Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders

On July 23, 2007, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky invaded the residence of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut. Though initially planning only to rob the house, she and Komisarjevsky murdered Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley Petit and 11-year-old Michaela Petit. Their father Dr. William Petit escaped with severe injuries.

Upon entering the Petits' home, Komisarjevsky beat Dr. Petit with a baseball bat and the pair restrained him in the basement. Hawke-Petit and her daughters were also restrained. Hayes later kidnapped Hawke-Petit and forced her to withdraw money at a bank. After returning to the home, Hayes raped her and strangled her to death. Komisarjevsky raped 11-year-old Michaela. The invaders then decided to burn down the house to destroy evidence. With Hayley and Michaela tied to their beds, the invaders doused them and the house with gasoline and set it on fire, leaving them to die of smoke inhalation.

The case garnered significant attention in Connecticut, with the ''Hartford Courant'' citing it as "possibly the most widely publicized crime in the state's history". The murders received national and international attention, and had a significant impact on Connecticut's death penalty, ultimately delaying its abolition.

Hayes was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death in 2010. Komisarjevsky was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to death in 2012. Their sentences were vacated in August 2015, when the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional, and commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment, even if that sentencing took place prior to the date that the death penalty was abolished.

Background

On the evening of Sunday, July 22, 2007, 48-year-old Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her 11-year-old daughter, Michaela Petit, went to a local Stop & Shop grocery store in Cheshire, Connecticut. They picked up food for a family dinner Michaela planned to prepare. During their trip to the grocery store, Joshua Komisarjevsky noticed them and took interest, then followed them home. Prosecutors argued at the trial that Komisarjevsky was motivated by money and his interest in Michaela, whom he later sexually assaulted.

Shortly afterwards, Steven Hayes sent a text message to Komisarjevsky that read, "I'm chomping at the bit to get started. Need a margarita soon." Hayes then texted, "We still on?" Komisarjevsky replied, "Yes." Hayes's next text asked, "Soon?", to which Komisarjevsky replied: "I'm putting the kid to bed hold your horses". Hayes replied: "Dude, the horses want to get loose. LOL."

Home invasion

According to Hayes' confession, she and Komisarjevsky had planned to rob the Petit house under the cover of darkness, leaving the family bound but otherwise unharmed. Both attributed the grisly outcome to a change of plan. Upon their arrival in the early hours of July 23, they found Dr. Petit asleep on a couch in the sun room. Komisarjevsky entered the basement through an unlocked door. Leaning on the basement stairs was a baseball bat. Komisarjevsky then entered the sun room and used the bat to strike Dr. Petit four or five times. He and Hayes bound his wrists and ankles with plastic zip ties and rope. Dr. Petit remembers one perpetrator telling the other, “If he moves, put two bullets in him.” The children and their mother were then bound in their respective rooms. Hayes and Komisarjevsky tied them by their wrists and ankles to their bedposts and placed pillowcases over their heads.
After restraining the victims, Komisarjevsky and Hayes ransacked the house for cash. They then took Dr. Petit to the basement where they tied him to a support pole. Hayes and Komisarjevsky continued ransacking the house for money but were not satisfied with what they found. They then found a check register with $40,000. They decided to steal $15,000.

Surveillance video from a gas station shows Hayes purchasing $10 worth of gasoline in two cans that were taken from the Petit home. After returning to the house, Hayes took Hawke-Petit to the bank. The prosecution later claimed that this was evidence of premeditated murder. Hayes forced Hawke-Petit to withdraw $15,000 from her line of credit when the bank opened. Hawke-Petit informed the bank teller that two men were holding her family hostage in their home and threatening to kill them all. Bank surveillance cameras captured the transaction. The bank manager called 9-1-1 and reported the situation to police while Hawke-Petit was still with the teller. The manager reported to the 9-1-1 dispatcher, in real-time, as Hawke-Petit left the bank. The manager told the dispatcher that Hawke-Petit had indicated that the home invaders were "being nice", and that she believed they only wanted money. The Cheshire police responded to the bank's report by assessing the situation and setting up a vehicle perimeter, without revealing their presence.Italiano, Laura.
Teller's urgent bid to save lives
" '' The New York Post''. September 16, 2010. Retrieved on January 18, 2013.

