much it's going to cost
if you get off at that particular exit.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Oh yeah, I'm old enough, I remember that.

Speaker 4 (58:45):
Okay. So senior accountant Craig Slazak answered questions. He said
he was asked to recover tickets that were handed out
for travel from Rochester exits forty five and forty six
to Albany exits twenty three and twenty four on November fifteenth,
two thousand and four, and the time periods that they
were supposed to be looking for was twelve to three

(59:07):
am for the Albany exits and any time up to
ten in the morning for the Rochester exits. So they're
thinking that if he left Rochester at a certain time,
he'd be in Albany between twelve midnight and three in
the morning, and that after committing the deed, he'd be
back in Rochester before ten in the morning.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
But this is not a busy time for the freeway,
so there were only four tickets that corresponded to these
time periods. Right in anticipation of the DNA testing, Kidland
asked Leezak how many people might have handled the tickets?

Speaker 4 (59:44):
Sure, because he knows the DNA testing results are going
to be allowed in, so he's got to figure out
ways to negate that testimony.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Well, how specific is this mitochondrial DNA? I mean, even
if twenty people.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
Handled, well, we had we have battling experts.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Once again, Yeah, you'll see, it was fairly new at
the time.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
So the next people questioned were toll booth workers. John
Fallon worked at the Rochester exit forty six in mid
November two thousand and four, and he remembered the jeep
getting on a thruway because his whole family drove jeeps,
and he says he clearly remembered the yellow jeep with
the big tires, and the ticket had been handed out

(01:00:26):
at ten forty five in the evening November fourteenth. Karen Russell,
the next witness, was a toll collector in Albany, and
she remembered the yellow jeep go through just before two,
so that fits the time sequence. And she says she
remembered the jeep because it was going fast and you know,
you're you're sitting in that booth watching cars approach, and

(01:00:50):
you're always going to be worried about this nut who's
coming in fifty miles an hour?

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Right, Yeah, well, okay, but I don't always put a
lot of weight with in his testimony, I know, although
here you don't have to describe a person at night
or something. I mean, this is pretty straightforward. A yellow
jeep going through your toll. I think it's easy to
remember than identifying a person, for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
I think so it wasn't just any yellow jeep. It
was a particular kind of yellow jeep. It's got the
big tires, it's got the winch, the fog lights, so
it's fairly distinctive.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Well, that's why I'd like to know how they were questioned.
Were they just you know, blindly questioned and got all
the information from the witnesses, or were things suggested to them?
Did they say did you see yellow jeep with this
and that? Or did they say what car did you see?
And they came out with that themselves. That's a big thing.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
It's a good question. But I would hope that it
was all based on what you saw.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
I would hope so not being suggested, that would be
the proper way.

Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
Now, then the trough got delayed for a few days
after the Testimoni said, the turnpike, the throughway people. The
defense lawyer was having chest pains and he was found
to have pretty severe coronary artery disease and he underwent
angioplasty and recovered. Well. Now, the same time that this

(01:02:15):
was going on, his wife and as I said, co
counsel lost her mother, so she had to go out
to Phoenix for her mother's funeral.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Gee, this is just so bad luck, man, bad shit.
So when the trial resumed for week four, several University
of Rochester students testified, and this did not look good
for Christopher. They testified that Christopher had not spent the
night in the lounge as he said, and there was
actually video of the lounge right with no Christopher right.

(01:02:47):
One student said that he drove Christopher to pick up
his jeep around ten thirty pm. The next witness from
the Division of Weights and Measures testified about the amount
of gasoline in the tank of the yellow jeep. The
assumption by the prosecution was that Christopher drove from Rochester
to Albany, then gassed up before he returned to Rochester,

(01:03:07):
but there was no evidence to support that, no other.

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
Than the amount of gasoline left in the tank, so.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
They said it too much gas in there.

Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
If he had, he had too much gas to make
a round trip without filling up.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
I'm surprised that there's not a gas station with video
of him. They always seemed to have cameras, yeah, but
this was fifteen years ago.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
So couldn't find it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
So the next day Dana Parrin, the security department manager
for the university, testified that cameras showed the yellow jeep
leaving campus just after ten thirty PM on the fourteenth,
apparently headed for the throughway. Under cross examination, Paren said
there was nothing to show Christopher entering the three.

Speaker 4 (01:03:49):
Way maybe through way, not three way, but I'd like
a three way. Could we do that sometime?

