Christopher Porco

Detective Chris Bowdish

This was not the first time Detective Chris Bowdish of the Bethlehem New York Police Department had been to the Porcos' residence. He had actually met Joan and Peter in November of 2002 while investigating a robbery at their home, which had never been solved. He never imagined that he would be back to the house under such circumstances. Was it another robbery that had this time gone terribly wrong?

Bethlehem, NY Police patch

As soon as he passed the threshold of the house, along with a barrage of other officers there to investigate the scene, Bowdish immediately noticed some things that seemed peculiar. Jenny Chu of WROC-TV reported that the spare key to the house, which the Porcos normally kept hidden in a nearby flowerpot, was in the front door lock. Moreover, Bowdish noticed that the house wasn't "tossed," with drawers pulled out and their contents dumped like what you would normally see in a robbery. Instead, Joan's purse and other valuable household items were untouched.

Porco home

The alarm system had been tampered with, the telephone wires in the backyard were cut, a screen to a window in the garage was also cut and the window was wide open. This gave some credence to the theory that a burglary took place. However, the rest of the crime scene just didn't jibe with the robbery theory, especially since nothing in the house of value was stolen.

Bowdish had his suspicions. Based on his first impression, he had the "feeling that it was an inside job" and not a burglary at all, Chu reported.  In other words, someone who knew the Porcos intimately was likely responsible for the bloody carnage that lay before him. Bowdish was interested in talking with the Porcos' two sons, Christopher (Chris), 21, and Jonathan, 23, curious to know if they had any information as to who might have been responsible for such brutality.