Speaker 1: It's wild when you think of all the reasons and
Speaker 1: motivations behind murder. There's jealousy, rage, revenge, and money. People
Speaker 1: do some pretty desperate things when it comes to money.
Speaker 1: In today's case, a couple were brutally attacked as they
Speaker 1: slept in the comfort of their own home, all because
Speaker 1: of money. If that isn't crazy enough, the idea that
Speaker 1: the murderer could have been their own son makes it
Speaker 1: all that much more disturbing. This is the story of
Speaker 1: the Porko family Axe Murder.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1: The following podcast material for a mature audience listener discretion.
Speaker 1: It's kind of day.
Speaker 2: We're both drinking tea. I'm drinking herbal tea, but you're
Speaker 2: drinking a twisted tea.
Speaker 1: No free advertising on the show. Come on, no, it
Speaker 1: is definitely twisted tea. We should do that, just like
Speaker 1: you know, instead of free advertising, just reach out to
Speaker 1: these brands and be like, yo, I'm going to drink
Speaker 1: a drink on our show. You should sponsor it. If not,
Speaker 1: we're not going to say your name.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I don't know if we've made it
Speaker 2: quite that big extortion.
Speaker 1: No, I'm definitely not going to do that. But I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm enjoying a tea and this is a case
Speaker 1: that a drink will sit good on.
Speaker 2: Okay, especially now that it's I feel like a nice
Speaker 2: warm cup of tea though it also helps you know,
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: It definitely can I'm just saying for me, it takes
Speaker 1: that edge off. Yeah, hey, sometimes a nice cold glass
Speaker 1: of water takes the edge.
Speaker 2: Off too, right, Well, it's supposed to get cold as
Speaker 2: hell here, so that's actually that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: Cold as hell doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Honestly, most of the things when you say it's cold
Speaker 1: as blank doesn't make sense. Yeah, cold as hell doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. Cold as balls doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: Like ball shiver shivery, Wow.
Speaker 1: Don't say that. Just just skip over it cold.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Just let's move on anyway. It's going
Speaker 2: to be like minus twenty eight celsius, which is just
Speaker 2: fucking frutal.
Speaker 1: Our balls are going to be cold, is what Nicole's
Speaker 1: trying to say.
Speaker 2: Okay, I am so tired, so just like, don't judge me,
Speaker 2: just don't judge. For this episode, I have been getting
Speaker 2: like five hours of sleep a night for a few
Speaker 2: too many nights, so fair enough, just bear with me.
Speaker 1: Well, I do think that you need to buckle up,
Speaker 1: whether you're tired or not, for this case. This is
Speaker 1: the story of the Porco family axe murder. Or is
Speaker 1: this is titled the Murder of Peter Porko because well,
Speaker 1: he's the main victim. I get one of the main
Speaker 1: victims in this one. He is the one who gets killed.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I think we need to tell his story. Okay,
Speaker 1: you ready for it?
Speaker 2: I am. I haven't no idea what's going to happen here,
Speaker 2: but I'm ready.
Speaker 1: Well, like I say, buckle up. So on the morning
Speaker 1: of November fifteenth, two thousand and four, Peter Porko, a
Speaker 1: law clerk from the New York State Supreme Court Applelit Division,
Speaker 1: didn't show up for work in Albany like he normally did.
Speaker 1: He hadn't called in or let anyone know that he'd
Speaker 1: be absent that day, which was very unusual. So earned
Speaker 1: his colleague, since Court Officer Michael Hart, to check in
Speaker 1: on him at his home at Broccoli Drive in Delmar.
Speaker 2: Broccoli Drive, Brockley, Oh, Broccoli okay. I was like, I
Speaker 2: love that, I want to live there.
Speaker 1: It's Brock, like the name Brock, and then l e
Speaker 1: y brah Okay, broccoli not broccoli.
Speaker 2: Broccoli would be cool, would it?
Speaker 1: Well? When Michael arrived and walked up to the house,
Speaker 1: he glanced through the front door window and immediately he
Speaker 1: was met with a horrific sight. There was Peter's lifeless,
Speaker 1: blood covered body sprawled across the floor without hesitation. He
Speaker 1: called for emergency responders, who quickly arrived to the scene.
Speaker 1: Now when they were there, they made their way inside,
Speaker 1: and they found fifty two year old Peter Porco dead,
Speaker 1: laying in a pool of his home blood. He had
Speaker 1: suffered severe head trauma. His wife, sixty four, well not
Speaker 1: sixty four, fifty four year old my apologies, Joan Porco,
Speaker 1: was discovered in bed, also brutally attacked. She though was alive,
Speaker 1: barely clinging to life. She was unable to speak and
Speaker 1: could barely move, but she managed to raise a hand
Speaker 1: to signal that she was still conscious.
Speaker 2: Holy okay.
Speaker 1: Beside her on the bed was the murder weapon, a
Speaker 1: bloodied fireman axe.
Speaker 2: There are some weapons I feel like that just like
Speaker 2: make you cringe. That someone would ever use that on
Speaker 2: another human being.
Speaker 1: If there is a weapon that screams brutality, it's going to.
Speaker 2: Be an en. Oh gosh, yeah, that's scary now.
Speaker 1: The Court Medical Examiner, doctor Jeffrey Hubbard, later determined that
Speaker 1: Peter had been struck multiple times with the axe sixteen
Speaker 1: to be specific, one blow going straight through his skull
Speaker 1: and another slicing off part of his jaw. Joan had
Speaker 1: also been hit three times, cause devastating injuries. Her jaw
Speaker 1: was shattered, her skull was split wide open, deep enough
Speaker 1: to expose her brain, and she lost an eye and
Speaker 1: several teeth. No Investigators soon realized that the acts belonged
Speaker 1: to the Porco family, meaning the attacker had not brought
Speaker 1: a weapon with them to the home, but the used
Speaker 1: one that was already there. So this adding to the mystery.