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
Under cross examination, Paren said there was nothing to show
Christopher entering the throughway. Maybe he was just going to
a fast food place. There were also some questions about
the time stamps on the CCTVs.

Speaker 4 (01:04:09):
Yeah, they were like twelve hours off, and that was
answered by daylight savings or something.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
It's just they were able to figure it out.

Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
Yeah they were.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
But the biggest thing was even though the camera showed
him heading in the direction of the throughway, there was
no video evidence of him actually entering the throughway other
than the testimony.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
The told people, But why was he leaving the parking
lot in the first place, Well, he had.

Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
To move his car because his parking ticket or parking
decal didn't allow him to park on campus. He had
to move it someplace.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Okay, So why wasn't he in the lounge on the
couch like he said he was. How did he answer that?

Speaker 4 (01:04:48):
Well, he said he was there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
Even though the camera showed that he wasn't. Well, you're
not going to win when you're debating a camera.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):
Well, but the camera didn't show the whole time, and
his friends said he didn't spend the night, right, so
he says he did.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
His alibi to me is totally blown.

Speaker 4 (01:05:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Yeah, So a student and friend of Christopher is also
testified that she saw Christopher on the fifteenth So that's
the morning after around eight forty five am, and he
appeared to be heading in the direction of his dorm,
so that would have been him returning from his parents'
house if he was guilty.

Speaker 4 (01:05:23):
Right, But you see how they've set this up. They
have testimony that he apparently didn't spend the night where
he said he spent the night. They have very good
timing in terms of when he left campus, when he
went through the toll, when he left Albany and got
back to Rochester, and they have the guests amount in

(01:05:45):
his car. Yeah, so pretty pretty good timetable.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Kind of got him dead to rights, I think.

Speaker 4 (01:05:51):
Well, again, as you point out often it's circumstantial, yes,
but taken as a whole, pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Well. I mean, they've got him in lies about it,
so why would you lie about it unless you did it?

Speaker 4 (01:06:05):
Well, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
And next there were several witnesses who discussed the two
fraudulent loans and Peter's forged signature. Now I'm not sure
about allowing that. I mean, does that have anything to
do with him being a murderer. The only connection that
I really see is motive.

Speaker 4 (01:06:24):
You're going to motive, Yeah, in terms of not just
that his father found out about it, but that they'd
be better off dead in terms of Christopher having money, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Yeah, they're worth more to him right dead than alive. Sure.
I think they said their net worth alive was only
forty or fifty thousand dollars and he was going to
inherit quite a bit in life insurance allegedly.

Speaker 4 (01:06:51):
Okay, So the afternoon testimony revolved around a series of
emails between Christopher, his father, and his mother. Prosecution felt
that they showed in their totality increasing frustration which would
culminate in the axe attack on the parents. Now the
defense disagreed, of course, saying, well, they did show some

(01:07:12):
frustration on the Porto's part. As you got towards the
later emails, they indicated some degree of forgiveness for what
had happened.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Now you've read the emails, right, yeah, and they kind
of do well, they do, but he doesn't show any change. No,
he's refusing to speak to them on the phone. He's
only emailing with them, right, And of course they're forgiving.
That's how they were.

Speaker 4 (01:07:34):
On the weekend he spent with his girlfriend before they died,
he didn't talk to them. They didn't visit the parents.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Right, So I don't think there was any effort on
Christopher's part to make up with his parents or even
to show much regret. He didn't even show much regret
over it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:52):
Nop. So the next day, the first witness was Christopher's brother,
Lieutenant Jonathan Porco. Now he told the j that his
relationship with his brother was strained and more interesting to
me anyway. He made absolutely no eye contact with Christopher
while he gave testimony, And this was despite the defense

(01:08:12):
attorney questioning him standing right next to Christopher, so you
almost couldn't help but look at him while you looked
at the attorney. But he flatly refused to look Christopher
in the eye. I think that says a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
It does, and they can't ask him. Do you think
Christopher did it? That would be objected to. Yeah, did
he say why it was strained? Was there any kind
of follow up to that?

Speaker 4 (01:08:35):
No, there wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
The next witness was state police investigator Gary Kelly. He
was the person who tracked down some of the strange
leads in the case. Specifically, he was going to testify
that the attack was not a mob hit in retaliation
for Peter's cousin, Frank the fireman, the fireman, the snitch,

(01:08:57):
the supposed snitch.

Speaker 4 (01:08:59):
Yeah, and they were trying to say that the fireman
nickname came about because of the fireman's acts.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
Oh, so they're really reaching.

