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In November of 2004, Peter & Joan Porco had been married for thirty years & lived in Delmar, New York. They had two sons together & 52-year-old Peter worked as a judge’s law clerk while 54-year-old Joan was a beloved speech pathologist within the Schalmont school district. They lived in a two-story home on Brockley Drive.
When Peter’s employers noticed that he hadn’t arrived to work on the morning of Monday, November 15, 2004, they were immediately concerned since he was such a reliable employee. They called the police & requested a welfare check. When the officer arrived, he was immediately concerned; the front door was ajar, there was a key in the lock & as he looked down at the cement steps, he could see drops of blood. As he entered the home, he was met with an absolute bloodbath & as he looked to his right, he was horrified to see Peter lying by the front door in a pool of blood. It was clear that he was deceased & had suffered from wounds to his head, having been bludgeoned to death. The officer followed the trail of blood from where Peter’s body laid to the kitchen, down the hallway & up the stairs.
Local police were immediately dispatched & an investigation began. When they entered the upstairs bedroom, they found Joan, lying on the bed & they sprang into action when they saw that she was still alive. She had also suffered severe injuries to face & head to such an extent that a portion of her brain was actually exposed. The wounds to her face were so terrible that paramedics struggled to place her on oxygen because they couldn’t easily identify her mouth. Despite the horrific injuries, she was actually conscious. Seeing how severe her injuries were, Detective Christopher Bowdish of the Bethlehem Police Department, feared that Joan would not survive. Since she was still conscious, he asked her who had done this to her & her husband. She was unable to speak so the detective instructed her to just nod her head in response to questions. She indicated that a family member had done this to her. When she was asked if it had been her son Johathan, she shook her head no. When they asked if twas Christopher, she shook her head yes. These interactions also took place in the presence of paramedics who would later testify.
As the bedroom was investigated, a three foot ax was found on the bed that belonged to the Porcos. Blood spatter analysis of the room & wounds to Peter & Joan indicated that Joan had been struck three times in the head as she slept in bed while Peter had been struck sixteen times in the head.
Joan was immediately transferred to the hospital where she underwent emergency surgery & was placed into a medically induced coma. As the police continued their investigation, they found that the Porco home’s security system had been smashed, the home’s landline had been cut & a garage window screen had been slashed. Both Joan & Peter’s wallets had been left untouched as was Joan’s jewelry & the home’s electronics.
Investigators couldn’t initially understand why Peter’s body had been found downstairs when he had clearly been attacked in his upstairs bedroom. However, after inspecting the blood trails, police were shocked to find that after Peter had been so viciously attacked, he moved about, getting ready for his work day as he normally did. It’s likely his body was in shock as he moved from the primary bedroom to the bathroom sink & to the kitchen where he started the coffee, prepared his lunch & tried to load the dishwasher. He also wrote a check to pay for one of Chris’ recent parking tickets. He then stepped outside, likely to check for the newspaper where he discovered that he locked himself out of the house. He somehow had the wherewithal to find the spare key from the flower pot & let himself back into the house where he finally succumbed to his horrific injuries, collapsing in the foyer of the home.
Peter had been savagely murdered & the autopsy showed that the top part of Peter’s brain, the neocortex, had been severely damaged. This part of the brain controls language & reasoning while the layer underneath, the paleocortex, was unharmed. This controls second nature habits & primal instincts which was why he was able to go through his usual, daily routine, unaware that he was mortally wounded. His skull had been penetrated & part of his jaw was missing. He bled for many hours before he succumbed to his injuries. Because Peter had been struck so many times in comparison to the injuries Joan had sustained, it was clear that he was the murderer’s target.
After Peter had been murdered & Joan remained hospitalized in critical condition, their son Christopher Porco received a phone call from a newspaper reporter, asking for his comment about the murder. At the time, Chris was 21-years-old & attending the University of Rochester, 230 miles from home.
In the meantime, police had issued an all-points bulletin for Chris since Joan had identified him as her attacker. He called the police to ask what had happened to his parents & was told that his father had been murdered & his mother was clinging to life. His voice was absolutely emotionless as he spoke to police & learned the news which should have been devastating. He never asked how his parents had been attacked & remained in control throughout the conversation.
Police also looked into other potential suspects after a tip had come in that an unhappy litigant may have been angry with Peter about the outcome of a custody case, but this person had a solid alibi. Peter’s great uncle Frank had mob ties & was known as “The Fireman.” Police wondered if Frank had threatened to talk to authorities & his associates sent him a message by murdering Peter with a fireman’s ax. This theory was quickly dispelled when they found that Frank was incarcerated because he refused to cooperate with authorities as an informant.
When police spoke with Chris’ classmates, they indicated that he always claimed to have come from a very wealthy family. He told them about real estate holdings & various vacation homes which was a blatant lie. When some friends would ask to be invited to one of the many homes that the Porcos supposedly owned, he would quickly come up with an excuse as to why this wasn’t possible.
