Komisarjevsky & Hayes sentenced to DEATH for the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit & daughters Hayley, 17, & Michaela, 11 /8.3.13 Dr. Petit & new wife expecting baby

This horrific murder of 3 innocent women happened in 2007.  This was an outstanding family, a prominent physician, his two daughters & his wife were victims of a HOME INVASION.  Dr. Petit was beaten & tied up & unable to help his family, his daughters were tied to their beds, & their mom was strangled although not until it killed her.  Then, the defendents hung around the house for a couple of hours & decided to catch the house on fire.  All three women died of smoke inhalation.

I remember following this crime every single day & was elated when the two men who committed this crime were apprehended.  LE was claiming the family could get closure, after all, LE had done their jobs, apprehended the suspects, charged them, & a trial date had been set.  I can understand why LE always says CLOSURE, because, it is CLOSURE for them.  It is NOT closure for what is left of Dr. Petit's family, he is looking at a trial that will hopeully start in January, he will have to listen to all the horrible things that were done to his wife & two daughters, he will see crime scene photos, he will testify, he will relive the most horrible day in his life.  THEN, IF the men are convicted & given the death penalty, he will go through appeals over & over.  After all, in DP cases, there are automatic appeals.  I just can't imagine his pain.

I guess when we read about these horrific cases, we dwell on them for a couple of days, then move on to the NEXT horrific murder case or abduction.  When I saw Dr. Petit's picture this evening, I felt so ashamed at not realizing the unbearable grief & loss he has suffered these past couple of years & has this trial to look forward to, it is all we can do to SEEK JUSTICE for murdered loved ones.

The defendents wanted to ask for a PLEA of LIFE in Prison but it was turned down by Dr. Petit.  In doing so, this will add yrs. of more trials & appeals, after all, they are entitled to a FAIR Trial & appeals if given the death penalty.  

In the article, it states statistics, how abusive it is for families hurting & grieving, unable to move forward because of the years DP defendents are given,once convicted, to appeal.  In this case, Dr. Petit is willing to go the distance for "his girls."  IMO, it is the right choice, but certainly NOT the easiest.

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“

It's hard on the family, very hard,” Bricker said. “Your life is on hold because you never know when another trial is coming up, another appeal is coming up.”

I am a firm believer in letting the victims family decide because it is a hard choice they have to live with forever. Thanks Artnut for posting this.

lindamarie,

so much for posting a picture of this beautiful family.

I agree with you, the choice of letting the victims family DECIDE the fate of the murderers because it is a hard choice. Thanks.

Steven Hayes, who apparently tried to kill himself Sunday with a drug overdose, was taken to the hospital after prison guards found him unconscious.

Jury selection in Hayes' trial at Superior Court in New Haven on charges that he killed a mother and two daughters during a home invasion in Cheshire in 2007 will be suspended today, and the delay is likely to last far longer.

Hayes was taken to the UConn Health Center in Farmington from the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield. Hospital officials declined to release any details of his condition.

Sources familiar with the case said that Hayes apparently overdosed on medication that he receives daily, but did not say what kind of pills he takes. Sources said that he had faked taking his medicine for at least a few days in an apparent suicide attempt, similar to one by former death row inmate Michael Ross several years ago.

Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky have been charged with triple murder for the slayings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. The three were killed, police say, when Hayes and Komisarjevsky broke into their Cheshire home in July 2007, tied them up and set the house on fire to obscure the evidence.

Jennifer's husband and the girls' father, William Petit Jr., was beaten with a baseball bat and left tied up in the basement. He escaped the fire.

Jury selection began Jan. 19, and four jurors have been chosen. Jurors are not expected to begin hearing evidence in the trial until September.

Hayes faces the death penalty if convicted.

Petit's father, William Petit Sr., said it was frustrating not knowing more about the incident.

"We'll just have to wait until [today] to find out more, just like everybody else," Petit Sr. said.

State prisons are under state police jurisdiction, and state police detectives are investigating the incident.

Department of Correction sources said that Sunday was not the first time that Hayes had attempted to overdose on drugs. Sources said that he had made a similar attempt last year and was transferred to the Garner Correctional Institute in Newtown, which is Connecticut's only prison with psychiatric facilities. Hayes was on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week suicide watch after he was arrested, and Department of Correction officials drew criticism for having an officer sit outside his cell around the clock.

Both Hayes and Komisarjevsky have been kept isolated from other prisoners. Komisarjevsky has had several visitors, including a writer who published a book detailing Komisarjevsky's version of what happened inside the Petit home. Hayes has been virtually alone, except for visits from his lawyers.

Komisarjevsky, in the book and in a detailed police statement, has blamed Hayes for the murders of the Petit women. Sources said that Komisarjevsky told police he was upstairs in Michaela's room when he heard a struggle downstairs. Komisarjevsky said that when he looked downstairs, he saw Hayes raping and strangling Jennifer Hawke-Petit.

Komisarjevsky said that Hayes then turned to him and said there could be no witnesses and started spreading gasoline through the house. It is not clear who lit the blaze as the two men ran out of the house.

They were arrested trying to escape. The two girls died of smoke inhalation.

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On Tuesday morning, Steven Hayes, less than a week removed from offering to plead guilty to the charges against him, withdrew his request by stating in court that he would stay with his original not guilty plea.
A hearing was scheduled for Tuesday morning to discuss Hayes' request to plead guilty, but it became evident that he had changed his mind. Superior Court Judge Jon Blue asked if that were true, and Hayes responded yes when asked if he would plead not guilty. Blue ruled that jury selection would resume later in the day.
Last week, Hayes had offered to plead guilty to the charges against him, however his lawyers opposed the request Monday afternoon. In the court filing, Thomas J. Ullmann and Patrick J. Culligan, the defense team for Hayes, objected to his stunning announcement that he wished to plead guilty. If accepted, Hayes would have skipped the trial portion and gone immediately to the penalty phase, where a three judge panel or a jury would have determined if he would receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole. According to his lawyers, Hayes has indicated a desire to die, as evidenced by his suicide attempt earlier this year and comments he made to a state psychiatrist.
"This would be a solemn and devastating decision for the counsel to make and of great potential harm to Steven Hayes," the lawyers wrote. "We, as his lawyers, are committed to protecting his rights and saving his life. Our obligations are no less."
If the court had accepted the guilty plea, Ullmann and Culligan said they would have withdrawn from the case. While not an ideal solution, they said they would have had no other option.
"We do not think that we can partake in such a stained and sordid process that greases the wheels of the machinery of death for such a diminished, tortured, and suffering human being," they wrote. "When the dignity and respect of the proceedings are controlled by the defendant operating under such obvious diminished mental capacity, given the totality of circumstances, we fear that we may have no other choice."
Hayes, who is scheduled to stand trial for his alleged part in the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley and Michaela, in July of 2007, made the announcement in open court after a competency hearing on his ability to stand trial was waived. Hayes, who originally pleaded not guilty to the litany of charges against him, said it was his wish to plead guilty. However, Tuesday morning, in an about face, Hayes withdrew his request after listening to the advice of his attorneys. In their motion, the defense team argued that while Hayes is competent to stand trial, "he is not decisionally competent to rationally change his pleas from not guilty to guilty."
Both Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky have reportedly offered to plead guilty to the charges against them, if it spared them the death penalty. Those offers were allegedly rejected by the prosecution. Since it is a capital felony case, if the men are found guilty of the charges against them, the only possibilities are life in prison without parole or the death penalty. States Attorney Michael Dearington has repeatedly declined to comment on the case.
Now, Hayes' defense team and state prosecutors will continue the process of selecting a jury for trial, scheduled to begin in September. So far, six jurors have been selected out of the 20 needed.
The jury selection process was halted several times since beginning in January, after Hayes reportedly tried to kill himself by overdosing on medication, which he had stored and hidden away from prison officials for some time. His treatment after the failed suicide attempt also came under scrutiny from his defense team, who called the conditions at the prison infirmary “horrendous.”
Dr. William Petit, who was badly beaten but survived the July 23, 2007 home invasion, issued a statement last week when Hayes announced his intention to plead guilty. Petit called it a moment of honesty.
"The past 32 months of the torturous legal journey since Jennifer, Hayley and Michaela were murdered and I was badly beaten in our own home by two people finally had an honest moment today, but at this moment it is merely another turn in the road," Petit said in a statement after Hayes' apparent decision to plead guilty last week.

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Hayes' attorney's said:

"We do not think that we can partake in such a stained and sordid process that greases the wheels of the machinery of death for such a diminished, tortured, and suffering human being,"

What about the victim's who suffered at the hand of this man? I wish this idiot had killed himself!

Dr. William Petit Jr. sat in the front row of the courtroom, the same space he has steadfastly occupied for many mornings and afternoons during the long and tedious process of selecting a jury to determine whether Steven J. Hayes is guilty in the slayings of Petit’s wife and two daughters.

There was just one other spectator in Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue’s courtroom 4A Friday afternoon: Deborrah Glenn-Long, a friend of the Petit family, who sat behind Petit. Unlike earlier days of jury selection in January, only one reporter was present.

But Hayes was there, now clean-shaven, in the drab striped shirt and black pants he has worn throughout jury selection. Seated between his two attorneys, he appeared alert Friday afternoon, which has not always been the case.

Petit has seen hundreds of potential jurors come into the courtroom and hundreds depart without being chosen. But after months of exhaustive questioning by defense attorneys and prosecutors, and interruptions when Hayes tried to kill himself, had his mental competency debated, temporarily decided he wanted to plead guilty and declared he didn’t want to watch the jury selection process, it’s almost finished.

When court was adjourned Friday at 2:20 p.m. after all prospective jurors for the day had been dismissed because of time commitments, financial hardship or their inability to be impartial, the total remained at 18: 12 regular jurors had been chosen and six alternates. Two back-ups are needed.

The trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 13, when the tedious will be replaced by the traumatic. The trial could take as long as three months, especially if Hayes is found guilty; jurors would then have to decide whether he deserves the death penalty.

Hayes, who turned 47 Sunday, is charged with murder, first-degree sexual assault, risk of injury to a child, first-degree arson, first-degree kidnapping and other counts in the deaths of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 11-year-old Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley. They were killed during a home invasion in Cheshire July 23, 2007.

Petit was severely beaten with a baseball bat and tied up. He managed to get out of his house as it went up in flames.

A co-defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 29, faces similar charges. Jury selection for his trial is scheduled to begin in January. Petit presumably will attend those proceedings as well.

Asked Friday after adjournment why it’s important for him to attend virtually every day of jury selection, Petit replied, “I guess I’d like to know who the jury is. I’d like to know how they respond to the questioning.

“Since Jennifer, Hayley and Michaela can’t be here,” he added, “I feel I represent the family.”

“It’s something I want to do,” he said. “It’s something I need to do.”

Petit said he has missed only about four days of the jury selection proceedings, when he was out-of-state or had commitments to the Petit Family Foundation established in memory of his wife and girls and their charitable work.

Petit described the jury selection process as “tedious at times and exasperating. I think the questioning could be more limited in scope and time and still yield a fair jury.”

For example, he doesn’t think it’s necessary for potential jurors to be asked the occupations of their kids, parents and siblings.

Asked if he has watched prospective jurors dismissed whom he thought should have been chosen, Petit said, “I would say 25-30 excellent jurors have been excused.”

He said most of them were let go because of the 30 challenges used by New Haven Chief Public Defender Thomas Ullmann and co-counsel Patrick Culligan. State’s Attorney Michael Dearington and Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Gary Nicholson have used 29 challenges. Both sides are allowed 38 peremptory challenges.

Glenn-Long, who got to know the Petits through the Cheshire United Methodist Church, said she has missed just one day of jury selection. Asked if she will attend the trial, she said, “I plan to be here — as much as I can handle it.”

“Exactly,” said Petit softly.

Glenn-Long said she has been struck by the reluctance of potential jurors to describe the crimes. “They’ll say, ‘A couple of people broke into a house and did some bad things.’ It’s just hard for them to say what happened.”

“The most common description you hear,” she noted, “is ‘horrific.’”

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Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue Wednesday denied motions by attorneys for triple-homicide defendant Steven J. Hayes to seal their motion to suppress some of Hayes’ statements to police and to close the courtroom during a pretrial hearing.

The day after he heard legal arguments over the issue, Blue wrote, “The defendant has submitted no evidence even suggesting that the carefully-selected and thoroughly-instructed jury in this case will be unfaithful to its instructions or to its oath.”

Blue noted he had carefully instructed each of the 20 jurors to avoid all publicity about the case. Attorneys and prosecutors spent months finding 12 regular jurors, six alternates and two backups.

