Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. On the night of August 22nd, 2004, in an extremely affluent neighborhood in Florida, millionaire lawyer John Sutton dragged himself across the floor of his bedroom.
He couldn't see anything and his head was in agonizing pain.
But somehow, someway, he still managed to pull himself up to his feet and then he staggered his way through the house and made it out the front door to safety.
However, there was still someone else in the house behind him.
Moments later, a Miami SWAT team entered John's house and they would make a horrifying discovery in the guest bedroom.
One that would stun the wealthy South Florida community where John and his family had lived and worked for over four decades.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, the next time you're over at the Amazon Music Follow button's house, be sure to steal all of their phone chargers and hide them in the toilet tank.
Okay, let's get into today's story. Are you searching for a romantic summer getaway?
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The phenomenally talented Philippa Soo returns to narrate her fifth Lily Chu title.
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Set in Toronto's wealthy cottage country, aka the Hamptons of Canada, Rich Girl Summer follows the story of Valerie, a down-on-her-luck event planner posing as a socialite's long-lost daughter while piecing together the secrets surrounding a mysterious family. and falling deeper and deeper in love with the impossibly hard-to-read and infuriatingly handsome family assistant Nico.
Caught between pretending to belong and unexpectedly finding where she truly fits in, Valerie learns her summer is about to get far more complicated than she ever planned.
She's in over her head and head over heels.
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Go to audible.com slash richgirlsummer. On a hot July morning in 2004, 56-year-old Susan Sutton and her husband John stepped out of their million-dollar home in Coral Gables, Florida.
It was one of those days in South Florida when the temperature was a hot 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but the humidity made it feel even hotter.
Susan could already feel sweat on her arms and her shirt was sticking to her skin as she and John walked to their car parked in the driveway.
But the heat didn't bother Susan. She loved the summer weather.
Susan climbed into the passenger seat of the car and her husband, John, got behind the wheel.
They pulled away from the house and then headed through Coral Gables towards a nearby town where they were going to have breakfast with their son and his fiance.
Susan was average height and she had a bright smile with perfect teeth.
She had dirty blonde hair, but she sometimes missed dying it bright blonde like she'd done when she was younger.
As for her husband, John, he was tall with graying hair and blue eyes.
When Susan and John were a young couple, people couldn't get over how good they looked together, like a fairytale couple.
And even as they got older, most people who knew them thought Susan and John were a perfect pair who had everything you could ever ask for.
As the couple drove along, Susan glanced out the window and watched the city pass by.
Susan had lived in Coral Gables since she was 13 years old.
And as far as she was concerned, there was no better place to live in the whole world.
Coral Gables was known as one of the most upscale communities in the Miami, Florida area.
The secluded enclave was dotted with Mediterranean-style houses sitting on huge lots with palm trees in the front yards and big swimming pools in the back.
The city was safe, beautiful, and only about 10 miles from Miami Beach.
In the car, Susan and John talked about their work for a while.
John was a very successful attorney, and Susan managed his and his partner's law firm.
Some of their friends would ask Susan and John if it was difficult to work with their spouse.
They figured always being together must get old at some point.
But Susan said she loved working with John and managing his office, and she said John's partner, a gifted lawyer named Teddy Montoto, and all the employees at the office were like extended family.
So she barely even saw the law firm as work.
After driving for about 45 minutes, John turned onto a residential street and he parked the car in front of a new townhouse.
John and Susan got out of the car and they walked up to the townhouse front door.
They had bought this townhouse for their son and his fiance about a month earlier and they couldn't wait to see what the young couple had done to the inside of their new place.
Susan knocked on the door and then her 25-year-old son, Christopher, opened it up with a huge grin on his face.
Christopher was a big guy. He was over six feet tall, and he weighed about 250 pounds.
So when he hugged his mom, she almost disappeared in his arms.
Christopher let his parents inside, and right away Susan could smell food cooking in the kitchen.
Christopher beamed while he led his parents through the townhouse and showed them all the new furniture and decorations that he and his fiancée, Juliet Driscoll, had added to the place since they'd moved in.
While Christopher gave his parents a tour of the place, Juliet shouted out, hello, from the kitchen, and then she came out and joined everybody in the living room a couple of minutes later.
Juliet was 23 years old, and she was pretty with long brown hair.
