It all started July 27, 2007; several people’s lives were forever changed on that day. In Cheshire, Connecticut, the Petit family home was invaded, and three people were murdered: Jennifer Hawke-
Petit and her daughters, Hayley Petit, and Michaela Petit.
The two men that police deemed responsible for this crime are former burglary parolees, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky. The day before the invasion, Komisarjevsky followed Jennifer Hawke-Petit and Michaela Petit home from the grocery store.
The two men entered the house between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. on July 27 through the unlocked basement door. Once inside, Komisarjevsky caused Dr. Petit to become unconscious by hitting him over the head with a bat until he “finally backed up into a corner of the couch” and “quieted down” as the defendant had said. Proceeding to go upstairs, Komisarjevsky tied up the girls and Hayes took Hawke-Petit to the bank to withdraw the $15,000 that the two men intended to split between themselves.
According to Fox News, once Hayes returned with the money and Hawke-Petit, he raped and strangled her before dousing the house in gasoline and lighting a match, “to get rid of DNA evidence,” as Komisarjevsky said, quoting Hayes. After watching the fire start, Komisarjevsky got into the driver’s side of the family vehicle, with Hayes in the passenger’s side, and drove off into the cop cars that were just down the street from the house. The Petit girls had pillowcases over their heads and died of smoke inhalation. At some point during the whole ordeal, Dr. Petit had escaped from the basement to the neighbor’s house to call 911.
On October 5 of last year, Steven Hayes, one man deemed responsible for the crime, was convicted on 16 out of 17 charges. Hayes was sentenced to death; the only charge he was acquitted of was arson in the second degree.
This past Monday, September 19, the second home invasion trial began. Joshua Komisarjevsky faces multiple charges for the murders of the three Petit women. He is charged with three counts of murder, six counts of capital murder, four counts of kidnapping, one count of burglary in the third degree, sexual assault in the first degree, assault in the second degree, and arson in the second degree—Hayes and Komisarjevsky were brought up on the same charges.
In court that first day, the defense, specifically Walter C. Bansley, called the supporters of the Petit family the “Petit Posse” and claimed they needed to take the Petit Family Foundation pins off because he believed they may sway the jury in an unfair way not related to the facts of the case. The Superior Court Judge, John C. Blue, overruled this objection and continued the trial with the Petit Pins still present, since the pins represent the foundation for educating, rehabilitating, and helping battered and abused women and is completely unrelated to the case directly.
Also, on the first day, an audio confession of Komisarjevsky stated that earlier in the day before the invasion he had said to himself and Hayes that, “I’m not killing anyone. No one is dying by my hand today.”
The following days in the trial consist of many details from July 27 just coming out to the public now. The auto confession that was presented as evidence had Komisarjevsky telling the Cheshire police how he had cut off Michaela’s clothes and performed oral sex on her, then ejaculated on her stomach, and then proceeded to take pictures of her with his cellphone. On the recording, he then continued to say that he un-tied her and “let her lay back down” because she was being so “well-behaved.” Komisarjevsky also told officers that he thought Michaela to be 14 or 16; he had no idea she was only 11.
The defense’s argument against the audio recording of Komisarjevsky’s confession is that it was given in duress; in other words, the defendant said what he said because as far as he knew if he stayed quiet something much worse would have happened to him. Another of the defense’s objections was to the prosecutor showing evidence pictures taken by the police, because he believed they would sway the jurors unfairly in judging Komisarjevsky’s guilt.
The prosecutor’s repetitive statement, for both home invasion trials, is that “both men are equally responsible for the crime,” even though the defense in both Hayes’s and Komisarjevsky’s trials claim that the opposite man is the mastermind of the crime. A majority of news sources, including the Hartford Courant and the New York Times said on the first day of the trial that Komisarjevsky’s trial is a “carbon copy” of what Hayes’s trial was, but once Wednesday and Thursday came around during the trial everything changed.
Information had poured out that no one had even expected to hear. Not only was the new information a surprise, but the way the defendant held himself was completely different from Hayes—who had a smug expression on his face and wore his orange jumpsuit to court and did not seem to pay much attention to the actions in the court—Komisarjevsky was in a suit and was very attentive to everything that was going on inside the courtroom.
Another difference between the two cases, according to the Hartford Courant, is that last year Hayes’s attorneys didn’t cross examine Petit; this year Komisarjevsky’s attorneys plan to do so. He took the stand on Tuesday, the second day in the trial. The Courant quoted Petit on his opinion on testifying again, saying that it was even “more nerve-racking” than the first time.
On Thursday Judge Blue recessed court early for the day after noticing how distressed one of the female jurors became while listening to Komisarjevsky’s recorded confession. The trial continued Monday, September 26.
