Christopher Porco: Axe Killer | Season 2 Premiere

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering, how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

0:51 Unspeakable is intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, Kelly Jennings here, it's season three. Can you believe that? Seriously? I can't. I cannot even it is season three. If you would have told me you I would have made it to a third season, I would have been like, you're full of it. Whatever. It was just a fun little adventure. But y'all, the adventure keeps getting better and better and better. I have some great stuff prepared. I cannot wait to share it with you. And I want to tell everybody that has continued to support me and to share my podcast and to join in, thank you so very much. It means the world to me. I'm on this uphill trajectory. That I never even imagine if possible, and so it couldn't be done without you.

1:37 It flat out could not. And it's not a cheesy like you know, I love you guys like famous people do like. No, this is a legitimate thank you from the bottom of my heart. You're making dreams come true, and I hope I continue to give you the greatest content because you're the reason why. You literally are the reason why I sit down at my computer or on my phone while I'm watching my LSU baseball games, or when I'm at my kids choir concerts. Sorry, miss Barbara, you didn't hear that. That's the choir director. But she's very, very sassy, so I hope she didn't hear that. But anyway, you're the reason that I'm constantly working. Even though I still have a full time job teaching, I'm still working for you. So thank you, so very much. All the people that have joined in on my different tiers that you can join to become one of my members. WHOA, our numbers are getting so big. I'm so tickled. So don't forget. You can become a vigilante, a gang member, or a crime family member. It just depends on whatever tickles your fancy, right, So if you want to get early releases and ad free episodes and all this extra content that I've got come in your way that's going to be uploaded. I write a blog on there, which I'm getting much better at being consistent on. So hang in there. So all of the people that have hung with me from the beginning, and you have supported me from the beginning, there's something beautiful about the fact that I know you by name.

2:53 And I know you don't probably believe that, but when I'm looking through my list of people, Joshua Ebarb and Miss Ruthie Dore Lisa Marks, y'all, I promise you I know your names from looking at the rosters. We talk to each other online, and it's personal to me that you support me, and so thank you so very much. And I hope y'all are having just the best time with me and you follow me along. And if you want to join in, guys, you can go to unspeakable dot com and there's an Unspeakable merch section you can click there and you can join my patron there. But hey, do your thing, y'all. If you just want to listen and be one of those guys that downloads my weekly podcast, go for it. If you want to see some of the merchandise that I have.

3:36 Have got coffee cups and I've got these cute little bookmarks. You can watch me podcasts. I've got some shirts for the people who are like Kelly, we want your Kelly isoms. They come in, they come in, give a girl a minute. I work full time. I still have to teach the youth of America and bring you good content. So just hanging there. It's coming. It's just a labor of love, and I want it to be right and I want it to be perfect. So it's there. Go check it out. Follow me on Facebook, y'all. Go find it. It's Unspeakable, a true crime podcast by Kelly Jennings. You can like it, you can follow, you can share, and I do these really cute cute I don't know that's cute. I do this stuff where when I podcast for you, I make myself little notes of things that I just you know, ad lib say, and then I go post those pictures. So the stories I'm talking about, you can go see the people, you can go see the content that I'm talking about, because I want you to learn with me. I want you to see it. It makes it so much better when you can smell it and taste it and hear it and feel it and all that good stuff. So go find me on Facebook. I've made a Twitter and I'm just moving on up. But I'm slowly moving on up, so I'm getting there, all right. So how about before I started today's episode, I've got some shout outs to do. I have some new people in my Vigilante gang member and crime family group, and so I want to tell him. Hey, so miss Karen Carrie, what is up?

4:58 Thank you so much for joining? Karen, I gotta ask you. You better message me. What's it like in today's time being named Karen. Everybody is calling people Karen's and you are a Karen, but you're like an unspeakable Karen. You know what I'm saying. You're not one of those Karen's because I'm happy to have you, so, thank you so much for joining. I've got Haley Ballard. Hey, Haley, thank you for joining. And I'm wondering are you related to the Ballards and Livingston Parish because there's a bunch of them. Are you from Livingston Parish? We have to go look it up. But hey, I see you. You're on my roster and I'm so excited. Thank you so much for joining the team. I've got Michelle Taylor and Michelle, I don't have it written down, but I'm pretty sure you're from Mississippi. I think that's what I saw when I was looking through the name. So, hey girl, how you doing. Michelle, I've got Christine Hernandez. Hey, Christine, you tell everybody you join the Unspeakable Team, tell them to come listen. And I thank you so very much for being part of it. Hey, get on patron. You can private message me if you have any questions or comments or anything. Y'all talk to me. It's me. I check it, Hailey, and so I'd be happy to talk with you and see if there's something you want to hear that I could give my opinion on. I know I recently had someone reach out that said, Kelly, Hey, I really would like to hear your opinion on the Casey Anthony case. I know it's older, but I would love to hear your opinion. I'm doing it because I have got the funniest freaking story about my husband and Casey Anthony done dune, duh, when I do that episode, y'all gonna like it. It's funny. Miss Kristen Hughes, Hey, look at all the ladies like what hey, girls, I'm so

6:34 glad this is so much fun. And then, last, but certainly not least, Mallorie Rue Hey, Mallory, listen. I actually know Mallory personally. We grew up together. She was my next door neighbor. There was a field in between us, but she was my next door neighbor. And I remember her daddy worked at a hardware store and she had a little brother, and we just had a lot of good times growing up together. So the fact that you're supporting me, Mallory, means so very much because it's again personal. I know you personally, and thank you so much. Mallory. Please tell your brother I said hello, Tell your dad and your mom I said hi, And share right, share, and let everybody know that you're on the team now. So that casey Anthony request, by the way, was a Leslie Cochrane. That's who it was, Leslie Cochrane. So miss Leslie, hey, I'm listening, girl, and I'm going to write you the most bang up episode. So you just hang tight and it's coming.