Susan and John both said that she kind of reminded them of the hippies, the free-spirited folks they'd grown up with in the 1960s.
Juliet hugged Susan and John and told them how excited she was that they'd come over for breakfast.
Susan and John had treated Juliet almost like their own daughter ever since the time she and Christopher had begun dating.
And now Susan and John were thrilled that the two of them were planning their wedding.
And Susan and John were also very happy that they'd been able to provide Christopher and Juliet with such a wonderful place to live as they began this new phase of their life together.
Christopher led his parents into their small dining room and then John and Susan took a seat at the table.
Then Christopher went into the kitchen and he helped Juliet bring out all the food.
After the food was served, they began to eat and as they did, the whole group began to talk mostly about work.
Juliet was the receptionist at John's law firm and she knew he was in the middle of a huge case and so she asked him how it was going.
Then the subject changed to Christopher and Juliet's wedding planning.
Susan immediately got so excited hearing about the design for the invitations and the honeymoon they were going to take in Samoa, a collection of islands in the South Pacific.
Susan was excited like most other moms would be when their oldest child was finally getting married, but there was actually more to it than that for her.
Because there was a time in Susan's life when she had believed she would never have kids.
30 years earlier, back in 1974, Susan and John had been set up on a blind date.
And within a few minutes of meeting each other, they both decided that going on that blind date was the best decision they'd ever made.
After that first meeting, Susan and John had quickly fallen in love and started planning the rest of their lives together.
And both of them knew that they wanted to start a family as soon as possible.
Susan loved kids and she had dreamed of being a mother since she was young.
But soon after Susan and John did get married, about a year after that first blind date, Susan had the first of several miscarriages.
And in the years following, she had undergone a series of unsuccessful fertility treatments, and eventually she was just told by her doctors that unfortunately, she would never be able to bear her own kids.
At the time when this news came in, Susan had felt like she'd somehow let her husband down and robbed him of the family and the future that they had both dreamed about.
But then Susan had looked into adoption.
She knew there were children all over the world who needed homes, and she and John had a very safe and loving home that they could provide.
So four years after the couple had gotten married, Susan and John's dream of starting a family came true when they adopted and brought home Christopher when he was just two days old.
Then seven years later, they had adopted their daughter, Melissa, and their family finally felt perfect and complete.
At the dining room table, Susan smiled as she listened to her son talk about his and Juliet's wedding, and while she didn't say it out loud, she was already looking forward to the day that she would become a grandmother.
The family finished their breakfast and continued talking for a while, but then John said he needed to get home and call his partner, Teddy Montoto, so they could do some work on their current case.
Susan thanked Juliet for the amazing food and then followed John outside the townhouse back to the car.
Later that day, while John worked, Susan thought about going swimming in the pool.
But first she wanted to check on her daughter, Melissa, who had just moved away for her first year of college.
So Susan called Melissa, and right away she could tell her daughter was very nervous about her classes that were going to start in a few weeks.
Susan and John had always taken their kids' education very seriously, and they had been able to send them to great schools.
Christopher had even attended an international boarding school when he was a teenager.
So Susan told Melissa she was absolutely prepared for college and that she was going to do great.
Then Susan told her daughter that she loved her, hung up, and went into the living room where John was working.
She asked him how it was going. John grinned and said it was actually going really well, and he was pretty sure he and his partner, Teddy, were about to make a lot of money.
Susan kissed John and said that if that happened, they should definitely have Teddy and everybody else from the law firm over to celebrate.
Then she headed upstairs, put on her bathing suit, and went out to the pool.
Susan lounged by the pool in the hot summer sun and looked out over the large canal that circled their neighborhood.
Being on the canal made the house feel even more like an oasis that was separate from the rest of the world.
And as Susan lay there lounging in the sun, she thought about her son getting married and her daughter starting college and her husband potentially about to win a huge lucrative legal case.
And she wondered if it was even possible for her to be any happier.
In the early evening of August 22nd, 2004, about a month after the breakfast at Christopher's, music and laughter drifted through Susan and John's house.
They were hosting a big party to celebrate both Susan's 57th birthday and also John's huge win in court that had made them over $1 million.
John walked around the house pouring champagne for friends, family, and employees from the law firm.
At one point, most of the partygoers were gathered in the living room and John raised his glass.
