June 7, 2005
 

Miami Herald
Scott Hiaasen

Four years ago, Christopher Sutton asked a coworker how to go about hiring a hit man to kill his parents.

Last summer, he talked about it again -- just weeks before a gunman killed Sutton's mother and left his father blind.

Court records released Monday suggest that Sutton planned his parents' shooting in an effort to collect their estate and satisfy a long-simmering resentment toward them after they shipped him to a controversial youth-treatment center in American Samoa.

Sutton, 26, was arrested in April on charges that he conspired with a friend, Garrett Kopp, to kill his parents. Investigators believe Kopp, 21, was the triggerman who killed 57-year-old Susan Sutton and wounded John Sutton in the couple's Coral Gables home on Aug. 22.

Sutton's girlfriend, Juliette Driscoll, told police that Sutton talked openly about his desire to have his parents killed. He assured Driscoll they would have plenty of money once his parents were dead, Driscoll told police.

Just weeks before the shooting, Sutton's father, a civil attorney, had settled a lawsuit for more than $1 million, Driscoll said.

''He said that things will be better when they're dead,'' Driscoll said. ``I knew that he was planning to kill his parents, I just didn't know when.''

Sutton made similar comments about his parents in 2000, while working at a plumbing company, said former coworker Jose Peon Jr.

''I didn't sense any joking around whatsoever,'' Peon said. ``He was dead serious.''

Driscoll said she met Sutton in 1999, just months after he returned from a traumatic 2 ½-year stint at Paradise Cove, a rigorous facility for troubled kids in Samoa that closed amid complaints of mistreatment by former residents, according to news reports.

''He would tell me about being beaten there, being hogtied,'' Driscoll said. ``He told me when he was hogtied the Samoans would feed him with their feet.''

Sutton and Driscoll visited Sutton's parents on the night of the shooting before going to a movie. Driscoll said Sutton spoke on his cell phone with Kopp that night.

Prosecutors say Kopp confessed to his role in the shooting, though the details of the confession were not released. But after his arrest, Kopp told police he did not recall talking to Sutton after the shooting.

Sutton's attorney could not be reached for comment Monday.

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