Cheshire murders
The murders of Cheshire in the US state of Connecticut were a crime , which in the United States occurred in July 2007 and the country caused a stir. The two burglars , Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky , killed three members of the Petit family of four after being taken hostage . Only the father, a specialist in endocrinology , could be saved. The hostage situation lasted seven hours.
prehistory
Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky , who knew each other from prison , planned the break-in together. On the morning of July 22nd, 2007, Jennifer Petit and her daughter Michaela visited the Super Stop & Shop Supermarket . The two women allegedly picked out by Hayes and Komisarjevsky as "accidentally" were pursued by them on their way home with the plan to break into their house during the coming night.
The fact
In the early morning hours of July 23, 2007, the two intruders wearing face masks saw Bill Petit sleeping on the sofa through the terrace window . Komisarjevsky entered the house through an unlocked cellar door. With a case found aluminum - baseball bat he hit several times an upside of the sleeping family man. The seriously injured and severely dazed victim was then dragged into the basement and tied to a wooden post.
Then the two perpetrators went to the upper floor, where the mother and two daughters were also handcuffed to their respective beds. When searching for money and valuables, the perpetrators only found a small amount of cash. On a Bank of America statement , they saw that Jennifer Petit could withdraw money up to a limit of $ 15,000 . Hayes then drove to a gas station and filled two canisters with gasoline. He was filmed by the petrol station's surveillance camera. Later in the trial, that record was used to incriminate Hayes with the premeditated murder.
When Hayes got back to the Petits' house, he unloaded the canisters and drove Jennifer Petit to the bank to withdraw $ 15,000 as ransom, while Joshua Komisarjevsky looked after the rest of the family.
Without papers and IDs that one of the perpetrators had previously taken from her, Jennifer Petit tried to convince the bank clerk that she needed the money as a ransom to free her family, who were held hostage by two criminals. The employee called in her supervisor, who then also listened to Jennifer Petit's description. This scene was also captured by the bank's surveillance camera. The manager then went back to her office, hid the phone under the desk and called the emergency number 911. Jennifer Petit then left the bank with the money and was driven back to the house by Hayes.
The police, who arrived at the bank a short time later, gained the impression from the statements of the bank employees that the perpetrators were not primarily violent, but that they were only concerned with the ransom. Based on this initial assessment, the police only cordoned off the area around the house and did not contact the perpetrators quickly.
Meanwhile, the situation in the house escalated. When Hayes was back at the scene of the crime with Jennifer Petit , Komisarjevsky told him that he had raped 11-year-old Michaela and had recorded it with the camera on his cell phone. Komisarjevsky then urged Hayes to also rape Jennifer Petit. While Hayes was raping the mother in the living room, Komisarjevsky rushed in and reported that William Petit, who was tied up in the basement, had escaped. Bill made it to the neighbor who called the police. According to the neighbor, Bill was so badly injured in the head that he had not recognized him at first.
Hayes strangled Jennifer Petit, showered the body and other parts of the house with the gasoline from the two canisters previously filled at the gas station and then set a fire, although the two siblings Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley were still tied to their beds while they were alive. The two perpetrators then fled with the family car, but were caught and arrested by police officers a few minutes later, as the officers had meanwhile blocked various streets with the emergency vehicle. After a short time, Hayes confessed and committed himself to the action.
Criminal proceedings and aftermath
In the course of the interviews, each of the two accused the other of being the instigator of the planned crime. Joshua Komisarjevsky even went so far as to assign William Petit complicity in the fatal outcome of the crime.
Steven Hayes (* 1963) was sentenced to death on November 8, 2010. After five days of deliberation, the jury announced on December 9, 2011 the decision to pronounce the death penalty against Joshua Komisarjevsky (* 1980), the adopted son of the son of the Russian theater director Theodore Komisarjevsky . The case and the lengthy legal process sparked political controversy, legislative changes and the failure of an attempt to abolish the death penalty . After the Connecticut Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in 2015, sentences for both perpetrators were changed to multiple life imprisonment sentences in 2016.
The surviving father of a family has since been publicly involved as a victim representative. He has been a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives for the Republican Party since 2013 and is expected to run for the 2018 election to the United States House of Representatives for the fifth Congressional constituency of the state previously represented by Democrat Elizabeth Esty .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Video of the crime on NBC Dateline (English).
- ↑ Killer in Connecticut home invasion slay says William Petit was 'coward' who could have saved family. In: NYDailynews , October 20, 2010.
- ^ Steven Hayes Smiles at Death Sentence for Role in Petit Connecticut Home Invasion. In: ABC News.
- ↑ William Glaberson: Death Penalty for 2nd Man in Connecticut Triple Murder Case. In: The New York Times , December 9, 2011.
- ^ Stephanie Siegel, Tracy Connor: William Petit, Dad of Murdered Family, Reacts to Connecticut Death Penalty Ruling. In: NBC News , Aug 14, 2015; Joshua Komisarjevsky, once sentenced to death in Cheshire triple murders, resentenced to 6 life terms. In: New Hampshire Register , July 26, 2016.
- ↑ Neil Vigdor: William Petit, Survivor Of Cheshire Home Invasion, Weighing A Run For Congress. In: Hartford Courant , April 5, 2018; William A. Petit Jr. In: CTHouseGOP.com.
Coordinates: 41 ° 31 ' N , 72 ° 54' W