I don't know who "Smith" is (starting the 6th paragraph); I suspect that's a typo and reporter Gary Nelson had meant to indicate (Christopher) "Sutton."
There's also video news coverage of the trial at the article link.
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CBS4.comJul 16, 2010 6:26 pm US/EasternSon At Center Of Murder Plot Sobs On The StandChristopher Sutton Is Accused MastermindReporting: Gary Nelson
Christopher Sutton cries on the stand, accused of master-minding the shooting that killed his mother, Susan, and left his father, John, wounded and blinded for life. CBSMIAMI (CBS4) — The man accused of hiring a hit man to kill his parents in their opulent Coral Gables home took the stand at his murder trial. Christopher Sutton is charged with master-minding the shooting that killed his mother, Susan, and left his father, John, wounded and blinded for life.
Sutton testified that the confessed triggerman, Garret Kopp, was a drug addict who was familiar with the layout of the Sutton home and knew that Sutton kept pot and Xanax in his room at his parents' home.
Sutton said he sold dope to Kopp, who was a regular customer and that Kopp had called him the night of the shootings wanting Xanax.
"I told him I didn't have access to it, that it was in my room at my parent's house," Sutton said.
During his testimony, Sutton broke down in tears while he talked about the tough reform school his parents sent him to. His defense team has argued that the shootings were part of a botched burglary in which Kopp acted alone.
Smith said he wasn't the uncontrollable kid that he's been made out to be by the state. But, he said he had typical issues for kids.
"My grades were always an issue," Sutton testified. "I got C's. I had about a C average. That was never good enough. Once I started with the body piercings and tattoos; the rift continued."
Sutton wept as he testified in his own defense Friday. The father he allegedly tried to have killed listened, unmoved. Sutton broke down as he recalled the Pacific Island boot camp his parents sent him to when he was 16.
When the defense asked him how much time he spent there, he said in between sobs, "About four or five months."
Sutton said he was angry and resentful over being sent away to the boot camp-style school. He also said he came to recognize that he had behavioral problems that needed help. "I was in denial," Sutton said while crying.
The state claimed Sutton murdered his parents because he hated them for sending him away and also wanted to inherit their fortune.
Defense attorneys introduced photos of Sutton with his mom, dad, and little sister during visits to the school. In the photos, the family appeared smiling and happy. The purpose was to show Sutton had gotten over his anger.
Sutton testified that when he finally got out of the program, he was delighted to return home.
"I was happy. I was very, very happy to see my parents," Sutton testified. "I cried when I got off the plane. There were hugs and kisses. I was happy to be home and be with my parents."
A day earlier, Sutton's defense team had opened its case with a jailhouse witness who bolstered the defense claim that the confessed gunman in the case acted alone.
Three-time convicted felon Junior Cime appeared in court wearing an orange prison uniform. He had been brought to testify from the Okeechobee Correctional Institution where he is serving time for armed robbery.
Cime testified that, in a prison conversation, admitted shooter Garrett Kopp said he entered the Sutton home in August of 2004 with the intention of committing a burglary and was surprised to find the house occupied.
"He was looking for cocaine," Cime quoted Kopp as saying in their prison discussions. "He told me that he found out there was someone in the house and he confronted that person and the person did not comply."
"Did he tell you what happened next?" asked defense attorney Bruce Fleisher.
"He shot the person," Cime replied.
Cime's testimony supports the defense claim that Kopp, an on-again, off-again pal of Christopher Sutton, thought the son kept cash and drugs in the house and went there with theft, not murder in mind.
Prosecutors say Christopher Sutton arranged to have his parents murdered because he hated them for sending him to reform school, and wanted to inherit their wealth.
Earlier Thursday, Nick Gallagher, a friend of the defendant testified that he never heard Sutton say that he wanted to harm his parents. Gallagher testified that he got to know Sutton at a reform school that their parents had sent them to for behavioral problems. Gallagher said Sutton did well at the school, but admitted on cross examination that Sutton was angry at his parents for sending him there.
After the shootings, Gallagher said John and Christopher Sutton stayed at his home in Virginia "for about a week" while the father sought specialized treatment for his wounds at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. Gallagher said Christopher was "caring" and "attentive" to his father during the visit.
Jurors also heard from Eric Pope, a friend of Sutton since childhood, who said that Christopher doted on his father after the shootings, caring for the elder Sutton at a condominium in Coconut Grove. "He rearranged his life to take care of him," Pope said.
The defense also tried to raise doubt in the prosecution's case by calling a Miami-Dade homicide detective who acknowledged that investigators thought business enemies might have been behind the shooting and murder. Lt. Rosanna Cordero-Stutz said John Sutton, an attorney, told police that he thought he and his wife may have been targeted by someone from whom he had won a big court settlement.
Sutton's father testified on Wednesday that the problems he had with Christopher never seemed to end.
"We started having problems, it was one problem after another," the father said. "It became too difficult to deal with. We were at our wit's end."
Sutton said his son was deeply resentful over being sent to a school for teenagers with behavior problems. "He was most unhappy and upset," the father said.
The parents got a court order to keep their son in the reform school beyond his 18th birthday. "We were not satisfied that he was following the rules of the program, or that we could handle him on his return," Sutton testified.
"We wasted 30 months of his life," Sutton quoted his son as saying after he returned from the school on the Pacific island of Samoa. "That was his phrase: 'You wasted my life there'."
Sutton testified that his son, who refused to work or attend school regularly, made increasing monetary demands on his parents and that in the days before the shootings the father, an attorney, had come into a large sum of money from the settlement of a lawsuit.
John Sutton said he learned in his hospital bed a week after the shootings that his wife had been killed.
"I remain upset I didn't go to her funeral," he said. "They said, 'you're crazy.' I said, 'you guys could have taken me on a stretcher.'"
The elder Sutton says he has tried to "make the best of what happened, although there's not much best about it."
The gunman allegedly hired by Christopher Sutton testified against him last week. Garrett Kopp, who has pleaded guilty and is serving a 30-year sentence, said he entered the Sutton home on the night of August 22, 2004 with the intention of shooting and killing them as part of a plot devised by Sutton.
Miami-Dade Homicide detective Arthur Nanni detailed cell phone records that show the defendant and confessed triggerman had called each other hundreds of times, including calls the day of the shootings.
Prosecutors say Christopher Sutton left a sliding door open to allow Kopp to get into the house the night of the shootings, and went out with his girlfriend to eat and catch a movie.
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