“Each selected juror is an intelligent and emotionally mature individual who fully understands the obligations of the juror’s oath to decide the case based on the evidence presented in court,” Blue wrote.

New Haven Chief Public Defender Thomas Ullmann warned that even the most cautious juror could easily glimpse a newspaper headline in an honor box. He said opening the courtroom to testimony about what Hayes reportedly told police when he was arrested would be an “unnecessary risk” and could force jurors who saw the next day’s headlines to be dismissed.

Blue responded in his ruling: “There is undoubtedly some risk that accidental exposure of this nature will occur. ... But the selected jurors in this case understand the instructions to avoid publicity” and to decide the case based solely on the evidence.

Jurors are scheduled to begin hearing evidence Sept. 13. Hayes, 47, of Winsted, is charged with capital murder in the deaths three years ago of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters in their Cheshire home. A second defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 29, of Cheshire, is due to go on trial next year.

The defense team’s effort to close the courtroom and seal the motion to suppress was challenged in the courtroom by William Fish Jr., an attorney for the Hartford Courant. Fish argued on behalf of “the public’s right to know” and the First Amendment.

At the hearing in question, scheduled to begin July 14, defense attorneys and prosecutors will argue over whether to suppress statements Hayes made to police that allegedly implicate him in the killings. Both defendants were apprehended near the Petit house the morning of the crimes.

In his ruling, Blue cited the Connecticut Practice Book, which says there is “a presumption that documents filed with the court shall be available to the public.”

Blue also quoted the Practice Book’s statement there is a corresponding “presumption that courtroom proceedings shall be open to the public.”

Blue noted the book says these presumptions may be overcome only if a judge concludes such an order is needed to preserve an interest which overrides the public’s interest in seeing the materials and being in the courtroom.

Ullmann had said the “overriding interest” here is Hayes’ right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. Blue addressed this by writing: “There has, however, been no showing that the sealing and closure sought here are necessary to protect the right in question.” He again noted his instructions to the jurors.

Blue said if he were to grant the closure motion, it “would turn the rule of law on its head.”

As for the sealing motion, Blue noted the document the defense attorneys want to seal is the motion to suppress, but the document does not include the content of Hayes’ alleged statements.

“The court has carefully examined this document and sees nothing in it that would imperil the defendant’s right to a fair trial by an impartial jury,” Blue wrote.

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July 23 marked the anniversary of one of the state's most horrific crimes. It has been three years since the Cheshire home invasion and over those years, a lot has happened and changed.
In Plainville, where Dr. William Petit, the lone survivor of the home invasion, lives, Friday began with a church service. Petit attended with family and members of the public by his side.
The Cheshire home invasion gripped the nation three years ago. For residents in Cheshire, the grip may have been too tight, leaving permanent damage.
The world would first see the photograph of the Petit family in the hours after one of the state's most horrific crimes. Police said Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky broke into the Petit home torturing the three Petit women after nearly killing Dr. William Petit. Police said the pair killed Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Michaela and Hayley and set the home on fire.
Dr. William Petit made it out of the home and now uses the tragedy to promote change.
Within a year of the crime, Connecticut had toughened laws against home invasion, now making it a felony, and improving how the judicial system handles prisoners out on parole.
Both men were on parole at the time of the home invasion.
Dr. Petit and his family now run a foundation that works to further his families memory and goals, like helping people with multiple scloriosis.
The Petit home in Cheshire has been taken down and is now a memorial park for people to go and reflect on the family.
Jury selection for Hayes recently wrapped up and his trial is expected to begin in September. Komisarjevsky's trial is not expected to begin for at least one year.

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Dr. William Petit took the stand on Tuesday, the second day of the capital murder trial of Steven Hayes, who is accused of masterminding the 2007 home invasion that ended with Dr. Petit's wife and two young daughters brutally murdered.

Hayes and another man, Joshua Komisarjevsky, are charged with murder, sexual assault and other crimes in the killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, at their Cheshire home. Both defendants face the possibility of the death penalty if convicted. Komisarjevsky is awaiting trial.

Dr. Petit told jurors that he woke early Monday morning in July 2007 to pain and felt something warm running down the side of his face; he soon realized it was blood from being beaten with a baseball bat, according to CBS affiliate WFSB.

He told jurors how the night before he and his wife and their two daughters had enjoyed a normal Sunday evening, eating a family dinner and hanging out together before Dr. Petit says he fell asleep on the couch reading, the station reports.

He then told jurors about being tied up and taken to the basement of the house, fearing the worst was happening to his wife and children. Dr. Petit said a piece of cloth he would later learn was a blanket that belonged to his youngest daughter was placed over his head. One of the men asked him at one point where the safe was, telling him "If you give us what we want, we won't hurt you," according to WFSB.

That would apparently turn out to be a lie.

Dr. Petit described his attempts to free his hands while he heard commotion upstairs and a male voice telling his wife to get dressed and grab the checkbook so they could withdraw money from their bank. He also recalled hearing his wife call his office to tell them he was feeling ill and would not be in that day.

Dr. Petit said he heard some sort of moan from upstairs and when he yelled upstairs he says he was answered by a sinister voice he had not heard before that morning. It told him "Don't worry, it's going to be over in a few minutes."

According to Dr. Petit's testimony, the tone of the voice provided him with the adrenaline boost he needed to finally break the ties around his hands and escape the house. He described trying to jump, crawl and finally roll to his neighbor's house for help, the station reported.

Unfortunately, Petit's actions did not save his family.

The state showed jurors photos of Petit's injuries, including a gash on his forehead and several gashes to the back of his head. Jurors were also showed photos of the Cheshire home's basement area, which show a massive amount of blood around the pole Petit was tied to. Also presented were photos of the pressure marks on Petit's legs from the ties, according to WFSB.

After the attacks, the state testified that Petit needed a blood transfusion after losing 6 to 7 pints of blood.

"They threw me on a gurney and I was gone," he said. Petit said he was immediately taken to a hospital, not knowing the fate of his wife and daughters.

The next time he left the hospital, four days later, was to attend the funerals of his wife and daughters.

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Steven Hayes (Left) and Joshua Komisarjevsky

Medical examiners testified Thursday about autopsy results of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters at the trial of a man in Connecticut's home-invasion murders.

The elder daughter, Hayley, 17, tried escaping after their attackers set their Cheshire home on fire.

She was found face down in an upstairs hallway. Her clothes and the ropes tying her ankles burned. Her cause of death was smoke inhalation, but the medical examiner testified she was severely burned while still alive.

Her little sister, Michaela,11, was also burned alive, according to the doctor.

The sole survivor of the home invasion was Dr. William Petit, the children's father. He left the courtroom during the testimony.

Dr. Susan Williams, an associate medical examiner, testified that Hawke-Petit's body was "burned beyond recognition" and "was not alive during the fire." The doctor said she had been strangled.

Steven Hayes is on trial for the killings and faces the death penalty along with alleged accomplice Joshua Komisarjevsky. Hayes is also accused of raping Jennifer Hawke-Petit.

A state police investigator described cell phone text messages he found between the two men the night before the July 2007 home invasion and killings.

The investigator said Hayes texted the other man, saying he was "chomping at the bit to get started."

Meanwhile, Komisarjevsky replied, saying he was "putting kid to bed," according to the investigator. Komisarjevsky has a daughter who was 5 at the time.

The investigator also said Komisarjevsky took cell phone photos at the time of the home invasion, showing a young girl on a bed with a cloth over her face. The child was tied up.

Komisarjevsky is accused of raping Michaela. His trial will follow this one.

Prosecutors have called more than 20 witnesses to the stand. The judge indicated prosecutors may wrap up their case by early next week.

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A lawyer denied his client was responsible for rape yesterday in an extraordinary attempt to offer some ‘small solace’ to the devastated family of the Connecticut home invasion victims.
Defence attorney Jeremiah Donovan insisted that 29-year-old accused murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky did not rape eleven-year-old Michaela Petit during the horrendous attack.
But his claim flies in the face of forensic evidence presented to the murder trial in New Haven, Connecticut.
The gesture was also in direct contravention of a court-imposed gag order in the case.
It came at the end of a torrid week of evidence at the trial of 47-year-old Steven Hayes, who was Komisarjevsky’s alleged accomplice in the 2007 home raid.
Dr William Petit, the only survivor, heard how his wife and youngest daughter were brutally raped and then left to die after their house was set ablaze by the two intruders.
The pair were caught as they tried to flee the burning home. Although Dr Petit was badly beaten with a baseball bat he had managed to escape to sound the alarm.
Inside, Dr Petit’s wife, Jennifer, had been raped and strangled. The couple’s two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, had been tied to their beds, doused with petrol and burned alive.
Before the killings, the men had forced Mrs Hawke-Petit to withdraw $15,000 from her bank account with a promise that they would free the family if she cooperated.


'Comfort': A June, 2007 photo showing Dr William Petit, daughter Michaela, front, Hayley, centre rear, and his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit. Dr Petit was the only one of the four to survive the attack

The defence lawyer spoke during a lunchtime break in the trial.
‘I did not want the family to be under the mis-impression that Michaela was…raped on the morning when she died,' he said.
‘We are deeply sympathetic of the sadness of the Petit family and we expect this is just a very small solace,’ he added.

The statement contradicts forensic evidence presented to the jury by Dr Wayne Carver, Connecticut’s chief medical examiner, who testified that semen samples matching Komisarjevsky’s DNA were taken from the child.
The Petit family had no comment on the lawyer’s claims.
Komisarjevsky’s trial is due to start after the jury reach a verdict on his alleged partner.



Horrific: The charred bedroom of Hayley Petit, one of the victims killed during the 2007 home invasion

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I cannot read this it is so heinous!

Prosecutors and defense attorneys rested their cases Tuesday in the Cheshire triple-homicide trial of Steven J. Hayes, following testimony by a corrections officer that he overheard Hayes describing how he killed Jennifer Hawke-Petit.

The officer also recounted Hayes speculating that Dr. William Petit Jr., the lone survivor of the home invasion, might have conspired with Hayes’ co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky in the Petit family members’ deaths in order to collect a large insurance payout. This drew an angry response outside the courthouse Tuesday from Petit’s father-in-law, the Rev. Richard Hawke.

Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue instructed the 15 jurors to return Friday to hear each side’s closing arguments. Blue plans to give jurors detailed legal instructions Monday morning, paving the way for them to begin deliberations Monday afternoon. Any capital felony convictions would lead to the jury then considering if Hayes deserves the death penalty.

Hayes, 47, of Winsted, is on trial for murder, arson and many other charges in connection with the July 2007 home invasion that ended with Hawke-Petit being strangled and her daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17, dying of smoke inhalation in a fast-spreading fire.

Komisarjevsky, 30, of Cheshire, awaits trial next year on similar charges.

During prosecution testimony Tuesday, Jeremiah Krob, a state Department of Correction disciplinarian investigator, said that on July 6, 2008, he heard Hayes talking about the Cheshire case with Vernon Cowan, who was in an adjacent cell.

Krob said Hayes, who was on a suicide watch, was under continuous observation at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. Krob said he was 2 or 3 feet away from Hayes when he heard a half-hour conversation between the inmates.

According to Krob, Hayes told Cowan he drove Hawke-Petit to a Cheshire bank the morning of the home invasion in an effort to get $40,000 out of the Petit account. Hawke-Petit was able to withdraw $15,000 and then returned with Hayes to the house.

When Cowan asked Hayes why he hadn’t left the house at that point with the money, Hayes said he didn’t know, Krob recalled.

With Hawke-Petit again tied up, Krob recounted, “Hayes said he was pacing back and forth. Komisarjevsky told Hayes he needed to kill her, get rid of her. Hayes said he didn’t know if he could do it.”

Then, Krob testified, “Hayes said they saw a police cruiser pull up outside. At that point, he killed Mrs. Petit.”

Near the outset of the inmates’ conversations, Krob recalled, “Hayes said he was concerned about being charged with arson. Hayes said he couldn’t be charged because he’d only poured gasoline down the stairs, but he had not lit the match.”

According to Krob, Hayes said Komisarjevsky poured gasoline on Michaela as she lay tied to her bed and took cell phone photos of her, which “he was trying to e-mail to his friends.”

Krob also recalled Cowan asking Hayes if he thought Petit might have been “in on the crime to collect a large insurance pay-off for the murders. Hayes said he’d thought about it and he thought Petit was in on it because he’d personally tied up Petit really good. He felt there was no way he could’ve gotten loose, so Komisarjevsky must have untied the knot.”

