Susan and John first met on a blind date. From there, they built what looked like a beautiful life, created a family, and raised two children. But back then, could John have ever imagined that one day he would learn in real life what it truly meant to meet someone blind? Before we begin, please help this channel grow.
Like the video, try the do hype feature, leave a comment, and subscribe for more Reels life stories. It really helps us a lot. Thank you. The heartbreaking events I’m going to talk about today happened in Coral Gables, a city about 7 mi from Miami. Coral Gables is one of the wealthier areas of South Florida. It is a beautiful place with green avenues, quiet neighborhoods, historic landmarks, and high-end restaurants.
The city is filled with wide roads, tree-lined streets, manicured lawns, Mediterranean-style buildings, elegant plazas, and fountains. And this was the place the Sutton family called home. Susan Merrier met John Sutton in 1974 on a blind date. The connection between them was instant. Their relationship moved quickly, and within a year, Susan became Mrs. Sutton.
They came from fairly similar backgrounds. John’s father worked for a manufacturing company, and his family lived in a Pittsburgh suburb in Pennsylvania. They had a comfortable house with a big backyard and a swimming pool. John never lacked much as a child, and he wanted to build that same kind of comfortable life for his own future family.
Susan was a very beautiful woman. In her senior year of high school, she was crowned prom queen. Later, she graduated from college and became a nurse in a surgical intensive care unit. That job takes a certain kind of person. Not everyone can work under that kind of pressure, stay calm around life and death situations, and then help patients learn how to live again.
Susan worked hard and was deeply devoted to her job. John was successful, too. He graduated from the University of Miami School of Law, became an attorney, and quickly moved up in his career. So, both of them seemed to be on the right path. After the wedding, the next step was supposed to be children. They had almost everything people dream of, financial stability, good health, and a strong relationship.
Susan planned to get pregnant soon after the wedding, and she expected it to happen quickly because they were both young and healthy. But, after several failed attempts, the Suttons received painful news. Susan could not have children. Infertility can put a marriage through a serious test. Sometimes it brings two people closer, and sometimes it pushes them apart.
When one partner dreams of children and the other cannot have them, a couple has to decide what kind of future they want. Even with that difficult news, John and Susan stayed together. They wanted to try every possible way to make their dream of becoming parents come true. They saw a fertility specialist, and Susan began regular treatments.
They had hope at first, but after several years of failed attempts, Susan opened her heart to adoption. Even if the child was not biologically hers or John’s, they still had so much love to give. By then, Susan was a senior nurse in the surgical ICU, and John had reached great success in law.
He had even received an award from other attorneys for his achievements, professional skills, legal knowledge, and communication abilities. In April 1979, the Suttons got the chance to adopt a beautiful baby boy just days after his birth. The baby had not even come into the world yet, but a loving family was already waiting for him.
For many adoptive parents, bringing home a newborn is the dream. John and Susan felt the same way. Chris was born on April 13th, 1979, and it became one of the happiest days of their lives. They treasured every minute with him. Both John and Susan wanted to give that boy everything. They adored Chris.
He grew up happy and carefree, running around their large home laughing and playing. He had plenty of toys, and when his parents went on vacations, they took him with them. Chris was deeply loved, and for a while, he gave that love right back to his mother and father. As their only child, he received all their attention and was spoiled more than a little.
Susan even left her job so she could stay home with him. For a time, everything seemed perfect, but 7 years later, John and Susan started thinking about growing their family again. They wanted to give Chris a little sister and give themselves a daughter. After such a happy first adoption, they believed they could share their love and support with another child.
In the end, John and Susan adopted a beautiful little girl named Melissa. At last, they felt like their family of four was complete. Chris handled being a big brother well. He loved Melissa deeply, and the two of them became very close. Susan and John did not want to hide the truth from their children. So, when the time was right, they told Chris and Melissa they had been adopted.
