logon to our website at msnbc.com. that's all for now. i'm ann curry and for all of us here at nbc news, thanks for joining us. they call it the gold coast. the sun, the sea, and in this million-dollar home, a mystery. >> he was talking on the telephone when he heard a loud bang. >> a woman, murdered. her husband left blind. >> are you bleeding? do you see any blood? >> i'm bleeding all over, yes. >> okay. >> i can't see. >> but who?

>> everyone is somewhat of a suspect. >> and why? >> what brings someone to make a decision they're going to do this? >> was it love? >> what we learned was that he was having an affair with the son. >> was it money? >> nobody knows what really happened except for him and garrett. >> or was the truth hidden here on this tropical paradise? >> it was assassination. it was a hit, no question. >> "blind justice." >> thanks for joining us. i'm ann curry. for criminal investigators, it is often the hardest thing of all to find -- the motive. in the story you're about to see, the crime took place in florida, but detectives didn't discover an apparent motive until they dug around a tropical island thousands of miles away, something long buried that had nothing to do with treasure. here's keith morrison. >> it was august, hot in coral

gables. the air was shirt-sticking thick as night fell. a small damp breeze pushed weakly at limp palm fronds. in the artificial cool of attorney john sutton's house, an intimate party was winding down early. it was susan sutton's birthday. attending, their son, his girlfriend and john's law partner. daughter melissa just off to college in north florida, couldn't be there. so she phoned her mother to say she missed her. were you two close? >> extremely. my best friend. >> i was going to ask how old your mom was. >> 57. no, you can't put that on. she was a nice 45. let's leave it at that. >> the guests left. the law partner went home. son christopher and his girlfriend went out to a movie. john settled in to watch tv in the master bedroom.

susan, in another bedroom, talked on the phone with a close friend. a quiet end to a pleasant evening. quiet, but not for long. >> 911. >> i need police. i've just been assaulted. >> what happened, sir? >> somebody came in and shot me. >> they shot you? >> yes. >> who did it? >> i don't know. i can't see. i need police and i need an ambulance. >> okay. where did he shoot you? >> in my head. >> john sutton, a tough as nails take no prisoners lawyer, was barely conscious as he begged the 911 operator for help. he told the operator blood was gushing from his head wounds, he couldn't see. >> who else is in the house with you? >> my wife. >> where is she? >> i don't know. >> somehow, he made it out the front door on his own. he was met by a paramedic. >> the holes in his head, in his face, i couldn't believe how mr. sutton made it out of the house, walking to us.

>> they stabilized sutton, rushed him off in an ambulance. an hour north of sutton's home, homicide detective larry bellieu was just getting home after a long shift. >> i was pulling into my driveway when i got the phone call. he was critically injured, however, he called 911 and made his way to the door and opened the door. >> he didn't want to go in until they came out, is that it? >> they didn't know if the person or persons involved were still inside. they backed off until the s.w.a.t. team arrived and made entry into the house. >> not knowing if the gunman was still in the house, s.w.a.t. teams cleared the house room by room, finally entering the bedroom where susan sutton had been on the phone. >> when they went into the room in which mrs. sutton was, they didn't see anybody. >> miami-dade prosecutor karen kahgan was on homicide duty that night and was called out to the scene. >> they saw a mound on the bed, covered by a blanket. there were bullet holes in the blanket and they had to yank the

blanket down and when they did that, they found mrs. sutton in bed with her hands up. she had been holding the blanket and covering herself, literally ducking under the covers for cover. >> susan sutton was dead. a bloody phone beside her. she must have dropped it as she pulled up the covers in her vain attempt to hide from her killer. no shooter around, the s.w.a.t. team withdrew. a dispatcher warned the detective this might be the deadly result of a domestic dispute. sutton's 911 call, perhaps an attempt to cover up what he had done. >> when i got the phone call, and said that it was a murder-suicide down in the city of coral gables, we heard that the husband was en route to trauma center, and in critical condition. >> en route with two bullet holes to his head. had sutton killed his wife, then turned the gun on himself? no. that theory was quickly dismissed when the paramedic who took him to the hospital put out an update over the radio.

>> he can't provide any info but it does look like a gunshot wound to the head. i don't know if it was a defensive wound. >> he had wounds to his hands which would make it clear it was defense type wounds that somebody else must have shot, because he put his hands up. >> so obviously, first clue, this is not -- >> this is not a murder-suicide. >> who or why would anyone want to harm john or susan sutton? the suttons had lived exemplary lives, seemed to have it all, a beautiful house with a 31-foot boat out back in exclusive coral gables, the upscale enclave south of miami. his law practice, susan worked as office manager, was booming. just that week, he had received a check for $1 million for a case he had settled. so, was robbery the motive? and if so, how did the killer get into the house? officers saw a curtain blowing in the wind through a sliding glass door in the rear of the house near the pool.

the door latch showed signs it had been broken long before that night. >> the killer had gone in through that sliding glass door, had walked all the way through that house. no ransacking. drawers were not opened. in the master bathroom, on the vanity, was some beautiful diamond and gold jewelry. so clearly, early on, it was pretty easy to detect that robbery was not the issue here. >> no. >> and that it was apparent that they were targeted. it was an assassination. it was a hit. >> an assassination, a hit? that sort of crime just didn't happen in staid coral gables. whatever the motive, there was little to go on, no murder weapon, no fingerprints, no dna. there was, however, one possible lead. susan sutton, as it was painfully obvious from the blood-stained evidence, had been on the phone when she was shot five times. someone heard the screams of bullets ripping through the silence of that steamy august night.

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an august morning, 2004. melissa sutton, 19 years old, awoke to her new college dorm life in northern florida, unaware of what had happened to her parents the night before. unaware that her mother was dead. unaware that in a miami emergency room, doctors were fighting to save her father's life. >> who told you and how? >> i actually got a call from a

friend who said, i hope your dad's going to be okay. and i just went, what? like maybe a heart attack or something, you know. >> it just came out of the blue. >> out of the blue. >> melissa called every number she could back home. >> i called my mom. she didn't answer. i called teddy montoto, my dad's partner. extremely close family friend. he didn't answer. i called my brother. he said he couldn't talk right now. >> were you frantic in the sense that you knew something bad had happened? >> i didn't know what. i didn't know what level. >> eventually, melissa reached montoto, who reluctantly broke the news to her on the phone. he brought her back to miami and the hospital where her father was in intensive care. her brother, 26-year-old christopher, had already arrived. both of them were reeling from the loss of their mother. and now, they kept vigil at their gravely wounded father's bedside. >> we didn't even know if he was going to live for a long time. >> it was pretty touch and go, wasn't it?

