A Showboating Ax Murderer
(“Family Ties,” Forensic Files)
Last week’s post recapped “Family Ties,” the Forensic Files episode about Christopher Porco, whose flights of fancy and financial misdeeds compelled him to plot the murders of his parents.
A jury convicted Christopher, an academically derelict University of Rochester student from Bethlehem, New York, of attacking Joan and Peter Porco with an ax as they slept on November 15, 2004. The tall, nice-looking 21-year-old had hoped to bail himself out of his financial problems and cadge some disposable income via his mother and father’s life insurance payout.
But, ironically, the lack of diligence that sullied Christopher’s scholarly pursuits also hindered his get-rich-quick plan. His father did not die immediately but rather lived for a few hours after the assault, and his mother survived her wounds and is alive today.
Strange functionality. This week, I’d like to focus on three of the intriguing aspects of the case. First and foremost, the medical one.
After being struck 16 times with an ax and lying unconscious as his son sneaked away from the suburban charnel house, Peter Porco arose from bed, put on clothing, ambled downstairs to get breakfast, went outside to retrieve the newspaper, realized he’d locked himself out, found a spare key in its hiding place, let himself back inside, and died of blood loss.
As Forensic Files explained it, an injury can damage the brain’s neocortex, which controls reasoning, but leave intact the underlying paleocortex, which guides second-nature habits.
“The neocortex is especially vulnerable to external injury,” according to the Handbook of Affective Sciences (Oxford University Press, 2003). “Wounds or other injury may sometimes destroy a [neo]cortical region without damaging deeper brain structures.”
In other words, Peter Porco’s fleeting transformation into a real-world ghost was haunting but not particularly mysterious.
The book also noted that the neocortex “segregates functions especially well across spatial regions” and that “lesions to the neocortex are more likely to be localized to a single region than are subcortical regions.”
I think all of that means it’s possible Peter Porco had a little help from the reasoning part of his mind post-trauma, but the subsection that enables people to self-identify as injured and in need of help was destroyed.
TV movie. On to the gossipy part of the saga. The Lifetime channel made a movie based on the crimes, Romeo Killer: The Chris Porco Story, in 2013. It starred Lolita Davidovich as Joan Porco and Eric McCormack as “Detective Sullivan” — presumably a composite character representing police who worked on the case.
I was surprised to read that Romeo Killer portrayed Christopher Porco as a charming ladies man with lots of friends. The Forensic Files and 48 Hours Mystery episodes about the case didn’t play up that angle.
The movie got passing marks from reviewers, but the reader comment section was where the really interesting critiquing was going on.
Of the 40 comments posted to writer Nellie Andreeva’s Deadline Hollywood review of the movie, more than a dozen came from readers who identified themselves as neighbors or classmates of Christopher Porco — and disputed the notion of his popularity. A couple typical ones:
Leah Blodget: “Romeo? He was not. I grew up in the ‘small town of Delmar, NY’ and the guy was a clown.”
Josh: “I live [in] Delmar and go to Bethlehem High School [and] teachers who had him said he was insane. Mrs. Porco still lives here and she’s so nice. I feel bad for her that this whole thing is being brought back up.”
A Times Union blog post inviting readers to weigh in on Christopher Porco’s guilt or innocence yielded much praise for the jury and prosecutors who convicted him — as well as some refutation of claims that Christopher was well-liked. Here’s one:
Benny1311: “I was a year above Porco in school. I had some classes with him and knew one of his girlfriends well. And I must say [she] along with most of his classmates, believe him to be guilty. Chris has a small group of peer supporters – all female – many younger- who seem to have had ‘relations’ with him. His frat brothers and male friends do not back him.”
So, apparently he did have at least some girlfriends but wasn’t necessarily a full-on JFK (Jr. or Sr.) with the ladies.
Where is he now? Finally, I looked around for the latest news on Christopher Porco’s efforts to get out of jail via a new trial or overturned conviction.
In a 2010 appellant’s brief to the New York State Court of Appeals, lawyer Terence Kindlon seemed to make some reasonable points in defense of Christopher.
He noted that there were no lights on Brockley Street, where the Porcos lived, casting some doubt on a neighbor’s account of spotting Christopher’s yellow Jeep in the driveway the night of the ax attack.
The behavior of the Porco’s dog, which the prosecution had used as evidence, was also disputed in the appeal. Police had theorized that no neighbors heard Barrister bark that night because the killer was someone (presumably Christopher) that the Labrador retriever already knew.
Kindlon, however, argued that Barrister was known for not barking at visitors, whether friends or strangers.
The lawyer also noted that Peter Porco sometimes deactivated the burglar alarm when letting the dog out at night and then forgot to turn it back on — another challenge to the prosecution’s assertion that Christopher punched in the code the night of the murder and attempted murder.
Another contention — one that makes sense — was that Joan Porco’s alleged nod in answer to the question of whether or not it was Christopher who had attacked her was unreliable evidence because of her severe brain injuries.
But jurors interviewed by 48 Hours Mystery said that they had dismissed the testimony about the nod for precisely that reason and had instead relied on the prosecution’s crime timeline as proof of guilt.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Christopher’s case in 2012. He also lost an appeal in 2014, when an appellate court rejected claims that he was denied effective assistance of appellate counsel. (In fact, a number of reader comments posted to the aforementioned website articles blasted Terence Kindlon and Laurie Shanks for defending Christopher so vigorously in court.)
As of this writing, Christopher, 33, is prisoner #O6A6686 at New York state’s Clinton Correctional Facility, commonly known as Dannemora. He’ll be eligible for parole in the year 2052.