But in the Sutton family, that changed nothing. Even though the children were not related by blood, they grew up like any other brother and sister. Chris always stood up for Melissa when kids at school teased her or caused her trouble. Susan and John wanted to give their children the best life they could.
They had grown up in comfort themselves, and they wanted the same for their kids. Some people might have called it spoiling them, but to the Suttons, it was simply love. Even after Chris grew up, his parents kept helping him. They paid for his apartment and car while he tried to get on his own feet.
That was how the Sutton family looked from the outside. But soon, everything would change. Something shocking and completely unexpected was about to happen. This seemingly perfect family was about to be turned upside down. Their happiness would soon turn into grief. By 2004, the Suttons were living in a beautiful waterfront home in Coral Gables.
Around Miami, they were known as an influential and respected couple. John’s law firm was thriving. By then, he had practiced law for 20 years, and he wanted the business to stay in the family. Susan handled the office administration, including bookkeeping. Melissa was 18 and had just started college to study law because she wanted to become an attorney, too.
Chris was 25 and engaged to Juliet Driscoll, who answered phones at the law firm. Chris also helped where he could. He worked on cases, did research, handled office tasks, made bank deposits, and tried to be useful. Chris and Juliet had met during a family cruise. John owned three yachts, and the Suttons often traveled to the Caribbean or the Bahamas, where they scuba dived and fished.
Susan took Juliet under her wing and taught her a lot. John also worked with his long-time friend and colleague, Teddy Monto. Teddy was one of the people the Suttons trusted most. He and John became successful together, and John eventually offered him a partnership in the firm. John handled lawsuits involving companies and represented corporations.
These were major cases with serious money involved. Their latest case brought the firm three big wins, each worth more than a million dollars. The partners wanted to celebrate the successful cases and decided to combine the celebration with Susan’s birthday. She turned 57 on August 20, and 2 days later, they held a dinner party. Melissa had just started college, so she could not attend.
At the table were John and Susan, Chris and Juliet, and John’s law partner, Teddy Monto. Melissa called to congratulate her mother again. She said she missed her and hoped the party would be wonderful. It was a warm dinner with people close to the family. They drank some wine, ate birthday cake, and talked about future plans.
No one there knew how the evening would end. As the party wound down, John and Susan watched the Olympics with their guests for a while. It was getting late. Chris and Juliet planned to see a movie, so around 9:30 p.m. they left. About 15 minutes later, Teddy also said good night and went home. John went into the bedroom to watch a little more TV.
Susan stayed downstairs to finish a few things before bed. Because John snored loudly, Susan usually slept in their son’s old room across the hall from the master bedroom. She could not rest properly beside him. Before falling asleep, Susan was talking on the phone with a close friend. Then John thought he heard a door slam downstairs or maybe something heavy hit the floor.
He barely had time to react before his bedroom door suddenly flew open. A person dressed in black walked in and pointed a gun at him. All John could hear were shots, one after another. He tried to move around the room and get away, but four bullets hit him. The bedroom was left in chaos. One bullet went through the headboard. Another shattered a mirror.
John collapsed to the floor, badly wounded, but still alive. Then the intruder left and went toward the room where Susan was sleeping. John could do nothing. He lay there helplessly as more shots rang out across the hall. After that, the gunman returned to John’s room and fired two more shots at his head.
John’s world went dark, but amazingly he was still alive. The homeowner passed out, but at some point, he regained consciousness. He did not know how Susan was, whether she was injured or what exactly had happened, but he realized he somehow had to reach a phone and call for help. John managed to open his eyes, but he saw nothing.
The man knew the layout of his house very well. Somehow, in the dark, stumbling and on the verge of death, he managed to reach a phone and dial 911. He did everything he could to protect his family, his wife and himself. Only a surge of adrenaline allowed him to get up, despite the severity of his wounds. John even managed to open the front door and let the police in.