>> to say gruesome is, you know, if i didn't know his hands and know little intricate pieces of him, you wouldn't have known it was him. >> you faced the shocking prospect of becoming an orphan. >> i don't think that ever crossed my mind, actually. i don't know. he was still alive. >> melissa wondered, why her parents? who could have done this? investigators describing it as a hit. didn't you have any sense at all what may have happened? >> well, teddy told me what had happened, but i didn't know who had done -- >> who or what. >> right. i just thought it was some sort of break-in was my first instinct. that's what i thought for a long time, until we started talking about my dad's clients. >> homicide detectives were also thinking about sutton's clients and those he sued on their behalf. at this point, john sutton couldn't provide any information. he was clinging to life in a drug-induced coma. >> i went several times to try

to talk to john sutton. he was on pain medication. he was intubated. we're looking at maybe incidents in his law firm where people may have been angry at him. >> civil attorneys take a lot of money from people and they make people mad. >> i said, find out if any of these people had reason for revenge on john sutton. >> john sutton ran his law firm like he ran most things in life. efficient and hard-driving. in fact, detectives heard about one woman who lost a $97,000 lawsuit and was so mad, she threatened to shoot up john's firm. and the very night of the murder, a neighbor heard a boat roaring down the canal just behind john's house over here, and it turned out that woman owned such a boat. >> she was interviewed down the line also, and she was not the person responsible. >> but what about that phone call susan was on when she was shot to death?

detectives found the blood-stained handset susan dropped when the gunman opened fire. who was she talking to? had that person heard something? detectives got their answer almost right away. john sutton's law partner, teddy montoto, had shown up at the house even before the first reports of the shooting hit the news that night. he was also armed. >> he was talking to susan sutton on the telephone when he heard a loud bang or what he said may be gun shots, he didn't know. >> at least that's what he told the police. >> depending on the amount of truth in his statement, he could be a suspect. >> oh, absolutely. >> but that, said melissa, had to be impossible. teddy and susan worked together. they talked often and frequently late at night. >> i think he was my mom's best friend. called him my godfather, pretty much. like a relative. >> but police were suspicious. why had montoto arrived so quickly after the shooting? why was he armed with a hand gun? they had a few questions and perhaps more important, some testing to do. >> we interviewed him

extensively. we did take gunshot residue from his hands. >> he was given a polygraph, wasn't he? >> yes, he was. >> how did he do? >> he passed on certain information, but he showed that he was deceptive in others. >> which is a red flag. >> yes. >> a red flag this early in the investigation. what exactly did law partner montoto have to hide? perhaps john sutton could tell them, because the survivor of the slaughter, it was clear, was going to live. and when he came out of his coma, what story would he tell? what did he see? coming up, with his victim defenseless in the hospital, would the killer try again? john sutton's son seemed to think so. >> i do recall him as very adamant that my dad be placed under john doe so that whoever did this could not finish off what they had started. >> but was the killer already closer than anyone could have dreamed?

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♪ ♪ one too many... [ male announcer ] it's time to reclaim your garage. the all-new passat. the 2012 motor trend car of the year. ♪ seek your way and go susan sutton was dead, shot five times by a killer who invaded her home after her birthday party. her husband, john, an attorney, had been shot in the head twice and was in critical condition at a miami hospital, undergoing multiple surgeries to save his life. but soon after the shooting, detectives had a potential suspect. john sutton's good friend and law partner. >> he had a partner who was on the scene when homicide detectives got there.

>> teddy montoto told police he had been on the phone with susan, heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire, rushed over to the sutton house with a gun of his own to try to help. but was that the whole story? they gave montoto a polygraph. it showed he had been deceptive, hiding something. >> what we learned was that he was having an affair with mrs. sutton. >> so montoto hadn't been straight with them, or with his good friend and partner, john sutton. but was he off the hook for murder? well, maybe. maybe not. when they checked phone records, it appeared montoto was still being deceptive. he told them the affair had been recent and brief, but that's not what the phone records said. did teddy montoto have some secret reason to kill his lover and her husband? they tested him for gunshot residue. he told them he might test positive.

he was an expert marksman, had been shooting earlier that day. >> another twist in the story, but what did it mean in terms of the likelihood that he was involved in this incident? >> again, it was early in the investigation. there was a lot of investigating to do. >> mostly, for days, they waited with everyone else to see if john sutton would survive the attack, to see if they would ever be able to ask him what happened. until now, all they had heard from sutton was this. >> are you bleeding? do you see any blood? >> i'm bleeding all over, yes. >> okay. >> i can't see. >> i can't see. it was almost a week after the shooting when sutton was awakened from a medically induced coma. he was going to live. but he was going to live with the scars of the shooting. he had lost an eye, but worse, far worse, was the news the doctors gave him. he would never see again. he was blind in both eyes.

>> shortly before i left the hospital, some ophthalmologist came around and very bluntly told me there was nothing they could do for my eyesight. i was very unhappy, very upset about the eyesight. >> did you know right away he was going to be blind? >> no, i didn't. >> no. i didn't. we didn't even know if he was going to live for a long time. >> be nice to look into his eyes and know he can see back and see you. >> it's different. it's different to look at someone who's blind. it's a different expression. >> though for a long time, any expression was masked by truly dreadful injuries. how many bullets had you been hit by? >> i had two in my head, in the right temple, and i'm told out the left jaw. one higher towards my ear and one in the lower part of the jaw. >> those were only the shots to

his head. the tip of his ring finger was blown off. other shots hit his thumb and shoulder. >> there were six pretty good sized bullet holes. >> when he was well enough to talk to detectives, sutton told them what he could, the story of a man who barely witnessed the attack that killed his wife and almost killed him. he was a former college swimmer, so he was watching an olympic diving event in the master bedroom, he said. >> next thing i know, somebody was standing there in a black hat or visor, black shirt, black pants, face shaded by the visor, and opened fire. all i really remember was one bang. >> the bullets destroyed his right eye and severed the optic nerve in his left eye. the optic nerve connects the eye to the brain. without it, sight is impossible. but the bad news, of course, didn't end there. how did you find out about susan? >> at some point, i asked

melissa, how's mom doing? and melissa said well, she's not doing quite as well as you. they're working on her somewhere else. so you need to hang in there. didn't really mean too much to me. i think i was hallucinating an awful lot. at some point, somebody told me that she had died. >> in fact, for weeks and weeks, sutton drifted in and out of alertness, dependent on others to save him. >> of course, my son was there. a bunch of my friends were there because i had multiple surgeries in that hospital. >> as he lay in that bed, sedated, medicated, breathing through tubes, the thoughts, half a dream, terrified him. was the killer a hit man? was he coming to try again? >> i thought somebody was trying to kill me one night, so i raised hell. i said, you know, call the police. you know, everything i could say to get some assistance. >> he was wrong. there was no killer.

still, christopher demanded the hospital take special precautions. >> i do recall him as very adamant that my dad be placed under john doe, so that whoever did this could not find him and finish off what they had started. >> so you were pretty paranoid guy lying in that -- >> most certainly. >> and with good reason. because the killer was still out there, knew exactly where john sutton was. coming up, but unfortunately, police had no idea where the killer was. >> everyone wos somewhat of a suspect. you start with the family, you keep working your way out. >> when "blind justice" continues. okay... is this where we're at now, we just eat whatever tastes good? like these sweet honey clusters... actually there's a half a day's worth of fiber in every ... why stop at cereal? bring on the pork chops and the hot fudge. fantastic.

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i'm melissa. here's what's happening. a coast guard official said the captain of a luxury liner who

ran aground on friday was found on land before the evacuation was complete. the death toll now stands at five. the captain is being investigated on charges that include manslaughter and abandoning ship. a brazen insurgent attack claimed the lives of seven preliminary in the anbar province. now back to "blind justice." the fact that john sutton was alive at all after that mystery invader killed his wife and shot him in the face was a medical marvel, frankly. the rest of the news was not so good. when he was finally able to talk, sutton received a visit from police detectives. susan, police discovered, had been having an affair with sutton's law partner, teddy montoto. >> it's upsetting. i'm not excusing teddy. i'm not excusing anybody. so i don't focus on that, i can't change it, i can't change any of this. it's like a bad dream.