Petit, who had been beaten with a baseball bat, had testified he was able to untie his hands, but not his feet. He said he stumbled up the basement stairs to seek help, just before the house erupted in flames.

After court adjourned, Petit came down the courthouse steps and told reporters, “All I have to say is, Jennifer, Hayley and Michaela were the most important people in my life.” Asked about Hayes’ speculation, Petit said, “I won’t dignify that insinuation with a response.”

Hawke, who is Hawke-Petit’s father, called Hayes’ statement “insensitive, cruel and out of place.” He said his son-in-law had “spent a life trying to build his family.” He noted that family togetherness lasted just a short time and then “was taken from them.”

During his cross-examination of Krob, defense attorney Patrick Culligan elicited information that Cowan was at the time of the 2008 conversation awaiting trial on a murder charge.

Tuesday’s proceedings began with Detective Paul Makuc of the state fire marshal’s office resuming his testimony about examining the Petit house room by room to determine how and where the fire started.

Makuc said the burn patterns in the foyer, family room and other first-floor areas indicated a liquid accelerant had been used. As photos of the heavily damaged dining room, kitchen, family room and sun porch were projected on the screen, Petit stared at the charred remnants of his former home.

According to Makuc, evidence showed the fire orginated in the family room, where Hawke-Petit’s body was found.

“The body of Mrs. Petit was lying on the floor,” he said. He added that parts of her body were almost completely consumed by the fire.

Makuc also noted an irregular burn pattern in the family room, indicating an accelerant had been poured around her body and in a line leading to adjacent rooms.

His conclusion: “The fire was caused by the introduction of an ignition source by human hands.”

Makuc said the fire spread up the stairway and into the girls’ bedrooms, “across the floor and up onto the beds.” He described the fire traveling in “a very rapid, quick and violent manner,” too quickly to allow anybody to be rescued.

Makuc was asked by defense attorney Thomas Ullmann, “Does your science tell you who poured the gasoline?” Makuc replied, “No, it does not.”

State lab forensics analyzer Jack Hubball testified Hayes’ and Komisarjevsky’s clothing showed “the presence of a petroleum product, consistent with gasoline.”

After the state rested its case at 4:05 p.m., defense attorneys called upon Cheshire police Officer James Nemphos to describe being the first policeman on the scene at the Petit house, about 20 minutes before the fire began.

“We were instructed not to approach the residence with any marked vehicles,” he testified. He said he went to the woods behind the house to observe it, remaining there for about 15 minutes until he saw two men run outside.

Nemphos said he and another officer tried to get into the house when the fire erupted moments later, but were repeatedly driven back by intense smoke and flames.

Ullmann then read a statement by Hayes’ mother, Diane Hayes. She said that the night before the home invasion, her son was waiting to hear from “Joshua,” then left the house at about 10 p.m., driving a red pickup truck.

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I do NOT think Petit had anything to do with this horrific crime.

After two days of deliberations, jurors have reached a verdict in the trial of Connecticut home invasion suspect Steven Hayes, convicting him of 16 out of the 17 charges brought against him.



Hayes, along with suspect Joshua Komisarjevsky, has been accused of breaking into the Petit's home and killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela.

Dr. William Petit was beaten with a baseball bat in the attack and bound in the home's basement, but was able to escape before the house became engulfed in flames.

The jury of five men and seven women received the case on Monday, and reached a unanimous verdict at about 12:35 p.m. on Tuesday.

Responding to the verdict, Dr. Petit said that though feels some relief, his family is still gone and the verdict won't bring them back.

"First of all, the Petit, Hawke families would like to thank the many people from the state of Connecticut and the U.S.A. that have kept our faith up," Dr. Petit said, according to CBS affiliate WFSB. "We did our best to keep our faith in God that justice would be served. There is some relief, but my family is still gone, it doesn't bring them back. It doesn't bring back the home that we had but certainly a guilty verdict is a much better sense of relief."

The case now moves to the penalty phase, in which the same jury that convicted Hayes will determine if he receives the death penalty. The judge said he wants to begin the penalty phase on Oct. 18.

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A Superior Court jury today convicted Steven J. Hayes of capital felony in the July 2007 slayings of three members of a Cheshire family, and will now consider whether to sentence him to death.

The jury of seven women and five men found Hayes, 47, of Winsted, guilty of six counts of capital felony, and of 16 of 17 charges overall in the home invasion in which Jennifer Hawke Petit and her daughters Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, were murdered. The lone survivor of the attack, Dr. William Petit Jr., was severely beaten.

"We did our best to keep our faith in God that justice would be served," William Petit said outside the courthouse after court adjourned. "I really thank the jury for their due diligence and careful consideration of the charges in reaching what we feel is an appropriate verdict and we hope they will continue to use the same diligence and clarity of thought as they consider arguments in the penalty phase of the trial."

Asked if he felt any relief now that Hayes has been convicted of murder, Petit said, "There is some relief, but my family is still gone. It doesn’t ’em back. It doesn’t bring back the home that we had but certainly a guilty verdict is a better sense of relief than a verdict of not guilty.”

Petit also was asked what he thought his family would think. He responded, “Jennifer … never prayed to God to ask for specific things, she prayed to God to ask for the strength to be able to handle the things that occurred to her in her life, such as the MS, and I think that probably they were all praying for our strength to be able to be here beginning back in January of this year when jury selection began.”

He admitted to feeling "a little nausea" each day when he came to court.



Jennifer Hawke-Petit's father, the Rev. Richard Hawke, also spoke: "For our daughter, Jennifer Hawke-Petit and for Hayley Elizabeth Petit and Michaela Rose Petit, we say for them that we are pleased with the verdict. We feel that as far as the trial has gone, justice is being served, and we appreciate the support of all the people who have been behind us at this particular time."

The conviction means the trial proceeds to the penalty phase, where the jury will decide whether to sentence Hayes to death by lethal injection. That phase begins on Oct. 18.

Co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky, 30, of Cheshire, faces trial next year.

The jury deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours over two days.

The capital felony charges against Hayes are for the murder of multiple victims, as well as murdering someone under age 16, murder during the kidnapping of the three female victims, and murdering Hawke Petit during a sexual assault.

The other charges are three counts of murder; four counts of first-degree kidnapping, including restraining Dr. Petit: first-degree sexual assault of Hawke Petit; third-degree burglary; first-degree arson, and second-degree assault of Petit. Hayes was found not guilty on the arson count.

The jurors spent most of Monday morning listening to Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue’s detailed instructions about the 17 counts Hayes faces and the elements of each charge.

Because the jurors had to wait until more than 200 exhibits were checked by prosecutors and defense attorneys, the deliberations did not begin until 2:12 p.m. Monday.

The 12-member jury, which had several questions about the evidence, deliberated for a total of about two hours Monday and resumed about 10 a.m Tuesday.

“I thought the evidence was fairly overwhelming and I thought Mr. Dearington and Mr. Nicolson did a very nice job in presenting the state’s case,” Petit said.

In his closing arguments Friday, State’s Attorney Michael Dearington had told the jurors, “These two people (Hayes and Komisarjevsky) are equally responsible for what occurred there.”

Dearington described “a warm, sunny, classic July summer day” in Cheshire on July 22, 2007, what would be the Petit family’s last day together.

While the Petits were enjoying a pasta dinner in their home that Sunday night, Dearington said, Hayes and Komisarjevsky were putting into motion their plan to break into a home, tie up its occupants, steal some money and “get out fast.”

Dearington said Hayes had told Komisarjevsky he was desperate for money.

After the Petits finished dinner, Dearington recounted, “the girls” watched TV in the family room while (William) Petit lay on a couch in the sunroom, reading a newspaper.

Petit testified he woke up thinking “Ow! Ow! Ow!” and feeling “something warm running down the front of my face.”

According to a statement Hayes gave to police, he watched through a window from outside as Komisarjevsky broke into the house through a rear bulkhead, picked up a Louisville Slugger baseball bat in the basement and repeatedly struck Petit in the head.

Dearington also recalled Petit’s testimony that he saw the outline of two men, one of them holding a gun at his side. Hayes told police he had a BB gun, but it was unloaded and he was carrying it just to “scare people.”

Dearington cited Hayes’ statement that the two men tied up Petit, then ransacked the downstairs, but found little of value. They then went upstairs and saw Hawke-Petit and Michaela sleeping in the master bedroom.

Hayes said they tied Hawke-Petit to her bed and took Michaela to her bedroom and tied her to the bedposts there. Dearington told jurors two perpetrators would have been needed to accomplish that.

Dearington noted their plan changed when they found a bank book showing up to $30,000. Hayes drove Hawke-Petit to the bank and she withdrew $15,000, while alerting a teller to the home invasion. A bank manager called 911.

Dearington also quoted Hayes’ statement that he had bought gasoline earlier that morning, filling three plastic canisters.

Then Dearington noted that Hayes said when he returned to the house with Hawke-Petit, Komisarjevsky said he had had sex with Michaela, and that Hayes needed to “square things up” by raping Hawke-Petit.

Hayes said he reluctantly did so, then followed Komisarjevsky’s order to strangle her after they saw a police cruiser outside.

Dearington quoted Hayes’ statement that they realized Petit had escaped and that Hayes poured gasoline on the stairway. Dearington noted the “pour pattern” extended onto the girls and their beds. They died of smoke inhalation, according to the medical examiner.

Citing police testimony that Hayes left the house after Komisarjevsky, Dearington said, “It’s common sense that the last one out lit the fire.”

He said the fire and deaths happened because of “two people, acting together.”

But Hayes’ lawyer, Public Defender Thomas Ullmann said it was Komisarjevsky who “at every critical juncture, when the plan changed ... escalated the level of violence.”

Ullmann said it began when Komisarjevsky assaulted Petit and continued when he sexually assaulted Michaela while Hayes was out of the house.

Ullmann said Hayes raped and strangled Hawke-Petit “at the behest of Komisarjevsky,” and that it was Komisarjevsky who tried to run down police officers as the pair tried to get away.

Ullmann told jurors the state did not prove Hayes is guilty of the murder counts for the two girls. He said intent is a key element.

Ullmann said Hayes should pay the price for the crimes he did commit, such as killing Hawke-Petit, “but not for what he did not do.”

Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Gary Nicholson responded that Hayes was part of a consistent effort “at every stage to get the money and destroy this family.”

“We can never know the fear, the terror and the horror those girls felt in their last minutes,” Nicholson said. He called it “the ultimate horror: knowing you are about to die and you can’t do anything about it.”

And Nicholson asked, “What was the defendant doing while they were screaming for their lives? He was pouring gasoline on the stairs — the only way those girls had to get out of that house, if they were lucky enough to get loose.”

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Man convicted of capital murder in Connecticut home invasion case
By the CNN Wire Staff
October 5, 2010 3:51 p.m. EDT
Click to play
Petit dad: My family is still gone

(CNN) -- After deliberating for about four hours over two days, a jury Tuesday convicted a 47-year-old man of capital murder in the deaths of three members of a Connecticut family in a 2007 home invasion.

Steven Hayes was convicted on 16 of the 17 charges against him in connection with the deaths of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, including nine counts of murder and capital murder and four counts of kidnapping. The jurors acquitted him of an arson charge in the burning of the family's home.

As the verdicts were read, Hayes stood at the defense table, looking down. Some members of the Petit family embraced, while others seemed close to tears.

The killings took place in the New Haven suburb of Cheshire early on July 23, 2007. The home of Dr. William Petit, his wife, Hawke-Petit, and their two daughters was invaded in the middle of the night by Hayes and co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky, prosecutors say. Komisarjevsky will be tried separately.

"There is some relief, but my family is still gone," Petit told reporters after the verdict. "It doesn't bring them back. It doesn't bring back the home that we had."

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Hayes. At the penalty phase, jurors will determine whether the mitigating evidence the defense is expected to present will outweigh the aggravating factors in favor of the death penalty. Judge Jon Blue set the penalty phase to begin October 18.

Jurors deliberated about two hours on Monday. Before they received the case, prosecutor Michael Dearington laid out an elaborate timeline of events. "I doubt you could have comprehended how horrendous this evidence would be," he told jurors.

During the trial, Jeremiah Krob, a Connecticut prison officer, testified he overheard Hayes confess to another inmate that he killed Hawke-Petit. Hayes also reportedly wondered out loud whether Petit might have been in cahoots with his co-defendant, Komisarjevsky, because Petit had escaped.

Hayes said that he had tied the father in the basement of the home and that he doubted he could have gotten loose without help from Komisarjevsky, Krob testified.

Outside the courthouse, Petit told reporters: "I really can't dignify that insinuation with a response. I think the evidence put on by the prosecution speaks for itself."