That’s all for this week. Until next Thursday, cheers.—RR
It’s impossible to know all the dynamics at work in the Porco household, but it seems astonishing that what seems in a lot of ways like a relatively normal family could produce someone so self centered that he valued the gratification of his own desires above even the lives of his parents. It would be interesting to know what their life was like as a family. Even great parenting doesn’t guarantee a great outcome, but I can’t help wondering if there were points along the way where Christopher could have taken a different path.
I’m curious, too. Did someone drop the ball during his childhood, or are some people just born sociopaths?
I think part of it is they are born sociopaths. He clearly was. It’s heartbreaking and eerie to watch the mother stand with and defend the very son who tried to kill her.
Are you saying that all sociopaths are murderers?
No
FF’s portrayed quite a number of cases of parricide; it may be slightly less unusual than seems – but ax-murdering is particularly gruesome. Still, it’s the impulse, not the method, that matters. The usual gloss on such an up-close method is that it reflects either derangement or hatred (though surely the latter’s a given if one wants one’s parents dead!) It seems to me that to take an axe to anyone implies both…
Leaning towards the born psychopath theory. Very interesting how the brain works after a trauma, but not too great. Woody Allen told a story in one of his books about how his uncle was struck in the head by a wrecking ball. His last words were, “No thank you, I already own a penguin.”
When I had a really high fever in the hospital, I told the nurse she had peanut butter on her glasses.
So glad to hear he’s still locked up. He sounds dangerous.
None-too-eager to give a second chance to an ax murderer. He was supposedly a dog lover, so maybe he can enter a prisoners with pitbulls program.
I’m glad that his fraternity brothers refused to lie for him.
Ditto!
There’d be very few circumstances were one’s friends/acquaintances would have any sympathy with an axe-murderer. Had both parents demonstrably sexually abused him/siblings/other children or killed children but somehow remained at liberty I can imagine it – but their offenses would have to have been of that magnitude to elicit some possible sympathy. Even then the horrific nature of the murder would question his sanity and therefore cause him to be thought dangerous to know…
As it was his sanity (but not culpability) has to be regarded as questionable…
I remember this case as it was very similar to another case where their son broke in & shot his parents. In this one the dad survived. The son was adopted & the couple had a daughter by birth. The son ended up admitting he did it, later on when he couldn’t deny it due to the evidence. The son blamed his parents for sending him to some camp.
Thanks for the read, the update & the website.
Thanks, Bec — so glad you’re enjoying the site!
This perp is Christopher Sutton, who had his mother murdered and attempt on his father, who survived:
https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Father-Blinded-by-Son-Says-Reconciliation-Aint-Happening-105029894.html
everything relies on him having disposed of his blood soaked surgical costume and no one ever finding it to this day and doing it so well not even one trace of blood was on his vehicle of his clothes or anything of his. At all. So he could only have disposed of them at the scene of the crime or somewhere along the road back to his college. They have never been found in 14 years. The financial motive is untenable since both his parwents were well renumerated and even he would have been well paid at the vets surgery. It’s not like he owed a million bucks.
1. Disposal is a non-issue: he drove a considerable distance – not just ‘along a road’, having multiple places to get rid of the garment/s, such as a dumpster.
2. The financial motive is perfectly tenable: he was greedy (cf his financial scams/fraud against parents and others), in debt, and a likely psychopath – so the application of a normal person’s motivations is inapt. After theft from his parents, they may well have told him he was getting nothing in their will. They were upset with him and relations were demonstrably strained. What more do you need???
3. Your point re the lack of forensics in the vehicle does need addressing. Could he have showered after the attack then meticulously cleaned the bathroom? Did he double-bag the blooding garment/s before placing in vehicle? Did he have a change of clothes as well? It’s perfectly feasible to avoid transferring blood to it if competent and thorough.
The case against him was circumstantially overwhelming; none of the points you make are remotely insurmountable, and he was, quite simply, vastly the most likely culprit, as the court thought.
That’s exactly my thinking about Chris’ meticulous cleanup in the shower at home, and disposal of bloody clothing and cover gear in multiple trash receptacles along the way back to university.
On the question of Porco’s portrayed ‘social success’ in the film (I haven’t seen), it clearly conflicts with the picture emerged in court. Suggested by prosecution – and it’s entirely plausible – he’s a psychopath, characterized by pathological deception, scamming and defrauding others, and lack of conscience or remorse. He may have had a number of physical relationships – but such characteristics prevent functional, longer-term relationships. Indeed, his money-grubbing may have been about buying attention.
Christopher porco is sub-human garbage…
Google his name: look at his face — look at his eyes…
I only wish he would meet the same fate. Axe to his face, his head, sixteen times.
The money — the greed… killing his father meant nothing to him. In his psychopathic brain – in his psychopathic approach to life, he figured that his parents lived long enough and it was then HIS time to have the money. The arrogance is beyond measure. This bag of manure should be executed.
I’m a lawyer, now retired, who followed this case carefully. A related legal question is whether Joan Porco, given her brain damage, had the legal capacity to enter into a legal contract with Kindlon. In order words, was she mentally competent. After all, it was the proceeds of Peter’s life insurance policy that she used to pay for Christophers defense.
Good point — I wonder whether Joan Porco’s other son tried to talk her out of using the money that way.
Some thoughts with regard to Joan’s brain injury:
For how long after the initial period of injury and remaining conscious was she aware of what happened and able to accurately reflect that to paramedics? How long does the functionality of the brain keep going when injuries are first sustained and while in survival mode?
Why hasn’t she been asked to undergo hypnotherapy to reveal latent memories?
What role does her brain injury and the trauma play in defending her son? Does she have a protective block that insulates her from the horrific memory and betrayal? Furthermore, to what degree is her reasoning also impaired?
I also wonder who cares for her, whether Chris legally still stands to inherit from her based on her beliefs, and about her other son in terms of his beliefs, actions and journey with such painful family situations and events.