He said he knew people were there to celebrate Susan and himself, but he said he wanted to give a toast to his son Christopher and to his fiancée Juliet, who would soon be his daughter-in-law.
And so everyone else raised up their glasses and cheered on the young couple.
Then John stepped away from the group and then returned shortly after, but this time with his phone in his hand.
He held the phone up and his daughter Melissa said hello to everybody.
But then she wished her mom a happy birthday and said how bummed she was that she couldn't be there.
Susan told Melissa that she missed her too, but she said that she was so excited that Melissa was actually starting her college classes now and was really getting into the flow of life in college.
Susan hung the phone up, and as she did, she heard a fork clinking against a glass.
She looked across the living room towards the sound, and she saw that John's partner, Teddy, was now getting ready to make another toast.
Once everyone was listening, Teddy stopped clinking the glass and then he told everyone in the room how lucky he had been to meet John and get to work with him and how Susan and the kids had made him feel like he was a part of their family.
Melissa even referred to Teddy as her godfather.
Then Teddy toasted to the birthday girl, Susan, shouted cheers and downed his drink and everybody else did the same.
The party lasted for a few hours and then everybody started to clear out.
Christopher and Juliet wish Susan happy birthday again, and then they left, and then Teddy and the rest of the law firm employees left not long after them.
At about 10 p.m., John headed to the main bedroom to lie down and watch some of the Summer Olympics on TV.
Susan got dressed for bed, she kissed John goodnight, and then she walked down the hall to the guest bedroom.
Lately, Susan had been sleeping in that guest bedroom because John often stayed up late either working or watching TV to wind down from work.
In the guest room, Susan climbed under the covers and then she put her phone on the nightstand.
She was expecting a call. And a few minutes later, her phone rang, so she smiled and answered it.
But almost as soon as she had put the phone to her ear, she stopped talking because she thought she heard something moving around outside of her door.
Susan tossed the phone down on the bed next to her and strained her ears to listen.
And as she did, a terrified look came across her face.
She could hear John screaming from the bedroom down the hall, but before she could get up to see what was going on, her door flung open.
And when Susan looked up, she screamed and pulled the covers tight.
At 10.30 p.m., so just minutes after the door to Susan's bedroom had swung open, John crawled across the floor in the main bedroom.
He could feel warm blood running down his face from both of his eyes, and he couldn't see anything.
Pain ripped through his face, his arms, his hands, but somehow John managed to grab the bedside table and he pulled himself up to his knees.
He ran his hands along the table and felt his phone.
He grabbed it, flipped it open, ran his fingers over the numbers on the keypad, and dialed 911.
When the emergency operator picked up, John yelled out that he'd been shot, and then he shouted his address and said he did not know if his wife was okay.
Then, with the phone still in his hand, John crawled across the floor to the bedroom door.
He grabbed the doorknob and got to his feet.
The pain at this point was agonizing, but John stumbled out into the hall and he staggered towards the front of the house, feeling his way along the wall the whole time.
The 911 operator said police and paramedics were on the way, but John could barely understand what they were saying.
His ears were ringing, his breath was labored, and he felt himself starting to lose consciousness.
Minutes later, John made his way to the front door, still unable to see anything, but he reached out and grabbed the doorknob and used whatever strength he had left to throw the door open.
Outside, he could hear sirens wailing in the distance as cars and trucks sped towards his house.
A minute later, an ambulance pulled up out front and a Miami-Dade County paramedic leapt out and ran towards the house.
The young man couldn't believe what he was seeing.
John had multiple open wounds and was losing massive amounts of blood.
The paramedic had no idea how John had been able to get to his feet and make it outside considering his wounds.
But either way, the paramedic rushed over to John and told him he was here to help, at which point John felt for the EMT and just collapsed into his arms.
A few minutes later, a SWAT truck roared down the street in the affluent Coral Gables neighborhood.
John and Susan's neighbors had already stepped outside of their houses when the ambulance arrived, and they had watched as John was loaded into the ambulance on a stretcher before it sped down the street.
Now, most of the neighbors stood there in total shock.
SWAT vehicles were not something they were used to seeing.
The SWAT truck came to a stop outside of John and Susan's house, and several members of the Miami Police Department SWAT team stepped out.
They crouched down low with their weapons in hand and all their tactical gear on, and they slowly approached the front door.
