Petit Family Murders in CT-2007 SOLVED-Death Sentence for both men.

[San]

Connecticut jurors get horrific glimpse of Petit teen's charred bed

By LAURA ITALIANO Post Correspondent
Last Updated: 5:55 AM, September 17, 2010
Posted: 3:52 AM, September 17, 2010


http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/tied_down_and_set_on_fire_KCG7y9EgojqMbSa4C4tCWL



NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Crime photos of tragic Hayley Petit's flame-blackened bed -- restraints still tied to its carved wood finials -- were entered into evidence yesterday in the horrific Connecticut home-invasion murder trial.

With its burned comforter and charred, exposed bedsprings, the pictures are evidence of unfathomable evil: that Hayley, 17, and her sister, Michaela, 11, were literally ignited alive in their beds.

So horrific have these and other evidence pictures been that even the monster standing trial has found them literally sickening.

It's been three years since defendant Steven Hayes, 47, and his accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 29, allegedly unleashed a nightmare of kidnapping, rape, murder and arson after breaking into the Petit family home north of New Haven on a Monday morning in July.

Yesterday, the lawyer for Hayes, who is being tried first in New Haven Superior Court, announced his client had suffered "seizure-like symptoms" and had "urinated all over himself" during a sleepless night in jail the night before.

"I believe it is attributed to what occurred yesterday afternoon," the lawyer, Thomas Ullmann, told the trial judge.

The afternoon's testimony had included descriptions by cops and firefighters of finding the bodies of the two girls and their strangled mother, Jennifer Hawke-Petit.

Court ended early due to the lawyer's "concerns" for his client's health. Prosecutors may release Hayes' never-before-revealed confession when testimony continues Monday.

"This is Michaela's bed," State Trooper Karen Gabianelli, the crime scene's evidence officer, told jurors before court was called off, referring to one picture in which a wide swath of charcoal black extended from the foot of the bed and down across the carpet.

A wooden Louisville Slugger bat -- which Komisarjevsky allegedly swiped from the garage and used to club the father in the head -- leaned against the little girl's dresser.

"I'm going to refer to this as the bottom of the bed," Gabianelli told jurors, using a laser pointer on a photo projected on screen. "I'm going to say that based on the position we found her in. Her feet were toward this end of the bed."

One bedroom down, Hayley would manage to escape the flames at her feet. Photos show tied, melted lengths of pantyhose at the posts on one end of her bed, and cotton rope with burned ends tied at the other end.

The older girl died, though, on the landing just outside her bedroom doorway, overcome by fire and smoke. The flames around her had been so hot, her sleep shorts had fused to the landing carpet, the trooper testified. The tatters of her clothing now sit on the prosecution table, in the kind of metal evidence cans reserved for items contaminated by fire accelerants.

Lawyers for Hayes are trying to avoid Connecticut's death penalty by claiming he is somehow less guilty than the break-in's alleged mastermind, Komisarjevsky.

It was Komisarjevsky who allegedly chose the victims, targeting the mother and two girls after spying them the night before in a supermarket parking lot, where they bought groceries for what would be the family's last meal. It was Komisarjevsky, a veteran break-in artist, who allegedly planned the attack, clubbed the father and raped the younger girl.

But prosecutors say it was Hayes who drove the mother to her local bank, waiting outside in her SUV as she withdrew $15,000 in ransom money. Returning to the home, Hayes strangled and raped the mother in the living room, prosecutors say, and joined in the thorough and unforgivable arson.

Crime-scene photos introduced in evidence today suggest the mother, too, had been tied at one point to her bed. A silk scarf -- "57 inches long," the trooper noted -- was knotted to one of the bedposts. The couple's bedroom had been methodically ransacked, other photos showed.

"Throughout the entire bedroom, almost all the drawers were either removed or ajar," the trooper told jurors.

Jewelry boxes sat in a row on the smoke-stained comforter, as if inventoried. Other items appeared untouched -- including books stacked in a nightstand, among them "The Encyclopedia of Christian Worship."