Speaker 1: Something else. Someone had cut the phone lines, they'd disarmed
Speaker 1: the burglary alarm, and sliced through a window screen. Peter
Speaker 1: and Joan had been savagely attacked in their sleep, as
Speaker 1: far as police could determine, sometime between one thirty am
Speaker 1: and six thirty am, But what happened next made this
Speaker 1: case even more chilling see, despite the massive injuries that
Speaker 1: he suffered, Peter didn't die immediately. Incredibly, his brain injury
Speaker 1: caused him to go into a sort of autopilot. He
Speaker 1: began performing routine tasks as if nothing went wrong. For
Speaker 1: what so after the attack on that morning, his alarm
Speaker 1: went off. Okay, police were able to follow the blood
Speaker 1: trail through the house like the and I'm talking a
Speaker 1: blood trail, like there was blood everywhere. They went and
Speaker 1: followed the blood trail, and they were able to retrace
Speaker 1: his steps. They found he got out of bed and
Speaker 1: began his usual routine, all while covered in blood from
Speaker 1: this catastrophic head trauma. They tracked his way through the
Speaker 1: house and he went first to the bathroom, where it
Speaker 1: appeared he attempted to try and shave, his daily routine.
Speaker 1: He likely stared down his own reflection in the mirror,
Speaker 1: unaware of the extent of his injuries. And I mean
Speaker 1: there's blood pooling in the sink beneath him. He had been,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, struck sixteen times in the head with
Speaker 1: an axe. A large section of his skull was missing,
Speaker 1: his brain was partially exposed, and most of his jaw
Speaker 1: was gone, and he stood in the mirror as if
Speaker 1: nothing was.
Speaker 2: Wrong, just like getting ready for the day exactly ho shit,
Speaker 2: His body kept moving, he kept going through the motions,
Speaker 2: and he made his way out of the bathroom dazed,
Speaker 2: and in this dying state, he made.
Speaker 1: His way down to the kitchen. There he loaded the
Speaker 1: dishwasher with the dishes from the last night's dinner and
Speaker 1: even packed himself a lunch, getting ready for his day
Speaker 1: at work, completely unaware of the horrific injuries he was
Speaker 1: currently suffering. His body was running on nothing less than
Speaker 1: adrenaline and muscle memory at this point, and if it
Speaker 1: wasn't shocking enough, he then walked out to the front
Speaker 1: door grabbed the morning newspaper, only to accidentally lock himself
Speaker 1: out of the house in the process. There, standing outside
Speaker 1: the locked door, drenched in blood with severe brain trauma,
Speaker 1: Peter had enough awareness about him to remember they had
Speaker 1: a spare key hidden under the front pot plant. He
Speaker 1: bent down, grabbed the key, unlocked the door, and stepped
Speaker 1: back inside with the newspaper. But that was it. Whatever
Speaker 1: was keeping him going finally gave out. His body collapsed
Speaker 1: there in the foyer, face down in a pool of blood,
Speaker 1: and that's where he remained until he was found.
Speaker 2: Seriously, hey, yeah, the best way to describe it was
Speaker 2: he was a zombie. I almost have trouble just like
Speaker 2: comprehending that. I know, like there would have had to
Speaker 2: been something I don't know, like seriously wrong with his
Speaker 2: brain kind of thing. Right. And then was it like
Speaker 2: the blood loss that made him eventually just collapse and
Speaker 2: pass away?
Speaker 1: Most likely? Most likely? Now the thing is like he
Speaker 1: was clearly in a massive amount of shock, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And my assumption is when his alarm went off that morning,
Speaker 1: we just I mean, lots of us have had this
Speaker 1: happen before we can even react. We're just so used
Speaker 1: to that routine of getting up for work in the morning.
Speaker 1: We reach over, turn our alarm, clock off, turn the
Speaker 1: light on, or grab our phone. We have a routine
Speaker 1: that we immediately set into.
Speaker 2: Well, gosh, you think he'd be like, well, I feel
Speaker 2: particularly sore this morning, Like that is crazy.
Speaker 1: But with the adrenaline, he's numb.
Speaker 2: I guess. Holy shit.
Speaker 1: And he was quite literally operating on autopilot, not recognizing
Speaker 1: anything around him, not even recognizing what was going on
Speaker 1: in the mirror in front of him. When he looked
Speaker 1: at himself, like.
Speaker 2: He literally went and loaded the dishwasher.
Speaker 1: He loaded the dishwaking in his lunch. Yes, now there
Speaker 1: are crime scene photos and I saw photos of this dishwasher,
Speaker 1: and it is there's blood droplets all over it, there's
Speaker 1: handprints on the dishes from him loading like it's bloody,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't see this. He's just loading the dishwasher.
Speaker 2: It's honestly kind of sad.
Speaker 1: It really is when you think about this, No, it
Speaker 1: really is.
Speaker 2: Like you wonder, well, I don't know. I'm just like, gosh,
Speaker 2: if you like realized what the hell had happened, like
Speaker 2: if his brain allowed him to do that and then
Speaker 2: he's got help, would that have changed anything? But probably not.
Speaker 2: I don't assuming.
Speaker 1: I think the extent of his injuries were unfortunately too far.
Speaker 1: But there is a very sad moral to that part
Speaker 1: of the story, if I may digress for a moment,
Speaker 1: is he was so concerned with getting to work he
Speaker 1: had no idea of his own well being. And I
Speaker 1: think that goes for many people today. Honestly, they're so
Speaker 1: consumed with the job they don't look at themselves and
Speaker 1: their own well being.