John was in critical condition, so he was rushed to Miami’s trauma center. When he was examined, injuries were found everywhere on his arms, face, and body. Blood flowed from his head and down his body. Doctors hurried to save his life, though they were not sure they could. Meanwhile, police tried to find clues inside the Sutton home and determine how the intruder had entered.
The sliding glass door to the patio leading to the pool was open. It was possible the perpetrator had entered through it. Detectives did not know if it had already been scratched earlier or if the damage had happened during the break-in. Other officers walked down the long hallway to the bedrooms, checking room by room to make sure everything was clear.
It was a fairly large house, and first they had to ensure the perpetrator had left and was not hiding somewhere inside. On the floor, police saw shell casings, broken glass, and blood. They still had not found Susan. She was not in the bedroom. Detectives noticed items lying on the dresser, a wallet, money, and other jewelry.
Everything was untouched. If this had been a home invasion, it clearly was not for robbery. When officers approached Susan’s bed, they saw a pile of blankets with bullet holes in them. After pulling back the covers, a heartbreaking scene appeared. The dead woman was still clutching the corners of the blankets over her head, as if trying to hide or block the bullets.
But unfortunately, it had not saved her life. She lay on her back, and next to her was a bloody phone. Susan’s face was severely damaged. There was a huge wound in the lower part of it. One eye had almost fallen out of its socket. Her forearm was so badly damaged that bone was visible. Even more shots had hit her torso.
Police frankly could not understand who could have done this in an upscale neighborhood where violent crime was almost nonexistent. Why had this family been targeted? Everything looked as if someone had deliberately come to this house with the firm intention of taking the Suttons’ lives. While Susan’s body was being transported to the coroner’s office for an autopsy, John faced emergency surgery.
Doctors counted six bullet wounds on his body. Two shots had hit his head. One bullet entered the right temple and exited through the lower jaw. He also lost the tip of his ring finger and his right thumb had been shot through. Another bullet was lodged somewhere in his chest. Detectives examining the house initially theorized that John had planned to harm Susan and then turned the gun on himself to deflect suspicion.
He was a lawyer and knew how to stage it best. At that point, they still did not know the man’s true condition. That theory was quickly dismissed when doctors gave their conclusion. Sutton’s head wounds were so severe that it was clear no sane person would shoot himself in the temple just to fake an attack.
The Sutton’s younger daughter, Melissa, had no idea tragedy had struck her parents. It was her first day of college. She was starting classes while her father clung to life and her mother lay in the morgue. A friend called Melissa to offer condolences. That was how the girl learned in the most horrific way what tragedy had unfolded inside her home.
She frantically started calling her brother, then family friend Teddy, but no one answered. Only after some time did Teddy Monto call Melissa back. He then came to pick her up and drove her to Miami, to the hospital where her father was. Later that morning, Chris arrived at the scene. He saw police cars in front of his parents’ house and could not understand what had happened.
The young man approached one of the officers and explained who he was. He was then told the devastating news. His mother was dead and his father was in critical condition at the hospital. Chris was so shocked he could not hold back his emotions. After all, just yesterday they had celebrated his mom’s birthday and today she was gone.
Tears filled Chris’s eyes and he rushed straight to the hospital to be with his father. But the news about John was terrible, too. Doctors said the surgery had lasted 14 hours, but they could not save his eyesight. The The to his head was too severe. Sadly, John would never see sunlight again. Most likely, he would never return to practicing law or live the life he once had.
His children stayed beside his hospital bed talking to him so he would know they were there, but they had no idea how to tell him that the woman he had spent 29 years with was gone. John was in a medically induced coma. Over the next few weeks, he slowly began to wake up. One day, he even managed to say a few words.
The first thing he asked was how Susan was doing. Melissa could not tell him the truth. John’s life depended on his emotional state, and too much stress could have killed him. So, through tears, she lied and told him that Mom was not doing as well as he was. It was painful to hide the truth and give him false hope, but from a medical standpoint, it was necessary.