The guilt phase of the trial is expected to take another three weeks. If Hayes is convicted, a second trial will follow in which the same jury decides whether he should be put to death.

laura.italiano@nypost.com

[Sister]

snipped from above:
Yesterday, the lawyer for Hayes, who is being tried first in New Haven Superior Court, announced his client had suffered "seizure-like symptoms" and had "urinated all over himself" during a sleepless night in jail the night before.

Well cry me a river . . . what . . . we're supposed to feel sorry for this POS.  Never!!!

[San]

snipped from above:
Yesterday, the lawyer for Hayes, who is being tried first in New Haven Superior Court, announced his client had suffered "seizure-like symptoms" and had "urinated all over himself" during a sleepless night in jail the night before.

Well cry me a river . . . what . . . we're supposed to feel sorry for this POS.  Never!!!

I agree.

[Gizzie]

http://insession.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/20/petit-slayings-trial-postponed-two-days-judge-is-hospitalized/

September 20, 2010
Petit slayings trial postponed two days; Judge is hospitalized
Posted: 01:52 PM ET

New Haven, Connecticut – The Petit slayings trial in Connecticut has been postponed for two days. The Judge presiding over the trial, Jon Blue, has been hospitalized. Moments after the defendant, Steven Hayes, was escorted into the courtroom this morning, Judge Roland Fasano took the bench and made an announcement.

"As you're all probably aware, Judge Blue is in the hospital... he's just undergoing some observation and testing.  He's feeling well, and will be ready to go on Wednesday," said Judge Fasano.

The judge also noted that the Hayes trial jurors did arrive at the courthouse as usual but were sent home; they will return in two days.

This is the third time the trial has been delayed. The defendant, Steven Hayes experienced a seizure last Thursday, leading to a mid-day adjournment. Months back, the start of the trial was postponed after Hayes tried to kill himself.

Steven Hayes and co-defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky are charged with capital murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, burglary and arson for the killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, Hayley Petit and Michaela Petit in 2007. Hawke-Petit was strangled, while her daughters; 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela died of smoke inhalation when their captors set their home on fire.

[San]

Just when I thought it couldn't get any more sickening I read this.  I can't read about this case any more because it is disturbing to me.

I hope both these low lives die of a horrible painful death for what they did.  And if we think that this first trial is bad I have a feeling the next one will be worse 

Fire marshal testimony reveals horrifying traces of Petit-family slaying

By LAURA ITALIANO Post Correspondent
Last Updated: 10:12 AM, September 25, 2010
Posted: 2:23 AM, September 25, 2010


NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Gasoline had been splashed in great, looping arcs across the doomed girls' beds and bodies before being ignited, according to some of the most harrowing testimony yet in the Connecticut home-invasion murder trial.

The testimony, by a state fire marshal, sent the aunt of the young victims, Hayley Petit, 17, and her 11-year-old sister Michaela, fleeing from the courtroom in tears.

"The pour pattern of the ignitable liquid went across Michaela's body," marshal Paul Makuc told jurors yesterday, using a laser pointer to trace the liquid's charred trail across a crime scene photo.
Pointing later to a photo of Hayley's bed, he showed jurors how there, too, death came with a monstrous flick of the plastic bottle of gas in her killer's hand.

"You'll note the heavy burn damage extends across the top of the mattress," the marshal told jurors, again demonstrating with a photo and a pointer.

"It leads to the total consumption of the bedding material, and in fact, the top of the mattress."

Investigators believe the flames on Hayley's bed were so intense, they burned through the restraints at her wrists and ankles. Hayley was on fire as she fled her burning bed, and collapsed and died of smoke inhalation just outside her bedroom doorway, investigators have said.

The girls had already been tied to their beds for more than six hours before the gasoline hit, and the fire was set, prosecutors say.