Speaker 2: But I digress, well, and I just have to say too.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: Imagine getting hit sixteen times by an axe and still
Speaker 2: being able to crawl your ass out of bed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that is uncomprehendible.
Speaker 1: Can you barely crawl my ass out of bed on
Speaker 1: the best of days?
Speaker 2: Like WHOA? Just like, I don't know, strength and our
Speaker 2: bodies are just kind of incredible sometimes, I guess.
Speaker 1: Now. The only surviving witness to this crime was his wife, Joan.
Speaker 1: Though she lived, the attack left her permanently disfigured. She
Speaker 1: lost an eye, her face was so badly damaged that
Speaker 1: it would never be the same, and when police arrived,
Speaker 1: they wasted no time trying to get answers from her
Speaker 1: because they knew that she might not survive these injuries,
Speaker 1: so they had to act fast, being that this is
Speaker 1: the only witness that they had right now. She couldn't speak,
Speaker 1: but she was able to communicate by nodding or shaking
Speaker 1: her head in response to yet or no questions.
Speaker 2: Okay, the fact that she couldn't speak, because I was
Speaker 2: a bit concerned or confused. I was like, well, she's
Speaker 2: just talking to her husband and he was just going
Speaker 2: on is like day without I was just curious how
Speaker 2: that went down. But Okay, that makes sense. Now.
Speaker 1: There is some debate among this. I saw a few
Speaker 1: reports saying that she blinked in response instead of nodding,
Speaker 1: blinking once for no and twice for yes or something
Speaker 1: like that, but majority of sources that I found said
Speaker 1: that she nodded. Honestly, it's impressive if she was able
Speaker 1: to do either, because hey, remember she lost an eye,
Speaker 1: so blinking's impressive for one, and nodding being struck in
Speaker 1: the head like that also think spinal injury again impressive. Yes,
Speaker 1: But as far as I can tell, she was nodding,
Speaker 1: not blinking, and with that police would get their first
Speaker 1: suspect by getting her to answer these yes or no questions.
Speaker 1: So their first suspect was an individual by the name
Speaker 1: of Christopher Porko.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was gonna be like, was it the neighbor?
Speaker 1: Nope, the sun?
Speaker 2: The sun.
Speaker 1: Now a detective on the scene, we're working as paramedics
Speaker 1: were trying to stabilize Joan, and he was asking if
Speaker 1: she was able to identify the person responsible, and he's like,
Speaker 1: was it a family member, which, of course is like
Speaker 1: one of the first questions they always ask, right, Hey,
Speaker 1: family members statistically most likely those close to the victims, right, yep.
Speaker 1: She indicated yes, and he asked, He's like, was it
Speaker 1: your older son, because he knew there's two sons here, right,
Speaker 1: and she shook her head, No, was it your younger son?
Speaker 1: And she nodded yes, younger son being christopher older son Jonathan.
Speaker 1: So she indicated it was Christopher, the younger son, and
Speaker 1: that was all investigators needed. Joan was rushed to the hospital,
Speaker 1: where she underwent a grueling twelve hour surgery before being
Speaker 1: placed into a medical induced coma. But the damage was done,
Speaker 1: and police considered her response as confirmation that Christopher had
Speaker 1: attacked his parents, killing his father and nearly killing his mother.
Speaker 2: Probably suspected that he did kill her.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Two hours later, an APB or an all points
Speaker 1: bulletin was issued for Christopher Porko. Now to understand what
Speaker 1: led up to the horrific events in the Porco family household,
Speaker 1: we need to take a closer look at the family itself.
Speaker 1: So we're going to reel it back just a little bit, okay,
Speaker 1: back in time a bit so Peter Parko and Joan
Speaker 1: Belzano I believe how you say her name married in
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen seventies, eventually setting into a comfortable life
Speaker 1: in Delmar, which is located in New York. It's a
Speaker 1: quiet suburban neighborhood near Albany. They had two sons, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: born in nineteen eighty one and Christopher, who arrived in
Speaker 1: July ninth of nineteen eighty three. Peter worked as a
Speaker 1: law clerk in the State Appellate Division, while Joan built
Speaker 1: a career as a children's speech pathologist. By two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, their eldest son, Jonathan, was twenty three years
Speaker 1: old who was an officer in the US Navy stationed
Speaker 1: in South Carolina. Meanwhile, twenty one year old Christopher was
Speaker 1: attending the University of about two hundred and thirty miles away.
Speaker 1: There was no outright rivalry between the brothers, but it
Speaker 1: was clear Jonathan followed a more disciplined, responsible path, earning
Speaker 1: the family's admiration for his dedication to the military. Christopher,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, had a troubling pattern of deception, fraud,
Speaker 1: and reckless behavior at school. Christopher was known for being
Speaker 1: tall and good looking and charismatic, but he was also
Speaker 1: a compulsive liar. He boasted about coming from an ultra
Speaker 1: wealthy family with multiple properties and luxury vacation's home, luxury
Speaker 1: vacation homes and such. Though none of this was true,
Speaker 1: a former classmate recalled that some teachers considered him quote insane,
Speaker 1: and as he grew older, his behavior became more concerning.