Investigators visited John every day waiting for him to talk and hoping he might remember something about the attack, but because he was heavily medicated, that chance did not come for a long time. Meanwhile, detectives questioned relatives, friends, and employees at John’s law firm trying to learn who could have been behind such a horrifying crime.
After all, a lawyer could have serious enemies. Juliet, Chris’s fiance, remembered that John had recently won a case for a client causing the client’s ex-wife to lose a large amount of money. Bailiffs had come to her office and seized everything only days before the attack. The furious woman had threatened John’s life.
She had stormed into his firm and said she would get a gun and shoot him herself. Several people witnessed it. Another detail seemed to support that theory. A neighbor had heard the sound of a motorboat that night. The waterway ran behind the houses. No one had seen or heard a car out front. Detectives also learned that the woman who threatened John owned a boat docked not far from his home, but that lead quickly fell apart.
The woman had a solid alibi. That night, she was out of state, and a surveillance camera confirmed her boat never left the dock, so detectives had to keep looking. For weeks, John drifted in and out of consciousness. Family and friends stayed close, waiting for him to fully wake up.
What bothered police most was how little evidence they had. There were no fingerprints on the sliding glass door the intruder had used. The shell casings in the hallway came from a 9-mm pistol, but the weapon itself was gone. Investigators also wanted to know who Susan had been talking to before she died and whether that person had heard anything.
So, detectives went back through the reports from that night. That was when they learned police had seen Teddy Monto near the Sutton home. Even stranger, he had arrived before emergency services. Could the attacker have returned to the scene? How did Teddy know something had happened? Could he have left the door open earlier so he could come back later and attack the couple? Monto was brought in for questioning and told police his version of the night.
It turned out he was the person Susan had been talking to before bed. That looked suspicious. What would a married woman be discussing so late with her husband’s business partner? Teddy explained that his bond with the Suttons was not just professional. They were like family to him, and he and Susan were very close.
During the call, he said he suddenly heard a loud bang that sounded like a shot. Then the line went dead. He tried calling back, but no one answered. Worried something had happened to Susan, he got dressed and drove to the house. Police were not completely convinced. Melissa confirmed that Teddy was almost like a godfather to the family.
She said he and her mother often discussed work for hours, so the late call did not seem unusual to her. Still, something about Teddy’s story felt off. Then he admitted he carried a 9-mm firearm. Since that matched the caliber used in the attack, police took the gun for testing. On top of that, Teddy said he had gone target shooting the day before.
So, there could have been gunshot residue on his hands or clothes that only made detectives more suspicious. An experienced shooter could have easily hit a moving target like John. Teddy also had possible motive, access, money, and opportunity. If John was gone, he could take full control of the firm. The Sutton family friend agreed to take a polygraph test.
His gun was also sent for forensic testing to see whether the casings matched the ones found inside the house. The lie detector showed that Monto was not telling the full truth. He lied about his relationship with Susan. With no other choice, Teddy admitted that what they had was more than friendship. Still, Teddy had an alibi.
His cell phone location showed he was home during the call with Susan. The casings from his pistol also did not match the ones from the crime scene. Once again, a promising lead fell apart. When Melissa and Chris realized the attacker might be someone close or maybe an angry client, they feared the could return.
Chris begged the hospital to use a fake name for his father and keep strangers out of his room. Detectives also checked the alibis of every family member. Melissa had been at college about 5 hours away. Chris had been at the movies with Juliet and still had the ticket stub. Detectives reviewed the theater surveillance footage which confirmed Chris and Juliet were there during the attack.
By early September, John had survived several life-saving surgeries and wanted to go home, but that desire vanished when he was finally told the truth about Susan. He could not believe it. All that time he had thought he would soon be reunited with his wife. John sat in the hospital bed, blind, helpless, and now facing the loss of the woman he loved.
His children could barely look at him without breaking down. Soon after, he learned another painful truth. Susan had been involved with Teddy. John could not return to the house where everything had happened. So Chris and Juliet invited him to stay at their nearby townhouse.