Their mother, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, already lay raped and strangled -- the work, prosecutors say, of crack-addicted career con Steven Hayes, now on trial for the triple murder. Only the father, Dr. William Petit -- beaten in the head nearly to death with a baseball bat -- survived, escaping to summon help just moments before his house burst into flames.

Co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky, 29, whom Hayes blames for setting the fire, is to face trial next year. Yesterday, Komisarjevsky's defense lawyer left the Petit family furious when he insisted in a statement to trial reporters that evidence shows the younger daughter had not been raped by his client.

"We are deeply sympathetic of the sadness of the Petit family and we expect this is just a very small solace," the lawyer said of his no-rape claim -- which flies in the face of DNA evidence.

"We are completely outraged today," said another of the girls' aunts -- Petit's sister, Hannah.

"We don't want his sympathy. We don't need his sympathy," she said, bitterly.

laura.italiano@nypost.com

[Sister]

This attorney is dumber than a rock (no offense rocks, you serve a wonderful purpose).  If he thinks for one split second such statements will render any sympathy, he needs to go hit his own head with a rock.
 

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/latestnews/article_24bf65a4-cb15-11df-a861-001cc4c002e0.html
Witness: Petit home fire started in family room
By: | Posted: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 11:17 am | 0 comments

NEW HAVEN -- A detective from the state fire marshal's office who examined the badly burned home of William Petit and his family on July 23, 2007 testified Tuesday that the fire was set in the family room.

 The witness is testifying at the trial of Steven Hayes, one of two men charged in the rape and murder of Petit's wife and two daughters. The daughters Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11 perished in the fire. Prosecutors said Hayes strangeled the girl's mother Jennifer Hawke-Petit in the family room.

Jurors were shown pictures of articles in the home damaged beyond recognition and where  police found Mrs. Petit's badly burned body. The witness said the fire was set by a match and accelerants were used throughout the house, up the stairs, in the bedrooms and on the bodies of the Petit daughters.

The trial is now continuing at New Haven Superior Court. The state is expected to wrap up its case today and the defense could also rest.

Follow live Tweets of the trial's coverage on this website or on Twitter at Record_Journal.

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.theday.com/article/20100928/OP01/309289955
Resist calls for death penalty
Published 09/28/2010 12:00 AMUpdated 09/28/2010 02:03 AM
Gruesome details of the Petit family home-invasion, triple-murder case now being played out in a New Haven courtroom have horrified the country, thanks to front-page coverage in national newspapers, lead-story treatment on television and radio networks and sensational reporting in tabloids and news magazines.

Not surprisingly, the case also has prompted renewed demands for Connecticut authorities to exact a sentence it has been reluctant to impose over the years: the death penalty.

Since a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision that reinstated executions, Connecticut has put to death only one person, serial killer Michael Ross, in 2005. His death by lethal injection came 45 years after Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky was sent to the electric chair following his conviction for several brutal robberies and murders.

This newspaper understands these calls for "justice," especially considering that the Petit family has joined in such emotional appeals. On Sunday, more than 2,000 motorcyclists, led by a procession of state and local policemen, participated in the inaugural Petit Family Foundation's Ride for Justice.

According to news accounts of the event, many riders, when questioned, said one of their goals was to attract support for the death penalty.
Dr. William Petit, the only survivor of the 2007 home invasion that claimed the life of his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and daughters, Hayley and Michaela, also has publicly advocated capital punishment. He has been attending the first of two trials of the men accused in the brutal crimes.

Steven J. Hayes, on trial now, and Joshua Komisarjevsky, expected to be tried next year, face multiple capital felony counts in the deaths of Mrs. Hawke-Petit and her daughters. Mrs. Hawke-Petit and Michaela were sexually assaulted before they were killed.

If Mr. Hayes is convicted, a second penalty phase will be held to determine whether he should get the death penalty. Prosecutors have already said that they intend to argue several aggravating factors, including that the crimes were committed in a "heinous, cruel or depraved manner."

Even so, we nonetheless urge the state not only to resist enforcing its death-penalty laws, but to abolish them from the books as well.