When the 911 call had come in, it wasn't clear if there was still a perpetrator on the premises, so police were just not taking any chances, hence the SWAT team. one of the SWAT officers approached the front door and fired a concussion grenade into the house.
A concussion grenade creates a really loud bang and bright light, and it can release low density fragments to temporarily incapacitate anyone who was within the explosion area.
After the concussion grenade had exploded, several SWAT officers immediately entered the house and began doing a sweep of all the rooms.
Two officers walked down the hallway towards the guest bedroom.
The door was open and they entered with their weapons drawn.
But when they stepped inside that room, all they saw were sheets and a comforter piled up on the bed.
One of the officers stepped closer and saw multiple bullet holes in that comforter, and he also saw bloodstains on the wall behind the headboard.
The officer leaned over and pulled back the comforter and sheets, and when he did, he kind of hung his head down in respect.
Under all those covers and sheets was Susan Sutton, and she was dead.
She had been shot multiple times at close range.
It was a horrific scene, but it was not just the violence that got to these SWAT officers that found her.
Based on the position of Susan's hands and how the sheets and comforter had appeared on the bed, the officers could tell that in her sheer panic and fear, Susan had attempted to hide under the covers like a child to protect herself from her killer.
And the thought of that just seemed absolutely tragic.
The SWAT officers completed their sweep of the house, and at the end of it, they were certain the killer was no longer on the premises.
So the SWAT team headed outside to wait for detectives from the Miami-Dade County Police to show up.
But as the SWAT officers crossed the front yard, they heard a car come to a screeching halt not far from the house.
And then they saw that car's door fly open, and a man jumped out and began running towards them with a gun in his hand.
The SWAT officers jumped into action and shouted at the man to put his weapon down, and this man quickly obeyed, holstering his weapon and raising his hands up into the air.
And as soon as he did, one of the SWAT officers rushed over to confront him, to figure out why he was here and why he was brandishing a weapon.
The man said he was just there to help because he knew there had to have been a shooter in the house.
The man introduced himself as Teddy Montoto, John's partner at the law firm.
The officer said he didn't care who he was.
He just wanted an explanation of how Teddy could possibly know there had been a shooter inside of the house because the police had not made any announcements of any kind about what was going on at this property.
Teddy looked at the SWAT officer and said he knew there was a shooter inside the house because he'd literally heard gunshots when he was on the phone with Susan Sutton.
Later that night, detectives Larry Bellew and Art Nanny of the Miami-Dade County Police stood in the Sutton guest room, staring down at Susan's body.
Both detectives were big guys with broad shoulders and barrel chests, and they both looked like they could handle themselves in a fight if they ever had to.
Like the SWAT officers who had discovered Susan, it hit these detectives hard that Susan had desperately tried to save herself by hiding under the covers before she was killed.
They couldn't imagine how scared she must have been in that final moment, and it made them both just so angry at whoever had done this.
When the detectives had first arrived at the scene, they wondered if maybe John had murdered his wife and then failed to kill himself in an attempted murder-suicide.
But the detectives had contacted paramedics and doctors at the hospital that John had been taken to, and medical personnel made it clear that John had multiple defensive wounds on his hands and forearms, so they were certain somebody else had shot him.
Doctors also told detectives Bellew and Nanny that John had been placed in a medically induced coma because he had been shot in the head.
A medically induced coma could help protect John from suffering brain damage if he even lived.
So Bellew and Nanny knew that they could not talk to John to try to learn what had happened inside the house that night.
Forensics officers and ballistics experts in the room told the two detectives that they had found enough evidence to determine that Susan had been killed by being shot at close range with a handgun.
So as the forensics team continued to work, Bellew and Nanny thought they might already have their primary suspect, John's partner, Teddy, who had arrived out of nowhere waving a handgun around.
So the detectives walked out to the street in front of the house where they had instructed Teddy to stay with several local police officers.
Detective Bellew was all business when he approached Teddy.
He'd already learned that Teddy was a very successful lawyer, so he was pretty sure Teddy would know how all of this worked.
Bellew said they wanted to bring Teddy to the station for questioning, and they wanted to test his hands for gunpowder residue before they left.
Teddy said he understood, and he told the detectives that they would most likely find gunpowder residue on his hands because he'd actually been at the shooting range earlier that day.