Speaker 1: Christopher had a history of staging fake burglaries in his
Speaker 1: own home. At nineteen, he stole two of his parents' laptops,
Speaker 1: a Mac and Adele. Then on twenty first, two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, while home for summer break, he sold yet
Speaker 1: another laptop and sold it on eBay. His dishonesty extended
Speaker 1: beyond the home, though. While working at a veterinary clinic
Speaker 1: during college, the facility experienced a string of burglaries involving
Speaker 1: missing electronic equipment. Then in October of two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: just a month before the murders, both Jonathan and Christopher
Speaker 1: froze their eBay accounts. Why because Christopher had scammed customers
Speaker 1: out of their money. See he had sold items online
Speaker 1: but never delivered the goods, and in a desperate attempt
Speaker 1: to avoid accountability, he pretended to be his older brother
Speaker 1: Jonathan on his account and emailed the victims claiming Christopher
Speaker 1: had suddenly died as a way to escape actually delivering this,
Speaker 1: and he's just like, yeah, sorry, my brother died, I
Speaker 1: can't deliver these items. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That is shady, isn't it.
Speaker 1: So this, of course paints a picture of a disturbing
Speaker 1: young man willing to lie and steal for personal gain,
Speaker 1: and investigators would later argue that this was just the
Speaker 1: beginning of a much more sinister plan. Authorities believe Christopher
Speaker 1: saw his parents as a solution to his financial problems,
Speaker 1: but not in the way a struggling student might normally
Speaker 1: turn to family for help. He had a site set
Speaker 1: on potentially their life insurance payout a sum of over
Speaker 1: a million dollars, and the fastest way to access that
Speaker 1: money may very well have been murder.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just feel like that doesn't work. No, it doesn't,
Speaker 2: Like you're just like an complete idiot. And also like,
Speaker 2: do your parents their life not mean anything to you?
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly not, clearly not. It's funny. I just
Speaker 1: realized I'm in the middle of researching another case for
Speaker 1: Patreon exclusive episode and it also involves a life insurance
Speaker 1: policy scandal. Just clued into that. But yeah, and again
Speaker 1: for that one, it didn't work either.
Speaker 2: Well, I just can't comprehend, like you're wanting this life
Speaker 2: insurance of your parents and so you're gonna go and
Speaker 2: kill them with like an axe. I just that just
Speaker 2: isn't like, I don't know, that's just dumb. It's stupid,
Speaker 2: it really is.
Speaker 1: But I mean, money does a lot of stupid shit
Speaker 1: to people, debt, and especially when you're in debt, and
Speaker 1: Christopher had racked up a lot of debt, mostly through
Speaker 1: reckless spending. See, he wasn't focusing on his studies because
Speaker 1: we know that he's in post secondary.
Speaker 2: Right right, which I was like, that's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, he instead was basically he went to extreme
Speaker 1: lengths to maintain the illusion of wealth this whole time, right, Like,
Speaker 1: for example, his most prized possession was a brand new,
Speaker 1: bright yellow Jeep Wrangler, which is an expensive, basically status
Speaker 1: symbol that he drove around campus.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: No student going to college needs a brand new vehicle,
Speaker 1: let alone and jeep Wrangler. Not saying Wranglers are like
Speaker 1: top tier, but they.
Speaker 2: Ain't cheap, you know, well, yeah, a brand new vehicle
Speaker 2: ain't cheap.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, his financial troubles combined with his obsession with
Speaker 1: appearing rich put a strain on his relationship with his parents.
Speaker 1: There are email exchanges that were found between Peter, Joan
Speaker 1: and Christopher in the months leading up to the attack,
Speaker 1: revealing increasing tension over money. His parents were frustrated. They
Speaker 1: were worried and running out of patience with their youngest
Speaker 1: son's irresponsibility. But while they may have thought Christopher was
Speaker 1: just a reckless spender, they had no idea how far
Speaker 1: he was actually really willing to go. Now, the tension
Speaker 1: between them had reached I've been building, let's say that,
Speaker 1: for a while, but the real breaking point seemed to
Speaker 1: come at the end of the fall semester in two
Speaker 1: thousand and three. At the time, Christopher was a student
Speaker 1: at the University of Rochester, as I mentioned, but due
Speaker 1: to his consistently poor grades, school officials had to withdraw
Speaker 1: him from his courses. So instead of getting zac together,
Speaker 1: he transferred to Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York.
Speaker 1: But the change in scenery didn't help. He never even
Speaker 1: completed a full semester. In fact, Peter and Joan eventually
Speaker 1: learned that what was going on, and in March of
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, while Christopher was off on a
Speaker 1: care free trip to England. Yeah, they sent him an
Speaker 1: email with a subject line failing grades. You did it again, huh.
Speaker 1: So basically he was forced out of the initial college
Speaker 1: because his grade sucked. Yea, went to a different one
Speaker 1: and his grade sucked again. And here he is off
Speaker 1: in England and his parents are finding out about his
Speaker 1: bad grades.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's just like, yeah, it doesn't give a shit,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So in this email, they were, of course very
Speaker 1: disappointed and frustrated, and they wrote, quote, you just left
Speaker 1: and we can't believe our eyes as we look at
Speaker 1: your interim grade report. You know what they say, three
Speaker 1: strikes and you're out. Explain yourself and explain he did.
Speaker 1: He wrote back, and explained by lying as usual. A
Speaker 1: few days later. In this email, when he wrote back,
Speaker 1: he blamed the school quote, Obviously they're incorrect. My lowest
Speaker 1: grade on anything was a B on a physics test.
Speaker 1: Don't jump to conclusions. I'm fine.
Speaker 2: I don't even actually understand how they got his grades. Really,
Speaker 2: Like he's I feel like, when you're in post secondary
Speaker 2: parents aren't really you know, privy to that sort of
Speaker 2: stuff necessarily.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure, Like they're kind of paying for his
Speaker 1: schooling and stuff, right, so they might have like signed
Speaker 1: up to get grades through their email or something too.
