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| Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky |
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A man condemned to die for killing a woman and her two daughters during a 2007 home invasion was resentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of release because the state abolished the death penalty.
He became the third Connecticut death row inmate to have his sentence changed to life in prison since the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled last year that the death penalty violated the state constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Eight other condemned inmates await resentencing.
Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes were sentenced to death for killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela. Dr. William Petit Jr., Hawke-Petit's husband and the girls' father, was severely beaten but survived.
The Petit family chose not to attend the hearing Tuesday because they had nothing to add to their remarks at the first sentencing of Komisarjevsky in 2012, prosecutor Gary Nicholson said.
"July 23, 2007, was our personal holocaust," Dr. Petit said the day Komisarjevsky was sentenced to death. "A holocaust caused by two who are completely evil and actually do not comprehend what they have done."
Dr. Petit, now running for a seat in the state legislature, opposed abolition of Connecticut's death penalty.
Komisarjevsky's lawyers had worked to spare him the death penalty by describing sexual abuse he endured as a child. The jury and the judge — who had been subjected to grim evidence including pictures of charred beds, rope used to tie up the family and autopsy photos — were unmoved.
Komisarjevsky's appeal of his convictions remains pending.
The killings culminated hours of terror in the Petits' home in Cheshire, a suburb north of New Haven.
Komisarjevsky had followed Hawke-Petit and Michaela from a supermarket to their house. Komisarjevsky and Hayes returned to the Petit house in the middle of the night while the family was sleeping to rob it.
Dr. Petit was beaten and tied up in the basement. Michaela and Hayley were tied to their beds. In the morning, Hayes took Hawke-Petit to a bank to withdraw money. Komisarjevsky stayed at the house and sexually assaulted Michaela. Hayes was convicted of sexually assaulting the mother.
After Hayes and Hawke-Petit returned to the home, Hayes strangled her. Komisarjevsky and Hayes then doused the house and beds with gasoline, set it ablaze and fled. They were caught after crashing the Petits' car into police cruisers.
The sisters, bound while flames and fumes rose around them, died of smoke inhalation.
Dr. Petit survived after escaping the basement while the house was on fire.
Source:
Republican American, July 26, 2016
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." - Oscar Wilde