7:24 I promise, okay, and I'm not going to break my promise. So today's episode is going to be the Peter Porco case. Now, this is not necessarily a newer crime. This is one that happened back in the gap, right um, around two thousand and four. But this one's got creep factor one thousand, right, speaking a creep factor. Hold hold the phone. Okay, I hope you don't have kids in the car. If you do, they got to grow up sometime, they can hear. I don't care. Okay, No, I'm recording this right after Easter. Okay, I have to tell you the weirdest trap always happens in my family.

8:05 So my um, we went out to my cousin's house and my aunt's house for Easter, and we had a crawfish boil, and you know, she lives on a farm and she raises horses and it's just a good time. She has a donkey, she calls it her little jackass, and you know, cows and whatnot. So we're having a good old time. Well, as the evening progressed, it was a good Friday. My cousin, her name is Brent. Hey, Brent, I love you. Cousin. She's so smart and beautiful and she just has got it going on. She's about five foot nothing and just a cowgirl at heart, you know. But anyway, she said, hey, you want to come by the house and come check out my new pig. She actually got this pig. I love animals, and it's a popularly pig named Pickle. And I said, oh, hell yeah, I want to go see your Pickle. So we jump in the car and we drive over. So I jump out of the car.

8:48 I'm immediately accosted by a peacock. She has a peacock too. A matter of fact, guess what, I'll post a picture. I'm gonna make a note real quick. I'm accosted by this peacock and that's exciting to me. And then pick Hole comes winking up right, I'm a hey, bag guy, how are you doing? Pig all? And so I'm leaving on the pig and we're just having a good time, and then she goes, I crap you not, hey, I gotta castrate my cat real quick. What She's like, Yeah, I've got this cat. He's in the house and I've got a castrating real quick. And I said, I want to watch she said, okay, come on, so why not why don't we just castrate a cat on Easter? So me, my kids, my husband, my sister, her family, we all go upstairs because my cousin's house is really cool and upstairs of her it's like a barn dominium house. It's really neat. But upstairs she actually has her own vet. She's a vet near you know, she's a vet. She has a clinic in her upstairs of her home and an entire lab. Okay, it's freaking cool. So we go in her lab. She puts the cat under anesthesia, and then as a family, we crowded around the swirly chair the cat was laying on and we emasculated him. We pulled his little balls off, and she's would we have had a castrated cat? I have pictures because it was so freaking weird, So go check out the facebook. I'm going to post pictures. It was my first and last cat Fixon, but it was interesting, so if you want to go see it, go check it out. It was It was crazy. All right, here we go, Peter Porco case, all

10:20 right, this is gonna be out of Delmar, New York. And like I said, this one is super freaking creepy. So we have a family of four. Peter and Joan, they are the parents, okay, and they are very good people according to everybody's you know, description of them. And they had two sons named Christopher and Jonathan. So there's this beautiful family of four. Dad worked as a court clerk for an appeals judge at the Supreme Court of New York State, so he's a pretty successful fellow. Joan, who was the mom, was a speech pathologist, and they both made a really solid living and we're just living the good life, you know. They had a nice home and a beautiful family dynamic. Their sons turned out to be good guys. Jonathan was the oldest and Christopher obviously was the youngest.

11:09 So this case is going to be on November fifteenth, two thousand and four. That's when it all starts. I was a sophomore in college when that happened. So Peter is fifty two years old and he does not show for work, and so that was really weird. His coworkers knew that he was always prompt on time, he did his job. He was not someone who would not show. It was extremely odd and out of the norm and so something else that was kind of strange about it was that he was really near retirement. So this fella had put the time in. He was ready to like, you know, kick up his feet and you know, drink of my tie and go to the beach and do whatever it is that retired people do. I wouldn't know about that. I'm working my ass off right now. But in due time. So, being the good people that they are, they sent a court officer to the home to say, hey, go check on Peter. It's weird that he didn't show up for work.