Speaker 1: That might have been part of it, like yeah.
Speaker 2: We want I guess yeah they're paying now.
Speaker 1: Christopher also spun a story about one of his professors
Speaker 1: losing his final exam in this email, claiming that the
Speaker 1: reason for his failing grade was this, basically saying like, yeah,
Speaker 1: my professor lost my final exam, which resulted in me
Speaker 1: going from an A or a B to a failing grade.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah that doesn't make sense at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, to top it all off, he reassured his
Speaker 1: parents the school was going to cover his next semester's
Speaker 1: tuition fee due to this mistake, which was another blatant lie.
Speaker 1: But Christopher didn't stop at just deceiving his parents. He
Speaker 1: took it a step further. He convinced them that he
Speaker 1: needed their financial information, claiming he required a loan for
Speaker 1: them to co sign to cover a two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: tuition fee of sorts. Whether it was backdated fees or
Speaker 1: it's unclear, but there was a two thousand dollars fee.
Speaker 1: He claimed he needed them to co sign for In reality,
Speaker 1: he was about to use their details to secure a
Speaker 1: loan for thirty one thousand dollars from City Bank, listing
Speaker 1: his father Peter as a co signer without his consent.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, she's just completely using.
Speaker 1: Them, Yes he is, huh Now. Christopher wanted to return
Speaker 1: to the University of Rochester, but with his disastrous academic record,
Speaker 1: that wasn't about to happen. So what he did was
Speaker 1: he turned to his usual tactic of fraud. He forged
Speaker 1: transcripts from Hudson Bay Community College, giving himself perfect grades
Speaker 1: or near perfect grades. Anyways, with his fabricated academic success,
Speaker 1: he reapplied to the university and was now accepted once again.
Speaker 1: Peter and Joan had no idea that their son was
Speaker 1: up to this. For a while, it seemed like Christopher
Speaker 1: had gotten away with it, but then Peter discovered the
Speaker 1: fraudulent bank transaction and immediately tried to reach his son. However,
Speaker 1: his phone calls were going unanswered, so Joan tried. They
Speaker 1: went unanswered too. Days turned to weeks, and Christopher was
Speaker 1: just ignoring them completely, and Peter had had enough. Frustrated
Speaker 1: and furious, he sent another email quote did you forge
Speaker 1: my signature as a co signer. What the hell are
Speaker 1: you doing? You should have called me to discuss it.
Speaker 1: I'm calling City Bank this morning to find out what
Speaker 1: you've done. I'm going to tell them I refer used
Speaker 1: to be on it as a co signer. The next day,
Speaker 1: City Bank delivered more bad news. Christopher had also taken
Speaker 1: out a car loan for the continued payments of his
Speaker 1: jeep Wrangler Oh no, again using his dad's forged signature.
Speaker 1: Peter sent another message, this time issuing a warning quote,
Speaker 1: I want you to know that if you abuse my
Speaker 1: credit again, I will be forced to file forgery affidavits
Speaker 1: in order to disclaim liability that applies to Citybank college
Speaker 1: loans if you attempt to reactivate it or use my
Speaker 1: credit to obtain any other loan.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I mean that's that's really overstepping it really is.
Speaker 2: And honestly, like, I understand the anger in these emails.
Speaker 2: But despite this anger and frustration, Peter Peter loved his son. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and this was still evident because he ended the email
Speaker 2: with a heartfelt message quote, we may be disappointed with you,
Speaker 2: but your mother and I still love you and care
Speaker 2: about your future. Oh my gosh, yeah it was. And
Speaker 2: he was like warning his son. He wasn't just like
Speaker 2: going right, you know. And what did he say?
Speaker 1: What was his threat that he was going to do
Speaker 1: file affidavits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like he didn't just go and do that right away. No,
Speaker 2: it's like you can tell these are good parents exactly.
Speaker 1: No, these they're keeping law out of it. They're trying
Speaker 1: to talk about it and figure it out. But unfortunately
Speaker 1: Christopher was not trying to figure it out. He was
Speaker 1: just going to continue to do these these negative, fraudulent things,
Speaker 1: and it was pushing them further and further.
Speaker 2: Because like, I don't know back then how much a
Speaker 2: jeep wrangler would wrangler wrangler? Yeah, I would cost say
Speaker 2: twenty five grand or whatever. I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Well that we're Canadian too, so that's American, so maybe
Speaker 1: even like twenty American.
Speaker 2: And so like, but still fifty thousand dollars is what
Speaker 2: he had made his dad Cose sign on. Basically, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Now, it was clear that his parents wanted to mend
Speaker 1: things that. As we just mentioned, they wanted Christopher to
Speaker 1: come home face the consequences, of course, but they also
Speaker 1: want to work towards a fresh start, and Christopher did
Speaker 1: come home, but as we know, not to make things right.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, is that when he came home? Yes,
Speaker 2: oh no.
Speaker 1: His parents hoped to resolve the issues, but he had
Speaker 1: something else in mind to resolve it than talking.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So by now, as I mentioned, this is when he
Speaker 1: came home. Peter was found dead and Joan was in
Speaker 1: the hospital, and police had Christopher in their sights. They
Speaker 1: caught up with them and they questioned him about his
Speaker 1: whereabouts on the night of November fourteenth to fifteenth in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. He had a ready answer. He
Speaker 1: claimed that he spent the night at the Monroe House,
Speaker 1: a dormitory lounge in the University of Rochester, about three
Speaker 1: and a half hours away in Delmar, so this would
Speaker 1: be on his campus, right. He said. He only learned
Speaker 1: about his parents' attack the next morning, when the Times
Speaker 1: Union reporter covering the crime reached out to his roommate
Speaker 1: for information about the Porco family. The moment he found out,
Speaker 1: Christopher said he immediately rushed home to Albany and went
Speaker 1: to see his mother in the medical center. In the
Speaker 1: medical center where she was undergoing surgery and recovering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like terrifying, though. I hope, like, I hope, okay,
Speaker 2: you get well, I'm just like he didn't get in there, right,
Speaker 2: because that's just oh man, Okay.