Bellew and Nanny thought that it was possible that that could be true, but they also figured that being a successful attorney, Teddy would also know a trick or two to try to cover up his tracks.
But the detectives believed that even the smartest criminals always missed something.
So they were sure if Teddy really had killed Susan and then attempted to kill John, they would find out soon enough.
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Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time... My show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now. or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.
In the early morning of August 23rd, a few hours after Susan's murder, her son Christopher was sitting outside the hospital room where his father was in a medically induced coma.
And as Christopher sat there, he was listening to his little sister Melissa cry on the phone.
Christopher and his fiance had left the party at Susan and John's the night before and gone to a late movie.
And when he got out of that movie, Christopher saw that he had a bunch of missed calls from Teddy, friends, and family.
And not long after that, he had learned what happened to his parents.
Christopher had at least been with his fiance when he got the news about his parents.
But he felt absolutely terrible that his younger sister was alone in her college dorm room in a place where she really still didn't know that many people.
Christopher had always been very protective of Melissa when they were growing up.
And even when he'd left the country to go to a boarding school overseas, he'd missed his sister more than anybody else.
Outside the hospital room, Christopher listened to Melissa continue to cry on the phone and as she did, he wished he could do more to comfort her.
But Christopher told Melissa that he was still trying to figure out what had even happened and what was going on now.
And he said he was really worried that whoever had killed their mom might actually show up at the hospital to try to finish the job on their dad.
This sent Melissa into a complete panic and she began saying she needed to come home right away, but she didn't have her car at school.
Melissa said she knew Christopher needed to stay with their dad, so she would call Teddy, the man she referred to as her godfather, to come pick her up.
Christopher thought this was a good idea, and he promised Melissa he would make sure nothing happened to their dad while he was there.
They said they loved each other and then hung up.
Then Christopher went back inside the hospital room to be by his father's side, while Melissa quietly packed a bag in her dorm room and tried to get a hold of Teddy.
Melissa's initial calls to Teddy went unanswered because at that time, he was sitting inside of an interrogation room across from detectives Bellew and Nanny.
The room they were in was barely bigger than a closet.
It seemed designed to make people uncomfortable, but Teddy was actually unaffected by it.
This was a guy who made a lot of money questioning and cross-examining people in court.
He knew the law inside and out, and he almost always felt like he was two or three steps ahead of anybody he was talking to.
But Teddy also respected law enforcement.
He had relied on them throughout his legal career, so he did his best to be polite and attentive as the detectives questioned him.
Bellew started by asking Teddy again why he had shown up at the Sutton house carrying a gun.
Teddy said he had been talking to Susan on the phone about work when he heard, on her end of the phone, gunshots.
He said Susan and John were like his family, so all he could think to do was just rush to help them if he could.
The detectives nodded as Teddy talked, but they still were not sold on his version of events.
They thought it was possible that Teddy could have attacked Susan and John and then rushed out of their house and then magically returned to the scene soon after trying to play the hero so police wouldn't suspect him.
At some point, Bellew asked Teddy about his business relationship with John.
He wanted to know if there were any financial issues between the two men.
Also, Detective Bellew knew they were dealing with victims here who were multimillionaires, so a dispute about money had to at least be considered as a potential motive.
But Teddy didn't miss a beat. He said he owed his entire career to John, and they both helped each other make a ton of money, so there were no financial issues at all between them.
Detective Bellew just sat there and stared at Teddy.
He had nothing against Teddy, and he wasn't ready to just declare Teddy guilty or anything, but it was clear that Teddy thought he was in total control of this interrogation, so Bellew wanted to take advantage of what seemed like Teddy's arrogance.
Bellew asked Teddy if he would take a polygraph test, which would make it easier for police to cross him off their list, and Teddy agreed.
So Bellew and Nanny stepped out of the room and they began talking about how the interrogation was going as they went to go arrange for this polygraph test.
Both detectives thought Teddy was the kind of guy who would believe he could beat a polygraph even if he was lying.
But they were pretty sure if Teddy was lying, the test would catch him.
Later that morning, Teddy Woods sat for his polygraph test.
And afterwards, as detectives Bellew and Nanny went over the test results with the examiner, they were taken aback.
It appeared that Teddy had told the truth on almost all of the questions he had been asked.
But there were a series of questions that Teddy had almost definitely lied about when he had given his answer.
