A lawyer who was blinded after being shot along with his wife at their South Florida home in 2004 in an alleged contract hit testified today against his 31-year-old son at a conspiracy trial over his wife’s murder and his own attempted murder.
Anyone with information about the killing is asked to call the Metro-Dade homicide squad at 305-471-2400, Coral Gables police at 305-442-1600 or Crimestoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
His vision destroyed, his right eye disfigured and his family devastated, Coral Gables lawyer John R. Sutton has nevertheless lost none of his courtroom presence.
Susan died, and John survived but is now blind. "The only people who know what really happened are Christopher and Garrett," Sutton said about that night... It's hard to know I'm going to jail for something I didn't do.
The last few weeks of Chris Sutton's life inside Her Majesty's Penitentiary were plagued by self-harm, trips to "the hole" and even guards who laughed when he spoke of ending his own life, according to two of his fellow inmates. Sutton took his own life on June 30.
Susan Sutton was assassinated in her bed. John Sutton, shot twice in the head, shockingly survived. Nothing was taken from the house - not money, nor jewelry. There was no doubt that this was a premeditated effort to make sure that they were dead.
Garrett KoppChristopher Sutton's former pal, Garrett Kopp, testified last week that Christopher hired him to assassinate John and Susan Sutton in a scheme to inherit the lawyer's wealth. Kopp is serving 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to the crime.
A lawyer who was blinded after being shot along with his wife at their South Florida home in 2004 in an alleged contract hit testified today against his 31-year-old son at a conspiracy trial over his wife’s murder and his own attempted murder.
Although shot in the face several times, Sutton survived the attack. His admitted assailant, Garrett Kopp, is serving a 30-year term and has also testified at the trial.
Among the evidence against his son is testimony by a Miami-Dade homicide detective that cellphone records show Kopp and the defendant called each other hundreds of times, and spoke repeatedly on the day of the shootings.
Defense attorneys argued their client was innocent and Kopp acted alone in attacking the Suttons. Kopp was also a witness in the trial.
Christopher Sutton, 31, allegedly plotted against his parents because they sent him to a boarding school in Samoa. During the trial, prosecutors painted Sutton as a vengeful menace who finally found a way to get back at his parents in 2004.
But nothing was taken. ... This person had a mission," said Miami-Dade Detective Rosanna Cordero. Detective Cordero hoped John, even with a serious head injury, could help her. "He remembered bits and pieces. He thought he remembered a figure at the door," Cordero explained.
And then Montoto said something surprising. He told Cordero that he was a marksman and he'd been shooting a gun earlier that day. "He was a competitive shooter. That's something that he did as a hobby," Cordero said. "That raised our eyebrows.". Detective Cordero immediately sent Montoto's gun in for testing.
She knew him, but he had a harder time recognizing her. When John Sutton woke up in intensive care, he was blind. "The magnitude of my injury, the facial pain and the loss of the eyesight was just so huge," he told Roberts.
"A motive at least to kill John, maybe, not necessarily Susan, but love triangles can drive people to do very extreme behavior.". Teddy Montoto's gun didn't match the murder weapon. And police were able to confirm he wasn't in the Sutton home during the shooting.