Speaker 4 (01:09:08):
Here, they're really clutching.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Okay, Well, finally the stranger in the driveway was discounted.
That was something that Joan had testified to, right, And.

Speaker 4 (01:09:18):
They never found any evidence of the discrentled client pursuing anything.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
No, So he was an effective witness.

Speaker 4 (01:09:27):
He was because he's pretty much shot down the alternative
theories from the defense.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
Yeah. Without those, he's really not in good shape.

Speaker 4 (01:09:35):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
So let's talk a little bit about Joan's testimony. She
was brought up by the prosecution and the defense.

Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
Right, The prosecution called Joan to testify for them and
what they wanted to do is show the effects of
her amnesia, which they quite effectively did.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Really, what did they.

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
Do Well, what they wanted to show was that she
couldn't remember things, and the statements that he couldn't have
done it and so on and so forth just made
no sense. Then.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
So they're talking about her amnesia after being treated, not
in the house.

Speaker 4 (01:10:11):
Exactly, Okay, Yeah, because they've already gone through that testimony
about what she said at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Of the injury, and they're believing that and promoting that
they are. Okay, So they took her through her life
and they discussed several of the emails between her Peter
and Christopher.

Speaker 4 (01:10:27):
Yeah, that's what her defense attorneys did.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
But she really gave the impression that she'd be willing
to do anything to keep her son out of prison.
She did, and you know, he was really kissing up
to her, right, he was living with her, acting like
he was the real caretaker to her.

Speaker 4 (01:10:43):
Yeah, they'd come to court every morning arm in arm.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Yeah. Kind of gross. So the prosecution finished its case
with that DNA evidence and a Verizon representative and a
neighbor of the Porkos, doctor Terry Milton, testified that the
mitochondrial DNA found on one of the toll tickets would
only be matched by zero point thirty nine percent of
the population, So that meant there was a ninety nine

(01:11:08):
point sixty one percent likelihood that this was Christopher's DNA.
That's pretty convincing. I mean, it's not the one billion
to one you might get now, but right.

Speaker 4 (01:11:17):
But again, this is fifteen years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Still, those are pretty good odds.

Speaker 4 (01:11:22):
So ninety nine point six percent likelihood is pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Yes, and that's not even considering the fact that he
was the one in the position to you're considering everyone
in the world, right, Yeah, So doctor Melton's results were
hotly contested though by the defense.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
Yeah, and they're going to call their own expert. We'll
see now.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
The Verizon representatives said that a worker had gone to
the Porco home on August twelfth of two thousand and
four to repair wires and had not been there since.
The neighbor, mister Goki, testified that as he left for
work around four am that morning, November fifteenth, he had
seen Christopher's jeep in the that's very damn yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:12:02):
So that's another big nail sure in the building.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Don't you think that's a big one.

Speaker 4 (01:12:08):
So we've got all this stuff about leaving campus, arriving Albany,
leaving Albany, or returning to campus, and now he got
someone who says, I saw the yellow jeep in the
driveway the family home.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
And this is someone who's seen it before and recognized
it too, So that's important exactly. The first witness for
the defense was Margaret Fennel, who was a friend of Jones,
and the main thing with her testimony was regarding the
stranger Joan had seen in her driveway.

Speaker 4 (01:12:35):
Yeah, I mean she was called just to kind of
provide clarification, and she said that Jonah talked to her
about seeing this stranger and she was worried. So I
was trying to put a more believable stance on the stranger.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
But that wouldn't explain why a stranger would go in
and do this and not steal anything.

Speaker 4 (01:12:55):
No, it wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
No, So the next day the defense is a expert testified.
That was doctor Shields, and there was a heavy objection
to his testimony from the prosecution, but the judge did
allow it.

Speaker 4 (01:13:09):
Yeah, this guy had no experience as a forensic analyst.
His DNA studies were on plants and stuff and not
on humans. Okay, I'm surprised they actually allowed him to
testify because he had no credentials. His statement was, well,
I can analyze the results.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
To me, that just makes the defense look desperate.

Speaker 4 (01:13:33):
Well that could be. That's a good point.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
I mean, his primary assistance was his statement that the
DNA and the toll ticket only excluded seventy two percent
of the population, not ninety nine point six. Y's one.

Speaker 4 (01:13:44):
Yeah, so there's a significant difference there if you believe that.
But you're right, I think that the jury probably looked
at his testimony a little differently than the prosecutions expert.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
Well, the DNA test is one thing that's not circumstantial.
That's actual evidence that he had the ticket.

