A jury condemned Joshua Komisarjevsy, the second man who was found guilty of killing a Connecticut mother and her two daughters during a horrific 2007 home invasion, to death today. It took five days for the jury to decide that the 31-year-old Komisarjevsky would receive the death penalty, the same fate as his accomplice Steven Hayes, who was given the death penalty for the deaths of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. "I guess I will spend the rest of my life wondering what I could have done or said to persuade the jurors mercy should have seasoned justice in this case," said Jeremiah Donovan, one of Komisarjevsky's defense lawyers.
The harrowing details of Komisarjevsky and Hayes' plan have been aired over the course of two trials, including Hayes' trial last year, when he was found guilty of 16 of 17 counts and acquitted of arson. The pair, both ex-cons who met at a halfway house, stalked Hawke-Petit and 11-year-old Michaela at a grocery store before breaking into the family's Cheshire home; they took the family hostage, beating Dr. William Petit and tying him up in the basement, while forcing Hawke-Petit to go to a bank and withdraw $30,000.
Joshua Komisarjevsky
Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted Michaela and insisted that Hayes rape Hawke-Petit to "square things up." Hawke-Petit was strangled and the daughters died from smoke inhalation after the men doused the home with gasoline. Petit was able to crawl out of the basement and ask a neighbor for help. The Courant reported that Komisarjevsky "admitted tying Hayley and Michaela to their beds, sexually molesting Michaela and beating Petit in the head with a baseball bat, but he said he never intended for anyone to die." Dr. Petit told reporters after the verdict was announced that this trial was more difficult because "clearly there was a focus on Michaela" and noted the case has always been one of "sexual predation."
The lawyers for Komisarjevsky focused their defense on the fact that their client had been damaged by years of sexual abuse as a child, as well as because he grew up in a strict religious hoursehold while struggling with longtime mental health issues. Komisarjevsky's mother had testified that he was sexually abused between the ages of 4 and 6 by a foster teen his family had taken into the home.
But prosecutors 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. Defense attorney Walter Bansley said his client was prepared for a death sentence: "He's very accepting. He's been realistic from the beginning and he understood that public sentiment is very much against him."