Connecticut State Police Detective Anthony Buglione, who interviewed Hayes after the crime, has testified the duo beat Petit bloody and left him in the basement.

According to the testimony, the two men then went upstairs and found Hawke-Petit and 11-year-old Michaela Petit asleep in the master bedroom. After tying Hawke-Petit to her bed, they led the girl to her room, tied her to her bed and put a pillowcase over her head, Hayes told Buglione.

They then found 17-year-old Hayley Petit in her room and did the same, he said.

After finding evidence of a bank account containing $20,000 to $30,000, they decided to have the mother go to the bank in the morning and withdraw money from her account, Buglione testified.

Hayes is accused of taking Hawke-Petit to the bank while Komisarjevsky allegedly stayed behind. When Hayes and Hawke-Petit returned with the money, the two men allegedly set the home on fire and fled.

Inside the home, authorities said, Hawke-Petit, 48, was found raped and strangled. Her two daughters, one of whom had been sexually assaulted, died of smoke inhalation. Petit, the sole survivor, escaped to a neighbor's home.

Public defender Thomas Ullmann conceded in the defense's opening statement that Hayes killed Hawke-Petit. But otherwise, he said, much of what happened is unclear.

"No one was supposed to be hurt," he said. "What is known is that Steven Hayes kills and assaults Mrs. Petit. ... We concede much, but not all."

In Friday's closing arguments, Ullmann placed much of the blame on Hayes' alleged accomplice, Komisarjevsky, whom he called the mastermind of the home invasion.

"Just because the state has brought 17 charges doesn't mean he's guilty of all of them," Ullmann said of Hayes, though he conceded he couldn't explain why his client didn't leave the scene once things began to escalate.

But, he said, "Even in flight, Joshua Komisarjevsky was in control."

Dearington dismissed those statements in his rebuttal, saying Hayes "was part of that whole plan to destroy this family, to take their money and to burn that house down."

In a police interview, Hayes said that his life "sucked" and that he had "no money, no car, and not enough to eat."

"Why didn't he leave? He didn't leave because of his desire for money," Dearington said.

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The admitted accomplice in the Connecticut home invasion case has bragged from prison about "taking out" the family's dad with a baseball bat, according to an ex-girlfriend.
"He was kind of bragging about it," the pretty brunette ex, Caroline Mesel, tells Inside Edition of accused monster Joshua Komisarjevsky in an interview airing tonight.
"Kind of like, 'Oh, he was such a big guy but I took him out.'"
Word of the sickening alleged boast comes one day after a New Haven jury convicted Komisarjevsky's co-defendant, Steven Hayes, for joining in the nightmare of murder, rape and arson that left Dr. William Petit as sole survivor in the deaths of his wife and daughters.

The doctor was able to break free and summon help, though too late to save his family, despite having been clubbed nearly to death with a baseball bat -- prosecutors say by Komisarjevsky, who they believe targeted the family after seeing the wife and daughters in a supermarket parking lot.
Petit's wife, pediatric nurse Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, was raped and strangled by Hayes. DNA evidence links Komisarjevsky to the rape of the youngest daughter, Michaela, 11. Both Michaela and her sister, Hayley, were bound to their beds, doused with gasoline, and burned alive.
Hayes, 47, stands convicted of six capital murder charges, and returns to court Oct. 18 for the penalty phase of his trial, during which the same jury will decide if he'll be put to death under Connecticut's death penalty.
Komisarjevsky stands trial next year. In an exclusive interview, Mesel tells the news program that Komisarjevsky was desperate to get money after her father moved her and her family to Arkansas prior to the 2007 murders.
Komisarjevsky even mentioned a specific figure, $15,000, as what he needed to move Mesel back to Connecticut so they could begin a life together.
"He's like, 'I would even rob a bank, you know, to get money for you," she told the news program.
Hawke-Petit was ordered to withdraw just that amount in ransom money -- $15,000 -- when Hayes took her to a nearby bank before bringing her home to murder her.
Asked if she felt any guilt over her unwitting involvement in the deaths, Mesel responded, "I did go though that whole guilt thing, like this is my fault. Maybe if I was in Connecticut, they would still be alive today. Because I could probably have probably prevented it."
Hours before the home invasion, Mesel had posted a video on YouTube for Komisarjevsky, in which she sang about missing him.
Now, though, Mesel says she hopes he gets the needle.
"I get so mad thinking about it," she told the news program. "I kind of wish I could do to him what he did to the girls. I kind of wish he could feel what they went through."
"He shouldn't be living in a jail cell and still have his freedom and still have his life, when he took those girls' lives away," she said.

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It was a crime tailor-made for arguments in favor of the death penalty: A career criminal participates in a night of unfathomable cruelty and terror that leaves a woman and her two young daughters dead in the smoldering ruins of their suburban home.
But there's a chance Steven Hayes, convicted this week in the shocking 2007 home invasion, could slip past the execution chamber. His attorney, Tom Ullmann, managed to spare another Connecticut man the death penalty in 2004 after he was convicted of fatally stabbing a woman and her two young children in their sleep for drug money.
"He's really great," said Georgianna Mills, whose son Jonathan was convicted of those killings in Guilford. "He did everything he had to do to get Jon off. I think he convinced the jury it was all because of the drugs."
The jury concluded that Mills' difficult childhood and remorse outweighed his horrific acts. They also went light on him because of his history of drug abuse, something that Hayes, 47, reportedly has in common and that is likely to be brought up in sentencing arguments.
Still, Hayes and his attorneys have a hard row to hoe.
"I think that the defense is going to have an uphill fight given what we know about the nature of the crimes," said William Dunlap, a criminal law professor at Quinnipiac University.
The jury may have a tough time weighing the arguments "because they always have in the back of their minds just how terrible this crime was," said John Walkley, a defense attorney who has handled death penalty cases in Connecticut.
Prosecutors said Hayes and another ex-con, Joshua Komisarjevsky, broke into a family's house in Cheshire in 2007, beat the girls' father with a baseball bat and forced their mother, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, to withdraw money from a bank before Hayes sexually assaulted and strangled her.
Eleven-year-old Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley were tied to their beds with pillowcases over their heads and doused with gasoline before the house was set ablaze, according to testimony. Michaela was sexually assaulted. The girls died of smoke inhalation.
Connecticut has executed only one person since 1960 — serial killer Michael Ross in 2005.
The death penalty statute in Connecticut, one of the more liberal states, faces regular challenges from legislators. The Cheshire attack's sole survivor, Dr. William Petit, testified to the legislature in favor of keeping executions as an option. Lawmakers voted to abolish them anyway.
"These are heinous murderers who have forfeited their rights to continue to live among us," Petit said then. "It always was and always will be a deterrent for one simple reason: the executed person can never kill again."
Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who in any case favored the death penalty in certain cases, cited the brutality of the home invasion when she vetoed the bill.
Hayes was convicted of 16 counts, including six capital felony charges, three murder counts and two charges of sexually assaulting Hawke-Petit. He was acquitted of arson because testimony indicated he poured gas on the stairs, but it was unclear who ignited it.
The same jurors will start deciding Oct. 18 whether Hayes should be executed or get life in prison. Ullmann, the defense attorney, and state prosecutor Michael Dearington declined to comment. Both sides are under a court-imposed gag order.
After the conviction, William Petit said he hoped the jurors would use "the same diligence and clarity of thought" as they considered the sentence.
Hayes' trial and his history of drug abuse and attempted suicide before the trial offer clues, though, to what his attorneys may address in an effort to spare their client the death penalty.
Ullmann put Mills on the stand during the penalty phase of that trial. Mills apologized for the killings.
"This trial in many ways was a grieving process," Ullmann said in his final remarks then. "It was a trial full of sorrow and shame. But now it's time to heal. It's not time to kill more additional victims. The killing is going to have to stop."
The defense tried to show that Mills had a difficult childhood plagued by physical and mental abuse from his alcoholic father, who taught his children how to get drunk and steal.
Prosecutor David Strollo argued that the attack merited the death penalty because it was so savage.
"He mercilessly stabbed them to death in the sanctity of their mother's bed," Strollo said.
In Hayes' trial, Ullmann portrayed him as a petty thief and blamed Komisarjevsky for escalating a robbery into a night of violence and rape. His attorneys also noted that Hayes, who has been on anti-psychotic medication, has been on suicide watch.
"It might be evidence of remorse. It could be evidence of mental instability," Dunlap said, listing potential conditions that the defense might cite to keep Hayes off the executioner's gurney.
The defense could call a state psychiatrist who testified before the trial that Hayes was resigned to the death penalty.
"He said that he continued to feel very hopeless and his new strategy for dealing with his sense of hopelessness was to wait for the state to kill him," Dr. Suzanne Ducate testified in March.
Hayes, who has spent most of his adult life in prison, also has a drug-filled past, according to court records. Walkley said that could be cited to make arguments about the effect of the drugs on Hayes' ability to control his behavior.
Prosecutors rejected the defense argument, saying the two men were equally responsible for the crime and that Hayes had plenty of opportunities to walk away. Prosecutors have said the crime was especially cruel and depraved.
Komisarjevsky faces trial next year and also could be sentenced to death.

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This is one of the most heinous and horrific crimes I have ever heard of. To be raped and then burned to death in your bed is beyond sick, beyond evil. And this girlfriend - OMG. At least she finally realized what a sick person Komisarjevsky is.

I think even the death penalty is not enough punishment for them. I agree with the girlfriend. Tie them down, douse them w/gasoline and light a match.

This is one of two threads I have a very hard time with. There are really no appropriate words to describe the evil these people have within them.

Sighting that his words could provide Hayes with grounds to appeal his sentence.

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October 8, 2010 8:24 p.m.

A Connecticut man whose wife and two daughters were murdered in a 2007 home invasion will not testify at the sentencing of the convicted killer, he said Friday.

Dr. William Petit has "regretfully decided" against testifying because he said Connecticut's law on victim impact statements is unclear and could provide convicts with grounds to appeal their sentences.

Announcing his decision in a statement Friday, Petit urged Connecticut's General Assembly to "promptly amend the law to guarantee ... the right of surviving family members of capital murder victims to present victim impact statements" at sentencing.

On Tuesday, a jury convicted 47-year-old Steven Hayes of capital murder in the deaths of Petit's family members. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

On Friday, Petit said he would have preferred to make a statement at Hayes' sentencing.

"Unfortunately, however, our General Assembly has failed to enact an appropriately clear law to allow a victim like me the right to make a statement on behalf of myself and my family members during the course of a capital sentencing trial," his statement said.

"This lack of clarity in the law is a crippling disincentive to surviving family members of victims in capital murder cases to make a statement," Petit continued, because such statements could be construed to violate state law, giving a convict "a basis for appeal and possibly even a new sentencing trial."

Petit said Friday that the law fails to specify who may offer a victim impact statement or when the statement could be introduced.

"Does it permit the victim himself to read the statement or does its passive-voice phrasing require that a prosecutor or other court official read the statement?" he asked.

"More significantly, does it allow the statement to be read prior to the jury's decision on what sentence to impose or should the statement be read as a pointless formality after the jury has already decided what sentence to impose?"

Hayes was found guilty of 16 of the 17 charges against him in connection with the deaths of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, including nine counts of murder and capital murder and four counts of kidnapping. The jurors acquitted him of an arson charge in the burning of the family's home.

The killings took place in the New Haven suburb of Cheshire early on July 23, 2007.

Petit's and his wife's home was invaded in the middle of the night by Hayes and another man, Joshua Komisarjevsky, prosecutors say. Komisarjevsky will be tried separately.

"There is some relief, but my family is still gone," Petit told reporters after Tuesday's verdict. "It doesn't bring them back. It doesn't bring back the home that we had."

At the penalty phase, jurors will determine whether the mitigating evidence the defense is expected to present will outweigh the aggravating factors in favor of the death penalty. Judge Jon Blue set the penalty phase to begin October 18.

On Friday, Petit said that a victim impact statement should be a part of that process.

"Just as a capital murderer is permitted to seek to 'humanize' himself by presenting all manner of mitigating evidence about his own background and circumstances, the prosecution should also be permitted equally to 'humanize' the lives of a defendant's victims," his statement said.

During the trial, Jeremiah Krob, a Connecticut prison officer, testified he overheard Hayes confess to another inmate that he killed Jennifer Hawke-Petit.

Connecticut State Police Detective Anthony Buglione, who interviewed Hayes after the crime, has testified that the duo beat Petit bloody and left him in the basement.

According to the testimony, the two men then went upstairs and found Hawke-Petit and 11-year-old Michaela Petit asleep in the master bedroom. After tying Hawke-Petit to her bed, they led the girl to her room, tied her to her bed and put a pillowcase over her head, Hayes told Buglione.