During this time, Hayes and Komisarjevsky aggravated the nature of their crimes. Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted 11-year-old Michaela, which he later confessed to when interrogated. Evidence that Komisarjevsky raped Michaela came from her autopsy, during which State Medical Examiner Dr. Wayne Carver found his semen in her body. Komisarjevsky photographed the assault and rape on his cell phone. In his interrogation, he claimed that he believed Michaela was 14 or 16. Forensic testing results showed that there was bleach on Michaela's clothes, indicating that Komisarjevsky may have tried to eliminate DNA evidence from the assault. According to Hayes' confession, Komisarjevsky provoked her into raping Hawke-Petit.

Dr. Petit was able to hear his wife’s assault upstairs. He yelled up and heard one of the invaders say, “Don’t worry. It’s all gonna be over in a couple of minutes.” Dr. Petit then managed to escape. He later testified in court that he felt a "jolt of adrenaline" and a need to escape after being told this. "I thought, it's now or never because in my mind at that moment, I thought they were going to shoot all of us."

Hayes said in her confession that while she was raping Hawke-Petit on the living room floor, Komisarjevsky entered and announced that Dr. Petit had escaped. Hayes then strangled Hawke-Petit. Some investigators have said that Hayes probably raped her after she had been murdered, making her a necrophile. Hayes and Komisarjevsky doused her lifeless body and parts of the house, including the daughters' bedrooms, with gasoline. While tied to their beds, both daughters were doused with gasoline as well. Investigators would later find the accelerant on the Petit sister's beds and on the clothing they were wearing. Hayes and Komisarjevsky started a fire and fled the scene. Hayley and Michaela both died of smoke inhalation. Hayley managed to escape her restraints and run out of her bedroom and into the hallway where she collapsed and died. Her body was found at the top of the staircase. Third and fourth-degree burns on her feet indicate that she got very close to the fire around the time she died. The medical examiner who performed an autopsy on her could not determine if the burns occurred before or after her death. Michaela's body was found in her bedroom. She was still in her bed, her hands tied to it and her lower body hanging off it. Like with her older sister, Michaela's burns may have occurred while she was still alive.

Dr. Petit had been able to free himself of his restraints, exit the house, and crawl to a neighbor's yard for help. The neighbor initially did not recognize Dr. Petit due to the severity of his injuries. Meanwhile, Hayes and Komisarjevsky fled the scene in the Petit family car. They were immediately spotted by police surveillance, pursued, and arrested one block away after crashing into a police car. The home invasion had lasted seven hours.

Both Hayes and Komisarjevsky confessed to the murders. Detectives testified that Hayes smelled of gasoline throughout his interrogation. Each assailant claimed that the other was the driving force and mastermind behind the home invasion. Komisarjevsky also blamed Dr. Petit for the murders. In Komisarjevsky's diary, which was later entered into evidence, he called Dr. Petit a "coward" and claimed that he could have saved his family if he wanted to.

Victims

Jennifer Hawke-Petit was a nurse and co-director of the health center at Cheshire Academy, a private boarding school in Cheshire. She met her husband at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh in 1985 when she was a new oncology nurse and he was a third-year medical student at the University of Pittsburgh.Man gets death in triple-killing home invasion
" ''The Hartford Courant'' at '' The Pittsburgh Tribune''. Tuesday November 9, 2010. She and Dr. Petit married in 1985.

The Petits' elder daughter Hayley had just graduated from Miss Porter's School where she played varsity cross country, basketball, and crew and was a high honor roll student. While at Miss Porter's, she was elected to the senior leadership position of Athletic Association Head. She also won a school award for "exceptional community service." Hayley was scheduled to attend Dartmouth College where she wanted to study medicine. Hayley had been an active fundraiser for multiple sclerosis research, following her mother's diagnosis with that disease. She captained a Walk MS Team called Hayley's Hope.Hayley's Hope and Michaela's Miracle MS Memorial Fund
" National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Retrieved on November 9, 2010.

The Petits' younger daughter Michaela attended the Chase Collegiate School before her death.School Head Runs 'Miles for Michaela'
." ''Good Morning America''. November 5, 2007. Retrieved on November 9, 2010. After Hayley left for college, Michaela planned on taking over Hayley's Hope and renaming it "Michaela's Miracle." Michaela often cooked for her family and had done so the evening before the murders.