The property belonged to John anyway. For Chris, it was a chance to care for the father who had always cared for him. During the day, a nurse looked after John. Chris and Juliet helped with errands and drove him to appointments. Months passed. Christmas came and still no one had been arrested. Then John did something almost unthinkable.
He went back to work. He attended hearings, returned to his cases, and slowly revived his law firm. Work became his way of staying busy and healing emotionally. John refused to sink into hopelessness or self-pity, but things were still far from normal. Soon strange incidents began happening. While Melissa was with him, she drove John’s car to take him to the doctor and nearly got into a serious accident.
They later discovered that all the lug nuts on the left front wheel had been deliberately loosened. When John returned to his own house and tried living alone, the strange events continued. At random times, day or night, the alarm system would suddenly go off. Imagine that kind of fear. A blind man alone in the house, already scared for his life, hearing the alarm scream several times a day.
John called repairmen and they found the wires had been cut. They fixed the system, but the next day it happened again. It was clear someone was trying to terrify Sutton, break him down, or push him closer to the edge. Meanwhile, detectives kept working. They questioned every client from John’s firm who had lost a case.
Each one had an alibi. After 20 years as an attorney, John had been threatened before, but there was no proof any of those threats had turned into action. Police had piles of documents, crime scene photos, possible suspects, and polygraph results. They reviewed everything again and again, hoping to find one missed detail.
Finally, they got a new break. In a separate case, a man named Garrett Kopp was arrested for threatening two men with a firearm about 30 miles from the Sutton home. During that investigation, police learned that his gun was also the weapon used in the John and Susan Sutton case.
But who was Garrett? And why would he attack a lawyer’s family? Garrett claimed he had bought the gun on the street from a stranger. That might have looked believable if not for one strange coincidence. Garrett had been to the Sutton house before doing different small jobs. And the person who hired him was Chris John and Susan’s son.
It turned out Chris and Garrett were very close. They met after Chris and his fiance moved into the same apartment complex where Garrett’s family lived. Cop had visited Chris’s parents home many times and helped with work around the property. Garrett did not have a steady job and badly needed money. So Chris hired him whenever he could.
Over time the two became friends. But detectives thought that friendship looked too close. Most friends do not call each other 300 times in one month. And Garrett may have had his own reasons to want the Suttons gone. Maybe he envied their money, their comfortable life, their family, or something else.
Still, investigators doubted he had done this alone. That was when they began looking closely at Chris Sutton. On the day of the attack, Chris and Garrett called each other 13 times. The last call happened right after the movie ended when Susan was already dead and John was barely alive.
There was also something strange about Chris’s reaction when he learned what had happened at home. He looked upset, but then he pulled the movie ticket stub from his pocket and handed it to an officer even though no one had asked for it. And that is unusual. Most people after hearing their mother is dead and their father may not survive do not immediately start proving where they were.
At first, detectives did not focus on it. But now that detail looked very different. So investigators decided to learn more about Chris from relatives, family friends, and people close to the Suttons. After those conversations, detectives realized they might be on the right track. No one can know exactly what happened behind closed doors inside that family.
What was clear was that John and Susan had desperately wanted a child, had been overjoyed to adopt Chris, and had loved him deeply. But as time passed, it became obvious that Chris was no angel. Around age 13, his behavior started to change. His grades dropped, and he stopped doing homework. Susan and John thought it was just a difficult teenage phase and hoped he would grow out of it, but he did not. His problems only got worse.
He was expelled from several schools his parents moved him to. At home, his anger showed even more. He damaged walls, broke things, and several times he even attacked Susan and tried to choke her. The Sudds searched for help. They spoke with psychologists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians. Doctors diagnosed Chris with ADHD.
One specialist also said he had oppositional defiant disorder, a condition where a child refuses to cooperate and acts hostile toward parents, teachers, peers, and authority figures. This disorder often includes tantrums, arguments, anger, and irritability. It can get worse when a child acts out and receives sympathy instead of consequences, so he keeps using that behavior for attention.