11:58 Now. When the officer arrived at the home, there was a key in the door lock, but the door was kind of a jar. It was pushed open, and he could see that there were drops of blood on the doorstep. So rut Row right, he knew something was wrong. So he steps inside and he sees Peter Porco's body and this guy has been bludgeoned to death. This is not like someone got hit over the head and fell and was killed. He literally described it as a blood bath. Blood was everywhere everywhere. I have crime scene photos I'm gonna put up for you on Facebook when this drops. But everywhere y'all. I mean blood all around on the walls, all over the floor, countertop, sinks everywhere, and so there's just literal shock and horror by this officer that responded to the scene. So he calls responders, right, he calls number one help. Oh my god, he's dead. There's blood everywhere. When they get there, they go running upstairs because there's white you know, lives with them, and they find Joan in the bed, bludgeoned like, cannot make out her face. She is beat so badly. Now, amazingly, they think she's dead because they can't find her face, but she's alive. They take her pulse and she is alive. So they are dumbfounded by this. How could she possibly be alive? Well, based on the wounds that were both of them had had received, they determined that they had been attacked with a large blade, And

13:33 by large blade, I mean a three foot axe, an axe laying in the bed next to her, an axe literally axe murderer. You know what I'm saying, Holy crap, Do you know what it takes to swing an axe? And I know right now some burly man's like not much. Okay, Well take it down to you know, five ft four healthy woman. Okay, swinging an axe once or twice as hard as you can, you know, and then let's up that to like thirty times. Wow, the effort put forward to hack these people up. The wounds were devastating. Jon's wounds obviously were extensive, but she had them on her body, her arms, and a lot of them to her face. Her brain was literally exposed.

14:22 The responders could see her brain while they were staring at her, going how was she even alive? So they jumped into save her. But like I said, the extension was boom jim. So the responders jump in to save her. But like I said, the damage was very extensive. And when the responders literally went to go put that airway mask on her, they couldn't find her airway. They couldn't tell. It was like mints to meet, They couldn't tell. So they just did their best to try to put an airway over her and keep her alive. They rushed her to the hospital and they found that she was st at least three times with the large blade directly to the face. Now she was barely clinging to life, but she was still alive all right. So back at the house, the investigators could not figure out why Peter was downstairs, but blood was everywhere, Like I told you, I mean in the bathroom, in the kitchen, everywhere.

15:22 And Jones up in the bed with her brain hanging out. How could this blood be everywhere? Are you ready for this? Hold onto your butt, crack. This is what nightmares are made of. Okay, they should make a They should make a horror movie about this. Peter had sustained sixteen sixteen major axe wounds to his face and head, including a penetration to his brain. He was hurt so badly part of his jaw fell off during the attack. Can you fathom what I'm telling you here? And please don't think that I'm just trying to be grandiose about how gross this is. No understand what these people went through? Oh my god. Okay, Now, despite beating mortally wounded, with his brain out and his jaw off, he woke up sometime after the original attack. If you want to know the testament to how amazing the body is, this is probably one of them. He woke up.

16:30 Not only did he wake up, but he managed to get out of bed and go about his daily routine before he finally collapsed. And died, y'all like a zombie. His body got up and he went about his morning routine. So what exactly do I mean by he went about his morning routine? Here are the things that he did. He spent some time in the bathroom at the sink, and they know because by the crime scene photos which I will post trigger warning. Okay, it's court true crime show. If you are hey, if you're easily offended, then I'm not your girl, right, don't forget that, but I'm gonna post those pictures for you.

17:10 But he was at the bathroom sink, but there's just blood pouring out of him. He then loaded the dishwasher. I got to insert something real quick. This is a shout out to my teenage daughter. Honey. If Peter Porco can load the dishwasher with his brain exposed and his jaw falling off, baby girl, you can do it too. I have faith in you. Quit tell me your life's hard hashtag be like Peter. The dude was still you know, joan shout out to you girl. This is kind of morbid, but you must have had him trained well, because that man went and straight up loaded the dishwasher before he died and kudos to you man, all right, He loaded the dishwasher, he packed his lunch, He packed his lunch, he made food, He even wrote a check to someone. Think that through. This man is walking through the house on autopilot, doing these things, all the while mortally wounded and dying. Even creepier, at one point, he went outside to get his morning newspaper like he did every day, and while bleeding to death, accidentally locked himself out. He even got his spare key that was hidden in a flower pot on the porch and let himself back in, and that is where he finally collapsed and died on the front door. Stoop there. Can you imagine what that scene looked like?

18:47 So, I mean, how was my question? I don't know about you, but how like, how can you if I get a paper cut? I am like devastated For the next thirty minutes, that was hurt. This dude's take an axe, sixteen acts strikes to the face and head, and he's able to do all of those things. So I did a little bit more research on this. So how in the hell was he able to complete all of this? Well, based on the coroner's report, while most of Peter's brain was nearly destroyed by these acts wounds. The top portion of the brain is known as the neocortex, and in the neocortex that's where they're going to house things like thought and language and reasoning. Right, well, that was destroyed. But his paleocortex, which is underneath that level, that's going to house things like your primal instincts and your second nature habits, including his routine, and that was still intact. That's why he didn't know what was going on. But these autopilot things that he did every day, His body just went into that routine and started doing it until he finally just bled out.