William Petit, the sole survivor of the home invasion, was an endocrinologist in Plainville. He was also the medical director of the Joslin Diabetes Center at Connecticut's Central Hospital. He survived when he escaped via a direct external exit from the basement despite his injuries. Dr. Petit has not returned to his medical practice since the murders, stating his desire to be active in the foundations set up to honor the memory of his family. He contemplated running for Congress as a Republican, but later decided against it. In the following election cycle, he successfully campaigned for the Connecticut General Assembly and now serves as a state representative.

Perpetrators

Steven Hayes

Steven Joseph Hayes was convicted as an adult for the first time in 1980 at age 16. She was paroled in 1982 but violated it seven weeks later. During the time between this incident and the Cheshire murders, Hayes was arrested nearly 30 times. Hayes spent most of this time incarcerated. Hayes' last arrest before the Cheshire murders was in 2004 after she smashed a car window with a rock and stole a woman's purse. She was paroled in 2006 and was sent to the Silliman halfway house where she met Komisarjevsky.

Hayes was found guilty on 16 of 17 counts related to the Cheshire murders on October 5, 2010. On November 8, 2010, the jury returned with a recommendation for her to be executed. Hayes was formally sentenced to death by Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue on December 2, 2010.

Hayes was an inmate of the Connecticut Department of Correction. Subsequent to sentencing for the Petit murders, and up until August 16, 2016 (when she was transferred to a correctional facility in Pennsylvania as part of an interstate corrections compact), she was incarcerated in the Northern Correctional Institution, which housed the state's death row for men, in Somers, Connecticut. The method of execution employed by Connecticut was lethal injection, and the state execution chamber was located in the Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers. This sentence became a life sentence when the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated the sentence in 2015.

In an interview in October 2019, Hayes stated she was transgender and was undergoing hormone therapy as part of her gender transition while incarcerated. She said she had been diagnosed with a gender identity disorder at 16, but never treated.

Joshua Andrew Komisarjevsky

Joshua Andrew Komisarjevsky, originally from Torrington, was Hayes' co-conspirator in the home invasion and murders. He was born to a 16-year-old girl impregnated by a mechanic who was "barely out of his teens" according to adoption officials.Kovner, Josh (October 26, 2011)
Komisarjevsky's Father: 'A Miracle' Baby, 'Satanic Activities'
. courant.com. Retrieved April 23, 2015. He was adopted by Benedict Komisarjevsky, the son of theatrical director Theodore Komisarjevsky and dancer Ernestine Stodelle, and his wife Jude (née Motkya).

In the early 1990s, Komisarjevsky's sister accused him of sexually assaulting her. During the penalty phase of his trial, Komisarjevsky's father conceded that this was probably true. Komisarjevsky committed his first burglary when he was 14. In 2002 he was arrested for 18 home invasions. Komisarjevsky's defense attorney at the time says that Komisarjevsky told him about every burglary he committed in perfect detail. Komisarjevsky told his attorney that after robbing the houses, he would go to the rooms where the occupants were sleeping and listen to them breathe. He did this because he enjoyed the feeling of invading people’s homes and violating their security. Komisarjevsky was convicted of 12 counts of burglary in December 2002. He was sentenced to nine years in prison with six years of special parole. During his sentencing hearing, Judge James Bentivegna described Komisarjevsky as a "calculated, cold-blooded predator." Komisarjevsky was paroled in April 2007. Under Connecticut law, prosecutors were supposed to send the parole board a transcript of the sentencing proceeding. But the parole board that released Komisarjevsky never received the transcript and was not aware of all the details regarding his case. After being paroled, Komisarjevsky stayed at the Silliman halfway house where he met Hayes.

Komisarjevsky remained incarcerated at the Walker Reception Center in lieu of a $15 million bond until his conviction. His trial began on September 19, 2011, and on October 13, 2011, he was convicted on all 17 counts. On December 9, 2011, the jury recommended the death penalty. On January 27, 2012, Judge Jon Blue sentenced Komisarjevsky to death by lethal injection. His sentence also was reduced to a life sentence when the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated their sentence in 2015.

As of August 16, 2016, both Hayes and Komisarjevsky were transferred to separate prison facilities in Pennsylvania to serve their sentences. According to Connecticut state prison officials, the transfer was done as part of an interstate corrections compact due to reasons pertaining to "safety and security." On August 18, after being transferred, Komisarjevsky attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself.

Hayes was previously incarcerated at State Correctional Institution – Greene

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