>> every day on the news talking about they've botched this investigation, they can't do anything right. >> but the police are one step ahead of the press and the killer. working for the supreme court of new york state is a prestigious job.

for 52-year-old peter porco, a clerk for an appeals judge, it was the perfect way to end his legal career, until one day everything changed. >> it started off as any other day until peter porco didn't show up for work. people began to get worried because that wasn't like him. >> a court officer went to the porcos' home and immediately saw signs of trouble. >> he walked up to the front of the horse, and in the door, he saw a key, a key by itself in the door lock. the door was ajar. >> he looks down and sees on the cement steps drops of blood. >> inside was a blood bath. >> he looked over to his right and he saw a body laying there whom he recognized as peter porco. >> peter porco had been bludgeoned to death. >> it was a scene of shocking horror, something that most people who saw it find it difficult to talk about.

>> upstairs in the master bedroom was his wife joan, who was still alive, but just barely. a 3-foot ax was right next to her. >> to give oxygen, they were supposed to put a bag over her mouth, and they couldn't figure out where her mouth was. >> joan was rushed to the hospital, her life hanging in the balance. blood spatter analysis showed that joan porco was struck three times in the head with the ax while sleeping. peter porco had been struck 16 times in the head. but why was peter's body found downstairs? apparently, some time after the attack, peter regained consciousness and started to go about his morning tasks. >> he had actually pulled on some clothes over top of some wounds and began walking around the house. >> that's because the top part of peter's brain, the neocortex,

which controls higher functions like thought, language and reasoning, was severely damaged in the attack. the autopsy revealed his paleocortex underneath was intact. this controls his primal instincts and second nature habits. this explains why he got up, went downstairs, made breakfast. performed the same tasks he did each and every morning, unaware he was mortally wounded. the blood evidence shows he even went out to get the morning newspaper and that the front door locked behind him. he used the house key hidden in the flower pot to open it, then lost consciousness due to blood loss and died. before joan porco went into

surgery, an alert investigator who is also a friend of the family asked joan a key question while she was still conscious. >> i said to her "can you hear me?" and she shook her head visibly up and down in the notion she could. >> the officer asked her if she knew who attacked her. >> she shook her head again in the yes notion up and down. i asked her, "did christopher do this to you?" and she clearly again nodded her head up and down yes. >> christopher was her 21-year-old son. turn around ♪ ♪ every now and then i get a little bit hungry ♪ ♪ and there's nothing really good around ♪ ♪ turn around ♪ every now and then i get a little bit tired ♪ ♪ of living off the taste of the air ♪ ♪ turn around, barry ♪ finally, i have a manly chocolatey snack ♪ ♪ and fiber so my wife won't give me any more flack ♪ ♪ i finally found the right snack ♪

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>> and the forensic evidence or lack of it corroborated christopher's story. investigators found nothing in christopher's jeep. >> the yellow jeep was searched for blood and/or bloody clothing, any type of blood transfer whatsoever which would be indicative of the attack. there was no blood located in the vehicle whatsoever. >> police also found no evidence that christopher had been on the highway between his school and his home. >> there was no recording of his e-zpass going through the tolls that night. >> forensic analysts found no fingerprints or blood other than the victims' on the ax.

then police learned that peter porco had once received a death threat. it was from a man who lost custody of his children in a case before the new york state supreme court. the man had vowed revenge. >> the man told him he was going to get a gun and he was going to come and kill the judge and peter porco. >> but that man had an alibi for the night of the murder. then there was an anonymous letter sent to the local newspaper from someone claiming to be peter porco's killer. >> peter porco was not even a challenge. once i got inside, i repeatedly hit him in the head and neck with a small ax i brought with me. i ignored all his pleading screams.

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it was just an alarming, tremendously alarming case. >> police learn that peter porco had a relative in organized crime who'd been in trouble with the law. >> the relative is frank porco, known as frankie "the fireman" porco. >> he was serving time in federal prison for loan sharking. there were rumors that frankie porco would provide state's evidence and information in return for a lighter sentence. >> it was what they call a signature killing, you know, that the mob would do, and it was a fireman's act because it was retaliation by frankie the fireman. >> but there was doubt on this theory. >> he was in prison because he wasn't a snitch.

and he had been made offers to cooperate with authorities to avoid prison, and he didn't, so he ended up in prison. >> then investigators learned that peter and joan porco had life insurance policies totaling $1 million. investigators also learned that christopher porco asked for investment advice before the murder. >> christopher had gone to a financial counselor and asked him to write up a portfolio for him. he told him he was receiving millions of dollars from a relative. >> and before his father's death, christopher e-mailed him asking for all sorts of personal financial information. >> yo, pops, if i could have you and mom's social security numbers and your new york state driver's license numbers, i need them for paperwork related to financial info for next semester. hope you're having a good day. love, chris.