>> 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 actually a suspect. >> i suspect so. anybody that was probably anywhere near me was a suspect. >> 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 of every homicide investigation. >> everyone is somewhat of a suspect. you start with the family, you keep working your way out. >> family. john and susan met on a blind date, were married a year later.

from the beginning, they made family a very big deal. but even though they were strikingly good-looking and financially successful and happy, they were stymied. no matter how they tried and oh, how they tried, they could not have children. >> she was sure that as much as anybody else wanted a baby, she wanted a baby more than anyone in the world. >> but if wishing couldn't make susan pregnant, said her sister mary, it could make her a mother by adoption. >> she got her wish, and as i said, it was the happiest day of her life when she brought christopher home. >> christopher sutton was born april 13th, 1979, and the day they brought him home, john sutton remembers every minute, every detail, even the green suit he was wearing. >> when christopher came to us at about two days old, very cute, was a lot of fun. >> it was a happy time. >> absolutely. >> susan quit her job to be a

full-time mom, but susan kept trying to get pregnant, kept suffering through years of failed fertility treatments and miscarriages. and finally, adopted a sister for christopher, melissa. >> she was and always has been a little angel. absolutely. she would probably be upset with me saying this, but she was pretty close to perfect. >> which seemed to describe the family, too. they told the kids they had been adopted, didn't seem to worry them at all. >> my mom and my dad were my mom and my dad. there wasn't, you know, these are my biological and these are my adopted. and i had a great childhood. >> and there were advantages to having a brother seven years older, especially when he grew to be a 6-foot, 200-pounder. >> he was my defender, my protecter. someone made fun of me at school one time, he came and he kind of

gave the kid a stern look, what a big older brother did. you know, i think he was protective of me. >> after the murder, christopher resumed that protective role, this time for his father, who insisted that melissa should return to college in northern florida. >> the day after the shooting was her first day of college. >> oh, my gosh. >> and i was then and i am still proud that she managed to stay in school. >> during a long, arduous recovery, the many surgeries, the lingering fear, a protective layer formed around john's demeanor. he learned the hard way to keep focus in and emotion safely at bay. it was easier that way. survival mode. >> he just focuses on putting one foot in front of the other and i think i do the same thing. if you were to break down emotionally all the time or dwell on what happened, you wouldn't get out of bed.

>> the doctors let him go home finally, but since home was not exactly livable, he moved in with christopher at his townhouse. >> my house was a mess because it was a crime scene. the most logical place for me to go was not where the incident occurred, because we didn't know who was responsible, but this townhouse, and that's where i went. >> a full-time nurse looked after him during the day. christopher and his girlfriend juliette driscoll, were there for him the rest of the time. three months after the august shootings when john decided he was ready to go home to the house in which the shooting happened, christopher went with him, eyes for his blind father. >> at that point, he was more involved in driving me around or some care-giving. >> but now it was almost christmas. still no arrests. detectives were certainly following up leads, trying to find anyone with a motive to

kill the suttons. though, understand the digging they were doing was mostly in mounds of dry, turgid paperwork, records of phone calls and the like. and then, somewhere in the middle of that pile, there it was. and boy, was it a doozy. coming up -- >> he sat across from me and i looked at him and go we got something here. >> a phone call from a killer. when "blind justice" continues. someday, but not today mr. intern. today, your boss needs her caffeine. the boss that calls you nick. your name is nate. but you'll do whatever it takes to impress. you'll bring her the all-natural sugar in the raw and the all natural, zero calorie sweetener stevia in the raw. now run along and learn lots. like how she doesn't drink coffee, just tea. it's only natural.

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it was months after john sutton lost his wife and his own eyesight to an intruder with a 9 millimeter handgun. miami detectives were plowing their way through mounds of interview transcripts and tips and e-mails and phone records, anything to narrow down their list of suspects. and in the pile of material from the phone company, they came across a name. >> we isolated within a three or four-hour period of the murder, five or six different names, and one of those came back to garrett kopp. >> who was he talking to? >> on the 22nd, there was probably i want to say maybe 13 phone calls, if memory serves me right, that were made between garrett kopp and chris sutton's cell phones. >> a lot of calls. >> lot of calls. >> lots of calls. on the day of the murder. quite probably meant nothing at all, of course. still, garrett kopp was a frequent visitor around the sutton house. he didn't seem to have a job or

any direction in life. christopher saw some good in him, apparently. hired him occasionally to do odd jobs. in fact, after the murder, christopher had kopp rip up and remove the bloody carpets from the crime scene. >> what sort of person did he seem like? >> when garrett was in the house, he was always, shall we say, at a distance. i honestly cannot recall any conversations whatsoever with garrett. >> but kopp and christopher called each other all the time, even the night of the murder. an hour after the shooting, just when christopher and his girlfriend juliette were coming out of a movie. >> we pulled the video from the amc movie theater, and it showed him getting right on his cellular telephone right after all the shooting happened. >> was there a connection here? with what happened? again, probably not, but just to cover all the bases, the detective ran a criminal background check on young mr.

kopp. and what do you know. >> he was arrested on august 23rd. >> the day after the shooting. >> day after the shooting. i still get goosebumps when i remember that, because he's sitting across from me and i look at him and go pal, we got something here. >> indeed, they did. one day after the murder, garrett kopp was arrested for aggravated assault after an altercation at this apartment complex. big no-no. he pulled a gun on a couple of guys. happened in the town of homestead, florida, about 30 miles away from the crime scene. detective bellieu called the homestead police department, talked to the arresting officer. >> i said, please tell me it was a handgun. he says it was. i said, now please tell me it was a glock 9 millimeter. he goes, it was. i said, now please tell me you have that weapon. he goes, i do.

>> bingo. >> we've got to get that gun. >> yeah. >> art went down and picked up the gun and we submitted it to our firearms tech. >> the report came back clear as day. this was the gun that killed susan sutton and blinded her husband. >> which obviously connects garrett kopp to that murder pretty intimately. >> absolutely. >> but detectives did not rush out and arrest kopp, for a simple but very important reason. there was a bigger question that needed to be answered. did his friend christopher know anything? was he even, perhaps, involved? shocking question, of course. this was sutton's son, the son who devoted himself to nursing his father back to health. but something about christopher bothered them. and had ever since he was interviewed the morning after the murder. >> he said, i was at the movies,

and said, do you want to see the tickets? >> just had them right there, like that. >> basically to me it was like a red flag right there. i want to prove i'm at the movies. >> odd, perhaps. might mean nothing at all. the gun implicated kopp, of course, but christopher? no real evidence to show he knew a thing. >> there were still a lot of pieces of the puzzle that we're still putting together. >> we can't prove it yet. >> like for example, this big tantalizing piece of puzzle right here. what in heaven's name might an island in the far-off pacific have to do with the shooting of john and susan sutton? coming up, trouble in paradise. for a young christopher and his family. >> he was kidnapped in the middle of the night and he was 17 years old. >> when "blind justice" continues. ♪ you and me and the big old tree ♪ ♪ side by side, one, two, three ♪ ♪ count the birds in the big old tree ♪ ♪ la la la [ male announcer ] the inspiring story of how a shipping giant can befriend a forest

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amazing what that garden variety assault case in homestead, florida, led to. garrett kopp was arrested with the gun that turned out to be the murder weapon in the sutton case. the very same garrett kopp who talked on the phone so often with christopher sutton. the friend who had called christopher right after the shooting. though now the complexion of the investigation changed. >> we're trying to think why would garrett kopp do this. i mean, he's like a 20-year-old kid. obviously there's a tie with christopher sutton and him.