Susan and John worried deeply about their son. They tried different treatments, including therapy and medication, but nothing worked. At one point, Christopher and two friends caused about $50,000 in damage to a teacher’s house. They spray-painted the walls and destroyed furniture. Then came the final straw.
Chris took John’s .22 caliber rifle, walked into the living room, and pointed it at Susan and Melissa. The rifle was not loaded, but his mother and sister did not know that. They were terrified. Instead of punishing him harshly, John only sent him to his room. By 16, things had gotten even worse. Susan found a letter where Chris described wanting to kill his parents for the inheritance.
Chris claimed it was just a joke, but it was another frightening warning sign. Even then, Susan and John did not truly believe their son could take their lives or seriously harm them. But when he got involved with drugs, they knew they had to act. One doctor warned that Chris was showing psychopathic tendencies and that if they did not do something soon, tragedy could follow.
Susan and John began researching programs for troubled teens, including boarding schools, shelters, and treatment centers. In the end, they chose Paradise Cove, a program for boys with serious behavioral issues. It’s almost like a reform school. Paradise Cove was located far away in American Samoa in the South Pacific. The facility had opened in the early 1990s, but its methods were highly questionable.
Staff used fear and intimidation to break students down, control them, and force obedience. Chris was 16 years old when large men suddenly came into his room in the middle of the night, restrained him, and put him on a plane to that remote island. In reality, his parents had basically arranged for him to be taken away by force.
Since John was a lawyer, he obtained a restraining order against 16-year-old Christopher, followed by a court order allowing Chris to be removed and sent away for reeducation. The Suttons were were told their son would follow an academic program and that they would receive weekly progress reports. In their minds, they were sending their rebellious teenager to a beautiful island far from bad influences.
They thought Chris would learn discipline, simplicity, and gratitude. They believed that once he finished the program, he would come home changed, more mature and more appreciative of everything they had done for him. Susan and John had even visited the island before sending him there. They paid a large amount of money, trusting professionals to help fix their son’s behavior.
But they had been terribly wrong. The only paradise there was the name and the island’s natural beauty. The people running the program were not real educators. They misused their power and physically harmed the boys. In truth, it was more like a prison for troubled teenagers. The camp was filthy.
Scabies, lice, and ringworm were common there. The boys were humiliated physically and mentally. For even small violations, they could be put in isolation, restrained by their hands and feet, and denied food. The owner denied the abuse at Paradise Cove, but later lawsuits and investigations eventually led the Samoan government to shut the facility down.
When the Suttons were finally allowed to visit Chris a year later, he looked stronger, fitter, and happy to see them. Chris tried to tell them about the harsh conditions, but his parents believed he was manipulating them. The agreement was that he had to finish the program before coming home.
To Susan and John, he seemed to be doing well. They saw him playing volleyball, swimming in the ocean, and smiling around them. So, they left him there for another year in that nightmare. They did not believe his stories about the awful living conditions, and in the end, that became their mistake. With Paradise Cove, I can understand why Susan and John made that choice.
They saw the school as their last chance to turn their troubled son into a stable young man. They acted out of love, but they truly did not understand what Chris was going through. The program was supposed to make boys appreciate normal life by forcing them through strict, sometimes brutal conditions. The teenagers followed a rigid schedule, exercised, and stayed busy all day.
But they could not do anything without permission, not even shower or use the bathroom. To finish the program, they had to pass six levels. As they moved up, they earned more privileges, like calling home and speaking with their parents. Education was mostly left to the students themselves. They studied on their own because there were no certified teachers on the island.
Chris Sutton spent 2 and 1/2 years at Paradise Cove. He was only allowed to return home the day after his 19th birthday. His lawyer father finally managed to arrange it. At first, it seemed Chris had returned to normal life. He finished high school, appeared more mature, and seemed more controlled. As a gift, the whole family went on a cruise to the British Virgin Islands.