Speaker 4 (01:14:05):
Yeah, I mean, you are dealing somewhat with probabilities.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
Right, but still right. So the next day, a neighbor
named Steve Myers testified about two suspicious cars being in
the area the night that Peter was killed.

Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
Let me just say with that this was not on
the street where the Porcos lived. It was a street
or two over, and his impression was that these cars
were kind of drag racing each other. So I don't know,
you can take out of that what you want.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
I don't see how that has any connection.

Speaker 4 (01:14:35):
I don't either, But he was called.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
Okay, and then doctor John Kearney took the stand. This
was one of the veterinarians who employed Christopher and was
just primarily a character witness trying to save Christopher. He
told the prosecution that Christopher assisted in animal surgeries and
was very familiar with the protocols.

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
Yeah, they were on cross examination because he has a
defense witness. The prosecution him to say that Christopher knew
how to clean up after surgery, right, he.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
Knew how to clean up blood. Yeah, he knew how
to gown and glove, and he had access to gowns
and gloves, right. So they really kind of turned that
witness around to make that their witness. I think a bit.
I mean, he's giving you a character witness, you know,
saying Christopher is a great kid. But it's much more
powerful to me that you're learning about what Christopher had

(01:15:29):
access to and what he was able to do. Because
it was a good job at the crime scene of
not leaving anything from the suspect.

Speaker 4 (01:15:38):
Very good.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
It was a clean job there was nothing in the jeep.

Speaker 4 (01:15:41):
Nothing, nothing in the jeep, although he.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Had plenty of time to shower and hang around the
house and do whatever he had to do.

Speaker 4 (01:15:47):
Well, he had a little bit of time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
He had a good hour when he got back. Yeah, yeah,
he did.

Speaker 4 (01:15:54):
Yeah. And the other thing that got brought out when
Carney was testifying was that he discounted the cell phone
that was found in Christopher's possession.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
How do you do that?

Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
That was his? I just kind of shrugged it off.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
Oh g yeah, Okay. Then Joan's neurologists took the stand
and she said it was extremely unlikely that Joan was
responsive and capable of answering questions for the police and
the EMTs after the attack. Right, so she's discounting that.

Speaker 4 (01:16:23):
Yeah, what she said was a crapshoot as to whether
it was true or not, or verifiable or not, so
disregard it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
So all the defense really has, from what I can see,
is family, friends and people that are saying Christopher's a
good kid.

Speaker 4 (01:16:37):
Yeah. Well, they have their alternative theories that I think
were effectively shot down by the prosecution.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
The mob thing, Yeah, and mob.

Speaker 4 (01:16:46):
And the stranger and the uh, the chrisc Greynold client.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
Yeah, so I don't really think those were very helpful.
That John Polster and Elaine LaForte testified and they didn't
really give us.

Speaker 4 (01:16:59):
Any new inform, No, And then we gave closing arguments
and Laurie Shanks's wife of the defense attorney gave.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
And partner was an attorney.

Speaker 4 (01:17:09):
Yes, right, So the first thing she said is that
jury should discount John's head, not and this is just
after the neurologists had testified, so that was fresh in
the juror's minds. And then the discussion was about how
as OJ's attorney said some other dude did it, and
that the police never followed up on these other possibilities.
She further said that the timeline put forth by the

(01:17:32):
prosecution didn't fit at all, and then she fell back
on the standard there's no reason for Christopher to have
done what he was accused of doing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
Was there any more detail? And why she thinks the
timeline didn't fit because it does seem to fit.

Speaker 4 (01:17:45):
Well, she was just taking exception to all the testimony.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Okay, so she's not believing the toll collectors and that
kind of thing exactly. So, Michael McDermott began the prosecution's
closing argument by saying that Joan had identified her a say,
and that was Christopher. He said there was no rush
to judgment. There was a year long investigation involving hundreds
of leads and hundreds of interviews, and they had concluded

(01:18:10):
that Christopher had done it for good reason, right, I
think for good reason. So the jury deliberated for only
six hours. I always think that's a bad sign for
the defendant.

Speaker 4 (01:18:21):
It was so quick that Christopher's mother didn't get back
to court in time to hear the verdict.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
Oh, it's probably a blessing.

Speaker 4 (01:18:28):
Probably.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
I mean, I do my heart breaks for her because
I can see why she would want her son. She
was let's just talk about her. I mean, she was
destroyed by this in many ways. She was disfigured quite
a bit, had several surgeries, yes, not to mention lost
her husband, lost her career, and now her son's going away.
So it does break my heart for her, very sad.