>> as for christopher himself, the detectives had no trouble finding people with an opinion about him. >> the cops should be looking at christopher sutton, because of the lengthy family history of problems that john and susan had had with their son christopher, who was a handful from a very early age. >> a very early age, actually. as john sutton recalled all too clearly. did he get into fights at school? >> i can remember that happening early on in preschool. >> it got worse as christopher got older. did he get into trouble? >> absolutely. there was vandalism. not only of our own things, there was vandalism of other people's property. >> they sent him off to boarding schools then, but he didn't last at any of them, failed and got kicked out. of course, the whole family tried, said his sister, melissa. the trouble wasn't a lack of love. not at all.

was there a sense that christopher was loved? >> i mean, no doubt about it. >> but neither love nor money could prevent christopher from always ending back in the same place, trouble. >> i know that he dealt drugs and at one point, he was arrested for it when i was younger, and you know, that was something that my father being a lawyer as well as a parent, what do we do. >> finally, in 1995, when christopher was 16, when counselors and boarding schools and tough love had all been tried and found wanting, john and susan looked away, far, far away, to find some help. on the pacific island of western samoa there was a place called paradise cove, a so-called boot camp for troubled kids. behavior modification, their specialty. it's a long way away, samoa. was that part of it, that it would be a good idea to have him far away for awhile?

>> we weren't focused on finding the farthest place we could possibly send him. and we were very hesitant about samoa. but we investigated it rather thoroughly. >> it was expensive. paradise cove charged about $25,000 a year. but -- >> we just had enough. >> yeah. >> what else could we do. >> the suttons knew there was no way christopher would agree to go on his own, so attorney sutton did what attorneys do best. and got a court order to have christopher forcibly sent to samoa. >> he was kidnapped in the middle of the night and he was 17 years old. >> actually kidnapped him? >> yeah, put him on a plane. he was sent to western samoa. >> but christopher would not break so easily. and paradise cove was no paradise. in fact, there were many reports of physical abuse and restraints used on those who were uncooperative. something christopher learned when he first arrived.

>> we knew that christopher sutton had complained that he had been hog-tied, beaten. >> when his family was allowed to visit him about a year later, there did seem to be a distinct change. a huge improvement. they found a buff, cleaned-up young man who excelled at sports. it was, as you can clearly see, a happy family reunion. >> firefighters a really happy event. we cried, we hugged, we said, you know, our hellos and loved each other, and he was proud of what he'd learned and showed off at least to us. >> then five months after this reunion, christopher turned 18. time for him to come home, or so he thought. >> he was banking on getting out when he turned 18. but we also learned that john sutton being a lawyer, had an order signed by a judge that said when you turn 18, if you haven't completed the course, you're going to stay. which infuriated christopher sutton. >> why did you decide to keep him there when he turned 18?

>> we had concerns that he wasn't ready to return. he had not, quote, graduated the program. >> how did he feel about that? >> he was quite upset. >> he wanted to come home. >> he wanted things his way. he always wanted things his way. >> but this time, tough love seemed to work. christopher was 19 and a changed man when he returned from his protective stay at samoa. >> we met him at the airport at l.a.x. on his birthday april 13th. >> he was happy to see you? >> absolutely. >> it was a joyous reunion? >> thrilled. >> the suttons went on a family cruise, a reward for their son. that's where he met his future fiancee, a young woman from boston named juliet driscoll. juliet quickly became a member of the family. john sutton also got him a job

at his law firm. >> she was, what i would imagine if someone was going to marry into the family. my mother embraced her. juliet was a great influence on my brother, and my family. >> christopher got his act together, enrolled in college, started working. his parents helped out by buying him a $300,000 condo. >> he started up his own company, which in retrospect looking at everything he had done from arrests to drugs, you know, this was good behavior. we were all happy that things were better. >> anyway, by the time of the murder, christopher was 26 and and samoa had receded into his distant past. >> all she knew about her brother was he was a little rebellious as most teenagers are at that age. >> i think i said something along the lines of, no, i don't know of any reason why he would want to do this. >> something her father shared.

>> i asked, could your son have something to do with this? and he said, i don't believe so. >> so perhaps garret kopp acted alone after all. but detectives were convinced christopher had to be mixed up in that awful shooting somehow. someone must know, and they were right. someone did. miami homicide detectives larry belyeu and art had a problem. they were pretty sure the man who shot john and susan sutton was now a frequent visitor of the sutton home. >> here he gets arrested. >> and they at least suspected the sutton's own son, now john's caregiver, was all mixed up in it somehow. >> i was becoming more concerned. >> john sutton, a sitting duck for another attack? one that might finish him off? >> you must have found it a little worrisome that john sutton was actually living with his son christopher and being cared for by christopher.

>> sure. >> still, they worried, but did not act. even though they knew full well, kopp, the shooter, was still hanging around. >> isn't that right, that kopp was still there? >> and we didn't want to tip our hand. >> but should christopher have been a suspect at all? after all, does this sound like the behavior of guilty men? gary kopp and christopher sutton actually called detectives to tell them they found new evidence at the crime scene, a bullet casing under the carpet. >> a helpful handyman, oh, and by the way, i found another casing. i mean, come on. >> maybe that's an indication they didn't do it. >> i didn't think so. >> but that's what any good defense attorney would point out. >> sure. >> the casing was underneath something. i don't know how we all missed it, but we missed it. >> we were all a little ticked.

>> he harbored anger at his parents for sending him to boot camp at samoa. this former resident was there when christopher got the news that he would have to stay well beyond his 18th birthday. >> i know he was upset. i know he was mad at his family for that. >> but when detectives track down another paradise cove resident, he said christopher was a lot more upset than that. >> christopher made comments that his parents were going to pay for taking years out of his life. >> and when they took a closer look at christopher's more recent history, they could easily see his improved behavior wasn't lasting. even his girlfriend couldn't keep christopher from slipping up. he returned to college after returning to samoa, but soon dropped out, and he did form a company. but the company folded. >> and he didn't seem to be motivated. we tried to get him to stay in jobs. nothing seemed to be working.

>> what john sutton didn't know is his son went back to the one job he seemed good at, selling drugs. he didn't know that kopp was one of his best clients, who had been buying and sometimes reselling the drugs, mostly marijuana and xanax. and he and christopher spent plenty of time sampling the goods, according to the prosecutor, kathleen hogue. >> it wasn't just drug deals. they hung around a lot, doing drugs, playing video games, whatever. >> in months after the murder, phone records showed a spike in the phone calls between the two. 300 calls in three months. >> that's an awful lot of drugs to be dealing in three months, if you have 300 some-odd phone calls. >> could they have been talking murder? speculation, of course. but then after the murder, when kopp was arrested on the gun charge, the prosecutor discovered it was christopher who put up the money to bond him out, even drove him to court.

hardly the sort of thing a drug dealer would do for a mere customer. >> going to court with him, bonding him out. there was more to this friendship. >> john and melissa sutton knew nothing of what police were discovering. christopher and his girlfriend were still living with john. garrett kopp was still coming around. so solid evidence or no, detectives decided it was time to act. they needed a confession to make their case. >> i told the investigators, bring him to me. >> coming up, a showdown with a killer. >> what did he want you to do? >> go in the back door, walk in and shoot him. >> case closed? far from it. when "blind justice" continues.n ] to the 5:00 a.m. scholar. the two trains and a bus rider. the "i'll sleep when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you. and we've been honored to walk with you

