Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS)
Trial for a Paradise Cove survivor starts.
Ursus:
Comments left for the above article, "Accused Christopher Sutton takes the stand" (by David Ovalle, 07.16.10, The Miami Herald):
zekedog wrote on 07/17/2010 09:48:42 AM:
Prosecutors will tear his story to shreds on Monday
Cry now Christopher
you are not fooling anybodyanr1929 wrote on 07/17/2010 12:39:22 PM:
Judge Blake will see right through this.holmesrip2 wrote on 07/20/2010 05:27:27 PM:
Dear Reporter O'Valle and Miami Herald Readers:
I had missed this article, and backtracked to read it today, July 20.
The crying, above, seems to be Christopher Sutton crying for Christopher Sutton -- long prior to the death of his mother, and blinding of his father -- rather than, as I had imagined from just seeing the photo, crying about losing his mother to the crime of murder, or about his father having been blinded by a criminal, or even about having been, Christopher Sutton himself, falsely accused.
The fact that this article does not detail any further testimony, and therefore does not detail any exculpatory testimony or evidence offered by Christopher Sutton, suggests that there was no such testimoney, or evidence, offered.
It is unfortunate--I know from having been falsely accused--that in this world, a person falsely accused must PROVE his or her innocence, but that is the world we live in. I find it impressive that Christopher Sutton took the stand, and will subject himself to cross-examination, but I would have liked to see him crying about his Mom, his Dad, or being falsely accused, rather than about reform school, which was the alleged motive for the murder/mayhem.
One would suppose, with so much at stake, that Christopher Sutton, were he innocent, would have, at a minimum, communicated his innocence to his father. His father, probably, would then have tried to protect his son, and offered different testimony in Court
Sincerely,
JR Holmes
Copyright 2010 Miami Herald Media Co.
Ursus:
There are three pieces of video news coverage accessible at the article link.:
* Anatomy Of Susan Sutton's Murder
* Dad Testifies Against Son
* Sobbing Son Takes Stand
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NBC·MIAMI
Sobbing Son Pleads Case to Jury
Christopher Sutton took the stand in his own defense during murder plot trial
By TODD WRIGHT
First Published: Jul 16, 2010 3:13 PM EDT · Updated 4:52 PM EDT, Fri, Jul 16, 2010
The man accused of hiring a hit man to kill his parents while they slept told jurors Friday that he was the real victim in the case.
With tears in his eyes, Christopher Sutton talked about his troubled childhood and his parents' decision to send him to a boarding school in Samoa.
Prosecutors claim Sutton sought revenge against his parents over that decision and hired a friend to kill them. His mother, Susan Sutton died after being shot six times and John Sutton was left blinded from the attack, which occurred inside the family's Coral Gables home in 2004.
"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."
The man who carried out the killing, Garret Kopp, testified earlier this week that Sutton was the mastermind behind the plot. Sutton refuted the allegation and said Kopp was a drug addict who wanted to steal from the wealthy family.
Sutton told jurors he sold Kopp drugs before and told him where the safe was, but never told his friend to kill his parents.
Kopp has already been sentenced to 30 years for the murder, but avoided the death penalty for testifying against Sutton.
© 2010 NBC Universal, Inc.
Ursus:
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.com
Jul 16, 2010 6:26 pm US/Eastern
Son At Center Of Murder Plot Sobs On The Stand
Christopher Sutton Is Accused Mastermind
Reporting: 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. CBS
MIAMI (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.
© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc.
Ursus:
Video news coverage at the link...
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7NEWS WSVN.com
Man accused of plotting to kill parents takes stand
Posted: 07/17/10 at 7:05 am EDT · Last Updated: 07/17/10 at 9:56 am EDT
MIAMI (WSVN) -- The man accused of plotting to kill his parents is taking the stand in his murder trial.
Sutton took the stand Friday morning to try and convince the jury that he had nothing to do with the murder of his mother and the attempted murder of his father.
During tearful testimony, Christopher Sutton recalled the days he spent in a boarding school in Samoa. "How were you feeling physically during that time?" asked his attorney Bruce Sleischer, during testimony.
Sutton struggled to hold back tears and replied, "I was what they call, in denial" before breaking down and crying.
In August 2004, at his parents' Coral Gables home, his mother Susan Sutton was shot to death while his father John Sutton took a bullet in the head that left him blind. Prosecutors said the younger Sutton hatched the murder plot with Garret Kopp, who, according to police, entered the couple's home to kill Christopher's parents.
Kopp has accepted a plea deal with the state that would see him spend 30 years in jail in exchange for testimony against Christopher, who faces a first degree murder charge. Prosecutors claim that Sutton wanted revenge against his parents because they sent him to the boarding school, an experience he said he did not like.
But, the defense said, a stint in boarding school does not merit murder. "It kind of got to the point where I was told to follow the rules or I could leave if I chose to, and so I kind of was like, 'I'm going to chose the highway instead. It was always 'My way or the highway,'" recalled Sutton on the stand.
Prosecutors also claim Christopher stood to gain financially from his parents' deaths. The defense argues that Kopp acted alone to get money and was in a drug-induced haze when he broke into the house in search of money and drugs.
The defense said Kopp and the younger Sutton knew each other though a relationship that centered around drugs. "Do you recall speaking to Garret Kopp a few days before the shooting, which occurred on August the 22nd?" Sleischer asked Sutton in court.
"Not counting the day of the shooting, I think the last time we spoke on the phone was about the 18th," he responded.
"And did he call you or did you call him?"
"On the 18th, I can't recall."
"And when you spoke with him, is there something that he wanted?"
"Yeah."
"What did he say?"
"Drugs."
On Wednesday, the elder Sutton, who is a civil attorney, took the stand and recalled the moment he was shot. "In those very brief moments, I see the door shut, and all of a sudden I see a black hat, a black shirt, black pants and bam," he said, before an audience that included his son. "That's what happened."
The prosecution is scheduled to cross examine the accused Monday morning.
Copyright 2010 by Sunbeam Television Corp.
Ursus:
Video news coverage at the link...
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CBS4.com
Jul 18, 2010 10:19 pm US/Eastern
Trial Continues For Son At Center Of Murder Plot
Christopher Sutton Is Accused Of Masterminding A Plot To Murder Parents
Reporting: Gary Nelson
MIAMI (CBS4) — The trial of the man accused of hiring a hit man to kill his parents in their opulent Coral Gables home continues Monday when the defense is expected to wrap up their direct examination of Christopher Sutton.
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 Friday 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 Friday, 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.
© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc.
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