Three months after he was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder, Christopher Sutton is speaking out from behind bars.
"I was shocked," he told Dateline of the verdict, "to know you didn't do something and to have people feel you did."
Sutton was accused of hiring drug addict Garrett Kopp to kill his parents after they sent him to boarding school in Samoa, where he claimed he was traumatized. It was his tears over this experience and lack of them while talking about his parents' death that played into the jury's decision to find Sutton guilty.
"The program, I've done my best to seal that away," he explained about talking about the boarding school on the stand. "That was the first time I sat there in a long time and been like, wow, what really did happen."
In 2004, Kopp shot Susan Sutton six times and John in the face. 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. I'm not going to sit here and deny that I had problems with my parents, that's why I wanted to get up there and explain. I'm sure I could've been a better guy, but I didn't have anything to do with this."
John Sutton thinks otherwise.
"Someday I may go see him and confront him and say, 'what were you thinking of?,'" he said. "What a stupid, criminal, ridiculous thing this all was."
Christopher Sutton said he's devastated over the things his father said against him during the trial, "but my dad turning on me during hard times isn't anything new."
As for reconciliation, John isn't optimistic.
"That ain't happening, no way."