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theory of the shooting of john sutton and the murder of his wife, susan. that christopher sutton hired his friend garrett kopp to kill his parents. while the case against kopp was fairly strong, remember, the murder weapon was found in his possession, the evidence against christopher was purely circumstantial. the samoa boot camp might have given christopher a motive, but -- >> we needed more than that to make the arrest. i decided it was time to act. we're going to need a confession, i believe. >> and given what they had again kopp, detectives gambled that the shooter might roll over on the son. >> and he denied all. >> that wasn't my gun at all? >> wasn't my gun. i said, it looks like we'll be here a long time today. >> oh, and they were. hours and hours. >> do you know how the house was set up? >> yeah. >> finally, i said, i don't believe you did this on your own. so give me the reason how chris got you to do this? he basically said, look, you've

got to look out for me and my family. because i'm afraid of him. >> chris was going to kill him? >> he said if chris didn't do this, he would kill him and his young son. i didn't believe it, but that's the story he gave. >> copp finally confessed, said christopher was behind it all, gave him the gun, the money, hired him as a hitman. >> did he fom ul late this plan or was it a combined effort between the two of you? >> he did. >> what plan did he tell you? what did he want you to do? >> go in the back door, walk in, and shoot him. >> did it upset him to tell you this story? >> no, not really. not that i could tell. >> did he seem relieved that he had finally told someone? >> no. and during this time i'm talking to him, and he was pretty xhaum, matter of fact lay talking about it. >> after that confession, kopp was charged with first-degree murder. he was allowed to see his father, his girlfriend and his

son, and then take him off to jail. so case closed? well, you'd think, given what kopp told the detectives in there. but it did not give them what they needed to arrest christopher. there's a feature in florida law which says that the things a person says in a confession about somebody else could be labeled as hearsay. they needed more. so they turned to the person closest to christopher, his fiancee, juliet driscoll. the two were engaged to be married in a few weeks. invitations were in the mail. >> she said, i don't know anything about it. christopher doesn't tell me. >> didn't tell her anything? or so she said. >> that was my reaction. and i didn't buy it. >> i guess not. because he went on grilling this young woman for more than 12 hours. at the end of which the detective played to her heart, her relationship with susan and john sutton. >> i said, look, susan really

cared about you. she basically thought of you as a daughter. this woman didn't deserve to die like this. john doesn't certainly deserve to be blind the rest of his life. and i know for a fact garrett did this under the direction of christopher. finally she started crying. and i go, i think i might have her. >> with the tears, came the story of what christopher had said to her that might just nail him for murder. >> parents deserve to die for taking years out of his life. she said this went on for years. she interjected, she said, i knew it was going to happen, i just didn't know when. >> that night put juliet was put into protective custody. >> the next day i prepared an arrest warrant for christopher sutt sutton. >> and a female officer paid a visit to christopher's father, home alone. >> she goes, well, i've got good news and bad news. the good news is that we have

arrested the assailant. he's admitted it. the bad news is, he's incull pated your son and set your son up. man, oh man. that was a bad night. real bad night. >> what was it to hear that? 'twas a shock? or did you at that point have some kind of an idea? >> there were 50 emotions all at the same time. one of which is, well, i finally know. two was, i can't believe this. >> 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 i knew that he had done it. >> but melissa, so grief-stricken, wasn't focused on who did it, so much as what she had lost. >> a lot of people choose the killer. and i choose missing my mom.

>> police are looking for 25-year-old christopher patrick sutton. >> and christopher was nowhere to be found. day after day as police looked for him, john sutton had time to think, and remember. and one event in particular which perhaps he had suppressed, nine years earlier when christopher was 16, it was the deciding factor in sending him off to samoa. >> susan was going through christopher's room and found a handwritten note planning our murder. >> what did it say? >> well, it talked about killing us for insurance. >> a week after a warrant was taken out for his arrest, police found christopher. and brought him to the miami-dade homicide bureau. there he learned that both his alleged co-conspirator kopp and juliet driscoll implicated. >> i showed him certain excerpts out of juliet driscoll's statement, saying, i knew it was going to happen, i just didn't know when.

at that point he immediately began to sob, put his head on the table, and said, i'm [ bleep ]. >> but did that mean he was guilty, or merely that he understood the police believed he was guilty? >> he made comments like, there's no magical way i can tell you where to go to find the truth. >> christopher sutton and garrett kopp were charged with first-degree murder, a possibly death penalty case. both pleaded not guilty. and john sutton? got busy. he had a mission, two, in fact. one, to seek justice no matter what that might mean for his son. the other, perhaps even more impossible. to simply see again. coming up, garrett kopp's confession should be enough to put him behind bars, but did prosecutors have enough to convict christopher sutton? >> this was a circumstantial case, extremely circumstantial. >> when "blind justice"

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john sutton had survived gunshot wounds to his head. the death of his wife, and his own son's arrest for murder. and to top it off, he was blind, apparently permanently. >> it still is unbelievable. i mean, it's like a big bad dream. >> a nightmare from which there was no awakening. but john, if you hadn't noticed by now, is a determined man. he had been a champion swimmer in college. now he swam again. he had been a skier. now he learned to ski blind. he fell in love again. her name is kathy henry. how did you meet her? >> blind date. >> am i supposed to laugh at

that line? >> yeah. it's true. >> what has it meant to you to have her with you? >> it's meant a great deal. it's just tremendous. i wish i could see her. >> and he went back to the thing he had always done best, he went back to court to practice law. >> we did not sue for breach of that contract. >> where his blindness became not exactly the handicap some opponents seemed to expect. >> i like to put myself down, so i say, you know, poor old blind guy, you know, i'm just trying to do the best i can. and then i'd go in and memorize all the citations. and let them decide if i know what i'm doing. >> lately he's been busier than ever. recently won a $9 million judgment for one of his clients. >> i couldn't even imagine.

i can't even think what that would be like. heavy. >> memorizing things, and going into court when -- he's a pretty determined guy. >> yeah. it's great. >> but adapting, even successful adapting, using a talking typewriter, for example, wasn't enough for john sutton. as he waited for his son's long-delayed trial, he pursued with something like an obsession a quest to regain his eyesight. most people might have given up by then, you live with it. >> not even close. i won't take no for an answer. >> some of the best hospitals in the country, sutton had been told there was nothing that could be done. he would be blind for life. the bullets had permanently destroyed his optic nerve. but john had heard about a landmark break-through in boston where a renowned researcher had successfully regenerated the optic nerve in mice. human trials would be next.

>> one step up. >> and so in march 2008, almost three years to the day after his son was arrested, sutton and his girlfriend kathy were on the cold rain-swept streets of boston, on the way to an appointment. >> okay. so there's a chin rest in front of you. >> first, dr. joseph rizzo, of massachusetts eye and ears institute examined sutton's intact eye. he discovered even though the nerve was destroyed, the rest of the eye theoretically at least could work. >> my son is in jail, charged with first-degree murder. >> they listened to the awful story of the way john lost his eyesight. they explained to him the amazing things they were doing here, like growing corneas in a petri dish. john took it all in. amazed. and for the first time since the shooting, he felt a surge of

positive excitement. and a little germ of hope lodged itself in his stubborn mind. and you were thinking maybe they can do it for you? >> i said, i am in the right spot. >> he talked to the leading researchers, working on optic nerve repair. >> have you done any studies with severed optic nerves? >> he peppered them with questions, like he was cross-examining witnesses. mike gilmore, then the president, offered sutton a glimmer at least of hope. >> we will be able to regenerate an optic nerve. it's not so much a question of can we, but when can we. >> and it was a good news/bad news sort of day. >> i do not want to mislead you, or provide false hopes. >> yes, there might be a cure, but perhaps not for five or ten years, or more, quite possibly too late for john sutton. >> okay. >> how soon depends on how much

funding we can get, how many scientists we can put behind the problem to solve it. >> so sutton told the doctors he would somehow help make it happen. he wrote checks. he joined the board of directors. >> john sutton. [ applause ] >> he offered himself as a voice of hope for desperate patients. even though it may not never help him, as long as he lives. he's okay with that? >> there's a chance that we may not be able to restore his vision. there is a chance, on the other hand, that we may. but if he doesn't get behind it, he does know that we're not going to move as fast as we could. >> well, it's my pleasure to be here today. as you will hear, i almost didn't make it here today. >> sutton traveled the country, speaking at fund-raisers, using what he calls his shock-and-awe presentation, complete with his 911 call, and news footage.

