The girlfriend of Christopher Porco during November 2004 told jurors in his murder trial that Porco wasn’t feeling well just hours before he learned his parents had been attacked in their Brockley Drive Home. Porco, 22, is on trial for murdering his father and attempting to murder his mother. Sarah Fischer of Slingerlands met Porco through a mutual acquaintance in the summer of 2004.
`We played tennis and would go to the movies,` Fischer testified on Wednesday, July 5. `We saw each other often in the evenings about five nights a week,` the Fairfield University senior told the jury. Fischer often went to 36 Brockley Drive in Porco’s yellow Jeep Wrangler. `Did you ever go to the house at night when his parents were asleep, and how did you enter?` asked assistant district attorney for Albany County, David Rossi. `Yes, either through the garage door or the front door,` answered Fisher, who said a spare key was usually hidden in the flowerpot outside the front door. `Sometimes, I would wait at the front door until the alarm was disarmed.` Barrister, the Porco family’s Labrador retriever, often greeted the two when they entered.
`He would hang out with us,` said Fischer. `He would never bark, he was always pleasant.`
The two continued to date through the fall of 2004 and continued to see each other when Porco went back to the University of Rochester and Fischer attended Fairfield. Porco visited Fischer in October at Fairfield and the two corresponded by instant messaging on each of their computers right up until the morning of the crime on November 15. Porco also stayed over at Fischer’s home in Slingerlands that Friday and Saturday Nov. 12 and 13. `When did he leave?` asked Rossi.
`That Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m.,` Fischer said.
`Do you know where he went when he left?` Rossi asked.
`Back to the University of Rochester,` said Fischer.
Fischer told Rossi that Porco initially told her he did not see his parents that weekend.
`He said he felt bad about that,` she said. When the couple spoke again online through instant messaging Sunday afternoon November 14, Porco told her he did see his father Peter that weekend, but that his mother Joan wasn’t home. They again spoke online Sunday night just before 10 p.m., about four to six hours prior to when police believe Peter Porco was murdered and his wife Joan was savagely attacked with an ax in the master bedroom of their Brockley Drive home. `He signed off at 10 p.m., and said he had to pick up an economics books,` said Fischer.
The next time Fischer spoke with Porco online was Monday afternoon Nov. 15, around 2 p.m., about three and a half hours after police found the body of Peter Porco lying dead at the base of the stairs inside his home. `We were talking and he said he wasn’t feeling well,` said Fischer. While the two were corresponding, Fischer’s sister Kate sent Sarah a message online, telling her older sister something had happened at 36 Brockley Drive. Sarah Fischer then rapidly sent the same message to Christopher Porco. `What was his response to that?` Rossi asked.
`He said he had not been able to contact his parents all morning and that he was nervous,` said Fischer. Porco then asked Sarah Fischer if he could send an instant message to her sister Kate to find out more information. The two briefly stopped communicating for about 45 minutes, and again went back online between 2:45 and 3 p.m. It was one of the last messages that day from Christopher to his girlfriend, and it said `my parents are dead.` Defense Attorney Laurie Shanks asked Fischer if she noticed anything different about Porco’s demeanor when he stayed over at her family’s home on Nov. 12. `In fact, he made breakfast for you that morning,` said Shanks.
`Yes,` said Fischer.
`Did he tell you that night about any arguments with his parents?` asked Shanks.
`No,` answered Fischer.
Shanks also made it clear that instant messages on a computer does not give a location for the people communicating. Fischer told Shanks she has only contacted Porco a couple of times since Nov. 15, 2004.
After testimony for the day ended, Defense Attorney Terence Kindlon said Judge Jeffrey Berry ruled out the videotaped interrogation of Porco by the Bethlehem police department. `The Judge said they (the Bethlehem police department) denied him his Fifth Amendment rights,` Kindlon said. Berry did keep the Thruway toll ticket allegedly used by Christopher Porco the night prosecutors and police believe he allegedly drove from Rochester to Albany, and back to Rochester the night of Nov. 14, and the morning of Nov. 15, following the attacks on his mother and father. `You’ll find the DNA in that ticket could have come from 60 percent of the population,` Kindlon said. “