19:52 He literally had no concept of the fact that he was mortally wounded during all of this. That's in now when the investigators are looking through the home trying to figure out motive here. Everything was there and I'm not going to say these people were filthy rich, but they had money, they had nice things. So the fact that nothing was taken told investigators from the get go, look, robbery was clearly not a motive. Okay, if there was money, there was things that someone could have taken, they didn't do that. But the massive number of wounds to Peter versus Joan did tell investigator something that would mean that, hey, he was the intended target of the attack. I would be willing to bet you know, Jane's wounds were simply just to you know, make sure that she did not interfere. She got three, he got sixteen. He was the main target. So back at the hospital, amazingly, Joan is still alive, but they're going to rush her back for emergency surgery to try to save her life. And so right before they wheel her back, and astute detective said, you know, let me let me ask her a few questions. I need to ask her a few things while she's being rolled back for surgery. They didn't even know she would survive, right, So these are the things he wanted to ask before she went back. Because she could still shake her head yes or no. She didn't have a face, but she could move her face up and down yes and no left right, you know, up down, left, right, So he asked these specific questions. He asked four of them. Can you hear me? She clearly nodded her head up and down in the yes fashion.

21:26 He then said, do you know who attacked you? She shook her head up and down in the yes motion. Now these next two questions, you might be like, why would he as that? Okay, come on, guys, you've been listening to true crime a long time. I'm not your first radio here. Who is most likely to hurt you? Who? It's going to be people that are close to you and people that you have pissed off in some fashion, right, because who cares enough to kill somebody unless you're tight with them and they they're gonna have something to gain out of it, whether it's just vengeance or money or whatever it could be. So Peter's dead husband's out of the picture. Who's left the two sons? So he asks her specifically, did your oldest son Jonathan do this? She shook her head no, very clearly. The last question, did Christopher do this to you? She shook her head yes. Holy cow. She implicates her own son as her attempted killer and the murderer of her husband. So let's talk about Chris though, Okay, so what do we what do we know about Christopher? All Right? He was twenty one years old and he was a college student at the University of Rochester, which was a three hour drive away from their home. Now, people who were asked did say that he was a bit of a brat, all right, and that during this year

22:59 of two thousand four he had been having troubles and his parents kind of had enough of it and they had called him out on it, all right, But that doesn't make you a murderer. That makes you a son whose parents are disappointed in how you're behaving their oldest son, Jonathan Porco, he was twenty three years old at the time. Now, this guy was a lieutenant on a nuclear submarine at the time, and they verified he was hundreds of miles away on a submarine. He couldn't have done this. It's not even plausible. And people knew saw him on the you know, on the submarine. Now, Christopher's alibi was that I was at college, I was three hours away, I'm on camera. I didn't do it. You know, There's no way. Well that's plausible, right. So something you have to think about, okay, is as an investigator, not only are you trying to prove who did this, but you're going to have to also sit back and think, Okay, everything that I'm trying to prove, can it be either disproven in court or could it be manipulated in court? Somehow to where there would be like this reasonable doubt that a jury may not believe or understand what I'm you know, proposing as fact or what happened. So I wanted to point this out to you while we're going through the case. You know, let's think about court for a second. Brain damage could be argued as a cause for a for a false accusation, right, So think about it.

24:30 You're in court, you're a jury member, and you're listening to this case, and the you know, the investigators are saying, yes, she had massive head trauma, brain trauma. They were trying to save her life. She didn't even have a face, but she was able to tell us that her son did this and shake her head. Yes. All the defense has to do is come back and repeat the exact same thing, y'all. She had massive brain trauma. She didn't even have a face, She wasn't able to think clearly, she was under extrem dress and the brain damage made it to where maybe her son, Christopher is the only person she could think of. Maybe she was shaking her head, yes, Christopher is my son.

25:14 How can you as a jury sit here and believe because she shook her head yes, with her brain exposed that that is perfection and honesty and truth when she had severe brain damage. You get my point. So while she's the one who said he did it, and it's his mother, I don't know, they might have put that reasonable doubt in there. So they explored some other theories. Okay, because motive matters when you're trying to solve a case. If you can't prove motive, or you can't at least allude to a reason of why someone would do it, it makes it less plausible. Right Even as parents we look at our kids and go, why would you do that? We want to know why. There's got to be a motive behind it. All right, Well, here are some of the things that they investigated. This guy kind of deep, Okay, Peter Poor Remember he works at the at the courthouse. He had received a death threat right before his actual death from a disgruntled father who had lost custody of his kids, and that man, to God and anyone else who would listen, vowed revenge.

26:15 He was pissed. Okay, that man told everybody with no holds bar He told everybody, I'm going to get a gun and I'm gonna go kill that judge, and I'm gonna kill Peter Porco. He said it to everybody. He admitted he said it. But when they did some further investigation, they were able to eliminate him because the alibi was solid. It was it was absolute solid. Now, I don't know about you, but when I used to hear the word alibi, alibi to me used to mean when I was younger, like the lie you chose to explain where you were what you were doing. Alibi is not a lie. Alibi is just simply the explanation or the story of where you say you were. So don't confuse the two.