>> i want to flip this tragedy, this catastrophe into a posit e positive. >> meanwhile, in miami, it was decision time. the alleged shooter, garrett kopp, had finally agreed to plead guilty, and testify against sutton's son, christopher. in exchange for a 30-year sentence, and no death penalty. sutton confronted the killer the day he entered a plea. >> during the next days, months, years, 20 years, 30 years, i want you to think about what you planned and what you did that night. you can be assured that with my blindness, every minute of every day that i will not forget you. >> and with that, the murder trial of christopher sutton could begin. and now, florida law again, prosecutors could use the sworn

testimony in court of both the girlfriend and the hitman. but even with that, the case was, as prosecutor kathleen hogue knew all too well, rather weak. >> this was a circumstantial case, extremely circumstantial. really based on motive. >> sutton wanted the law to convict his son of murder, but was christopher actually guilty? coming up, in court, a killer returns to the scene of the crime. >> what did you do at the end of the hallway? >> proceeded to shoot. >> who did you shoot at first? >> john. >> when "blind justice" continues. i'm just a bit of residue

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especially if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all medicines you take, any planned medical or dental procedures, and don't stop taking pradaxa without your doctor's approval, as stopping may increase your stroke risk. other side effects include indigestion, stomach pain, upset, or burning. pradaxa is progress. if you have afib not caused by a heart valve problem, ask your doctor if you can reduce your risk of stroke with pradaxa. summertime in miami. pounding heat. unavoidable sun. unavoidable except, of course, inside. and six years inside a county jail produced a doughy christopher sutton by the time his trial began. it was july 2010. a son charged with hiring a

hitman who murdered his mother, blinded his father. and here he sat, apparently confident, highly prepared, ignoring most of the time the surviving members of his family a scant few feet away. >> you know, we laughed at it. but i have nothing to say to him. >> melissa sat with her father, their father, front-row seat. prosecutor karen kahgan told the state's story, what happened the night of the murder. >> the man who hired the gunman signed on to commit a double murder. a man who was intimately familiar with john and susan sutton. that man, their son. christopher sutton. >> 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 he shot six times.

how would the state prove that christopher was behind it all? >> raise your right hand. >> here's how it started. this man once worked with christopher, was an occasional pot customer, too. but was shocked, he said, when christopher asked him a certain question. >> what did the defendant ask you? >> he asked me if i knew of any hitmen that would kill his parents. >> what reason or explanation did he give you? >> he said that his parents were worth about $500,000 to $1 million. >> worth a lot more, actually. with the house, insurance, law practice, christopher stood to inherit millions. so was money a motive? or was it the stint of the boot camp in samoa, or both? detective bellieu said he tried to find out when he questioned christopher. >> i said, did you hate your parents that much? >> his answer? >> you tell me. you just don't know. >> but did that answer the question about guilt or motive?

or would she? >> miss driscoll, if you will come forward, please -- >> juliet, his fiancee, when she walked by him in the courtroom, his eyes welled up. he hadn't seen her in years. now her testimony could send him away for life. >> what did the defendant tell you about getting his parents killed or taken care of? >> same thing i had been hearing for the last six years. >> which was that he could find someone to kill them? >> find somebody, they deserved it. >> this wasn't easy for juliet. as you recall, 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. >> do you remember that melissa was there? or -- do you need a minute?

>> this might be a good time for a break anyway. >> that night, whether juliet knew it or not, christopher and his drug-dealing hitman garrett kopp were already leaving a trail for detectives. a trail of phone calls. 17 in all, one just an hour after the murder, as christopher and juliet left the movie theater that august night. >> garrett kopp. >> and here was the man on the end of that phone. the man who said he did it, garrett kopp. 25 years old, short, scruffy, the self-confessed killer shuffled into the courtroom. and told a horrifying tale, how christopher instructed him to enter the house through a sliding glass door near the pool, how he had made a sketch of the house to guide garette down the hallway to john and susan's bedrooms. >> what did you do at the end of the hallway? >> proceeded to shoot. >> who did you shoot at first? >> john. >> is that mr. sutton? >> yes. >> where was mr. sutton when you shot at him initially?

>> on the bed. >> and what did you see mr. sutton do when you shot him? >> slip off the bed. >> after you fired at mr. sutton, what did you do? >> proceeded to shoot in another room. >> and who was the person with whom you were in a plan to shoot john and susan sutton? >> chris sutton. >> and what do you remember the defendant telling you about how much money you might expect to get? >> upwards of $100,000. >> until this moment, john sutton had been a spectator at his son's trial. his thoughts and feelings his own. but he was a victim, too. staying out of it wasn't an option for him. and now came the moment he both dreaded and demanded. he testified against his own son. first, about the night his world went dark. >> the only thing i saw was, for an instant, a snap, i didn't even see the gun. but in an instant, bam, and then

the next thing you knew, i woke up and i was on the floor. >> john sutton answered the questions as if the defendant sitting before him was a man he had never met. as if this was not the boy he had raised from birth. neither father nor son displayed the slightest emotion. >> that doesn't make any sense to get on the witness stand and cry in front of the jury. it can cause a mistrial. so i dealt with it. i did what i had to do. >> so he did. but was he right about his son? did the state really have the puzzle solved? or had its key witness been forced to lie? coming up -- now, it was the defense's turn. and christopher's old girlfriend, one of the prosecution's star witnesses against him, had a new story to tell. about how she was threatened by police. >> they told me if they didn't hear what they wanted to hear,

that they were going to arrest me instead. >> what would that do to the prosecution's case? when "blind justice" continues. , do you want fast relief? try bayer advanced aspirin. it's not the bayer aspirin you know. it's different. first, it's been re-engineered with micro-particles. second, it enters the bloodstream fast, and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. the best part? it's proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. test how fast it works for you. love it, or get your money back. [ male announcer ] new lashblast 24hr with anti smudge power will last through all your drama. who knew lashes this big could last this long. [ male announcer ] new lashblast 24hr from covergirl.

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i'm melissa raberger. two more bodies have been found on a cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of italy. the death toll now to 5. 15 are still missing. no americans are among the dead. the captain is being investigated on charges that include manslaughter and abandoning ship. a space probe that fall out of orbit fell off the coast of chile. now back to "blind justice." he tells them -- >> it takes a special sort of skill to defend a man facing a charge of first-degree murder. and in miami, bruce flisher has honed the skill as well as anyone. but what he could see right

away, and knew long before the trial, was the scene in that courtroom was about as batted as they could be. because there they were, just feet apart. his client and a blind father, a survivor of christopher sutton's alleged plot to kill his parents. >> the fact that john sutton survived, and was blind, to me was the greatest prejudice in the case. >> and there he was, right behind the bar the whole time. >> the jury would hear something bad, and they would look over at john sutton. they had to be thinking, this poor man. look what he has to go through life with. >> for the victim, flisher knew, he had to display only sympathy. so instead he attacked the murder investigation itself, the way the police came up with their two star witnesses. juliet driscoll and garrett kopp. after all, without them, the state's case was weak. and why do you suppose they came forward anyway? because they were forced to, or

so reasoned flisher. juliet driscoll, for example, why did she say christopher talked about killing his parents? >> they eventually said, if you don't tell us what we want to know, you'll be arrested in this murder conspiracy. >> so what does she do. she tells them what they want to know. >> in fact, the defense attorney got juliet to admit the state wouldn't even have had that if detectives hadn't intimidated or threatened her. >> they told me if they didn't hear what they wanted to hear, that they were going to ahest me instead. they threw my purse across the room. they slammed their hands on the desks. >> did they tell you it was going to be for first-degree murder? >> they told me they were going to arrest me for murder. >> and you eventually told them what they wanted to hear? >> after 13 hours, yes. >> before christopher was

arrested, the two planned a wedding and honeymoon in samoa, of all places, which begged the question -- >> he was going to take the lives of his parents. why would you stay with him, and why would you marry him? >> i can't think of how many times i've heard somebody say, oh, my god, i hate this person so much, i could kill them right now. and when you hear it for six straight years, you just don't believe it. >> finally, juliet testified detectives lied when she said i told them i knew it would happen, i just didn't know when. >> i never believed he was going to do it, and that was in my statement that he was going to do it, which i said i didn't know he was going to do it. i'm still confused about the whole matter. nobody knows what really happened except for him and garrett. >> thank you. >> that's what i've been saying. >> so why fought just play a tape of the interrogation? well, they couldn't.