Speaker 1: I'm unsure if he did. I'm assuming he probably did,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the thought of the murderer, Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So detectives weren't satisfied with his answer. They questioned his
Speaker 1: fraternity brothers, friends, campus safety officers, and even his ex
Speaker 1: girlfriend about his whereabouts during the critical early morning hours
Speaker 1: of November fifteenth. Two weeks later, a grand jury was
Speaker 1: convened by the Albany Court District Attorney Office to hear
Speaker 1: testimony that could implement implicate there we go, implicate Christopher
Speaker 1: in his father's murder.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: During this closed door hearing, witnesses including fraternity brothers from
Speaker 1: Sigma Sigma Pi Epsilon, classmates, and former girlfriend testified. Finally,
Speaker 1: nearly a year after the attack, in November of two
Speaker 1: thousand and five, Christopher was formally charged. But just when
Speaker 1: the case seemed air tight, a shocking twist changed everything.
Speaker 1: Christopher's mother, Joan Porko, had emerged from her coma, and
Speaker 1: when she did, she insisted her son had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the attack.
Speaker 2: What the yeah, okay? I was not expecting that whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, She said her son had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: She even recorded a videotape statement for the grand jury
Speaker 1: in December of two thousand and five, talking about her
Speaker 1: family but refusing to identify Christopher as the attacker. Over
Speaker 1: the coming months, jones unwavering loyalty to her son became
Speaker 1: a focal point as the case headed to trial.
Speaker 2: What yeah, because what was that? Probably the main evidence
Speaker 2: was her primarily yeah, huh okay.
Speaker 1: By then, the case had gained widespread media attention in Albany,
Speaker 1: so Christopher's trial was moved to Goshen, Orange County, New York.
Speaker 1: It began on June twenty seventh, two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: He faced two charges, second degree murder for killing his
Speaker 1: father and second degree attempted murder for the brutal attack
Speaker 1: on his mother. Prosecutors were adamant Christopher drove over three
Speaker 1: hours to Albery in the early morning of November fifteenth
Speaker 1: to kill his parents in cold blood. The evidence seemed overwhelming,
Speaker 1: which of course contradicted his alibi, proving that he wasn't
Speaker 1: at his dorms that night see his own fraternity brothers
Speaker 1: testified not a single one could place him at the
Speaker 1: dormitory during those hours. Meanwhile, classmates described Christopher as an
Speaker 1: increasingly heavy drinker who had once threatened to kill a
Speaker 1: female student. Security cambriage footage from the University of Rochester
Speaker 1: captured a yellow jeep Wrangler identical to Christopher's, leaving campus
Speaker 1: at ten thirty pm on November fourteenth and returning at
Speaker 1: eight thirty am on November fifteenth. That timeframe is perfect
Speaker 1: lines up perfectly, yeah.
Speaker 2: And also like it's a noticeable vehicle, right exactly.
Speaker 1: Additional evidence showed that the Porco's home burglar alarm had
Speaker 1: been deactivated at two fourteen am and the phone line
Speaker 1: was cut at a round four fifty nine AM, suggesting
Speaker 1: a deliberate effort to stage a robbery. However, detectives quickly
Speaker 1: saw through it. Nothing had act actually been stolen, the
Speaker 1: same with the cut screen on the window suggesting an
Speaker 1: entry point, but nothing had been stolen. Even more dam damning,
Speaker 1: Christopher was one of the few people who knew the
Speaker 1: four digit code to disable the house alarm. His older
Speaker 1: brother Jonathan testified that their relationship had been strained and
Speaker 1: that Christopher was fully aware of his parents' life insurance
Speaker 1: policies to New York State through a toll booth collectors
Speaker 1: provided further confirmation. One toll operator near Rochester reported seeing
Speaker 1: a yellow jeep at ten forty five pm, while another
Speaker 1: at Exit twenty four in Albany saw the same speeding
Speaker 1: jeep approaching the toll plaza before two am on November fifteenth.
Speaker 1: A neighbor also told investigators that he spotted a yellow
Speaker 1: jeep in the porco's driveway before for a m the
Speaker 1: picture was clear. Christopher had left Rochester the night before,
Speaker 1: used the hidden spare key, the very same one that
Speaker 1: Peter knew was there even in his zombie like state,
Speaker 1: to enter the house. He disabled the security alarm and
Speaker 1: attacked his parents with an axe. Afterwards, he cleaned up,
Speaker 1: staged a fake burglary, cut the phone line, and drove
Speaker 1: back to Rochester before morning. Investigators theorized that Christopher wore
Speaker 1: medical scrubs during the attack, ones that he likely would
Speaker 1: have gotten in working at the medical the pet medical facility,
Speaker 1: the vet veterinary clinic, or whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: and then dispose of them somewhere Afterwards, colleague testified that
Speaker 1: he had experienced cleaning up after surgical procedures from this
Speaker 1: facility as well, which further supported the theory on why
Speaker 1: there was not much evidence left behind.
Speaker 2: Holy shit. Yeah, okay, so sorry, I'm sure you have
Speaker 2: more to say, but I have like a million questions,
Speaker 2: but I'll let you carry on.
Speaker 1: We'll shoot if you got questions.
