Seven students from the University of Rochester, which Christopher Porco once attended, testified in his murder trial they did not see their frat brother and friend sleeping in the student lounge at Munro Hall dormitory during the early morning hours of Nov. 15, 2004.
Porco is on trial for the murder of his father, Peter Porco, and attempted murder of his mother, Joan Porco. Peter Porco was murdered with an ax on Nov. 15, 2004, and Joan Porco survived severe injuries by an ax.
On Monday, July 17, Prosecutors called graduates and current students of the university to bolster their case that Christopher Porco lied to friends and authorities when he told them he was sleeping in the fraternity’s student lounge the night his parents were attacked at 36 Brockley Drive in Delmar, over 200 miles away.
I watched a movie from 11:45 p.m. until 1:45 a.m. in the student lounge, said Gregory Whiteside, the president of Sigma Phi Epsilon, Christopher Porco’s fraternity.
`Was Christopher Porco there at all?` asked Assistant District Attorney Michael McDermott.
`No, he was not,` Whiteside said.
Christopher Halas, a 2005 University of Rochester graduate and fraternity mate of the defendant, said he was in the student lounge where Porco said he was asleep from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. on Nov. 14 and 15, 2004, and told the jury he did not see Porco.
`Was he there during the hours you were there?` asked Assistant District Attorney David Rossi.
`No, he was not,` said Halas.
Porco offered to let the regional director of the fraternity who was visiting that weekend sleep in his room on Sunday night, Nov. 14, 2004, and Porco would in turn sleep in the student lounge where many students mingled. Porco’s roommate at the university in the fall of 2004, Joshua Felver-Gant, worked a late shift at the school library until 2 a.m., and did not see the suspect when he got back to Munro Hall’s student lounge where he chatted with a few friends until 3:30 a.m.
`Was the defendant there?` asked Rossi.
`No, he was not,` said Felver-Gant.
Porco was last seen that Sunday night around 10 p.m. with his friend
Marshal Crumiller. The two had dinner at a Wendy’s restaurant close to the dorm before Crumiller drove Porco to his Jeep parked off-campus.
`He told me he needed to help his aunt and uncle (who lived in the Rochester area) mulch the next morning and that he was going to park his Jeep behind Munro in a grassy area not in the normal parking area,` said Crumiller.
Whiteside then saw Porco the next morning, Monday, Nov. 15, 2004 around 9:30 a.m.
`He had just commented he had gone for a jog that morning and had a lousy night’s sleep,` Whiteside said.
Whiteside, along with other students, testified they never saw Porco jog in the fall of 2004.
The testimony from other students was much the same.
However, Defense Attorneys Terence Kindlon and Laurie Shanks were successful at times in showing inconsistencies in the testimony. Even though all the students testified they were at Munro Hall student lounge that night, many watching the movie `Shrek,` they could not remember their classmates who testified being at the scene.
`I think we managed to demonstrate college students stay up late, college students sleep late, and they don’t know who is sleeping in what room,` said Kindlon.
Late in the day’s testimony, Kindlon bounced up from his chair with renewed vigor less than seven days after an angioplasty to open up a blocked artery in his heart, to ask for another mistrial after hearing a question posed by McDermott to a witness for the prosecution.
McDermott asked Whiteside if Porco offered any explanation of where he was during the overnight hours of Nov. 14 and 15, of 2004.
`The prosecution is desperate to make this an alibi case,` Kindlon said. `It goes right to the heart of my client’s right to remain silent.`
Judge Jeffrey Berry once again explained to the jury that the burden of proof ` beyond a reasonable doubt ` rests with the prosecution.
`The defendant, under no obligation, has to explain or offer any evidence where he was in this case,` said Berry.
Porco’s aunt Barbara Balzano, who lives with her husband John in Fairport, about 20 minutes from Rochester, was asked to testify whether Christopher Porco planned on going to their house the morning after the crime to do some yardwork as he had told Crumiller.
`Did you or your husband make any plans to have Christopher Porco at your house to do some yard work?` asked McDermott.
`No,` answered Balzano.
`Did Chris ever come to your home for yard work?` asked McDermott.
`No,` said Balzano again.
Balzano told Shanks that she was at Joan Porco’s side almost daily through her operations, recovery, and rehabilitation from critical injuries sustained in the ax attacks at Brockley Drive.
`Joan is very outgoing, friendly, considerate and thoughtful of family,` said Balzano. Joan Porco now lives in the Balzano home in Fairport with her brother and sister-in-law.
Douglas Montayne, a garage mechanic at Albany’s Armory Garage, testified that he was asked to remove the fuel tank from Porco’s yellow Jeep Wrangler by Bethlehem police in December 2004 to see how many gallons of gas remained in the vehicle. Police had seized the Jeep Wrangler the day of the crime.
Joseph Killian, director of Albany County’s Sealer or Weights and Measures testified that 29.4 pounds of gas or 4.8 gallons remained in the gas tank container removed from the yellow Jeep.
`I checked the scales three times for an accurate reading before
measuring,` said Killian.
Prosecutors believe Porco filled his Jeep gas tank in Rochester the day before the attacks occurred at a Mobil gas station. Daniel Lawler, the owner of Exxon Mobile at 1810 Mount Hope, in Rochester, read off a credit card statement registered to Joan Porco’s credit card approved in Rochester on Saturday afternoon, Nov. 13.
`The amount is $35.64 and I can tell it was an outdoor purchase from my station,` Lawler told the jury.
Joseph Catalano, a Delmar resident who works for State Higher Education Services, testified that he has known the defendant since Porco was a junior in high school through Catalano’s work as a youth minister at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Delmar. Catalano said Porco e-mailed him for help in obtaining a $5,000 student loan.
`He asked if I could help him get an unsecured loan at school because his scholarships had not kicked in,` said Catalano, a past candidate for town supervisor. The youth minister also went to Albany Medical Center on Nov. 15, 2004, to see Christopher Porco after the attacks on his parents, and spent three hours speaking with him that night.
Porco spent most of the three hours talking about his interrogation by the Bethlehem police department.
`He was very upset with the Bethlehem police department,` said Catalano.
`Did he speak about his mother at all?` asked McDermott.
`No,` said Catalano.
`Did he speak about his father at all?` McDermott continued.
`Other than saying goodbye to him (on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004), that’s about it,` said Catalano.