And all of those questions had to do with Susan.
Bellew didn't waste any time. He approached Teddy in the interrogation room.
He leaned in close and said they knew Teddy had just lied on that polygraph test.
And for the first time, Teddy's entire attitude changed.
The confidence and bravado disappeared and he slumped forward in his chair.
Then he looked up at Bellew with a pained expression on his face.
And in a quiet voice, he said he had betrayed his best friend.
He said that he and Susan had actually recently begun sleeping together.
Bellew immediately turned to Nanny. They didn't have to say anything to each other because they both knew a love triangle could be an even stronger motive for murder than money.
There was a chance that Teddy, John, and Susan had gotten into a fight that got completely out of control and that's how people got shot.
Or maybe Teddy had flown into a jealous rage and just decided to kill both of them.
At this point, Teddy knew the detectives were highly suspicious of him.
And so he said point blank that he had nothing to do with the attack on Susan and John.
He might have been a bad friend, but he loved them and their kids dearly.
And later that day, police would release Teddy because they didn't have enough evidence to hold him at the time.
However, they made it very clear to him that he should not leave town.
Teddy said he understood, and he said despite what they think, he still wanted to help the investigation.
Once Teddy was gone, Bellew and Nanny shifted their focus to the murder weapon.
Susan had been killed with a handgun, and if it matched Teddy's gun, they would know they had their killer.
They just had to find that gun. But over the next couple of days, as forensics officers updated the detectives, they discovered that Susan had been killed with a Glock 9mm pistol, and at that point, they could not connect that weapon to Teddy.
Still, detectives Bellew and Nanny felt if they kept digging, there was a good chance they'd be able to place Teddy at the scene of the crime with that weapon in question.
So they were still confident they had a strong suspect in the case.
In early September of 2004, so a couple of weeks after the murder, John suddenly sat up in his hospital bed trembling.
He had recently come out of his medically induced coma and doctors had told him that one of his eyes had been removed and in his other eye, the optic nerve had been severed, which meant he was blind.
Now, John had accepted that he would be blind for the rest of his life and so he couldn't understand right now why he was seeing someone dressed in all black lurking in the corner of his hospital room.
The person in black began to move forward.
At which point, John began to thrash around in his bed and he screamed as loud as he could, but the person in black was unaffected.
They just kept moving closer and closer to John's bed.
And then when they were right next to John, the person in black raised a gun and aimed it right at John.
John screamed over and over again and he tried to force himself out of his bed, but he just couldn't do it.
And then John felt someone grab him and he screamed and shook even more.
But then John heard several people yelling his name and trying to get him to calm down.
And he realized the person holding him was one of his nurses and that she and several other members of the hospital staff were telling him that he was okay and that nobody had been in the room with him.
He was all alone. After several minutes, John did calm down, but he was convinced that Susan's killer had been in the room with him and that they had come back to finish the job and kill him.
So John demanded to speak to the police.
Later that day, detectives Bellew and Nanny headed to the hospital to meet with John.
Neither of them believed the killer had actually been in John's room.
They had spoken to John's doctors, so they knew the medically induced coma, the medication John was still on, and the recent loss of his sight could all lead to hallucinations.
But the detectives also thought John might be starting to remember who had attacked him.
So when they met with him in the hospital, they didn't write off what he was saying about the attacker coming into his room.
Instead, they asked him questions about what this person in black looked like.
You know, is there any sort of description you can give?
Because they were thinking that maybe what he was really remembering was actually the real attacker.
And the detectives were thinking the real attacker was very likely his law partner, Teddy.
And so trying to get some sort of description from John that sounded like Teddy seemed like movement in the right direction for the investigation.
However, John would say he really didn't have a good description of this person in black and he just couldn't recall who the attacker was who killed his wife and tried to kill him.
But John would say he knew it was not Teddy.
Teddy was not their attacker. John would say from what he could recall of the night of the attack that Teddy just seemed shorter than the attacker and also the attacker seemed to move a lot faster than Teddy could.
After telling the detectives the little he thought he remembered about the person in black slash the attacker, John demanded to be let out of the hospital.
He said it was no longer safe for him to be there, that this attacker was going to come back and kill him.
Doctors, nurses, and the detectives tried to reassure John that he was safe at the hospital and that he still needed more time in the hospital to recover. but John wouldn't hear it.