Capital punishment is barbaric, and there's no evidence it serves as a deterrent of capital crimes. It also precludes any opportunity to review a case with the introduction of new, exculpatory evidence, as has occurred numerous times in other parts of the country in recent years.
Supporters of the death penalty often claim the alternative - lifetime incarceration - is expensive, but in fact it costs more money to execute prisoners because of the numerous mandatory legal appeals that must first be exhausted even when an inmate no longer wants to fight execution, as was the case with Mr. Ross.

A report by the national Death Penalty Information Center bears this out, noting, for instance, that each death penalty case in Texas costs taxpayers about $2.3 million. That is about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years.

Of course, this state will never be, nor should it ever be, confused with Texas, which has put 1,214 prisoners to death since 1819. If Connecticut is known as the Constitution State, Texas should be called the Execution State.

Still, Connecticut, which has put to death 127 people since 1639, has had its share of morally questionable executions.

It put to death the youngest person in America, Hannah Ocuish, a mentally +++++++ Pequot Indian girl who was hanged in 1786 after killing the young daughter of a prominent white family following an argument over a basket of strawberries.
Most people associate Salem, Mass., with witch trials, but Achsah Young of Windsor, the first person executed for witchcraft in the 13 Colonies, was hanged in 1647 in Hartford.

The fate of Connecticut's death penalty law will rest with the legislature and next governor. The assembly has favored abolishing the law. Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley wants it to stay on the books, while Democrat Dan Malloy wants it repealed.

We agree: Capital punishment should end in Connecticut.

[trimmonthelake]

This attorney is dumber than a rock (no offense rocks, you serve a wonderful purpose).  If he thinks for one split second such statements will render any sympathy, he needs to go hit his own head with a rock.
 

Sister,I agree.This case makes me physically ill.
No one should have to suffer like this.I pray for Mr.Petit's continued strength.

[San]

Just when you think it couldn't get any worse. I can't wait until this guy is dead.  He doesn't deserve to take another breath.


Defendant boasted about role in Conn. home invasion

By LAURA ITALIANO
Last Updated: 4:56 PM, September 28, 2010
Posted: 9:13 AM, September 28, 2010

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/conn_home_invasion_trial_resumes_G81YyGvJRLnes5NBYM4TcJ

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The monster on trial for the horrific Connecticut home invasion murders blabbed and boasted to his next door cell mate -- admitting he killed the family's mom and that he helped pour the gasoline that, ignited, slaughtered her two daughters.

But right before he murdered tragic Jennifer Hawke-Petit, the fiend, Steven Hayes, claimed he had a chilling moment of doubt, according to a guard who testified today about overhearing Hayes' jailhouse braggings one year after the massacre.

"He said he didn't know if he could do it," Connecticut corrections officer Jeremiah Krob told jurors in the trial's last prosecution testimony.

"Then they saw police cruisers outside," the officer testified. "He said that at that point he killed Mrs. Petit."

Krob told jurors he'd been assigned to suicide-watch duty outside Haye's solitary confinement cell in Northern Correctional Institute when he heard the jarring admissions.

It was one year after the July, 2007 morning when Hayes and co-defendant Joshua Komiarjevsky allegedly murdered the mom and her daughters -- Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. The family's father, Dr. William Petit -- clubbed nearly to death -- had narrowly escaped, but too late to summon help.

Locked in his tiny cell in the super-max prison, Hayes had a conversation with the accused murderer next door, one Vernon Cowan, the officer testified. Meanwhile, the officer listened, taking notes.

Oddly -- given the pile of murder and kidnapping charges against him, Hayes shared with his jailhouse buddy his concern over being charged with arson, the officer testified.

"He believed he'd only poured gasoline down the stairs of the house. But he had not lit the match. Therefore, he believed he could not be charged with arson," Krob told jurors.

Hayes mentioned Michaela, and spoke of knowing Komisarjevsky had raped the little girl. "He said Komisarjevsky had poured gasoline on the younger Petit girl" Michaela, the officer added.