They then found 17-year-old Hayley Petit in her room and did the same, he said.

After finding evidence of a bank account containing $20,000 to $30,000, they decided to have the mother go to the bank in the morning and withdraw money from her account, Buglione testified.

Hayes is accused of taking Hawke-Petit to the bank while Komisarjevsky allegedly stayed behind. When Hayes and Hawke-Petit returned with the money, the two men allegedly set the home on fire and fled.

Inside the home, authorities said, Hawke-Petit, 48, was found raped and strangled. Her two daughters, one of whom had been sexually assaulted, died of smoke inhalation. Petit, the sole survivor, escaped to a neighbor's home.

A Connecticut man was condemned to death Monday for a night of terror inside a suburban home in which a woman was strangled and her two daughters tied to their beds, doused in gasoline and left to die in a fire.
Jurors in New Haven Superior Court voted unanimously to send Steven Hayes to death row after deliberating over the span of four days. Judge Jon Blue will impose the sentence on Dec. 2.
"You have been exposed to images of depravity and horror that no human being should have to see," Blue said in thanking the jurors for their service.
Dr. William Petit, the husband and father of the victims, said the verdict was not about revenge.
"Vengeance belongs to the Lord," Petit said. "This is about justice. We need to have some rules in a civilized society."
He also said it wouldn't bring closure, saying whoever came up with the concept was "an imbecile."
"It's a hole with jagged edges," he said. "Over time the edges may smooth out a little bit, but the hole in your heart, the hole in your soul is always there."
Hayes' attorneys had tried to persuade jurors to spare him the death penalty by portraying him as a clumsy, drug-addicted thief who never committed violence until the 2007 home invasion with a fellow paroled burglar. They called the co-defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky, the mastermind and said he escalated the violence. They also said Hayes was remorseful and actually wanted a death sentence.
But prosecutors said both men were equally responsible and that the crime cried out for the death penalty, saying the family was tormented for seven hours before they were killed.
Defense attorney Tom Ullmann said Hayes, who had attempted suicide while incarcerated, smiled at the verdict.
"He is thrilled with the verdict. That's what he wanted all along," Ullmann said.
Hayes will join nine other men on Connecticut's death row. The state has only executed one man since 1960, so Hayes will likely spend years, if not decades, in prison.
Komisarjevsky will be tried next year.
Authorities said Hayes and Komisarjevsky broke into the house, beat William Petit, and forced his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, to withdraw money from a bank while the rest of her family remained under hostage at home. Hayes then sexually assaulted and strangled her, authorities said. Komisarjevsky, who will be tried next year, is charged with sexually assaulting their 11-year-old daughter, Michaela.
Michaela and her 17-year-old sister, Hayley, were tied to their beds and doused in gasoline before the men set the house on fire, according to testimony. The girls died of smoke inhalation.
The crime was so unsettling that it became a key issue in the death penalty debate in the governor's race and led to tougher Connecticut laws for repeat offenders and home invasions. Gov. M. Jodi Rell cited the case when she vetoed a bill that would have abolished the death penalty.
To determine Hayes' punishment, the jury weighed so-called aggravating factors cited by prosecutors, including the heinous and cruel nature of the deaths, against mitigating factors argued by Hayes' attorneys.
The jurors were individually polled after the verdict Monday. One woman was crying and confirmed her verdict in a hoarse voice while a male juror said "yes" loudly and with conviction when asked to confirm his. Hayes was alternately looking straight ahead and to the opposite side of the courtroom from jury. His attorney, Tom Ullmann, sat somewhat slumped in his chair.
Petit said he cried at the verdict, "thinking of the tremendous loss."
"Michaela was an 11-year-old little girl tortured and killed in her own bedroom, surrounded by stuffed animals," he said, his voice cracking. He said his older daughter, Hayley, had a great future, and his wife, a nurse, had helped many children at the hospitals where she worked.
Ullmann had suggested prison would be more harsh than death for Hayes. Hayes told a psychiatrist he had repeatedly tried to kill himself after the crime because he felt guilty and remorseful and feared isolation in prison the rest of his life.
Hayes' attorneys focused heavily on Komisarjevsky, even calling a witness who said his "completely dead eyes" made him look like the devil. They cited his writings in which he described how his "dark shadow was let loose" as he beat the doctor and the pleasure he got from terrorizing the man's wife and two daughters.
Komisarjevsky's writings, however, also blamed Hayes for escalating the violence by strangling Hawke-Petit.
Prosecutors said it was Hayes who initiated the crime, citing his confession to police in which he said he called Komisarjevsky shortly before the crime because he was financially desperate. They also noted that Hayes took Hawke-Petit to the bank to withdraw money, raped and strangled her, bought the gasoline and poured it in the house.
During the trial, jurors heard eight days of gruesome testimony, saw photos of the victims, charred beds, rope, ripped clothing and ransacked rooms.
Johanna Petit Chapman, William Petit's sister, said the family sympathized with the jurors for the emotional pain the case inflicted on them as they viewed pictures of the crime scene and heard details of the deaths.
"I was crying on the inside knowing what they were looking at," she said. "I can't say enough how badly I feel for them that they got thrust into this because of two people's decision to go in and just destroy life like that."
Hayes was convicted of six capital felony charges, three murder counts and two charges of sexually assaulting Hawke-Petit. The capital offenses were for killing two or more people, the killing of a person under 16, murder in the course of a sexual assault and three counts of intentionally causing a death during a kidnapping. He was sentenced to death for all six.
Ullmann and co-counsel Patrick Culligan said the case was treated differently because the victims were white and from the suburbs, and that crimes just as horrific involving minorities haven't garnered the same media and public attention.
"To my way of thinking, that's all that these verdicts prove today, that is just how arbitrary and capricious the death penalty is — it varies from case to case and person to person and jury to jury," Culligan said.

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November 12, 2010 1:02 p.m. EST


The accused murderer's life wasn't supposed to turn out like this.

He had everything most people want -- money, opportunity, education, a respected family name. He claimed his IQ fell in the genius range.

But Joshua Komisarjevsky also had something sinister inside him. He called it "a terrible feeling." Whatever it was exactly, an innocent family would suffer unspeakably for it. A husband, a wife and their daughters, 17 and 11. The Petits of Connecticut -- that family.

Though their names might not be well known, after months of media coverage, their nightmare is. On July 23, 2007, men wearing ski masks attacked the family as they slept in their suburban Cheshire home. The father, a physician, was beaten with a bat and tied to a pole in his basement. His wife was raped and strangled. The girls were tortured for nearly seven hours, one sexually assaulted, then killed when the attackers set the house on fire.

The doctor survived and later mustered the strength and courage to testify against one of the attackers in court.

The horror that happened at 300 Sorghum Mill Drive was so savage, jurors wept repeatedly during the September trial of Steven Hayes. They later said the experience changed their lives. Hayes, a 47-year-old career criminal, who one juror described as an "empty shell," was convicted of murder, rape and kidnapping.

Last week, he was sentenced to die.

During the trial, Hayes' lawyers tried to shift attention to his accused accomplice, Komisarjevsky, who is expected to be tried on similar charges, including arson, in January.

Hayes was a follower, they insisted. Komisarjevsky was the smarter guy, the manipulator, the orchestrator of a home invasion so brutal that it reinvigorated the death penalty in one of only two New England states that still have it. (New Hampshire is the other).

Komisarjevsky's journals and letters show a man of keen intelligence who "takes responsibility for masterminding [the Petit attack]," said Brian McDonald, an author who Komisarjevsky wrote to frequently from jail. "He takes credit for orchestrating what went on in that house."

Much of the writing, however, is rambling self-analysis about how the accused killer's own alleged childhood rape stoked his "menacing mind."

Komisarjevsky has pleaded not guilty. There is a gag order issued in the case. No one, including lawyers, is allowed to comment.

Jailers have confiscated some of Komisarjevsky's writings, said Beth Karas, a former prosecutor who covered the Petit case for "In Session" on TruTV. It's possible they could be presented as evidence in his trial. Beyond the heinous details of the crime, the writings provoke more questions, more reason to ask: What evil are people capable of?

"In my 24 years in the criminal justice system, this is one of the few cases that gave me a nightmare," Karas said.

Karas said she wonders why she is exceptionally bothered. Crime is always terrible; murders happen every day. Around the same time that jurors heard testimony in the Petit case, a Memphis, Tennessee, man was convicted of murdering a whole family, including two children. That case drew a fraction of the media attention the Connecticut trial did.

Does what happened to the Petit family remind us of the randomness of violence, the unfairness of it?

Is it that we see ourselves, the good we try to be, in the doctor and his wife, a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis who raised money to fight the disease? Do we see our kids in their teenager on her way to Dartmouth, in their 11-year-old who couldn't take her eyes off the Food Network?

Is our sense of safety betrayed by the setting of the crime? Cheshire is a leafy New England village of 28,000 people, known more for its bucolic country roads than for its crime rate.

Violence can happen anywhere. Criminals live everywhere.

Consider the accused murderer. He grew up in Cheshire.

A menacing mind
About two miles away from the Petit home, Joshua Komisarjevsky was raised on a 65-acre estate called "The Barn." It belonged to his adoptive grandfather, writer Joseph Chamberlain, and Chamberlain's wife, a Russian ballerina.

As a boy, Komisarjevsky delighted in exploring the grounds of the Barn, tracking the animals, perfecting the art of moving in silence.

His was a family of power and prestige, but it wasn't his biologically. Ben and Jude Komisarjevsky, who also lived at "The Barn," had adopted him a few days after he was born to a 16-year-old, said McDonald, who has written a book based on Komisarjevsky's letters to him, journals and interviews with those who know him.

The details of Komisarjevsky's early life are laid out in those writings, and in McDonald's book.

Ben and Jude, who was a grade-school librarian, were "fervent Christians," McDonald said. The couple enrolled their son in the Christian Service Brigade, a kind of Boy Scouts, according to McDonald. The boy went to Christian camps and church soccer games.

"Yet early on in his life, 12, 13 ... there was this evil side of him that had to be nurtured, or explored," said McDonald.

Komisarjevsky began breaking into houses. He told McDonald that he broke into hundreds by the time he was 16. Sometimes, he did it "just to hear people breathing," McDonald said. Occasionally, to mess with people's minds, he'd rearrange photographs and leave without detection.

"I knew there was something different about me," Komisarjevsky wrote of his adolescence.

He usually wore latex gloves during his break-ins; at least once he donned night-vision gear, McDonald said. He bragged that burglarizing taught him how to build a house "from laying the foundation to hanging the last door."

At one point, Komisarjevsky joined the Army, went AWOL, started doing drugs -- speed-balling heroin and coke -- and got a thumb-wagging from a judge. "There was this wild, fiendish side to him," McDonald said.

In letters to McDonald, Komisarjevsky blamed one central experience in his youth for causing his "restless inner torment," an alleged rape by a male foster child who his family took in.

"This child, raped of his innocence, guilty of silence, dripping in sin, learned at an early age the art of repression," wrote Komisarjevsky, referring to himself. "This terrible feeling grew. In time it became a conscious, raw tingling that jangled my nerve and made me want to jump out of my skin. 'Rebuke the devil -- and pray,' I was told.

"Growing up, kids are propped up with lies and promises made with good intentions. Life is good, humanity is kind, God is loving. But I know. I knew full well that life was a battle. Humanity is cruel. And that God is all-knowing, all-powerful and did nothing to protect this child."

Komisarjevsky told McDonald about his daughter. He described giving her a bath and reading her a bedtime story even as he planned to head out to terrorize another man's family.

A leader, a follower
Hayes and his partner eyed Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughter Michaela loading up their SUV at the Cheshire Stop & Shop, according to trial testimony, and followed them home to case the house.

Hayes seemed to be Komisarjevsky's opposite. "They were a classic Mutt and Jeff jailhouse team," McDonald said. Hayes was short, stout, bald, dimwitted. According to his lawyers, he was a follower. Komisarjevsky was taller, lean and handsome. He was the leader, said McDonald.

Raised in a tiny house in New Hampshire with parents he said were abusive, Hayes' criminal ambitions began in his teens and were mainly about one thing -- feeding his drug habit, said McDonald.

The pair hit it off while rooming for four months at a halfway house in Hartford, Connecticut, in 2007. Both were on parole for burglary and robbery.

A few days before the Petit attack, Komisarjevsky removed his ankle bracelet, Karas said.

After he put his daughter to bed on July 23, 2007, he got on his computer and had cybersex with his 16-year-old girlfriend.