That was where Chris met Juliet. His parents hoped Juliet would help keep him grounded. A year later, John and Susan bought the couple a place in Miami while Chris attended college. Juliet also began working at John’s law firm. Susan became almost like a second mother to her son’s fiance.
She taught Juliet how to dress well, do her makeup, and choose jewelry. John also treated Chris’s girlfriend warmly and accepted her as part of the family. Chris had been a troubled teenager when he was sent to that awful island school, but years had passed, so blaming him for the attack on his parents did not seem completely fair at first.
He seemed to be returning to normal family life. For a while, everything really did appear fine, but as it later turned out, he had not truly changed. Some people do not become different. They only learn how to adjust, and deep down, they never forgive. It seemed Chris had held resentment toward both adoptive parents and had been waiting for the right time to get revenge.
When investigators asked John if his son could have been involved, John rejected the idea immediately. Chris had been by his side the whole time, helping his blind father around the house and taking care of him. Juliet, Chris’s fiance, also told investigators that Chris depended on his parents for almost everything. Even at 25, they were still paying for his car, apartment, and education.
According to her, Chris was very close to them. To get to the truth, police arrested Garrett Camp for the attack on Susan and John and put him through a tough interrogation. At first, Garrett denied everything. Then detectives spoke with his ex-girlfriend. She She that on the night of the attack, Garrett came home and burned his clothes.
When she asked him why, Kopp admitted he had been involved. Faced with the evidence, Garrett finally broke down and confessed that he was the one who had shot John and Susan Sutton. According to Garrett, he and Chris had been using and selling together and were involved in different illegal ways of making money.
Now that Garrett’s future depended on a possible deal with police, he blamed Chris. He said, “Christopher had never forgiven Susan and John for sending him to Paradise Cove. Chris wanted revenge and also wanted to collect the life insurance money from both parents.” The young man allegedly promised Garrett $100,000 if everything went according to plan.
On March 26, 2005, a warrant was issued for Christopher Sutton’s arrest. At that point, the only direct link to him was Garrett Kopp’s statement. Chris tried to run, but police stopped him and took him to jail. The only person who could give detectives more information against Chris was his fiance, Juliet Driscoll.
Investigators pushed Juliet to say whether Chris had ever talked about having his parents Susan had treated Juliet almost like a daughter, so covering for a criminal was not something Juliet could live with. She faced the hardest decision of her life. Help get justice for the woman who had done so much for her or stay silent and help Christopher avoid prison.
Juliet broke down crying and told detectives that Chris had been thinking about this for years. He had never forgiven his father and mother for sending him to that island where he spent two and a half years in a nightmare. During that last dinner, Susan and Chris had argued about car insurance. Susan told him she would no longer keep paying for him and that it was time to earn money for his own expenses.
That sent Chris into a rage. It is possible that this was the moment he made his decision. He called Garrett, then left the sliding patio door unlocked. The trial began in July of 2010. Chris had a strong defense attorney, but the lawyer could not convince the jury he was innocent. Another witness also came forward and said Chris had once asked him to find someone who could his parents. The trial lasted 3 weeks.
The family had to relive the pain of those events all over again. On July 22nd, 2010, the jury found Christopher Patrick Sutton guilty of the of his adoptive mother and the attempted of his adoptive father. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. John Sutton spoke in court and said there were no winners in this case.
He had lost Susan. He had lost Christopher long before the trial. He had lost his sight. In the end, everyone lost. Those words became the final note of this story. Today, John’s life has become more stable. Even though he is blind, he returned to practicing law and his firm continues to do well.
He swims, skis, and even jokes that he met his new girlfriend on a blind date. John still hopes for a miracle and continues to invest in research that could help restore vision. And who knows? Maybe one day he really will be able to see his new life again. If you watched this story until the end, then you are a real true crime fan.
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