(01:18:52):
Although I wouldn't want to leave him home with her
because he probably would end up killing her years down
the road for the money. So they found Chris for
guilty of murder in the second degree and attempted murder
in the second degree. Now, why not first degree because
it seems pretty planned out to me.

Speaker 4 (01:19:08):
It does. But when you do that, you open up
the possibility that people won't look at it the same
way and find them not guilty of first degree murder.
So if you go for second degree, you're more likely
to get it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
Okay, And the judge immediately denied the defense's motion for
a mistrial, which was probably what the twelfth motion.

Speaker 4 (01:19:27):
For miss There are several.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
Yeah, So the sentencing hearing was in December of two
thousand and six, and the judge sentenced Christopher to the
maximum fifty years to life on each count. So he'll
be eligible for parole in December twenty fifty two.

Speaker 4 (01:19:43):
Yeah. He's in prison at the Clinton Correctional Facility in
New York. He's appealed his conviction to the Appellate Division,
Third Department and also to the New York Court of Appeals.
Both courts have rejected his appeals. Now at the present time,
there is nothing going on in terms of appeals. Christopher
continues to maintain his innocence. Why you gott it?

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
He can never admit to this, No, no, unless he
had a total turnaround, which I don't see happening, not
going to happen. So a lot of this information was
from a book that you complimented earlier.

Speaker 4 (01:20:17):
It's called November Memories, written by Steve Ferrence. And there's
also an episode of on forty eight Hours called Memory
of Murder. And an interesting thing, there is a Lifetime
movie that was aired in two thousand and six. It
was called Romeo Killer, the Christopher Porkos Story. Christopher sued
to block the movie and I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
Think they're allowed to play it anymore because I haven't
been able to find it anywhere.

Speaker 4 (01:20:41):
Okay, so maybe that was his victory, maybe that it
was aired once and that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
Well, his whole complaint is that you need to have
the person's permission before you can air a movie about them.

Speaker 4 (01:20:54):
Well that's not true.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
No, I don't think it is true, because there have
been plenty of movies that were not flattering to criminals
and they haven't been able to stop it. I mean,
just off the top of my head, fatal Vision made
Jeffrey MacDonald not look good at all. No, No, okay, well,
I think this is a very interesting case. Reminds me
a little bit of the Bart Whittaker situation.

Speaker 4 (01:21:15):
Yeah, No, his father forgave him.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
He did, that's amazing. And he killed his brother and
his mother, Yeah, and tried to kill his father.

Speaker 4 (01:21:24):
Now, in that situation, though the father knew he had
done it, or I was sure he had done it,
and still forgave him, But.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
He hired people. So I wonder if that factor is
in that he didn't physically do it in the father's mind.
Maybe maybe, But it's a big religious thing with the
father forgiveness. Yes, yeah, and yeah, I think I'd feel
better if Joan forgave him. I could totally see it.
But there's a lot of denial and I just feel
really sad for her.

Speaker 4 (01:21:49):
Well, I would also say that she might not have
been capable of fingering him at the time of the attack,
So even though she appeared to have nodded yes, could
see that that might not be true, right, And she
has no recollection.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
Well, and the jury agreed with you. The jury said
they didn't even take that into consideration in their verdict.

Speaker 4 (01:22:11):
Yeah, they were more impressed with the timeline, absolutely, the
testimonies around that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:16):
Well, in the DNA, you really can't argue with that no,
and the videotape of him leaving, and the videotape that
he's not in the lounge. There's just a lot of stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:22:25):
Yeah, I think there was way too much stuff against him.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
It's a strong case.

Speaker 4 (01:22:29):
But it's said for that poor mon, I.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
Know it totally is Well, thanks for the discussion and
all your knowledge on this. You're really great. I appreciate it.
You're very welcome, and thank you so much for the beer.
Anything else to say on the beer because we've been
really enjoying it.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
Well, I like we heavy beers anyway, they're very nice. Yeah,
I like that good caramel, smoky leathery whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
You're not a fan of the smoky leathery, so it's
not my favorite beer.

Speaker 4 (01:22:59):
Great beer anyway. Okay, we'll see you next time.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
All right. So we will be at the Quiet End
for a regular episode in a few days. And we
appreciate everyone listening and especially our Tigramer members for supporting us.
You bet, thank you so much. We'll see you next
time at the Quiet End.

Speaker 4 (01:23:17):
Okay, all right, bye, bye, over and out, goodbye.

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