The teen would later testify that he told her, "I'd rob a bank for you."

Sleep, then a nightmare
Dr. William Petit had enjoyed a nice dinner with his family and was dozing on his porch when the blows of a Louisville Slugger woke him. One, two, three, four. When the bashing stopped, he was tied to a post in his basement, according to trial testimony.

The men, wearing masks, grabbed Jennifer Hawke-Petit as she slept in the master bedroom next to 11-year-old Micheala. Hayley, a crew team athlete, was next.

For nearly seven hours, they were tortured and told they would live, but given reason to believe they would die. Komisarjevsky is accused of tying Micheala to her bed, stripping and photographing her, telling the child that the pictures would be used to blackmail her father, and then raping her. He has denied the rape, but DNA samples found on and inside the little girl match his, according to Karas.

Hayes' jury was reportedly spared having to see the photos, but a technology expert, shown the images on Komisarjevsky's cell phone, described them in detail on the stand.

When the hell of that night gave way to day, Hawke-Petit tried desperately to win over her captors. She even offered to cook them breakfast. She followed the attackers' orders and went to a bank to withdraw $15,000. A surveillance camera caught her speaking in a hush to a teller: "They're holding my family hostage," she said.

"Jennifer-Hawke Petit wanted to believe that these men who had been holding her and her children and husband hostage for about six hours at that point ... that they were not going to hurt them," said Karas. "That they were going to keep their word that they just wanted money."

Hoping it might save her family, she got in the car with Hayes. He took off his mask during the drive.

"Once the witnesses could identify them, the witnesses had to be destroyed," Karas said.

If the attackers wanted money, by then they had other plans, too. They had gasoline.

Hayes testified that he raped and strangled Hawke Petit, according to court records.

Then, the house went up in flames.

Petit reportedly testified: "I felt a major jolt of adrenaline. I thought 'It's now or never,' " after hearing one of the attackers say, "Don't worry, it's going to be over in a couple of minutes."

"I thought they were going to shoot all of us," the doctor said.

He wrangled free and crawled bloody into the morning sunlight. He screamed for help. A neighbor rushed to him. "Is there anyone in the house?" he asked frantically.

"The girls," Petit moaned.

"I'm good and bad"

Brian McDonald wanted to write a book about the most talked about crime in Connecticut. He wrote to everyone involved, including Petit and Hayes, all the lawyers. No one responded.

Then he got a letter, a single paragraph, in the mail. It was from Komisarjevsky.

"He was suspicious of my motives," said McDonald. "But he invited me to write back, which I did."

The correspondence between them lasted five months, the author said. Sometimes McDonald would receive three letters a week. They revealed a warped mind.

Komisarjevsky called Hayley "a fighter" because she constantly struggled to free herself and help her family, McDonald said.

The 11-year-old Michaela had "calm strength and poised emotion," Komisarjevsky wrote. He said Hawke-Petit's courage was "to be respected ... she met that end bravely."

Petit, he wrote, was "a coward."

"I was scared," McDonald said of the first time he met Komisarjevsky in prison.

When they picked up their two-way phones on each side of the Plexiglas partition, Komisarjevsky told the writer, "You can't be too careful in this place."

Komisarjevsky was "soft spoken ... polite ... like a nice Christian boy ... but I think he plays that," said McDonald. "He used that as a tool. He knows how he appears to people. He knows he comes across as this nice, Christian boy with soft mannerisms.

"He was going out of his way to be nice. It was very disarming."

Whatever he wants the world to think of him, Komisarjevsky is a manipulator, McDonald said, through and through.

"I'm not good or bad, Mr. McDonald," Komisarjevsky wrote. "There is no black or white answer. ... I'm both good and bad and everything in between."

I've been following this horrific case in the news for awhile, but just discovered this thread! There are no words to describe how evil these two "men" are... and I am thrilled that they are in prison, and that Hayes was sentenced to death. I am sure that soon Komisarjavesky (what kind of name is that?!?) will be following him!

For him to blame his evil acts on a childhood rape (as awful as that is) is pathetic!! There are many children who survive similar crimes & don't become cold-blooded killers. It was his choice to commit these terrible acts, and now he must suffer the consequences!!

Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue today denied a defense motion for a new trial for convicted killer Steven J. Hayes, as well as new penalty phase and/or replacing the death sentence with life in prison without parole.

Judge Blue presided over the trial in which Mr. Hayes was convicted on 16 counts in the 2007 home invasion and triple killing in Cheshire.

A jury Nov. 8 decided Mr. Hayes should be executed for his role in the invasion, which ended in the deaths of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 2.

Judge Blue last week also denied a defense motion to overturn Hayes’ conviction for assaulting Dr. William Petit Jr., the sole survivor of the attack.

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Cheshire home invasion killer Steven Hayes will be formally sentenced in a New Haven courtroom Thursday, Dec. 2.

The jury has already decided on the death penalty for Hayes who was convicted in the 2007 murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters Hayley and Michaela.

Now Judge Jon C. Blue will make it official.

The formal sentencing hearing has the potential to provide among the most dramatic moments of the trial even though the fate of Steven Hayes has already been sealed.

Defense attorney John Walkley said, “It's a feit dat complete at this point. There's nothing anyone can say or do tomorrow that's going to change the judge's decision of death.”

But family members, including the lone survivor of the deadly home invasion, Dr. William Pettit, will have the opportunity to speak directly to Hayes.

“Often times in cases like this the family of the victim can literally address the defendant in a loud, pro-active way,” Walkley added. “It can get emotional, extremely emotional'

Attorney Walkley has been involved in fifteen capitol cases and says there are no time restrictions on members of the Pettit or Hawke families or family friends who want to speak.

Members of the Hayes family will also get an opportunity to address the court.

Hayes has already been convicted of killing Jennifer Hawke Pettit and daughters Hayley and Michaela, and although Hayes will have a chance speak Thursday, Attorney Walkley believes it's unlikely he'll do so.

“There will be multiple appeals to try to get this case back in front of the court and there could be things even beyond appeals that could provide Mr. Hayes with relief,” explained Walkley. “I think his counsel would advise him not to speak, least that come back to haunt him down the road.”

There will be no jurors present, just the attorneys, family members and the judge.

The entire proceeding is likely to take less than a couple of hours.

Meantime, the second defendant in the Cheshire killings, Joshua Komerserjevsky, goes to trial in January.

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It's very difficult to look at that monster's face. This has got to be one of the worst murders I have ever heard of. To be burned alive is just beyond any words I can find.

These cases are just SICK!!!! What is Wrong with people?? I will never, ever understand.

Steven Hayes, who killed a Cheshire woman and her two daughters in a brutal home invasion, said he is tormented by what happened in that house July 23, 2007, and welcomes death.

"I am tormented and have nightmares about what happened," he said. "Death will be a welcome relief."

He apologized and said he wished he could have killed himself.

Hayes and others were given a chance to speak before Judge Jon C. Blue pronounced Hayes' sentence: death by lethal injection.

"I am deeply sorry for the pain I have caused," Hayes said as he stood in shackles at the defense table. He said he took full responsibilty.

Then Blue sentenced him to six death sentences, to be carried out May 27, 2011.

"This is a terrible sentence," he told Hayes, "but it is a sentence you wrote for yourself."

"May God have mercy on your soul," Blue said

Earlier, Dr. William Petit Jr., the lone survivor of the home invasion, addressed the court about his own torments following the loss of his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and two daughters, Hayley and Michaela.

"I seriously considered suicide many times," Petit said.

Petit was beaten with a bat and bound by the attackers, but he escaped moments before the house went up in flames.

Reading quickly from a statement as he sat at the prosecutor's table, Petit recalled waking up to the terror that night, and said he would never forget his father's face when he asked about the girls. The father just shook his head from side to side.

Petit also talked of the nightmares and how he couldn't sleep after the beating he took and the multiple physical injuries he suffered.

"I had spent every waking moment, and there were plenty, thinking of that night and replaying everything that occurred over and over again," he said today. He spoke about how, after the attack, he visited an unfamiliar doctor who expressed surprise upon learning Petit was a doctor himself. Petit hadn't mentioned it.

"Medicine had absolutely no importance for me, and I apologized to my many patients for that, but I could not focus for longer than 5 or 10 minutes at a time," he said.

Petit, a well-known endocrinologist, was medical director of the Joslin Diabetes Center affiliate at the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain.

In court today he also recalled how he met his wife, their wedding, and their early work years at Yale. He remembered the birth of his daughters, Hayley and Michaela, and their life as a family in Cheshire.

"We were best friends," he said of Hawke-Petit, a friendship borne out of their work together in medicine.

He recalled the girls' good works. Hayley, who would have been a freshman at Dartmouth College in the fall of 2007, and Michaela were active in raising money and putting together teams to walk for the multiple sclerosis cause. Hawke-Petit was diagnosed in the mid-1990s with the chronic degenerative disease of the central nervous system.

"I miss my entire family, our home, everything we had together as a group," he said. "They cannot be replaced."

He said he has received more than 15,000 letters of support from around the world.

Defense attorney Thomas Ullmann also addressed the court, speaking out against the death penalty.

"When we kill in response to killing, we all become Steven Hayes," Ullmann said. "There is no difference."

Earlier in the day, as proceedings were about to get underway, Hayes, with legs and hands shackled, was led into the courtroom by judicial marshals. He was wearing a bright orange prison jumpsuit and had grown a beard.

The court session began with the playing of a nearly 8-minute recorded statement of Cynthia Hawke-Renn, sister of Jennifer-Hawke Petit, who was raped and strangled in the Cheshire home invasion July 23, 2007.

Hawke-Renn's statement was shown on a movie screen. Hayes was looking up at it.

"I see you only as pure evil," she said.

Afterward, Barbara and William Petit Sr. — Petit's parents.— addressed the court, as did their daughter, Hanna Chapman.

As family members made their statements, a collage of family photos was being shown on the screen.

Watching the proceedings were members of the jury, who showed up for the sentencing even though their duties ended when they returned a death sentence last month.

Ian Cassell, foreman of the jury that voted to execute Hayes, took a day off from work to attend today's sentencing in Superior Court.

Cassell, 35, of New Haven, and three other jurors arrived at the courthouse at 6:30 a.m. and were greeted by a long line of reporters waiting to get into the building. Cassell said he was not exactly sure why he wanted to attend the sentencing and was actually still thinking about what motivated him as he was on the way there.

One possible reason, Cassell said, was to hear from Hayes if he speaks. After all, Cassell said, he signed the form sending Hayes to death row.

"It was really hard to do that. You were signing off on someone's life," he said.

It was unclear whether Hayes would address the court.

Juror Herbert Gram said he went to today's sentencing "to see the fruits of his effort." Gram, 77, of Madison, said serving on the jury was difficult in part because of the brutality of the crime.

"The whole thing is horribly sad," he said. "I suppose some would say justice was done, but there's really nothing good that comes from this."

Wednesday, Ullmann and fellow defense attorney Patrick Culligan filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider his Nov. 17 decision denying their motion for a new trial or a new penalty phase hearing, or the imposition of a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Hayes and an accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky broke into the Petit home in the middle of the night, according to testimony from Hayes' trial, which began Sept. 13. Both had recently been paroled from prison.

Petit was beaten with a baseball bat and tied to a pole in the basement.

Hawke-Petit was strangled. Hayley and Michaela were left bound in their beds. The house was doused with gasoline and set on fire. Before Hawke-Petit was killed, she was forced to go to the bank and withdraw money to give to the intruders.

Petit, who was unconscious for most of the seven-hour ordeal at his home, escaped from the house shortly before the fire was set and sought help from a neighbor.

Police arrested Hayes and Komisarjevsky as they fled the burning home in one of the Petit's vehicles.

In October, Hayes , 47, of Winsted, was convicted of 16 of 17 charges he faced in connection with the home invasion. Last month, a Superior Court jury decided Hayes should get the death penalty for the slayings.

Komisarjevsky, 30, of Cheshire, is scheduled to go to trial next year. He also faces execution if convicted.