the police didn't record a word of their long talk with juliet driscoll. >> she said, certainly he said those things. >> but whether he did it or not is up in the air, as far as i'm concerned. and i think that gives a rise to a major reasonable doubt in this case. >> but remember, garrett kopp, the confessed shooter, testified he was merely christopher's puppet on a string when he killed susan and tried to kill john. how do you get a jury to doubt a statement like that? >> we now had to go after him with hammer and tongs. >> oh, and he did. fleischer went after garrett and the cops. >> every time you denied being involved in this, they got aggressive with you, didn't they? >> somewhat. they were just like got pushy a little bit. >> got pushy? you mean, they walked over to you and pushed you on the shoulder? >> getting in my face. >> did they touch you? >> leaned over against me.

>> like this? >> yeah. >> and when they got close to you like this, were they saying, garrett, garrett -- >> something like that. >> you need to tell us something, garrett. because they're going to fry your ass in the electric chair. >> excuse me, excuse me, mr. fleischer. >> is that an objection? >> that's an objection. >> the question is, is that what they said to you? >> something like that. i'm going down for murder. >> you're going down for murder. >> i'm going to get the death penalty. >> you're going to get the death penalty. what finally made you give them some information? >> saying that juliet was confessing in the other room. they told me i was going to -- i was going to go to jail for murder already. so i ended up confessing. >> there was no doubt that kopp committed the murder. but maybe the case against christopher wasn't quite so water-tight after all? maybe christopher himself could set the record straight?

>> we're calling chris sutton. >> would jurors listen? coming oup -- >> he went to get the drugs. he found the suttons' home, and they could recognize him. he panicked. he was in a drug stupor and he shot them both. [ inner voice ] establish connection. give me voice control. applications up. ♪ hands in position. airbags. ten of 'em. add blind spot monitor. 43 mpg, nice. dependability. yeah. activate dog. a bigger dog. ♪ [ male announcer ] introducing the reinvented 2012 camry. from toyota. ♪ c'mon, michael! get in the game! [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies?

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jurors had to be deeply curious about the man accused of putting a hit on his own parents. for one thing in his button-downed shirt and wire rim glasses, he looked more law student than murder suspect. for two weeks they watched his note-taking. >> they thought he was wrongfully prosecuted.

the only way we could tie up a lot of things and actually prove things, or disprove things, was by him testifying. >> how would he convey his innocence? first, by describing his hospital vigil, a concerned son on the night of the shooting. >> did he acknowledge that you were there? >> yeah, he could squeeze your hand. but he couldn't speak. >> how did you feel when you saw your father at the ryder trauma center? >> shocked, hurt, worried, scared. >> not that christopher was claiming to be a perfect son. in fact, he told the jury he was a drug dealer. garrett kopp was one of his best customers, but had good reason to turn on him. why? because years earlier, christopher said, he turned police informant. and who did he finger? garrett kopp. >> what happened, if anything,

with your relationship with garrett kopp after he was arrested? >> i didn't speak to him for a while. or he didn't speak to me, i should say, for a while. >> was he mad at you? >> yes. >> so was it payback time now? yes, christopher must have been. and thus his theory of the murder. christopher said he had nothing to do with it. told the jury he never asked kopp to kill his parents. kopp made it all up. police had it all wrong. what really happened is kopp stormed into the house that night to steal christopher's hidden stash, boxes full of drugs. >> how much marijuana did you store in these boxes? >> in the top box, about two pounds. >> and what was the value of that? >> 7,000 bucks. >> in fact, the very day of the murder, said christopher, a hopped-up kopp called him again and again desperate to buy drugs. christopher told him between his mother's birthday party and a movie that night, he couldn't do

it. >> why didn't you tell him he could get the drugs? >> objection. >> overruled. >> i told him i left it in a room in my parents' house. >> that's what gave kopp the idea where to get the drugs. >> that doesn't explain still why in cold blood he would murder and attempt to murder these two people. >> he went to get the drugs. he found the suttons' home, and they could recognize him. he panicked. he was in a drug stupor and he shot them both. >> so if you were garrett kopp, wouldn't you try to implicate the man who turned you in to police? here's the thing, said christopher, he could understand kopp turning on him, but juliet, his own fiancee? when he heard what she told police, he said he broke down in tears. not because of what she said, but why she must have said it. >> as soon as he started reading parts of juliet's statement, yeah, i started crying. >> why were you crying? >> objection. >> overruled. >> i was crying because the

woman i was going to be marrying in five weeks had lied to save herself. >> his were tears of frustration, too, said christopher, how could he defend himself against lies when his police interrogator kept accusing him of murder. he said he's not going to believe anything i said. he would try to twist my words or use them against me. like he did with juliet. because there's no proof that i did anything, because i know i didn't do anything. >> so, there it was. another theory for the jury to consider. but there was one more thing that the defense had to do, if possible. knock down the allegation that his banishment to samoa had given him motive to kill his parents. but what you're about to see, as christopher described the program, probably wasn't in the defense strategy. >> a level 2 is allowed to go to the bathroom on his own, is allowed to have some more

privileges. >> something in the memories, on that island, struck a nerve. >> how were you feeling physically during that time? >> i was what they called in denial. >> do you need a break? >> yeah. >> strange. stoic for the rest of his testimony, yet in the process of trying to dismiss samoa as a murder motive, he cried about his experience there. so, revealing? attorney fleischer put the best spin on it he could. >> i think that showed his honesty as a witness. >> i cried when i got off the plane. >> when court resumed, christopher told the jury that while he was initially upset about being sent to samoa, he got over it, made the best of it. and when his parents and melissa came to visit, they all had a wonderful time together.

hardly a dysfunctional family, in the story the photos told. >> were you happy to be with your parents? >> i was very, very happy to see my parents. i loved them very much. >> so he had given the jury an alternative. he tried at least to defuse the samoa motive. enough? not nearly said prosecutor kahgan. >> what motive did garrett kopp had to go in and assassinate those people? none. what motive did christopher sutton have to want both his parents dead? plenty. >> they have the statement of garrett kopp, the drug-crazed little thug who gives this story to save himself from the death penalty, and the coerced statement of juliet driscoll. where is the evidence in this case? what do they have? nothing. >> seven men, five women on the jury. and real doubt in the air.

>> when you first saw his testimony, he put doubt in my mind. >> coming up, the jury speaks. >> we, the jury -- >> and so does christopher sutton. >> sure, i could have been a better guy. >> as his father hopes for a miracle. >> when "blind justice" continues. ♪ [ woman ] i was ready for my trip, but my smile wasn't. [ female announcer ] new crest 3d white intensive professional effects whitestrips. it goes below the enamel surface to whiten as well as a five-hundred dollar professional treatment for a transformation that's hard to believe. ♪ wow, that's you? [ female announcer ] new intensive professional effects whitestrips. and try 3d white toothpaste and rinse. from crest. life opens up when you do.

