Susan Sutton and the bad son: August 2004
Just a couple of years after the Maggie
Locascio murder, in August 2004, another
murder case featured a father and son facing each other in a courtroom setting.
The cases were also similar in their focus on security cameras. In each case
the security camera provided a rock-solid alibi but, ironically the cameras
also provided evidence of guilt.
John Sutton, a well-known Gables lawyer, and his wife
Susan had hosted a birthday party in their home on Orduna Drive, off Granada
Blvd. in the area once known as The Devil’s Den – where Dora Sugg had been
brutally murdered exactly one hundred years earlier.
Guests at the party included their son Christopher, his
girlfriend Juliette and John’s Law Partner, Teddy Montoto. Soon after the
guests left, and John and Susan retired to their separate bedrooms, somebody
entered the house and shot both of them where they lay. Susan died immediately
but her husband, seriously wounded and now blind, eventually survived.
Moments after police reached the house, Teddy Montoto
also arrived. He told police he had been on the phone with Susan when he heard
shots. He also told police that he was an expert marksman and had spent the day
at target practice with his gun. The police tested his gun and gave Montoto a
polygraph test. His gun passed the test, but he did not. After further
questioning, Montoto confessed that he and Susan had been having a sexual
affair. Another possible suspect was the couple’s 25-year-old son, Christopher.
Even ten years later, Christopher still resented his parents for sending him to
a brutal reform school as a teenager. Christopher had a long history of violent
behavior, death threats and even a journal entry describing how to get hold of
his parent’s wealth. At his mother’s funeral, Christopher seemed to know
details of the crime known only to the police. But at the time of the murder,
Christopher and his girlfriend were both attending a late-night movie as proved
by the theatre’s security cameras.
However, the security cameras also showed Christopher
leaving the cinema around midnight and immediately calling someone on his
cell-phone. Phone records showed that the person he called, and whom he had
called 331 times over the previous few days, was Garrett Kopp. Police then
discovered that Kopp had been arrested less than 24 hours after the murder for
threatening somebody with a gun. Tests soon proved it was the same Glock 9 mm
semi-automatic pistol that had killed Susan Sutton. After six hours of intense interrogation,
Kopp confessed to the murders and said he had been hired by Christopher, who
wanted his parents dead.
During the lengthy and emotional trial it was shown that
Christopher and Kopp were long-time dope-dealing buddies. It was also shown
that Christopher had purchased the gun and had drawn Kopp a plan of the house,
marking his parent’s bedrooms. His girlfriend Juliette described how
Christopher had spent five years talking about killing his parents and
constantly demanding money from them. After a day and a half of deliberations,
the jury found Christopher guilty of first-degree murder. Before sentencing, an
emotional John Sutton addressed the court but did not request leniency for his
son.
"Regardless of the result, this is a bad case,"
he said. "I lost Susan. I lost Christopher long before that. I lost my
eyesight ..." Asked if he still loved Christopher, the father told the
court, "I would have to say that I do not. And it's hard...”
Christopher is serving life without the possibility of
parole and Kopp will not be eligible for release till 2035. It would appear
that despite all the manicured lawns and elegant mansions, the dark shadows of
The Devil’s Den still linger to this day.
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