Then, "Inmate Hayes mentioned to inmate Cowan that Komisarjevsky had taken cell phone pictures of the younger Petit girl," the officer testified. "He was trying to email them from his cell phone to his friends."

Jurors have heard of these sickening pornographic images -- but they have not heard that Komisarjevsky, the invasion's alleged mastermind, had tried to share them.

"Hayes mentioned to inmate Cowan that he had robbed the bank of $40, $50,000," the officer told jurors. Here, Hayes would have been exaggerating. Prosecutors say Hawke-Petit withdrew $15,000 at a nearby bank as Hayes waited for her in the parking lot.

The inmate next door then asked Hayes why Hayes didn't just drive off with the cash. "He said he didn't know, that he brought Mrs. Petit back to the Petit house and placed her in the den," the officer continued

Komisarjevsky was allegedly on the other side of the first floor, in the living room. Hayes told the inmate next door that he, Hayes, had paced back and forth between Komisarjevsky and the mother as Komisarjevsky kept urging him to kill the woman.

"Komisarjevsky had stated to Hayes that he had to kill her," the officer told jurors. "He[Hayes] said he didn't know if he could do it. He stated to Cowan that Komisarjevsky had told him he needed to kill her. He needed to get rid of her. And Hayes said he didn't know if he could do it.

"Then they saw police cruisers outside. He said that at that point, he killed Mrs. Petit. .. He never mentioned how he killed Mrs. Petit. He just mentioned that he killed Mrs. Petit."

In fact, the mother had been strangled, a coroner testified last week. Fractured cartilage in her neck survived even the inferno that engulfed and utterly charred her corpse.

Hayes showed a self-serving streak during his conversation -- insisting, despite forensic evidence against him, that he hadn't raped the mother He showed a paranoid streak as well, musing with his next-door inmate over whether Komisarjevsky and the father had conspired in some kind of insurance plot, according to the officer's testimony.

The defense is expected to begin presenting witnesses by day's end.

[trimmonthelake]

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1009/28/ijvm.01.html
Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell 09/28/10
<snipped>
RUTH, INDIANA (via telephone): Yes. I was wondering, are these two guys are they career criminals?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, they are. Michael Christian, what is their history?

CHRISTIAN: They have long histories, particularly Steven Hayes. Now Steven Hayes was kind of a lower level guy. He had a long history of burglary but it all seems to be pretty much drug-related. He was the kind of guy who would apparently take a brick, smash out your car window, steal your purse, take the cash and buy drugs.

Komisarjevsky was more of a home invader, a burglar. He apparently likes to go, according to reports, break into people`s houses. Sometimes he would go in, in the middle of the night and maybe not even take anything. He said he liked the thrill of going in. He apparently has said that sometimes he would sit there and just listen to the sounds of the house or listen to the people sleeping or maybe move a chair five inches or swap pictures on the wall so in the morning you`d know somebody had been there but nothing was missing.

So he was a little higher level in the burglary department and Hayes was a little lower level.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, here`s my big issue tonight: equally evil. I mean, I think everybody agrees these guys are both completely evil, even though the guy currently on trial, Steven Hayes, is trying to point the finger at the other guy, Joshua Komisarjevsky and say, oh, you know, I just wanted -- baldy over there is trying to argue, I just wanted to rob and leave and go get a margarita. It was really the other guy.

I think it`s nonsense, Joanna Greenwald, because first of all, Steven Hayes, baldy, went to get gasoline at 7:00 in the morning right toward the beginning of all of this mayhem. So he had to know that they were going to burn the house down because that`s what they used, gasoline. So how on earth is he able to point to the other guy and say well, you know, he`s really the one who raped the 11-year-old first so, then he said I should even the score and rape the mother and I was pressured into doing it. What nonsense.

JOANNA GREENWALD, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, again, now I`ll answer and address it, what I meant is dealing with the defense that way, focusing on that point is that the defense was that he was just trying to, because it`s beyond a reasonable doubt, Jane -- they`re just trying to show, just for this specific defendant, that someone else had the motive.