27:03 Alibi is not a lie. Alibi is the explanation. So his alibi panned out. They were able to verify one hundred percent that he could not have been the one who did it. Now about that time, amazingly, the supposed killer writes a letter to the newspaper. He's going to be published, okay, And this is what he says in that letter, And I quote Peter Porko wasn't even a challenge. Once I got inside, I repeatedly hit him in the head and neck with a small axe I brought with me. I ignored all of his pleading screams, also, I beat Joan Porko, but unfortunately she survived all right. So he took credit for what had happened, and he gave details that the killer would know. But the writer who wrote the letter also took credit for a local murderer, another one that had just happened, and he ended that letter with, if you want to find me, you might want to stop going after easy suspects. Show me the respect I deserve. Catch me if you can. What a what a pompous person to write a letter to the media, right, catch me if you can. So they did everything they're supposed to do. They checked for fingerprints on the letter and DNA and anything they could, but it was an absolute dead end. They didn't get anything from that letter. So we've got a guy who says he wants to kill them that doesn't pan out. They've

28:37 got the supposed killer writing a letter and explaining what happened, but no DNA to follow up one. Now even crazier. Okay, where are my mob people at? Are y'all out there? The people who liked the mob, or maybe don't like the mob but are intrigued by the mob. Right, I've always thought the mob was cool, and I know I'm not supposed to say that because the mob isn't necessarily good. Guys become a one who doesn't love a good mob hit story in the movies, come one, all right, check this out. Peter Porco was related to organized crime member Frankie Porco. Now, Frankie has known as Frankie quote unquote the Fireman Porko. He was his great uncle and at the time, Peter Porko was serving time in federal prison for loan sharking. All right, tell me that didn't have a little mobesque, you know feel to it. Now? What was the rumor was that Uncle Porco Frankie was going to be turning state's evidence and would testify in another case for time off of his sentence. Okay. Now, even more interesting to this was that it was playing into the fact that the fireman's axe was found next to the body of Joan Porco and it was an absolute look of a mark of a marking of a mob hit. Right, I'm mad, I'm the fireman made I put out a hit on my nephew, and then we're gonna leave my fireman axe kind of as my signature. You

30:07 know on scene, but here was the kicker on that. It didn't make sense because Frankie was actually in prison for not being a snitch. He was offered a deal before he was sent to prison for his loan sharking, and he turned it down. He wouldn't take it. He's a freaking true, true time mobster. He wouldn't want to take the deal, right, and he wouldn't. He manned up and did his time so that it just wasn't It wasn't panning out. But I did go a little further into Frankie Porko, and I spent way too much time. I'm not proud of myself, but I went down a rabbit hole of like mobsters and racketeering and murdering the Bronx and even found a story where a horse head like a horse, like hey, like a real horse. His head was found in a councilwoman's pool.

30:55 She went outside and the horse's head was in the pool. Like let's just say, like shit too deep for me to add to this episode, but it was a legitimate story for them to go like check and dive into lot have mercy. Okay, but again it just didn't pan out. That was some other mob shit going on at that time. So, like I said, long story short, it was not considered a mob hit after they did, you know, all their research on it, even though there were a few mumbles of the fact that Peter Porco was supposed to be roughed up and assaulted over a dealing that he had over some video poker machines with his uncle, so that kind of like, you know, that really sparked my interests. But again it just it didn't pan out when it was all said and done. They wanted to rough him up, Okay, So there was that mob tie ish stuff, but it just didn't They could not find any links to that. But again, if I was a defense attorney, I Shelly would be bringing up the mob, wouldn't you. The mob did it.

32:00 So the police say, well, maybe we should take a little bit more of a reasonable step. Right now, let's look at the sun who she did identify before she went back for surgery as her attempted killer. So they did what you would anyone would do, is they went to go look at security cameras. Right if he was in the college, and he was where he says he was, he was supposed to be, which is what he said he was in his dorm, then let's go check the cameras. The cameras don't lie, and during the time of the murder they got the video from the dorm, but they also said, well, we're going to look at the cameras from not only the security footage, but we're gonna look at major highways and all toll booths between the school and the Porco home.

32:43 That's a genius, right, because any defense attorney could say, well, you know, if you saw his car, he wasn't driving it, or you know, they're always going to bring up some type of explanation. And by the way, I'm I'm not down and being bad on the defense attorne. That's your job, right, I'm just trying to give you a full rounded view, right of how this could go. So if you want to know, statistically, the average person is videotaped eighteen to twenty five times a day. If you go to Walmart, if you go to an ATM machine, if you go get a snowball, right, if you get on and off the interstate exits, there's there's you know, license plate readers, and there's traffic cameras. You're gonna be on camera. Well, as luck would have it, at ten thirty pm the night of the murder, they see a yellow jeep leave the university campus. Now I know what you're thinking, Oh my god, does Christopher drive a yellow jeep? Well, yes, good job, detective, he did. Okay, he had a yellow jeep.

33:47 So in November fifteenth, two thousand and four, someone also, when the murder occurred, use the Porco family's secret code to disable the security system at their home. Only the family knew this code. So amazingly, that code was used at two fourteen am, which was exactly within the wheelhouse of three hours after that yellow jeep left campus. Now, if you're doing your mouth, you're going, Kelly, that's one thirty Okay, that's what I'm just saying. It's within the timeframe. Okay. A couple hours later, the telephone line at the Porco home was cut at four fifty nine am, and then that same yellow jeep returned to the campus at eight thirty am, three hours later. That's what we in the biz call a freaking clue.