>> then investigators checked the code numbers used to deactivate the porcos' home security system on the night of the attack. the security system's computer showed that whoever deactivated the alarm, and presumably cut the phone lines, was someone known by the family. >> the alarm had been disarmed at approximately 2:00 in the morning. so, this was the master code that was used, which was the code the family had as well as possibly one or two other people. >> so, despite joan porco's claim that her son, christopher, wasn't responsible for the attack, investigators took a fresh look at where he was on the night of the crime. christopher claimed he was in his dorm room 220 miles away. investigators obtained security video from the university of rochester campus and from all

the major highways and toll booths in between the porcos' home and the campus. they screened all of it looking for christopher's yellow jeep. >> the average person is videotaped 18 to 22 times a day. so there's a tremendous amount of media that's available to the law enforcement. >> at 10:30 p.m., they saw a yellow jeep leaving the university campus. the security alarm at the porcos' home was deactivated a little more than 3 1/2 hours later at 2:14 a.m. the porcos' phone line was cut at 4:59 a.m., and the same yellow jeep returned to the campus 3 1/2 hours later at 8:30 in the morning. the timeline fit perfectly, but was this christopher's jeep? >> there are actually more yellow jeeps than you might imagine.

in the state of new york there are thousands of yellow jeeps. >> video analyst james kennedy ran the security camera images through a computer filter. kennedy found specific details on the jeep like mud on the passenger's side door. the passenger's side window had a torn parking sticker, and there was a political sticker on the back tire cover. those were compared to photographs of christopher's jeep taken by police the day of the murder. >> we were able to conclude that it was, in fact, the suspect's jeep. >> unfortunately, the photographic analysis couldn't identify who was driving. was it christopher or someone else? u love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant

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through forensic analysis, investigators now knew that christopher porco's jeep left the university of rochester four hours before the ax attack on his parents and returned to the campus ten hours later. >> it was possible for him to get down to albany, do what happened at the house, and then

make it back up to the campus in the morning. >> for him to make it in that time, he would have had to use the new york state thruway. >> but investigators had no proof that christopher porco's jeep was on the thruway that night or if it was christopher who was driving. >> there were no e-zpass records of christopher coming home that night. >> but investigators found christopher's e-zpass tag on the floor of the jeep on the morning of the attack. >> they tell me if you take it off the windshield or get it on the floor or put it away somewhere, it wouldn't register. >> was it possible christopher paid the highway tolls with cash to avoid leaving a trail? >> i don't believe that those lanes are surveilled with video cameras. >> investigators asked the toll collectors if they recalled seeing a yellow jeep that night. one toll collector said she remembered a yellow jeep driving

through right before quitting time around 11:00 p.m., but she couldn't remember anything about the driver. >> when they hand you the ticket, it's stamped. it's got the time on it. >> only a dozen cars went through that toll booth around that time. investigators sent those 12 toll tickets to the forensic lab for testing. >> what we were looking for were any kind of skin cells. if your hands are sweaty and you touch a toll ticket, there's a possibility that dna sources such as epithelial cells may be transferred on to these tickets. >> scientists found skin cells on several tickets. they performed mitochondrial testing on those skin cells and compared those to christopher porco's dna profile. one ticket contained christopher porco's dna. prosecutors believe the motive was money.

investigators found evidence that christopher had forged his parents' signatures on bank loan documents and borrowed $31,000 without their permission. they also found evidence that peter and joan porco knew about the forgery. >> chris, i want you to know that if you abuse my credit again, i will be forced to file forgery affidavits in order to disclaim liability. >> christopher was not only spending huge sums of money on luxury items, like his jeep, but he was also failing his college courses. >> his world was crumbling around him, a world he had created, a persona he had created, a lifestyle he had created, and he had to do something to try and salvage it. >> prosecutors believe christopher was desperate for money after his father had cut off his funds. so christopher chose to murder his parents for their life insurance money.

surveillance video shows christopher left his college campus around 10:30. he removed the e-zpass tag from his car because he knew this would leave a trail of his movements. so, he paid cash for the tolls and left his dna on a ticket. he entered his parents' home a little after 2:00 a.m. and deactivated the security system with a code known only to family members. prosecutors say christopher used an ax to attack his parents. [ screaming ] he struck his father 16 times and his mother 3 times and left them both for dead. christopher smashed the security system panel, thinking this would destroy the evidence that he used the master code, but that information was stored

elsewhere. he cut the phone lines into the house at 4:59, then drove back to the campus in full view of the cameras at 8:30 a.m. perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the case was that peter porco regained consciousness and walked through the house after the attack, even going outside for the morning paper before he died in the foyer. there still remain unanswered questions. >> i think one of the main questions that we just don't have the answer to are where are the bloody clothes? >> and why did joan porco implicate christopher on the morning of the attack but had no recollection of it following surgery? >> it's not uncommon when you have a head injury to lose memory in the time surrounding the event.

>> a year after the attack, christopher porco went on trial for the murder of his father and the attempted murder of his mother. with her face surgically repaired, joan porco stood by her son during the entire trial, steadfastly maintaining his innocence. >> it was going to take a lot to convince a jury, ultimately, that the kid in front of them could have taken an ax to his parents. >> but the evidence was simply overwhelming. the jury found christopher porco guilty, and he was sentenced to a minimum of 50 years in prison. >> we really wanted to find something that made him innocent, you know, that we could say that, no, the prosecution's evidence just doesn't add up, it doesn't match up, he didn't do this to his parents, thank god, but we didn't find that. that's not how we found our verdict. >> to this day, his mother believes he's innocent. >> i spoke with her immediately after that verdict.

she was stunned and shocked, and that's all she really had to say at that point. she hasn't really spoken with anyone since. >> i've never seen a case like this before this and i hope to never see a case like this after this >> until one tiny clue turns the case around. it was after midnight on a chilly march evening when virginia russell was driving