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Attorneys for both sides in the Cheshire home invasion trial said they are ready to start looking for a jury in the second trial.
The last motions were heard Wednesday in New Haven Superior Court, two weeks before jury selection begins.
The actual jury selection involves screening potential jurors, and the judge himself will be part of trying to find people who can be impartial.
Joshua Komisarjevsky appeared in New Haven Superior Court on Wednesday and he's already changed his appearance from his most recent mug shot. He now has a buzz cut.
His three-attorney team was by his side trying to work out final details before jury selection begins on March 16.
Komisarjevsky faces 21 charges in the murders of Jennifer Hawke Petit and her two daughters, Hayley and Michaela, and in the beating of the lone survivor, Dr William Petit.
The defense asked the judge if he could specifically word some of the instructions to potential jurors during the screening process. One request was to ask each potential juror: "If, as a result of what you have heard, seen, or read, you have already made up your minds concerning the guilt or innocence of Joshua Komisarjevsky, or if you have made up your minds concerning whether or not Joshua Komisarjevsky should be put to death, I hope that you will let us know."
The defense wants the question because they said they did a survey to prove the case needs to be heard in another area of the state -- and the results indicate 85 percent of the people questioned already believe the suspect is guilty.
That request to move the case was turned down and today Judge Jon Blue said he will make it clear to all potential jurors they will only be on the jury if they can put what they think about the case aside and decide based on the evidence.
The defense also made a point it will continue to fight the judge's decision not to prohibit the Petit family from wearing their foundation pins in court. The defense, calling the family "the Petit Posse," said the pins are like a badge of unity and they believe that visually influences jurors.
Judge Blue said he doesn't see any issue with the pins, pointing out they are very small and don't say anything.
Both sides agreed to select 22 jurors, with some of them as alternate jurors. The jury selection process is expected to take about three months.

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By ALAINE GRIFFIN, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] The Hartford Courant

September 19, 2011
NEW HAVEN –—
Testimony will begin Monday at Superior Court in the trial of Joshua Komisarjevsky, one of two men charged in the July 2007 killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley and Michaela, during a home invasion in Cheshire.

Komisarjevsky, 31, of Cheshire, faces death by lethal injection if convicted of the killings. He faces 17 counts, including murder, capital felony, kidnapping, sexual assault, arson, assault and larceny.

Komisarjevsky's father and sister are expected to attend the trial.

Several members of the Hawke and Petit families are planning to be in court Monday morning with Dr. William Petit Jr., the lone survivor of the July 23, 2007, break-in, attack and arson at his family's home. Petit, who is scheduled to testify in the case, was badly beaten but escaped.

Defense attorneys on Friday fought to limit Petit's testimony in the trial, saying his testimony should only be about what he witnessed during the home invasion and should not include details of his personal and professional life and the activities of his wife and daughters in the hours before the home invasion.

Prosecutors objected, saying background information from a witness is often used to assess credibility and that the family's activities leading up to the home invasion tie in to the case.

Judge Jon C. Blue denied without prejudice the request to limit Petit's testimony, saying the defense will have a chance to object to any of the state's questioning of Petit.

Hawke-Petit, 48, was a nurse at Cheshire Academy, where she served as co-director of the school's health center. She had worked as a nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital and was a Penn State graduate who volunteered for the Girl Scouts and Habitat for Humanity. She was an active member of the United Methodist Church in Cheshire.

Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, were civic-minded as well.

Hayley, who would have been a freshman at Dartmouth College in the fall of 2007, and Michaela were active in raising money and putting together teams for benefit walks for multiple sclerosis. Their mother was diagnosed in the mid-1990s with the chronic degenerative disease of the central nervous system.

Hayley created "Hayley's Hope," a charity that raised thousands of dollars in support of MS research. Michaela planned to carry on the work of Hayley's charity once her big sister went to college, renaming it "Michaela's Miracle."

Petit, an endocrinologist, was the medical director of the Joslin Diabetes Center affiliate at the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain. He is a past president of the state chapter of the American Diabetes Association and was elected to the ADA Hall of Merit in 1994.

Late last week, defense attorneys lost a bid to move the trial out of New Haven and to remove the jurors selected for the case. The defense said Komisarjevsky could not get a fair trial in New Haven because of the widespread publicity generated by the case and by last year's trial of Steven Hayes, Komisarjevsky's co-defendant. A jury convicted Hayes and he was sentenced to death.

Of the 12 regular jurors, four are from New Haven, two are from Meriden and the rest are from Bethany, Wallingford, Hamden, Guilford, Madison and Branford. Of six alternates and three backup alternates, three are from New Haven, three are from North Haven and the rest are from Hamden and North Branford.

During jury selection, Komisarjevsky's defense team asked prospective jurors questions about religion, foster care and mental health care, signaling that they might raise such issues if Komisarjevsky is convicted and there is a penalty phase. During the penalty phase, jurors could hear testimony that would help them weigh whether Komisarjevsky should be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Komisarjevsky was adopted as a baby and grew up in Cheshire. His parents, Benedict and Jude Komisarjevsky, were, by all accounts, a quiet, hardworking and devout couple who did what they could to raise their son in a proper home. He was home-schooled and never graduated from high school.

Komisarjevsky's troubles with the law appear to have started in 1995, when he was 14. That year, state parole records show, he was raped by a foster child his parents had taken into their home. Court records of that case have been sealed.

But Jude Komisarjevsky mentioned the sexual abuse when she addressed Superior Court Judge James M. Bentivegna in Bristol just before he sentenced Komisarjevsky to nine years in prison for burglary in December 2002.

The family initially tried to help Komisarjevsky deal with his depression and trauma through religious outings and other spiritual retreats. When that didn't work, they turned to psychiatric professionals for help. He spent a short time at Elmcrest psychiatric hospital in Portland, where doctors tried to place him on medication, his mother told Bentivegna.

"We did refuse the drugs because Joshua wanted them. He wanted to overdose with them," his mother told the judge at the time. "And we did seek other treatments, many of which they just kicked him out and told him he was worthless."

Cheshire police arrested Joshua Komisarjevsky when he was a juvenile in August 1995, charging him with setting fire to an abandoned car dealership. In October 2002, Komisarjevsky was convicted of several burglaries and sentenced to three years in state prison. He was convicted of 12 more burglaries in December of that year. He was sentenced to nine years and served about four.

Komisarjevsky was on parole at the time of the Petit slayings. During the home invasion, which lasted hours, Hawke-Petit was raped and strangled. Her daughters were tied to their beds, and Michaela was sexually assaulted, police said. The home was set on fire, and Hayley and Michaela died of smoke inhalation.

Komisarjevsky has offered to plead guilty to the slayings in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release. His offers were rejected by prosecutors, defense attorneys have said.

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video I cannot embed.

House of Horrors: Jurors Hear Confession in Gruesome Home Invasion Case
Joshua Komisarjevsky calls the crime that killed three a 'home invasion gone terribly wrong'

KTLA News
1:59 p.m. PDT, September 21, 2011

HARTFORD, CT -- Shortly after he was nabbed by police, Joshua Komisarjevsky wasted little time pointing the finger at Steven Hayes, his alleged partner in the deadly Cheshire home invasion.

Det. Joseph Vitello testified Wednesday that he saw Komisarjevsky at the site where the two suspects had crashed a vehicle into a police cruiser and asked him if anyone was still in the burning home.

"He said, 'Yes. There are three individuals. The mom -- the woman -- may be dead, strangled,' and he pointed to Mr. Hayes," Vitello testified.

Komisarjevsky was then led away by police, Vitello said.

The finger pointing would continue and be detailed in a 90-minute audiotaped statement Komisarjevsky gave to police later on July 23, 2007, the day Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, were tortured and killed in their Cheshire home.

Seconds after the tape began playing in court Wednesday and as Komisarjevsky in a low and steady voice stated his name, Dr. William Petit Jr. dropped his head, and his sister, Johanna Petit Chapman, sitting next to him, put her hand over her eyes.

When asked in the audio recording why he was there, Komisarjevsky said, "for a home invasion gone terribly wrong."

Before taping Komisarjevsky's statement, Vitello testified, he had been at the crime scene, where he saw the bodies of Hawke-Petit and her daughters in the burned-out home.

Later, Vitello would again come face-to-face with Komisarjevsky at the Cheshire Police Department. There, he would take a statement from one of the men accused of one of the most horrific crimes in recent state history.

At the police department, the detective and suspect recognized each other, Vitello said. Komisarjevsky, a serial burglar on parole in July 2007, had been arrested before.

The two agreed to talk. Vitello ordered a hungry Komisarjevsky pizza and allowed him to use the bathroom.

"He said we had a good rapport in the past and I said that I hoped that would continue," Vitello testified.

Vitello said Komisarjevsky agreed to sign a waiver. The two then talked. Komisarjevsky gave a verbal statement and Vitello took notes. Komisarjevsky then agreed to give a written statement, Vitello said. But after 30 minutes, Komisarjevsky provided only one page. Vitello then suggested using a tape recorder.

"I felt maybe he was having a hard time putting it in written form," Vitello said.

In his statement, Komisarjevsky said that while waiting at the Cheshire Stop & Shop supermarket to talk to a contractor, he spotted a mother and daughter in the parking lot.

"For whatever reason I chose to follow the mom and daughter" to their home. It was a nice home, he said in the recording.

"I thought it would be nice to be there someday and not worry about financial problems and stress," he said.

After spending the evening with his daughter, Komisarjevsky said he met up with Hayes — whom he sometimes referred to as Mr. Hayes or Steve — and talked about how to get money. They talked about robbing people at ATM machines but they ultimately decided to go into a home.

Then Komisarjevsky said he remembered the mother and daughter in the nice home.

Wearing face masks, they entered the Petits' unlocked basement door between 2 and 3 a.m. Carrying a baseball bat into the sunporch where Petit was sleeping, Komisarjevsky said he stood over him as he saw Hayes through the window motioning for him to get going.

"I hit him in the head with a baseball bat. ... I couldn't take his screaming. ... I never hit anybody with anything," Komisarjevsky told police.

He said he hit Petit until he "quieted down."

At one point, Komisarjevsky said that he and Hayes went upstairs and into the master bedroom. They put their hands over the mouths of the mother and daughter and they woke up confused, Komisarjevsky said.

Prosecutors are expected to play more of Komisarjevsky's tape-recorded statement after the afternoon break.

Hayes was tried last year, convicted and sentenced to death for the killings. Komisarjevsky, whose trial in Superior Court began Monday, also faces the death penalty if convicted.

Earlier Wednesday, some of the jurors hearing Komisarjevsky's case seemed visibly upset by photographs of the victims.

Though jurors seemed to hold back their emotions while viewing photos of the bodies of Hayley and her mother, some appeared visibly shaken by the photo of Michaela's body.

One woman looked stunned. Another cried and covered her face, using her shirt to dab her tears.

In the third day of testimony, Capt. Jay Markella described discovering Michaela's body.

He said the lower half of her body was hanging off the bed. Her arms were over her head and her hands were tied to the bed.

"I knelt down and immediately knew Michaela was not alive," Markella said.

Markella said that when he first pulled up to the scene, he saw flames coming out of the house at 300 Sorghum Mill Drive.

He put on a protective vest and helmet before he entered the home. There were reports of a possible third suspect, he said, so the special response team, armed with weapons and special gear, lined up before entering the home as the flames were being extinguished.

It was extremely hot and the conditions were dangerous, Markella said. He said he could feel his throat burning. One officer's foot broke through the badly damaged stairs.

At the top of the stairs, Markella said he saw Hayley's body. Down the hall in a bedroom, he made another discovery. There was another body of a young girl lying face down on a bed.

"That's where Michaela was lying," Markella said.

Timothy Wysoczanski, a volunteer Cheshire firefighter in 2007 and now a Meriden firefighter, testified that he discovered the body of Jennifer Hawke-Petit in the sunroom of the home.

Prosecutor Gary Nicholson showed Cheshire firefighter Rick Trocchi a photograph of a body found in the Petits' burning home. He asked Trocchi who it was.

"Hayley Petit," Trocchi said.

Prosecutors passed the photo around in a folder to the jury. It was the first photo they saw. Some looked intently at the photo while most looked quickly before passing it on. One woman looked at the Petits and sighed deeply.

At a break after seeing the photo of Hayley, as jurors filed past Komisarjevsky to exit the courtroom, they averted their eyes from him.

Before jurors viewed the photographs, defense attorney Jeremiah Donovan objected to the photos being shown, saying he was concerned that they would impact jurors' ability to judge the case fairly.

Donovan said officers' description of the scene would be just as valuable as the photos and less prejudicial to his client.

Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue overuled the defense objection, saying that while he understood the emotional impact the "graphic and disturbing" photos could yield, he said the photos had probative value to the state's case.

Evidence in a trial may be excluded if a judge rules its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.

Trocchi testified that the fire was roaring in the rear of the Petit home when he arrived there. He entered the home and went up the stairs of the burning home. Because of the smoke and flames, he said, there was no visibility and firefighters had to use a thermal imaging camera to see. The conditions were dangerous, Trocchi said.

It was extremely hot, he said. "The stairs had burned through, so we had to keep our feet on the outside of the stairs so we wouldn't fall through."

