Christopher Porco
Indictment
In December 2004, a grand jury met for the first time to determine if there was enough evidence in the Porco case to go to trial. Several months into reviewing the evidence, the Albany County District Attorney's office who was working with the police in investigating the case officially named Chris as a key suspect in the attacks. In response, Joan Porco immediately fired off a letter to the Bethlehem police and the DA's office pleading for them to leave her son alone, Jola Szubielski stated in a Capital News 9 article. The article quoted Joan as saying:
"I want to say unequivocally that although I have no memory whatsoever of the attack, either because I was asleep or because of my injuries, I am absolutely positive that my son was in no way involved in this heinous crime."
Regardless of her plea, the evidence the DA's office had accumulated thus far showed that Joan Porco was "wrong in claiming her son's innocence," Szubielski reported. Consequently, they intended to press on with the case against Chris in the belief that the evidence would eventually lead to an indictment. Less than a month and a half later Chris stood before the grand jury in an Albany County courtroom to hear the results of their examination into the case.
On November 4, 2005, almost one year after their first meeting, the grand jury declared that they had considerable evidence indicating Chris' probable involvement in the attacks. Based on that evidence, Chris was indicted for the second degree murder of his father and the attempted murder of his mother. At the time of the indictment, the prosecution refused to reveal precisely what evidence led to his arrest. However, Szubielski suggested that there were some "600 leads" that were followed up on" during the investigation which implicated Chris in the attacks. Chris pleaded innocent to the charges against him before he was handcuffed and led away to the county jail to await his bail hearing. He faced a sentence of 50 years to life in prison, if found guilty of the charges.