Speaker 2: Well nope, I'm assuming they're going to be answered though. Like,
Speaker 2: I'm just shocked here of why the mom changed her ways.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming she decided it wasn't worth it for her
Speaker 2: kid to be going into jail forever. Or maybe he's
Speaker 2: like threatening her that he'll come back and finish the job.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm just like, what the hell is
Speaker 2: going on here?
Speaker 1: Maybe he didn't attack her, maybe she had brain damage
Speaker 1: and doesn't remember.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I'm like, did he actually do it?
Speaker 1: I don't know what the heck. Well, as far as
Speaker 1: did he actually do it, Christopher's legal team and husband,
Speaker 1: which was a husband and wife duo, argued that despite
Speaker 1: all the circumstantial evidence that was against him, and you
Speaker 1: know what, it's true, it is all circumstantial evidence, they
Speaker 1: had no physical proof of linking him to the crime.
Speaker 1: Sure he wasn't where he said he was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Sure he was driving across the counties or cities or
Speaker 1: whatever you want to say. Sure he was seen here
Speaker 1: and there and all over this place. Doesn't mean he
Speaker 1: killed his parents, right, well, I guess not. There was
Speaker 1: no fingerprints found on the acts, no DNA placed him
Speaker 1: at the scene, there was no blood evidence tying him
Speaker 1: to the murder. But as legal battle played out, it
Speaker 1: wasn't the defense's argument that stole the show. It was
Speaker 1: Jones's heartbreaking devotion to her son. She stood by Christopher's
Speaker 1: side throughout the trial, even walking arm in arm with
Speaker 1: him into the courtroom. She even took the stand as
Speaker 1: a defense witness, telling jurors that she had no memory
Speaker 1: of even implicating her son and that he could never
Speaker 1: have done such a horrific thing. Joan acknowledged that Christopher's
Speaker 1: financial misdeeds had caused strain, but she insisted their family
Speaker 1: loved each other and wanted to mend their relationship. Her
Speaker 1: loyalty went beyond these words. After Christopher's indictment in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five, Joan put up a two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars for his bail, ensuring that he remained
Speaker 1: free until trial. After closing arguments wrapped up on August second,
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, the jury deliberated for six days
Speaker 1: before delivering their verdict on August eighth. Christopher was found
Speaker 1: guilty and convicted of second degree murder for his father's
Speaker 1: death and second degree attempted murder for the attack on
Speaker 1: his mother. On December twelfth, two thousand and six, he
Speaker 1: was sentenced to twenty five to life for each count,
Speaker 1: ensuring he would serve a minimum of fifty years in prison. Today,
Speaker 1: Christopher Porko remains behind bars at Clinton Correctional Facility in
Speaker 1: Clinton County, New York. And that is a story of
Speaker 1: the Porko family axe murder and the murder of Peter Porko.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, I don't even know what the hell the
Speaker 2: thing my brain is just like right away, it's like,
Speaker 2: holy that complete asshole. I still sort of I think
Speaker 2: he did it.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think he did it too, But I'm just like.
Speaker 2: Shook to by the mom I am just like flabbergasted here.
Speaker 2: There was so much going through my brain. Yeah, huh okay. Well,
Speaker 2: also like I feel pretty confident that we're not having kids.
Speaker 2: I do like cases like this because it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: like this, this is good, but also wow, I can't
Speaker 2: I also can't imagine being the like am like the paramedic, yea,
Speaker 2: dealing with this shit like oh those people are just
Speaker 2: like some of them. I just feel that's just a
Speaker 2: hard job. And then also asking like that question or whatever,
Speaker 2: like was this your son? And then they nod, Oh,
Speaker 2: I just cann't imagine, just like you're insides were just
Speaker 2: like twist. I like, that's just so disturbing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want to say, I love, I absolutely
Speaker 1: love when I do a case and you get so
Speaker 1: hung up and flabbergasted, you're stumbling over your own words
Speaker 1: and you're I just and that's how you sound at
Speaker 1: the end of it.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I do sound like that right now because
Speaker 2: I'm just shocked because there is a little bit of
Speaker 2: doubt potentially there is, but the mom, because the mom
Speaker 2: completely changed her ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but here's the thing. She doesn't even remember implicating
Speaker 1: her son. She doesn't remember saying yes, he did it,
Speaker 1: which leads me to believe, Okay, yeah, there's some residual
Speaker 1: brain damage trauma.
Speaker 2: But then at the time it was so fresh, like
Speaker 2: she would have she wouldn't have made that up, right
Speaker 2: if it wasn't her son, I don't think correct.
Speaker 1: And now, even so, even if you want to make
Speaker 1: the argument, okay, if there's there's trauma and brain damage
Speaker 1: preventing her from membering, well, then there could potentially be
Speaker 1: trauma and brain damage prevent or convincing her that it was.
Speaker 1: So the argument goes both sides there. So let's just
Speaker 1: say the witness testimony is out the fucking window. Okay, However,
Speaker 1: you have to consider all the circumstantial evidence leaving leading
Speaker 1: up to it.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Well, because I just need to say too
Speaker 2: though she could have she could have been misunderstood right,
Speaker 2: She wasn't able to communicate fully correct. It could have
Speaker 2: been misunderstood that she was implicating her son.
Speaker 1: Well, it was a yes or no, and they asked
Speaker 1: was it a family member? She said yes? Was it
Speaker 1: your oldest son Jonathan, No? Was it your youngest son
Speaker 1: Christopher Yes?
Speaker 2: I just yeah, I want to think that a kid
Speaker 2: could not do couldn't do this. How could they do
Speaker 2: this to their parents?