Upstairs, he said, they noticed a body. They exited the home and notified the special response team.

Trocchi testified that he went into the home again. Visibility was better but carbon monoxide levels were still dangerous.

Upstairs, he saw the body again. It was at this point that Nicholson showed him the photograph and asked him who it was.

In earlier questioning, prosecutors asked Officer Jeffrey Sutherland, about the crash that occurred as the suspects were fleeing the burning home.

Jurors looked intently at dramatic photos projected on a movie screen, including photos that showed the Petits' crushed Chrysler Pacifica that Komisarjevsky had been driving before the crash. A photo of the mangled police cruiser struck by the Pacifica was also shown.

In one photo showing the Pacifica taken by a Petit neighbor, a dark-haired young man was shown lying on his stomach with his hands above his head. Sutherland said that man was Komisarjevsky.

Testimony began Wednesday with defense attorneys continuing their cross examination of a Cheshire police captain who responded to the Petit home the morning of the deadly home invasion.

Defense attorney Todd A. Bussert played police audiotapes of radio calls for jurors during his questioning of Capt. Robert Vignola. In one call, Vignola says excitedly, "I don't care how you do it, ascertain if we have people in the house alive."

The suspects had just rammed the Petits' vehicle into a police cruiser as they fled the burning Petit home, he said. Police were attempting to take the suspects into custody. Komisarjevsky would later tell them there were people inside the house.

Bussert noted the chaos of the morning and the attempts by police to sort out what was happening. At one point, police thought there were three suspects. Vignola said officers mistakenly thought another police officer, dressed in black SWAT gear, was possibly the third suspect.

"You have a lot of information coming into you at once?" Bussert asked.

"Yeah," Vignola replied.

"This is a fairly stressful situation, correct?" asked Bussert.

"Yes," Vignola said.

"Is it fair to say the entire situation didn't make sense?"

"At times, yes," Vignola said.

Vignola said it took officers "give or take" one minute to figure out that the third suspect theory was erroneous. He said it did not delay their response.

Bussert asked Vignola how serious this crime was compared with others he has investigated.

"I have never been to a more horrific incident in my life, sir," Vignola said.

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Man condemned to death in Conn. home invasion

Dr. William Petit speaks to reporters after a Connecticut jury sentences Joshua Komisarjevsky to death for his part in the murders Petit's wife and two daughters.
By NBC News and news service reports
Updated at 3:54 p.m. ET

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A jury has condemned a Connecticut man to death for killing a woman and her two daughters in a 2007 attack in their suburban home.

A jury condemned Joshua Komisarjevsky to death Friday for killing a woman and her two daughters. (AP Photo/Connecticut State Police, File)

The jury deliberated over the span of five days before returning the verdict against Joshua Komisarjevsky.
Komisarjevsky showed no reaction in the courtroom as he learned that he is heading to death row, along with his accomplice, Steven Hayes, NBC Connecticut reported.
Read complete coverage from NBC Connecticut

The two paroled burglars were convicted of tormenting the family of four in the New Haven suburb of Cheshire before killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and leaving her daughters, ages 17 and 11, to die in a fire.

The only survivor, Dr. William Petit, was beaten with a baseball bat and tied up but managed to escape. He appeared calm as the verdict was pronounced, his eyes blinking rapidly and his hand clenched in a fist on the seat in front of him. He later bowed his head and closed his eyes.

The crime in the affluent suburb led to the defeat of a bill to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut and sparked tougher state laws for repeat offenders and home invasions.

The defense asked jurors to spare Komisarjevsky's life. Lawyers argued his ultra-religious family never got him proper help after he was sexually abused as a child by his foster brother.

The seven women and five men of the jury could have spared Komisarjevsky's life and opted for life in prison without parole, but chose to impose a death sentence on him on all six capital felony counts.

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In closing arguments, a prosecutor said the two men created "the ultimate house of horrors" by inflicting extreme psychological and physical pain on the victims that amounted to torture.
"It was shockingly brutal. It was evil. It was vicious," prosecutor Gary Nicholson said.

Joshua Komisarjevsky was formally sentenced to death on Friday for killing a woman and her two daughters in Connecticut. He joins his accomplice on death row.
A judge in New Haven sentenced a 31-year-old man to death Friday for his role in a deadly home invasion that killed a woman and her two daughters in 2007.
Jurors convicted Joshua Komisarjevsky in October on six capital felony charges. The 12-member jury had recommended death by lethal injection on each of the counts.
"The task of sentencing another human being to death is the most sober and somber experience a judge can have," said Superior Court Judge Jon Blue.
Komisarjevsky responded Friday, saying that he "came into this trial angry and defiant."
Komisarjevsky jurors share thoughts Petit family hopes for speedy execution Komisarjevsky family accepts decision
It's a "surreal experience to be condemned to die," he said. "Our apathetic pursuits trampled the innocent."
He said, "I did not rape. I did not pour that gas or light that fire."
"I will never find peace again and my soul is torn," Komisarjevsky added.
The family of his victims left the courtroom before Komisarjevsky spoke.
Richard Hawke, in a victim's statement prior to the sentencing, said the killings of his daughter and granddaughters had left him "half-past dead."
"They offered to give you everything you asked for, you didn't have to take their lives," he told Komisarjevsky. "You will from now on be known as a prison number in the book of death. You are now in God's hands."
The man convicted of being Komisarjevsky's accomplice, Steven Hayes, was sentenced to death in 2010. Juries convicted the pair on charges that they beat and tied up Dr. William Petit Jr., raped and strangled his wife, molested one of their daughters and set the house on fire before trying to flee.
Petit is the sole survivor of the attack that killed his wife and two daughters.
"I lost my family and my home," said Petit. "My wife, my friend, my partner. I miss our late night chats and our partnership in raising the girls."
Before assaulting and killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit, Hayes forced her to go to a bank and withdraw $15,000 from an account after finding evidence that the account held between $20,000 and $30,000, authorities said.
The two daughters, who were both tied to their beds, died of smoke inhalation, while William Petit managed to escape from the basement, where he had been held.
Hayes had been charged with third-degree burglary in 2003 and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released three years later to a halfway house, where he met Komisarjevsky.
Komisarjevsky's attorneys had asked for leniency, arguing that he had no prior history of violence, was abused as a child and had been committed to a mental hospital for depression.

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He said, "I did not rape. I did not pour that gas or light that fire."
"I will never find peace again and my soul is torn," Komisarjevsky added.

Convicted murderer on death row planned bizarre suicide using oysters
Published July 02, 2012



HARTFORD, Conn. – A Connecticut man on death row for the killings of a mother and her two daughters in a 2007 home invasion says he came up with a bizarre plan to end his own life by lying about killing others in a spree of violence.
In an interview with The Hartford Courant, Steven Hayes said he fabricated claims in letters last year that he killed 17 people and committed dozens of drugged date rapes. He had hoped prison authorities would notify police and that he could trade information for food, including oysters to which he is deathly allergic.
"I planned to eat them and have them find me dead in my cell the next morning," he said.
Hayes' desire to die has been a theme of his defense since the July 23, 2007, killings.
He raped and strangled Jennifer Hawke-Petit. Her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, died of smoke inhalation after they were doused with gasoline and the house was set on fire.
Joshua Komisarjevsky also was convicted and sentenced to death for the killings. In an interview with The Associated Press in May, Komisarjevsky declined an opportunity to express remorse.
Hayes said he would not follow the example set by serial killer Michael Ross, a Connecticut death row inmate who waived his appeals and was executed in 2005. Hayes said he promised his lawyer he would not end his appeals to hasten his own execution.
His public defender, Thomas Ullmann, confirmed his client's promise.
"He has made a commitment to me that he will not pull a Michael Ross," he said.
Hayes said he expected to die as he and Komisarjevsky fled the burning house. He expected Cheshire police officers to shoot him when they saw the fake but authentic-looking gun he was carrying or when Komisarjevsky rammed their getaway vehicle into a police cruiser.
As his trial was getting underway, Hayes was found unconscious in his prison cell after overdosing on prescription medication. In testimony at the trial, Hayes said he slashed his wrists, slammed his mother's car into a rock and tied a sock around his neck.
He also said he fantasized about putting his head in a prison cell toilet and doing a back flip, but didn't because he feared he would be paralyzed rather than die.
Hayes said he believes he deserves the death penalty and that the repeal of capital punishment by the legislature and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is unfortunate. He said he views his death sentence as "a welcome relief," even though it could be years or even decades before he is executed.
He believes his failed suicide attempts force him to live with the consequences of what he's done.
"I think I've survived because I am meant to live with the thoughts of what I did to that family," Hayes said.

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It was the crime of nightmares.

In July 2007, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komiserjevsky broke into the home of Connecticut doctor William Petit and held the family hostage for hours. After bludgeoning Dr. Petit with a baseball bat, they strangled his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit and assaulted the couple's two daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Then, they set the house on fire, killing both girls. Only Dr. Petit survived.

As news of the murders spread, Hayes's daughter, 15-year-old Alicia, had just returned from a high school camp for students who were interested in becoming police officers.

Daughter of Petit Family Killer: 'I'm Not My Father'| True Crime, William Petit
Steven Hayes
AP
"My mom and I were driving to the bank," she tells PEOPLE. "She turned to me and said, 'Alicia, there's something I need to tell you. Your father did something really bad.' And then she told me everything. I went numb."

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Although Alicia's parents had divorced when she was young, she would visit her father weekly.

"He would take me to the park or to the movies," she says. "If I wanted ice cream, he was right there to get it for me. When we would cross the street, he would take my hand to keep me safe. He was always good to me. That's what made this so hard for me to comprehend. He never showed that side to me."

After the crime, Hayes was teased in school by other students. "I didn't believe it at first, and then I got really angry, and then sad," she says quietly. "These girls were close to my age. How could he do something like that? And I started asking questions about myself. If my father could do that, what did that mean for me? I finally decided that there's nothing genetic in what he did. I'm not destined to do the same things he did. I'm not my father, and I will never be him."

Hayes, now 21, tells her story in The Cheshire Murders, a documentary premiering Monday night on HBO.

Now in the U.S. Air Force, she conducted a Skype interview with PEOPLE from "an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia." Speaking candidly, she talks about what the ramifications of her father's actions. (Hayes and Komiserjevsky were both sentenced to death after being convicted of murder and other charges in separate trials.)

"When it first happened, I blamed myself," she said. "I had told him to call me if he ever felt like he was going to get in trouble again. But I was away when he did it, so I always wondered whether he would have called me if I had been home. But on the same token, I know that I couldn't have stopped it. It was going to happen regardless of what I said."

She pauses and carefully chooses her words. "Obviously, the Petit family suffered more than I can imagine, and I would never comparing their loss with mine. But when someone does something like what [my father] did, his family suffers, too. If I could talk to Dr. Petit, I'd tell him that I'm very sorry for what my father did, but I'd also want him to know that I'm not like that."

In the Air Force, she works as a dialysis technician and is studying to be a nurse. "I want my choices to be about helping people, not hurting them. I see what stealing and burglary leads to, and I don't want that for myself. I hope if anyone can take anything away from my story, it's that you can make your own choices to do the right thing, no matter what other people do. We can all make something of ourselves, and that's what I plan to do."
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Dr. William Petit Jr. and his wife, Christine, were flooded with well-wishes after announcing her pregnancy Thursday.

"Lo, children are a heritage of the LORD," Dr. Petit Tweeted the Psalm in response to one follower's excited congratulations. "And the fruit of the womb is his reward."

Equally ecstatic were his former in-laws and friends of the couple, who married last August.

"We are very happy for them," says the Rev. Richard Hawke, father of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, Dr. Petit's late wife. "He is too young to go through life by himself."

He thinks his daughter and granddaughters would approve as well.

"They were certainly the kind of people that looked out for others," he says. "I think they would be pleased. He'll always have a space in his heart for them."

Dr. Petit was a caring and involved father to Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17, and will surely be the same with his new son or daughter, Hawke adds.

"He was constantly teaching them," says Hawke, 82. "He was always taking whatever opportunity he had to make sure that the children learned from that experience."

Ann Baldwin, who's known Christine and Dr. Petit for several years, last saw them at Christine's art show in West Hartford, Conn. July 25. Christine is a professional photographer and was displaying some of her work.

"I saw a glow of happiness that was indescribable," says Baldwin. "She was just beaming. He was smiling and upbeat. It's just fantastic."

Baldwin says Dr. Petit is the happiest she's seen him since the July 2007 tragedy that took his family from him.

"After seeing him in other situations," she says, "it felt good for me to see him happy."
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