Chris had a tendency to lie & there were tensions between him & his parents that were financial in nature. Chris had taken out a loan, likely to pay for his tuition, but had used nearly $17,000 of the loan to finance a brand new Jeep Wrangler. He was also doing poorly in school & the university had suspended him. He’d moved on to Hudson Valley Community College in the spring of 2004, where his grades were also suffering. As he was touring around Europe, Joan & Peter discovered that Chris was also flunking out of community college. In the fall of 2004, Chris managed to get readmitted to the University of Rochester after he’d forged transcripts from the community college. In the meantime, he’d told his parents that he was being readmitted because a professor had misplaced his final exam from the previous year & because the issue was the University’s fault, they would be covering his tuition. In order to maintain this lie, Chris forged his father’s signature on a $31,000 loan & also opened a line of credit with the bank, again forging his father’s signature as the co-signer, in order to help fund his Wrangler.
Adding insult to injury, Chis had also been stealing his friend’s property, including a roommate’s laptop. He turned up with the exact same make & model of computer. His parent’s home computers & cameras had been stolen during the summer of 2003 & they suspected that Chris was responsible.
Chris had also developed a scheming system on eBay where he listed these computers & cameras, collected payments on their purchases but never sent the items. When he received emails about the items not shipping, he posed as his older brother 23-year-old Jonathan & said that his younger brother Chris had sold the items but tragically died. Posing as Jonathan, he explained that he was unable to find the items & had no way of refunding the purchaser. Jonathan was a Naval officer who would have been very negatively impacted by this behavior & had attempted to call his brother at least 40 times without reaching him.
Two weeks before the murder, Peter was notified that the loan Chris had taken out was delinquent. This was when Peter & Joan discovered that Peter’s signature had been forged on the loan as well as the line of credit. They found that Chris hadn’t paid for any of his tuition after receiving the money from the loans. Both Joan & Peter tried to reach Chris after discovering this information, but he never returned their calls.
Because he was unreachable by phone, Peter wrote Chris an email, expressing his disappointment about his dishonesty & told Chris that if he were to do anything like this again, Peter would be forced to file forgery affidavits with the bank. He wrote, “Did you forge my signature as a co-signer? What the hell are you doing? I’m calling Citibank this morning to find out what you have done.” Chris also didn’t answer this email so Peter sent a second email & said, “I want you to know that if you abuse my credit again, I will be forced to file forgery affidavits.” Peter ended the email writing, “We may be disappointed with you, but your mother & I still love you & care about your future.”
Around this time, Chris had arranged a meeting with an investment professional in order to receive financial advice. He told the counselor that he would soon be coming into money.
When police spoke with Chris about his father’s murder & his mother’s attempted murder, he explained that he had been at school in Rochester, sleeping on the couch in his dorm on the evening of November 14. He said when he woke up the following morning, he was told the news about his parents by the reporter he spoke with on the phone.
It was the police’s belief that Chris had driven the three hours to his parent’s house, attacked them & returned back to school before any of his classmates could notice his absence. Chris drove a very distinctive yellow Jeep Wrangler & surveillance video was obtained that showed a yellow Jeep leaving the campus dorm area around 10:30 pm on November 14 & returning at 8:30 am on November 15. A video analyst ran the security images through a computer filter to clarify the images & specific details from the Jeep matched those that were found on Chris’ Jeep the day of the murder; mud on the passenger side door, a torn parking sticker on the passenger side door & a political sticker on the rear tire cover. However, these images couldn’t definitively say who was driving the car. It was also discovered that the Porco’s home security system had been smashed after it had been manually deactivated.
With this information, police were able to deduce that Chris left campus at 10:30 pm & deactivated his parent’s home security system at 2:14 am. While Peter & Joan slept in their bed, he attacked them, cut the phone line at 4:59 am & headed back to school, arriving at 8:30 am. Either before or after he attacked his family, he slashed the window screen to make it appear as a break-in.
Chris’ brother Jonathan was stationed in South Carolina with the U.S. Navy & told police that only a few people knew the code to the home security system, Chris included. It’s likely Chris smashed the system, hoping to erase the fact that the code had deactivated the system, but this clearly hadn’t worked.
Chris Porco was arrested for the murder of his father & the attempted murder of his mother. The trial began in July of 2006 with the defense arguing the lack of physical evidence that proved that Chris had been inside his parent’s home that night. The prosecution did have a tollway ticket with Chris’ DNA on it, but that was the extent of it. It was speculated that the attacker would have been covered in blood & no blood had been found within Chris’ car & bloody clothing was never recovered. The ax, which was the murder weapon, contained no fingerprints.
The prosecution theorized that Chris was likely wearing scrubs from the veterinary clinic where he worked which he could have easily disposed of in an unknown location on his way back to school, leaving the clothing underneath, unsoiled.
Chris’ attorney argued that Peter would often turn the home’s alarm system off late at night in order to take the dog out & would often forget to re-engage it. They theorized that it was Peter who turned the alarm off that morning, but if that was the case, why would an intruder have smashed the alarm box if they had no reason to? The family dog was also not said to be barking that night & it was theorized that it was because the dog would have recognized Chris. The window screen had been slashed for no reason as the killer entered the home through the front door.