Even if it`s all disgusting and even if it breaks everyone`s heart as a subject matter because it`s heartbreaking. The bottom line though is that by planting some seed of some motive, then that`s what they were trying to do by saying that the father had something to do with it and he tied it tightly and maybe the other guy let it looser. That`s why he did it.

They were trying to do a defense to plant a seed of reasonable doubt.


These monsters need to fry.Period.

[San]

At the end of the day Mrs. Petit by altering the bank clerk to call the police caught the people who murdered her family.  I am convinced that Hayes and Komisarjevsky were going to murder them no matter what.

It says according to reports that Komisarjevsky like to break into peoples homes just to sit and listen to people sleep.  He is FOS.  What reports are the referring to.

If we think this trial is bad wait until the next trial.

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/testimony-ends-in-connecticut-home-invasion-murder-trial-of-steven-hayes/19653745

Testimony Ends in Conn. Home Invasion Murder Trial
Updated: 3 hours 39 minutes ago
(Sept. 29) -- The testimony got so awful that after the worst of it, the judge told jurors they could hug each other.

Testimony in the murder trial of Steven Hayes ended Tuesday with both sides resting. Hayes, 47, and Joshua Komisarjevsky, 30, are charged with murder, sexual assault and other charges in the 2007 home invasion that left a mother and her two daughters dead in Cheshire, Conn. The father was the lone survivor.

The judge was to hear motions this afternoon, and closing arguments are to begin Friday. The jury, which began hearing the case Sept. 13, is expected to get the case Monday
Hayes and Komisarjevsky are accused of beating Dr. William Petit and killing his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and their daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, on July 30, 2007. The victims were tied up in different rooms of their home in the affluent town.

Prosecutors say Hawke-Petit was strangled and her daughters died of smoke inhalation after the men set the house on fire, The Associated Press reported. Petit, who was bound and tied to a basement post, was beaten with a baseball bat, AP said. He freed himself and got to a neighbor's house.
During the trial, Petit hung his head at times while grim photos of the crime scene were showed to the jury. Photos showed rope used to tie the victims up, torn and burned clothing and ransacked rooms, AP said.

Some jurors and members of the Petit family broke down at the sight of the photos of the three victims on Sept. 15, CBS News reported. The judge recognized the difficulty of the day and cut it short and told the jurors it was to OK to hug each other, according to CBS.

A day earlier, the judge dismissed a juror who found the testimony too difficult to hear, CBS said.

Prosecutors said Hayes made Hawke-Petit take money out of the bank before she was killed. In the trial's first testimony, bank teller Kristin Makhzangi explained how Hawke-Petit told her she needed money because her family members were being held as hostages, according to WFSB-TV.
"Her hands were a little shaky, but she was not overly anxious," Makhzangi said, according to the station. "She was focusing on our conversation."

Petit also testified about how, after being beaten, he was drifting in and out of consciousness in the basement. He said he may have yelled something.

Don't worry. It's all going to be over in a couple of minutes," he said a voice responded, according to The New York Times.  Petit also remembered hearing an intruder demand the location of a safe, which the family didn't have. "If you give us what we want, we won't hurt you," he heard someone say, The Times reported.

The trial was delayed several times because of illness.

Testimony ended early on Sept. 16, a day after the horrifying photos were shown, after Hayes' lawyer said his client had "seizure-like symptoms" at night that led him to urinate "all over himself," the Hartford Courant reported.

The trial was delayed again when Judge Jon Blue was hospitalized. Jurors who went to court on Sept. 20 were told the trial would resume the following Wednesday, according to reports. The illness was not disclosed.
Filed under: Nation, Crime, Top Stories

[Sister]

I am not an eye-for-an-eye person.  Sometimes there are circumstances which need to be considered.  This case is not an exception.  Personally, I think they should tie both of these POS to a bed and then set it on fire.  Just before they are consumed in flames, put the fire out, and start again the next day, then the day after that . . . so they won't know which day they will finally be burned to death.
Dr. Petit has a fortitude beyond my understanding, but not beyond my admiration.  I really think I would just shoot them.
The reason the death penalty is not a deterrent is because it takes decades for it to be carried.  Most folks can't remember what they did last week, let alone the horrors that happened to a person/s years later.
When there is no doubt of the POS -- let justice be swift!