Speaker 1: Right? Their parents over money? Money? Well, I mean there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot more emotional things at stake than just
Speaker 1: the money, But it ties down to money that they
Speaker 1: were arguing over.
Speaker 2: Fucking money, Hey, yeah, money, how many things like so
Speaker 2: many I feel like cases and just bad shit that happens.
Speaker 2: It's because of money.
Speaker 1: Money sucks, Money do suck?
Speaker 2: Oh this world. I just don't like how it's so.
Speaker 1: I don't know, money driven, money hungry. I mean, they
Speaker 1: say money is the root of all.
Speaker 2: Evil, right, So the evidence is basically that between that timespan,
Speaker 2: he wasn't accounted for his vehicles seen you know, was
Speaker 2: it was seen in the driveway?
Speaker 1: It was it was seen in the driveway.
Speaker 2: Geez, Okay, it was seen in the fucking driveway. Okay.
Speaker 2: And then they knew the code, they knew where the
Speaker 2: spare the spare key was. He probably had a fucking key,
Speaker 2: to be honest.
Speaker 1: He may have. He may have used a spare key.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing. Not only was his vehicle seen
Speaker 1: in the driveway, and he wasn't accounted for every time
Speaker 1: his vehicle was seen and was accounted for leaving and
Speaker 1: returning to campus, for example, passing back through the toll
Speaker 1: booths and in the driveway, all of it painted the
Speaker 1: picture of leaving and driving back the exact timeframe. At
Speaker 1: each point he was seen.
Speaker 2: Hmm, so it was him. But oh the mom just
Speaker 2: like has convinced herself that her son could just never
Speaker 2: do this. I think so, which I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: blame her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard to think that someone like that could
Speaker 1: do something like that to you, right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, like killed her husband. The dad like the
Speaker 2: son's dad Like.
Speaker 1: Huh, So he had the motivation for it. He was
Speaker 1: not living the best life because I mean, hey, you
Speaker 1: have people who are like, yeah, he's going on downwards, spile,
Speaker 1: drinking more and even threaten someone. His vehicle was unaccounted
Speaker 1: for he was seen or his vehicle or vehicle matching
Speaker 1: his very unique vehicle's description was accounted for in certain
Speaker 1: areas at certain times. He lied to police officers, all
Speaker 1: accumulating to a big old stepot of circumstantial evidence, which
Speaker 1: was enough circumstantial evidence to put him behind bars. As
Speaker 1: the court confidently said, you are the one to have
Speaker 1: committed this crime without us seeing any concrete evidence. So
Speaker 1: it's enough circumstantial evidence to say you did it.
Speaker 2: I bet that his mom goes and visits him.
Speaker 1: Probably I believe so too. My gosh, I have a
Speaker 1: feeling his brother Jonathan has nothing to do.
Speaker 2: With her, probably just like the escalation there. I just
Speaker 2: can't imagine being that angry at someone that he would
Speaker 2: go into their home and literally, like, I don't know you,
Speaker 2: was an axe on them. He swung that ax. What
Speaker 2: would it be like nineteen times? Was it sixteen for
Speaker 2: the dad or something?
Speaker 1: And three for those mom sixteen for the father and
Speaker 1: three for the mother.
Speaker 2: So like to swing that ax nineteen times at these
Speaker 2: like two individuals that like raised you. Yeah, I don't know, okayes,
Speaker 2: he's something seriously.
Speaker 1: Messed up there, Yeah, no kidding. Anyways, hopefully you guys
Speaker 1: enjoy this show. If you have thoughts on whether Christopher
Speaker 1: was the one to do this or not, I'm curious.
Speaker 1: I want to hear about it because it is circumstantial
Speaker 1: evidence that he was convicted on. So if you think
Speaker 1: there's another way that this could have actually played out, yeah,
Speaker 1: shoot us a message, shoot us an email. We've been
Speaker 1: getting some emails recently, and messages, I mean we get
Speaker 1: them every once in a while, but particularly lately, we've
Speaker 1: had a lot of messages about people reaching out regarding
Speaker 1: not even the content of our show, but just saying
Speaker 1: some really nice things about how we've been there for
Speaker 1: them and we've helped them through things, and we just
Speaker 1: want to say that means a lot. So thank you
Speaker 1: for everyone who's been reaching out like that. We're trying
Speaker 1: to get back to each and every one of you,
Speaker 1: and we will if we haven't yet. So just yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's unreal to think that I don't know we've
Speaker 2: even remotely impacted anyone's life, So that's really nice.
Speaker 1: It is. So Yeah, I just wanted to say at
Speaker 1: the end here, thank you. It means a lot. If
Speaker 1: you're interested in shooting us an email message, whether it's
Speaker 1: a show or anything else, we have links in the
Speaker 1: description where you can find all that information, whether it's Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, emails,
Speaker 1: it's all there. We have a website you can check
Speaker 1: it all out. Links you name it, description of this show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to.
Speaker 2: Say one more thing real quick. How the hell do
Speaker 2: people listen to true crime as like a bedtime story
Speaker 2: going to sleep? Because I was pretty pumped to go
Speaker 2: to sleep, but now I'm like all riled up. I
Speaker 2: don't know if I'll be able to just like snooze
Speaker 2: right now. So, but people literally listen to this to
Speaker 2: fall asleep, Well, yeah, that's incredible. How do they do that.
Speaker 1: As a kid? And stuff like didn't you ever listen
Speaker 1: to like ghost stories before bed and stuff?
Speaker 2: I don't know if I did before bed. No, anyway, Shit,
Speaker 2: you just wrecked my sleep.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Well, I'm going to have a good sleep.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you guys do too.
Speaker 2: And until next episode, stay Wicked.