Some of Chris’ fraternity brothers testified that he had not been asleep in the dorm lounge on the night of the murder, as he claimed to be. They explained that they’d watched a movie in the common area & hadn’t seen him there. A neighbor of the Porco’s also testified that they’d seen a bright yellow Jeep on the driveway of the Porco home on the evening/early morning of the murder. Review of the toll roads showed that Chris’ EZ Pass never registered but investigators found his EZ Pass tag under the seat of the Jeep which likely prevented it from registering. A toll booth attendant working the cash only lane said they recalled seeing a Jeep that fit the description of Chris’ passing through that evening but she couldn’t remember anything about the driver. Only a dozen cars went through the cash lane during that time frame so investigators sent the twelve toll tickets to be forensically investigated for DNA & one ticket contained Chris’ DNA.
The motive for the murder would have been financially driven since only two weeks before, his family discovered his lies. It was November & the school semester was ending soon & it’s likely Chris would have been kicked out of school. He was unable to pay his tuition & he was flunking his classes. He likely wanted to maintain university life where he was free to do what he wanted & party away from his parent’s watchful eyes. It was said that his parents had a two million dollar life insurance policy that would be paid out had they both died. He would have also gotten the proceeds from the sale of the family home.
Chris never took the stand in his own defense during the trial. There was no direct evidence that placed the ax in his hands or placed him in the house on the night of the murder but the jury found Chris guilty of second-degree murder & attempted murder & he was sentenced to fifty years to life on each count. During the verdict & sentencing, Chris showed zero emotion or reaction though some noticed a red flushing to his neck.
Joan miraculously survived her horrific injuries; she lost her left eye & a portion of her skull. When she woke from her medically induced coma three weeks after the attack, she claimed to have no memory of that night nor did she recall telling the detective that her son had been responsible. To everyone’s immense surprise, Joan made the decision to stand by Chris’ side during the investigation & trial. She accused the detectives of botching the investigation & told them to leave her son alone, writing a letter that read: “I implore the Bethlehem police & the District Attorney’s Office to leave my son alone and to search for Peter’s real killer or killers so that he can rest in peace & my sons & I can live in safety. The happy life that my beloved husband, Peter & our sons Jonathan & Christopher, had was lost forever.” After he was arrested, Joan provided the $250,000 for his bail & the two attended the trial together, entering the courtroom hand in hand.
During the trial, Joan sat in the witness box & recanted Chris’ lies & actions that occurred before her husband was so brutally murdered. During her testimony, she said she had been scared twice in the month or so before the attack by the presence of a stranger in her driveway. One time had been during the night & one time during the day. She said the police never followed up on this information or questioned her about it.
Joan’s skull had been badly damaged, her left eye was removed & her right eye was left with such poor vision that she needed a magnifying glass to read. Her brain suffered some damage & has slowed her ability to speak & process emotions, but those close to her say she remains intellectually sound.
Lifetime TV Network has since made a for television movie about the case called Romeo Killer: The Christopher Porco Story. In the movie, Chris is portrayed as a womanizer who was a sociopath. Chris has never viewed the movie but did sue Lifetime & a judge issued a ban on the movie only days before it was set to premier. In an appeal, a stay was issued on the order & the movie was allowed to broadcast in March 2013.
Journalist John Gray interviewed Chris on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 & was asked if he committed this horrible crime. He responded, “I didn’t. I had nothing to do with this. I’ve said that from day one because it’s true.” He added that he understands why police believe he did it, but they made mistakes in their case. He said that he & his mother speak on a daily basis & they’re a support system for each other. He has a new legal team & plans to pursue a new trial. He believes that during the trial he had ineffective legal counsel that dropped the ball on key pieces of evidence. He also feels that evidence that was unlawfully seized was used against him during the trial & that the government suppressed evidence that would have proven that he could not have committed the crime. They believe that the timeline was too tight & he could not have physically gotten to his parent’s house from the University of Rochester, committed the crime & returned shortly after 8 am after cleaning up a bloody crime scene. According to Google Maps, it’s a 3 hour & 22 minute drive each way or 6 hour & 44 minutes round trip. According to surveillance video, he left campus at 10:30 pm & arrived at 8:30 am which is a ten hour span of time. Evidence showed the home security system was disarmed at 2:14 am, 3 hours 44 minutes after he left campus. The phone line was cut at 4:59 am where he was then said to have left, which would have put him back at school at 8:21 am. He would have had a window of about 3 hours & 15 minutes to commit the crime after driving was taken into account.
Chris remains incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York & he will not be eligible for parole until 2052. His mother still believes that he’s innocent.
References:
- Medium: The murderous assaults on Peter & Joan Porco
- Times Union: ‘Leave my son alone’
- News 10: Exclusive: Convicted murderer Christopher Porco sits down with John Gray to talk about new motion in case
- Ati: The story of Christopher Porco, the college student who brutally attacked his parents with an ax
- Forensic Files – Season 13, Episode 25 – Family Ties