34:47 Something is up with the yellow gee. Now, the timeline was perfect to have committed the murder. But here's the other issue. Investigators are going to face the there's thousands of yellow jeeps in New York City or in New York. You've got to prove it was Christopher's. You know, you ever bought a car. Maybe I'm the only one, but you ever bought a car, and you're like, dang, look at my car. It doesn't look like anybody else's. Wow. And then the second you buy that dang thing, you see them everywhere, Like Gemothy, I want to call you out, Jemothy, producer. Jemothy drives a yellow hummer, a big old yellow hummer. So any yellow hummer I see in the next twenty mile area, I'm honking and waving like a moron. Well, guess what I found out.

35:32 He ain't the only one. He is not the only one with that big, gass, bright yellow hummer rolling around town. I could not believe there's more than one, but there are, because I've been waving like an idiot at the wrong one. So shout out to whoever you are. If you're listening, Hey, that's me saying hey to you every other day. They have to prove that this was Christopher's. So they zoomed in and they found on these videos that there were certain aspects to the vehicle that made it, you know, identifiable. So let me back up real quick. I don't know if you know this, but we all know that you can get shoeprints at a scene. Right, So, the bad guy steps in the mud, steps in the blood, whatever, Well, it's not that actual shoeprint that makes the case. They have what are called accidental markings. And that's literally what they call it, and so on the bottoms of your shoes, from the way that your foot lays down, if you know, pronate your foot, or let's say you have a rock in your shoe or you chipped it or something like that, it makes your shoe an absolute individual shoe.

36:36 After you've worn it for a while, no one's gonna have the exact same shoe. It's like a fingerprint basically. Well, the same concept can be applied to a vehicle. So while everyone may have Jimothy's yellow Hummer, not everyone has the unspeakable a True Crime by Kelly Jennings sticker on the back of their yellow Hummer, right so, or the real life of real crime daily shameless block. Right, Not everybody's going to have the same stickers or the same thing hanging in the window, and so those become really important. Well, what did they see when they zoomed in? There was a mud pattern splattered on the door, the window, one of the windows had a torn sticker, a torn sticker on the door, and there was a political sticker on the back window. So it was extremely identifiable that this is so and So's jeep. Now, all of these items showed up on the images that they pulled of this yellow jeep going back and forth. It was the jeep. Now the problem with that becomes okay, but we could not see who's driving the jeep. Now sounds far fetched, but again you could insert some doubt there. Well, maybe his brother was setting him up. Maybe not his brother, but maybe someone else was setting him up. You know, it's the mob. They could have ties to steal the jeep while Christopher was sleeping, right, and then whatever come up with this possibility of what could have happened. So what we know is that basically, while Peter and

38:07 Joan were asleep in their bed, they both were attacked with the axe. Joan laid in the bed for you know, a couple hours after the attack, severely injured, unable to get up amazingly, y'all. She does survive the attack, the surgery and everything. They could not believe it, but she wakes up too a few weeks later. She did lose an eye and part of her skull and her face was severely disfigured in this attack. And like I said, I will post pictures on my on my Facebook if you want to go look at them of kind of her before and after. Now, when the police were doing the investigation, they found this was not a random axe either. This was an axe that they were able to tell belonged to the family. Don't ask me how I in my research, I couldn't really figure out if they just knew from like photos that it had been you know, used or something along those, but they were able to verify.

39:00 Hey, yeah, this is their acts. Now. Christopher Bowdish, he is a Bethlehem police detective, and he stated that a medical person as medical personnel were attending to Joan at her home, he took a moment to ask her whether he could identify her attacker. Now, Boutish said specifically, he quoted this that when he asked Joan if a family member had committed the crime, she shook her head. Yes, and he maintained that when he asked her whether it had been her son Jonathan, the naval officer, or whether it had been her other son, she said no to the naval officer, but clearly knotted up and down yes when she said when he asked about Christopher.

39:43 So police were like, we gotta find Chris. We need to know where he is. We see this videotape, but where is Christopher Now? They did find him at his dorm at the University of Rochester, again two hundred and thirty miles away from the home where this attack happened. Now, his story is that on the night of fourteenth, he went to the dorm lounge to sleep, and he awoke the next morning, which plays right into what I said a second ago. If he claims that he was sleeping all night, prove otherwise. Prove otherwise. If there was no camera in his dorm or no camera where you know that occurred, I think he's smart enough to figure that out, right, then prove it. Prove I wasn't there.

40:25 Police theory was that he drove more than three hours to Albany in the early morning hours of November fifteenth, and that his whole plan the entire time was to attack his parents. So they had that throughway toll right that collector toll, and this was right outside of Rochester, and they see on video, like I told you, the yellow jeep wrangler with large tires passed through the station at about ten forty five pm on the fourteenth, and a collector at that station recalled that she remembered the yellow jeep because it came through at what she recalled an sessive speed, like he was going way too fast when he came through. And then the yellow jeep approached the toll plaza again shortly before two am on November the fifteenth. So this worker kind of, Hey, if you're gonna do bad shit, maybe you should drive like the most bland vehicle known to man Jim at day. If you're listening to me, don't commit a crime. And the bright yellow hummer with the sticker on the back, they're gonna know it was you. Right, Maybe get a car that's a little less flashy. So four security cameras, four different ones, at the University of Rochester recorded that same yellow jeep wrangler, just like porkos, leave the campus at ten thirty and return around eight am. And again this was the exact period during which the prosecutors say that the Porkos were attacked.