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now you may deliberate. >> not an easy task these people were given. did christopher sutton mastermind a plan to kill his own parents? >> we battled for a while. >> who knew that those 12 were butting heads all day in the jury room, and split down the middle after seven hours. they went home. it was mostly garrett kopp they had trouble with. how could they believe a cold-blooded hitman who rats on a friend to save his own skin?

>> he's making this deal because he doesn't want the death penalty. >> which means, what, you can't really believe what he's going to say because he's an opportunist? >> anything to save himself. >> the next day they tried again. ten hours went by. a deadlock? and then 7:00 p.m., two words set the halls abuzz -- a verdict. john and melissa sutton took their seats in the front row. christopher sutton stood stone-faced as jurors filed in. >> you may be seated. >> were those tears from some members of the jury? >> ladies and gentlemen, i understand you have reached a verdict, is that correct? >> judge stanford blake read the verdict. >> state of florida versus christopher sutton. we this jury find the defendant christopher patrick sutton as to count one, guilty of first-degree murder as charged in the dimt. >> guilty. with that, christopher's head

snapped back as if he had been struck. >> as to count three, guilty of attempted -- >> melissa wept. her father, their father, locked his jaw, stared ahead sightless. sentencing would be immediate. john immediate. john sutton was offered time to speak. and years of stoic resolve crumbled. >> regardless of the result, this is a bad case. we are now -- we're now at 5 years, 11 months.

i lost susan. i lost christopher long before that. >> christopher did not look at his father. had he done so he would not have seen tears. the bullets that tore into his head left john sutton unable to cry. >> i lost my eyesight. >> how was it in that courtroom? >> it needs to be over. >> raw, personal. here's the judge. >> it's ironic for me. i have a son born the exact same day as christopher sutton. when i heard his date during the trial i remembered the joy of bringing my son home, just like mr. sutton had. so at this time as to count 1, mr. sutton the court poses a sentence of life in prison, no possibility of parole. >> and that was that. barring a successful appeal, christopher sutton will die in prison. a result he found so shocking he

decided he needed to explain that they got it so very wrong. >> the verdict did seem to be a big surprise. >> yeah. i definitely wasn't expecting to be found guilty. i mean, i was shocked. you know, like to know you didn't do something but yet to have people feel you did. >> the words gushed from his mouth as if there wasn't time to say everything that needed to be said. >> a lot of this comes down to there's me and gary and everybody else is talking about what i did years before or maybe after or, you know, even julia said that. the only people that can know anything are christopher and gary. >> the idea that he would break in looking for drugs. >> yeah, absolutely. >> you wouldn't have drugs there. >> i had stuff in my bedroom that i was moving out and end of my room. >> christopher said when garrett kopp decided to plead guilty and testify against him he knew jurors would have to weigh two versions of the truth. but christopher said garrett's version of the story had one

goal in mind, to save himself from the death penalty. >> i mean, you're sitting in jail. >> yeah. i'm shocked. >> waiting for trial. >> absolutely. >> must have thrown you for quite a loop. >> absolutely. i knew he was lying from the beginning. once i read the statement, if he's going to implicate me in any way it's a lie because i didn't do anything or have anything to do with him. like it didn't surprise me that he lied. that he changed his story to be more cohesive to be what this needed. the whole thing being in jail based on one man's word is shocking. it doesn't seem like that should be possible. >> you need some water? >> no. i'm all right. >> the jury told us christopher's tears when he talked about samoa made some of them believe his incarceration on the island was a motive for murder. >> you seemed broken up talked about the camp. >> when i initially talked i would cry. it would be really hard.

the program, i have done my best to seal it away. >> all of a sudden boom. >> that was the first time i sat there in a long time and, wow, what really did happen there. >> it all goes back to the whole question whether you were super angry at your parents or not. that was the way it was portrayed. >> absolutely. >> how bad was that? it. >> was a tale of two programs. at the beginning, horrible. then once more americans got brought in and more kids got sent home and told their parents -- >> back off a little bit. >> they backed off a whole lot. more turned into -- it went from a more boot camp setting to a, you know, i wouldn't say day care setting but more like rigid structure. >> did you hate it? you must have hated it. >> i hated being there. yeah, i would definitely say that. >> we saw these photographs of you and your family when they went to visit. i don't know. it looks like there was some real affection there. >> yeah. definitely. i definitely loved my parents and my sister.

the family is always great. >> great, so he says. yet there was testimony from his girlfriend jewel driscoll that he talked constantly about killing his parents. >> the narrative is this troubled boy gets in more and more trouble as time goes by. there's nothing they can do with him. they have to send him somewhere. and he comes back with a motive to kill them and tells people frequently he's going to kill them. or that he would like them to be dead or something like that. >> not frequently. the only person that ever said that was you'll julie et. >> they're pushing it as you. i had to say something. i had no way out. i'm so sorry. please don't, you know, be mad at me. like i had to lie. >> and when christopher took the stand, said the jurors, he did not help his case. christopher, on the other hand, said he had no choice. he had to do it.

>> you know, i've been told by some people, attorneys, that it's really a dangerous thing for a person to testify on his own behalf. do you worry about putting yourself at risk by testifying? >> absolutely. i'm of the belief that anyone whose innocent being accused of a crime would have the compulsion to get up there and testify regardless of the -- >> it's a natural way to think. still. >> that's the way it is and that's the way i thought. it's one of those things, i'm not worried about getting tripped up. i'm going to speak the truth. i'm not going to have three stories like garrett. i'm going to have the truth and that's what i'm going to stick with. i can give 50 cross-examinations and nothing is going to change. the truth is the truth. >> how about your dad? >> my dad turning on me in hard times isn't anything new. >> and then he talked about his circumstances. his fate. and his self-control.

abandoned him. >> the way it's said right now this is home. you'll never get out. >> at some point in time, if you have integrity inside yourself, you have to stand you up for what you believe in even if your life is on the line. >> how does that feel? >> it's hard. it's hard to know i'm going to go to jail for something i didn't do. you know, i'm not going to sit here and deny i had problems with my parents or that any of that stuff happened. that's why i wanted to get up there and explain, explain to the people, you know, i might not be the best person. sure, i could have been a better guy. but, i mean, i was trying. and i didn't have anything to do with this. i didn't create the system. i'm just stuck in it. >> trapped? >> that's why i'll fight all the way to the end. i'm innocent and i'll always maintain my innocence. >> john sutton still remembers the suit he wore when he brought christopher home from the

hospital. and now it's come to this. what about christopher? do you still think of him as your son? >> i guess technically he is. but some day i may go see him and confront him and say what were you thinking of, you know, what a stupid criminal ridiculous crazy thing all this was. >> reconciling, if it ever comes, is a long, long -- >> that ain't happening. no way. no way. >> it's complicated, says melissa. ridiculously difficult. but what choice does she have? >> i have a brother, you know? i'm not going to ignore that fact. i have a billion familye blew u. >> but in the same picture i have a mom who passed away, a brother who is in jail, a dad who is blind. that's my family. it's kind of -- it's kind of

what it is. but at the same time, you know, i believe he did what he did and i have no intention of ever speaking with him again. >> so, life goes on. melissa is a media planner for a major cable network in new york now. detectives retired from the force. he adopted a little boy, just like john sutton did all those years ago. and john sutton pursues his dream to see again. >> are you prepared or has it sunk in that you're going to be blind for the rest of your life? >> well, that's not my plan. i may not be that smart, but, boy, i'm motivated. >> the enthusiasm coming out of you is kind of inspirational. >> i'm ready to roll. i've got plans for this eyesight. >> and for more on this story, go t