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20018192-504083.html
September 30, 2010 3:29 PM
Connecticut Home Invasion: Inside the Trial of Steven Hayes for the Petit Family Murders

[trimmonthelake]

Well said Sister. 

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20018426-504083.html
October 4, 2010 1:17 PM
Connecticut Home Invasion: Jury Begins Deliberating in Petit Family Murder Trial

[trimmonthelake]

http://middletownpress.com/articles/2010/10/04/news/doc4caa16e8f2f44794973216.txt

Hayes jury set to begin deliberations
Published: Monday, October 04, 2010
By Randall Beach, New Haven Register

Click to enlarge

Dr. William Petit Jr. prepares to enter Superior Court Monday morning. Brad Horrigan | New Haven Register.

NEW HAVEN — The jury in the Steven J. Hayes Cheshire triple homicide trial will begin deliberations this afternoon after hearing detailed legal instructions this morning from the judge.

Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue spent about 90 minutes listing the 17 counts against Hayes and the elements of each charge the state must prove.

The 17 charges include six counts of capital felony. If the jurors convict Hayes on one or more of these charges, they will hear a penalty phase of the trial to consider whether he should be sentenced to death.

The capital felony charges are for the murder of multiple victims — Jennifer Hawke Petit and her daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17 — 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. William Petit Jr., who survived the attack: first-degree sexual assault of Hawke Petit; third-degree burglary; first-degree arson, and second-degree assault of Petit.
After Blue finished his instructions, he sent home the two alternate jurors, telling them they would still be needed if a regular juror could not continue, or if the 12 convict Hayes on any of the capital felony counts.

The 12 jurors are expected to begin deliberations shortly after 2 p.m. today, following Blue’s slight clarification of his instructions.

[SunnyinTX]

http://middletownpress.com/articles/2010/10/04/news/doc4caa16e8f2f44794973216.txt

Hayes jury set to begin deliberations
Published: Monday, October 04, 2010
By Randall Beach, New Haven Register

Click to enlarge

Dr. William Petit Jr. prepares to enter Superior Court Monday morning. Brad Horrigan | New Haven Register.

NEW HAVEN — The jury in the Steven J. Hayes Cheshire triple homicide trial will begin deliberations this afternoon after hearing detailed legal instructions this morning from the judge.

Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue spent about 90 minutes listing the 17 counts against Hayes and the elements of each charge the state must prove.

The 17 charges include six counts of capital felony. If the jurors convict Hayes on one or more of these charges, they will hear a penalty phase of the trial to consider whether he should be sentenced to death.

The capital felony charges are for the murder of multiple victims — Jennifer Hawke Petit and her daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17 — 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. William Petit Jr., who survived the attack: first-degree sexual assault of Hawke Petit; third-degree burglary; first-degree arson, and second-degree assault of Petit.
After Blue finished his instructions, he sent home the two alternate jurors, telling them they would still be needed if a regular juror could not continue, or if the 12 convict Hayes on any of the capital felony counts.

The 12 jurors are expected to begin deliberations shortly after 2 p.m. today, following Blue’s slight clarification of his instructions.

I have followed this case and this trial and I have been unable to post......the hate in my heart for these 2 is so great it is frightening to me....I can only hope when some bleeding hearts start spouting about the death penalty being cruel and unusual punishment someone will force them to read what these monsters did to this family......I would gladly slit their throats..after I castrated them and burned their eyes and tongue out with a hot poker, and cut them up piece by piece....how Dr. Petit and his family have lived through this trial with their sanity intact is beyond me....God Bless them all.

[Bearlyhere]