and the good news is that we have arrested the assailant. he s admitted it. the bad news is, he s inculpated your son and said your son set him up. i go, man, oh man. well, that was a bad night, a real bad night. what was it like to hear that? was it a shock, or did you have, at that point, some kind of an idea? it was 50 emotions all at the same time. one of which is, well, i finally know. two was, i can t believe this. keith morrison: john, ever the attorney, wanted to know what the evidence was, had the reports read to him, and was convinced. i think that i was somewhere in between being completely outraged and upset and somewhere where i knew that he had done it. keith morrison: but melissa, so grief-stricken, wasn t focused on who did it so much as what she had lost.
you know, we locked eyes, but i have nothing to say to him. keith morrison: melissa s sat with their father their father front row seat. prosecutor karen kahgan told the jury a horror story, the state s version of what happened the night of the murder. the man for whom the gunman had signed on to commit a double murder. a man who was intimately familiar with john and susan sutton. that man? their son, christopher sutton. keith morrison: then, graphic evidence. a crime scene soaked in blood and littered with bullet casings. the medical examiner placed knitting needles in a mannequin to show where susan was shot six times. her son took a deep breath, recoiled. dreadful. but how would the state prove that christopher was behind it all? man: raise your right hand. she will administer the oath. keith morrison: here s how, for starters. this man once worked with christopher was an occasional pot customer, too but was shocked, he said, when christopher
he hadn t seen her in years. now, her testimony could send him away for life. karen kahgan: what did the defendant tell you about getting his parents killed or taken care of? same thing i d been hearing for the last six years. karen kahgan: which was that he could find someone to kill them? find somebody, they deserved it. keith morrison: this wasn t easy for juliette as she recalled the last time she saw susan sutton the night of that birthday celebration a few hours before she was killed. we went over. it was me, chris, john, susan, and teddy. we had dinner. karen kahgan: do you remember that melissa was there? or do you need a minute? man: yeah, this might be good time for a break, anyway. keith morrison: that night, whether juliette knew it or not, christopher and his drug-dealing hit man, garrett kopp, were already leaving a trail for detectives. a trail of phone calls, 17 in all, one just an hour
i can t change any of this. it s like a bad dream. keith morrison: but then the dream got worse. teddy was a possible murder suspect. one of the homicide detectives related to me that there had been a problem with the polygraph. because he was he was actually a suspect. i suspect so. anybody that was probably anywhere near me was a suspect. keith morrison: but as sutton was absorbing the news of his wife s apparent betrayal, montoto slipped off the list of top suspects. for one thing, he couldn t have been the shooter. he was on the phone with susan when it happened. records confirmed he actually called the police before rushing to the sutton house. so as detectives eliminated early suspects like montoto, they went back to the basics at every homicide investigation. everyone is somewhat of a suspect. i mean, you know, you start with the family and you keep working your way out. keith morrison: family john and susan met on a blind date, were married
christopher made comments that his parents are going to pay for sending him, taking years out of his life. reporter: when they took a closer look at christopher s more recent history. they could easily see his improved behavior wasn t exactly lasting. even girlfriend juliette s influence couldn t keep christopher from slipping up. yes he went back to college after he returned from samoa, but soon dropped out. he did form a company. but the company folded. he didn t seem to be motivated. reporter: yeah. we fried to get him to stay in jobs. nothing seemed to be working. reporter: what john sutton didn t know was that his son had gone back to the one job he seemed to be good at selling drugs. nor did he know that christopher s friend, garrett kopp was one of his best clients. kopp it turned out had been buying and sometimes reselling the drugs, mostly marijuana and xanax. and he and christopher spent plenty of time sampling the