41:45 Now they did also talk to a neighbor. So a neighbor even told the police I saw the Porko that yellow jeep in front of their driveway the evening of the attack. And they are like, are you sure, and the the neighbors said, I'm positive I saw the jeep in front of the house. Interesting about going through the toll booth too, even though the toll pass wasn't registered as being used. So like Chris had a you know, like a fast pass hanging in his window that he would use because he frequented the highway so much. His was never scanned the night of the murder. But when the police looked at his jeep, guess where they found it. It wasn't up where it went. It was on the floorboard of the jeep.

42:27 Coincidence, I think not so. A few months before the murder, Let's talk a little bit more about their relationship. A few months before the murder, while away on a trip to England, so this was in March, right before the murders, Chris received an email from Joan. She was pissed, y'all. She was mad that he had been failing his classes at the Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York at the time, and in the message, Joan and Peter both complained to their son, this is a quote you just left and we can't believe our eyes as I look at your inner own grade report. You know what they say, three strikes and you're out. You need to explain yourself. And the email, like the subject line of the email was failing grades. You did it again, So it kind of showed that they were kind of done with his poor grades and they're funding this pony show apparently, and he's failing. So in the reply to that email a few days later, Chris says basically that he's going to blame the community college's registrar's office, and he said, but they're incorrect.

43:31 My lowest grade that I got on anything was a bee on a physics test. Don't jump to conclusions. I'm fine. So Porco earned readmission to the University of Rochester, okay, right after that. But guess what they found out. It was a forged transcript from Hudson Valley Community College. It was forged you've seen a pattern here. So Christopher and his parents had also been arguing and disagreeing about money because he had taken out loans to pay for his tuition and that brand new jeep Wrangler, and his parents were not proud of the way that he had done his financing method. So, following the fall of two thousand and three semester, the University of Rochester officials forced Christopher to withdraw because of his poor grades. When he was readmitted the following year, he took out that loan for thirty one thousand dollars to pay his expenses.

44:25 But this is the thing. He forged his father's name as a co signer, so his parents didn't even know that he was attempting to pay his fall two thousand and four tuition with the loan money. Earlier in the fall, he lied and told his parents that the university was covering his tuition because a professor had misplaced his final exam from the previous fall semester. So, okay, I mean, I'm not buying that, But I guess when it's your son and he keeps giving you all these explanations, maybe they were Maybe they were buying it. I don't know. They were just like, what is going on. But two weeks before the murder, Peter Porco, the dad, had confronted Christopher about his dishonesty and the email. He said, did you forge my signature as a co signer? What the hell are you doing?

45:14 You should have called me to discuss it. I'm calling City Bank this morning to find out what you have done, and I'm going to tell them I'm not to be on it as a cosigner. He put his foot down, and the following day Peter was notified that Christopher had also obtained a line of credit from City Bank to finance the jeep Wrangler. So they didn't even know that he was doing all this and taking up their credit and their money. And so he wrote him again and he you know, he said, you've not been answering my phone calls and weeks, and I want you to know that if you abuse my credit again, I'm gonna be forced to file forgery affidavits in order to disclaim liability. And that applies to the City Bank college loan that you attempted to get as well if you try to reactivate it or use my credit card to obtain another loan. You know we're gonna have problems. And at the end of the email, he said, we may be disappointed with you, but your mother and I still love you and we care about your future. That hurt my heart. You know, he's totally abusing them, lying to them, doing the wrong things, and even though they're angry, they're telling him we still love you, son. Let's just get back on the right track. Now. The university comes back and says, we looked at our video too, and we actually don't see him on the couch at the dormitory where he claims he was sleeping. So there's another another little you know, slicet his alibi. Now this is even better.

46:42 On that ticket that tollbooth, only twelve cars went through the tollbooth that night, so if he paid cash and didn't use the swipe card, then you would think, oh, well, they won't know that it was him or not. Well, ring it ding ding. Thank you forensic science, because they took those tickets, it's all twelve of them, and sent them to the lab and had them tested for skin cells, you know, the mitochondrial DNA testing. And guess what, bingo, porky boy, it was his DNA on that ticket. During the course of their investigation following the murders, authorities determined that Chris had a history of antisocial behavior that included burglarizing his parents home. In two thousand and five, police detectives had to go to California to retrieve a laptop computer that he had stolen from his parents in a break in from two thousand and three. He stole the laptop and then he sold it on eBay, and the police contended that eight months later, Chris staged a burglary at his parents' home and that time he stole a Macintosh laptop and a Dell laptop. A camera was also reported missing from the burglary, but that was recovered in the couple's front yard, so I guess it was dropped on the way out while running away. And then just one month before the attack, Christopher and Jonathan Porco both had their eBay accounts frozen because they had shared the same del Mar address, that same house, and what was going on was that Christopher had not sent customers the items they had paid for from

48:15 his account, so he was selling things and then not coming through and shipping the items. So even further when they investigated. They found that Christopher had posed as his own brother okay sole basically his identity, and then sent emails to the customers falsely stating that his brother had died and that's why he was unable to mail the items. Like what a piece of shit? For lack of a better term, maybe that's tacky, but what in hell? Man? Like, he's just no good. This is a bad dude. But here's a huge twist in the case. Joan comes back to and at this point they go to talk to her again and now she can't remember the attack and she absolutely, absolutely, as firm that Christopher did not do this.