And even his kids, Christopher and Melissa, who by this point had made it home, could not convince their father to stay in the hospital when they got there.
So, against doctor's advice, John checked himself out of the hospital and went to stay with Christopher and his fiancée in their new townhouse.
And almost immediately after moving in, John would tell his daughter, Melissa, to just go back to school and John would begin to talk about how he needed to get back to work.
John said his wife would not want the family to put their lives on hold just because she was gone.
Leaving the hospital that day, detectives Bellew and Nanny had been a little shocked by what they had seen.
But after what John had experienced, they understood he would be in fear for his life until they found Susan's killer and put them away.
And even though John said he was sure Teddy was not the person who had attacked him and his wife, the detectives still considered Teddy their main suspect.
They just altered their theory about what could have happened a bit.
They thought Teddy might have hired someone to do his dirty work for him and that Teddy had been on the phone with Susan at the time of the murder just to make sure whoever he had hired had done their job.
But even with the information on Teddy and Susan's affair, Teddy's failed polygraph test, and cell phone records that proved Teddy had been on the phone with Susan when she was killed, police still didn't have enough on Teddy for a murder case to hold up in court.
So they spent the next several weeks looking for the Glock 9mm that had been used to murder Susan and searching for this mysterious person in all black that John had claimed was in the hospital room with him.
But Bellew and Nanny still knew there was a chance this person in black could have simply been a figment of John's imagination.
But the search for this person and the search for the gun were very slow, and so as 2004 rolled into 2005, the detectives felt like they were running out of time, and that every day the killer walked free put John and his family in more danger.
On March 16, 2005, almost seven months after Susan's murder, Detectives Bellew and Nanny raced towards a small town less than an hour away from Coral Gables.
They had gotten a call from local police who had just busted a petty drug dealer on a marijuana charge, and it turned out the dealer had a criminal record, including a recent charge for threatening two people with a Glock 9mm pistol.
When Bellew and Nanny had gotten the call, they did a quick background check on the drug dealer and they became convinced the drug dealer was connected to Susan's murder in some way.
Bellew and Nanny arrived at the local police station and an officer led them to a small interrogation room where this drug dealer was waiting for them.
And after only a few minutes and with almost no push from the cops, this drug dealer made it very clear to them who they thought killed Susan Sutton.
Based on the meeting with that drug dealer, evidence found at the scene of the crime, and interviews conducted during the investigation, here is a reconstruction of how police believe someone murdered Susan Sutton on August 22, 2004.
On that August day, at around 10 p.m., the killer walked through the shadows down the street towards Susan and John's house.
They wore black jeans, a black long-sleeve shirt, black boots, and had a black knit mask pulled down over their face.
They also had a Glock 9mm pistol clutched in their hand.
The killer glanced at the large houses that line the street and imagined all of the stuff inside of them that must be worth stealing.
But the killer had a mission to accomplish, so they turned their eyes back to Susan and John's house.
A few minutes later, the killer crouched down as low as they could and ran to the side of Susan and John's house.
There was a sliding glass door there that they knew did not lock properly.
So they grabbed the door handle, leaned into the glass with their shoulder, which was all it took, and they slid the door open.
The killer stepped into the dark home. They could hear a TV coming from the bedroom at the end of a long hallway.
So they ran down the hall, passing another bedroom on the way.
They got to the main bedroom at the end of the hall and they threw open the door.
And when they did, they saw John who looked up from the bed with a look of sheer horror on his face.
The killer took a few steps into the room, which was only lit by the flashing of the TV screen.
The killer then raised their gun and fired.
John screamed, tumbled from the bed, and fell to the floor.
The killer immediately turned around and rushed out of the room and back down the hall.
They came to the guest room, they threw that door open, and they saw Susan on the bed.
Susan screamed and pulled the covers over her head, but the killer just walked towards her, raised their gun, and fired six shots directly into Susan.
Bullets ripped through the comforter and sheets and struck Susan in the hands and also in her head, and she would die right there in her bed, her body slumped below the pile of covers on top of her.
After that, the killer casually left the room and started walking back towards the sliding glass door that they'd used to enter the house.
But when they got there, they heard a noise coming from the main bedroom.
The killer immediately froze and then reflexively checked their gun to make sure they still had ammo.
