Christopher Sutton, the adopted son of John and Susan Sutton of Coral Gables, Florida, was a troubled young man, constantly in trouble with the law. To curb his behavior, his wealthy parents sent him to a reform school in Samoa, and Chris never forgave them. After returning home to Florida, Chris, 25, offered his friend Garrett Kopp $10,000 to kill his parents. Kopp broke into the Suttons’ home on August 22, 2004, and shot the couple, killing Susan and blinding John. The initial suspect was John’s law partner, with whom Susan was having an affair, but the cops soon turned to Chris. He claimed Kopp acted alone out of anger after a drug deal went bad, but the jury didn’t buy it, and Chris Sutton was sentenced to three terms of life without parole.
This episode features the cross-examination of Chris’s girlfriend, Juliette Driscoll, who under police pressure admitted she was aware of Chris’s plan to murder the Suttons, but later retracted her assertion.
Richard, Sheryl and Stacey Kananen survived a horrific upbringing of violence and abuse on the part of their father. Sheryl left home to marry and raise a family, but Stacey and Ricky continued to live at home with their parents in Orlando. When their father Larry disappeared, no-one missed him. But when their mother Marilyn disappeared 15 years later, police became suspicious, especially when, shortly after her mother went missing, Stacey, 37, moved with her partner Susan to live in a nudist resort.
In June 2014, at his home in Lake Oswego, Oregon, a man making his dinner heard gunshots. He looked through the window and saw his neighbor across the street, 41-year-old Adrien Wallace, standing in his driveway pointing a hunting rifle at the dead body of his mother, 71-year-old Saundra Wallace. He then walked to the car where his 16-year-old nephew, Nick Juarez, was sitting on the passenger seat. Wallace squatted, pointed the gun at the car, and fired. He smoked a cigarette then called 911 and confessed to his crime. He gave no reason except that he was abused as a child and hated the human race.
Tommy Carlton, a registered nurse living in Osceola County, Florida, was very angry with his ex-wife, Elizabeth. The couple were involved in a bitter custody battle, and Tommy owed $85,000 in child support. In 2008, He hired a hit man to kill her, but the hit man turned out to be an undercover cop. With the help of Elizabeth, police staged a sting operation using posed photos where she appeared to be shot in the head. When the police told him his wife had been murdered, Tommy replied, “I can’t say I’m sad about it. I hated the bitch. But I had nothing to do with it.” In court, Tommy claimed he had a hearing deficit and couldn’t understand what the hit man was saying. He was found guilty of solicitation to commit first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison.
In this continuation of episode 180, Marc Benayer interrogates Rabbi Zalman Bukiet, of the Chabad Weltman Synagogue in Boca Raton, where the shooting occurred. He accuses the Rabbi of, among other sins, being anti-Sephardic, cheating, taking money for performing Bar Mitzvahs, and turning a somersault in the synagogue. Benayer also testified on his own behalf, doing himself no favors. He was questioned by defense attorney, Christopher Haddad. The long-suffering judge was Richard I. Wennet, of West Palm Beach Circuit Court. After his conviction, Benayer died in prison.
This episode contains the testimony of Marc Benayer, 81, who represented himself at his 2007 murder trial in Boca Raton, Florida. After Benayer’s girlfriend Marta Pinto, 44, had broken up with him, he allegedly began stalking and harassing her, claiming she owed him $10,000. Marta, who spoke very little English, worked at an electronics company, and she turned to her bosses, Mark Levy and Jonathan Samuels, for help in getting a restraining order against her elderly suitor.
December, 2018. Lisa Jeffrey, 48, of Ocala, Florida, hadn’t been seen for a few days; relatives became concerned and contacted the police. When cops searched the trailer where Lisa lived with her ex-husband, 57-year-old Bo Pete Jeffrey, they found her body, along with a pair of blood-stained boxing gloves, stuffed into garbage bags under his camper bed. Lisa, who had Crohn’s disease, alcoholism and a drug problem, had been beaten to death.
On August 8, 1996, playboy bachelor Lance Herndon, 41, was found bludgeoned to death in his bed at his home in Roswell, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. Police claim the killer climbed onto his naked body and straddled him, then beat him in the head and face. The murder weapon was never found.
In January 1992, Aileen Wuornos, a sex worker, stood trial for the murder of 52-year-old Richard Mallory, who’d picked her up when she was hitch-hiking. When she was intially interviewed by police, Wuornos said she shot Mallory because he threatened to rape her. However, at trial, her testimony about the incident was much more graphic and disturbing. At this time, she’d confessed to murdering six men in addition to Mallory, all in self-defense (in fact, Mallory had a prior conviction for sexual abuse, but this fact was not allowed into evidence). To law enforcement and the state’s attorney, Wuornos gave a number of inconsistent versions of events; her attorneys discouraged her from testifying in court, but she insisted on taking the stand. Her account fell apart under close questioning, especially after her longtime girlfriend, Tyria Moore, took a deal and testified against her.