49:09 She changes her mind, she changes her story now again brain damage. You can't blame the woman, right, Maybe she doesn't remember now, maybe it's a mother's love for her son. I don't know, but she says he didn't do this. Either way, he was charged with second degree murder for his father, and then he was charged with attempted second degree murder in the severe wounding and disfigurement of his mother Joan. Now, during some videotape testimony that was submitted to a grand jury in two thousand and four, Joan testified about her family, but she would not identify her son as the attacker.

49:54 She was so adamant that it wasn't Christopher. She even wrote a publication to the Albany Time Union where she open letter urged the authorities to leave Christopher alone and to search for Peter's real killers so that he can rest in peace, and that she wanted her and her sons to be able to live safely. So I really tried to find that letter. I did a lot of research. Could not find that publication, and maybe it was just a bad day for me, but I couldn't find it. But I found a picture of it that I zoomed in on if you're looking at the screen, if you're watching me podcast. I took a picture of it and then zoomed in times of thousand so that I could read the letters on it. So I tried, but this is what it said. On November fifteenth, two thousand and four, my world tragically changed. The happy life that my beloved husband Peter and our sons, Jonathan and Christopher had was lost forever. Jonathan was just starting his career, Christopher was early in his college life. Peter and I were contemplating our retirement and planning on being able to enjoy the rest of our lives with our many relatives and friends. On that horrible day, Peter and I were the victims of a brutal attack. Peter died from his wounds.

51:08 Thanks to wonderful doctors, nurses, medical treatments and surgeries, I have survived, I continue to improve, and even though I have suffered grievous injury both physical and emotional, I thank God for my life. Unfortunately, the horror and unbearable sadness I continue to feel as a result of the loss of Peter has been dramatically intensified by the trauma that our cherished son, Christopher has been forced to endure. I've been told that within hours of us being found in our home, the Bethlehem Police declared Christopher to be a suspect in the murder of his father and the attack on me. Incredibly, the police have told the media that Christopher and his father had a difficult relationship and that therefore had a motive to kill him. Now it goes on further, but I don't have it, and I really tried for you. I want you to know that, but you kind of get the context of how she was speaking, and she sounds like a lovely lady that wants to protect and defend her family, maybe because of loss of memory, maybe because you know, she doesn't want it to be her son, but she stands by him and that it does go to trial in two thousand and six. In June of two thousand and six, so the police argued that Christopher's behavior was consistent with a diagnosis of psychopathy or sociopathy. And they're two similar disorders, but they're not they're not this exactly the same, but they're they're they're consistent, and they're characterized by pathological deception, scamming and defrauding others, and a lack of conscious or

52:38 remorse. And I think the police were dead on there. This guy didn't care about anybody but himself. He lied to obtain a car, he lied to get tuition payments, He lied to other students to tell them that he came from this extremely wealthy family with oceanfront homes. You know, he's just full of it, you know. The jury began their deliberations on the morning of August tenth, and the same day, very quickly, Christopher was found guilty of second degree murder. And attempted murder. The judge his name was Judge Jeffrey Barry. He sent It's Christopher to twenty five years to life on each count, totaling a minimum of fifty years in prison. And Judge Barry was quoted as saying, I fear very much what happened in the early morning hours of November fifteenth is something that could happen again. So Christopher was then sent to downstate correctional facility and then he was moved to another prison in New York and he is eligible for parole in twenty fifty two. Interesting enough, Christopher lived with Joan until he went to jail. She stood by her son.

53:46 You know, it's just awful what he did to his mom. They even made a movie about this. It was called The Romeo Killer The Chris Porko Story. This was done by Lifetime and to show you what a skis he is from from jail from prison, Chris tried to sue Lifetime on the grounds that his civil rights were being violated because it was a non consensual living person's name, portrait or photo for purpose of advertising our trade. Sorry, bro, no one's really excited that you exist like that's a bit much. Your dad's dead, your mom is, you know, chopped to hell and back. Get over yourself. And the courts did appeal that, I mean, did dismiss that appeal, and we're like, yeah, no, thanks.

54:32 So just horrible story, but I thought it was an interesting one. And you know, my heart really hurts for his mom, you know, and a mother's love I think has made Joan Wilfley blind to her son's lack of care for her and his selfishness. And I'm not I'm not blaming her. I'm not victim blaming. I'm a mama. I love my kids and you would never want to think that your kids were capable of that. And the lies he told when it was pain mainfully obvious that he was lying is just disgusting. I personally think he's a complete waste of space. And he used his parents and they paid the ultimate price. So I hope he's enjoying prison because it's where he belongs amongst all the other lies and cheats. But all I can say is at the rady lies, I bet his ass must get jealous of all the shit that comes out of his mouth.