They'd lost count of how many times they'd fired their gun, but when they checked, they saw they were still all set, they had enough rounds.
So the killer took a breath, they turned around and marched right back down the hall.
They walked back into the main bedroom and they saw John trying to pull himself across the floor.
The killer hesitated. The sight of John in agony somehow seemed far worse than a dead victim covered by bloody sheets.
But the killer shook that off, and they raised their gun.
John looked up, shouted something at the killer, and held his hands in front of his face to try to protect himself.
The killer fired, and John immediately felt a bullet rip through the tip of one of his fingers and strike him in the face.
Then another bullet tore through John's arm and struck him in the left temple.
John collapsed on the floor in a pool of blood, and the killer assumed he was dead.
The killer at this point rushed out of the bedroom, ran down the hall, and out the sliding glass door they had come in.
The street was still quiet, but the killer was worried somebody might have heard the attack in the house.
So they put their head down, started running, and weaved their way around the streetlights until they got to their car that was parked a few blocks away.
The killer got into the car and drove off.
And after they had gotten far enough away from John and Susan's neighborhood, they took off their mask and threw it onto the passenger seat.
Then they grabbed their phone out of their pocket and made a quick phone call.
But when it went to voicemail, the killer did not leave a message.
They knew the person they were calling would call back as soon as the movie they were watching was over.
Police had been right in their belief that the person who had killed Susan and tried to kill John had been hired to carry out the murder by someone else.
But it was not Teddy, John's law firm partner who was having an affair with John's wife, Susan, who had hired the killer.
It was Susan and John's adopted son, Christopher.
It turned out that the boarding school Christopher had been sent to as a teenager wasn't some sort of upscale school for rich kids.
It was a school located in Samoa that employed corporal punishment and hard labor to try to alter the behavior of children whose parents basically believed their kids needed some form of severe discipline.
And when Christopher was a teenager, his parents, Susan and John, had started to believe that he was turning into this violent young man who they couldn't get under control.
Christopher had physically threatened Susan and had even written down notes about how he could murder his parents to get their money.
And so after local boarding schools had failed to change Christopher's behavior, Susan and John made a drastic decision.
In the middle of the night when Christopher was 16 years old, he had been taken from the home against his will, driven to the airport, and then shipped off to Samoa.
And Christopher had never forgiven his parents for that.
And so after Christopher had finally gotten out of that Samoa school and returned to Florida at the age of 19, he bided his time and started planning his parents' murder.
Christopher had spent some time selling drugs right when he got back from Samoa, and not long before the murder, he had reconnected with a friend who had been a fellow dealer and who didn't have the same financial opportunities that Christopher had.
Christopher knew that if his parents were dead, he and his sister would inherit millions of dollars, and so he promised this drug dealer friend that he would give him $100,000 if he carried out the murders.
The drug dealer agreed to do it, and over time, Christopher helped him get a complete layout of Susan and John's home, including the sliding glass door that never locked the right way.
Christopher also let the dealer know that his parents often slept in separate bedrooms.
Then when Christopher got word about the party to celebrate his mother's birthday and his father's successful legal case, he knew the time was right.
Plenty of people would be at the house that night, so he thought that might mislead police into going down the wrong path.
Then he would make sure he and his fiance were seen at the party before they left and went to a late movie that would give Christopher an alibi for the time of the murders.
But detectives Bellew and Nanny had always thought that even the smartest criminals usually overlooked something.
And they weren't sure if Christopher and his friend were all that smart.
Because when Christopher's drug-dealing friend slash hitman got busted on the drug charge, police discovered that he had called Christopher multiple times every day for months, starting just minutes after Susan's murder.
And when they presented this call log evidence to the drug dealer, he quickly caved and confessed to the murder and immediately implicated Christopher as the guy who told him to do it.
Then Christopher's fiance admitted to police that Christopher had been talking to her about wanting to murder his parents since right after they met.
She just never thought he would go through with it.
And so police had more than enough evidence to arrest Christopher and bring the case to court.
The drug dealer who actually pulled the trigger and literally killed Susan cut a plea deal and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
As for Christopher, who actually was the mastermind behind all of this, he was convicted of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to three life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.
As of 2023, Christopher's father and would-be murder victim John Sutton continues to give money to experimental research programs that have the goal of giving people who have gone blind the chance to see again.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
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