NEW HAVEN ——
Much of the gruesome testimony that jurors considered to convict Joshua Komisarjevsky Thursday of the deadly 2007 Cheshire home invasion was used in the trial last year of his accomplice,Steven Hayes.
Yet one name seemed to surface more in the second trial:Michaela Petit.The Superior Court jurors found Komisarjevsky guilty of 17 crimes, but what seemed to stir Dr. William Petit Jr. the most was hearing them convict his family's killer of the rape and murder of his younger daughter.
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Shortly afterward, Petit spoke outside the courthouse about a father's anger.
"I just knew the appropriate thing was to let the law take its course, as exceedingly slow and excruciatingly painful as it was, and there was nothing I could do to make that any better by looking like an enraged or crazed father," Petit said.
After deliberating for a little more than eight hours over two days, the jury of seven women and five men convicted Komisarjevsky — a paroled burglar who prosecutors said masterminded one of most horrific crimes in recent state history — of the murders of Petit's wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and their two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11.
As the verdicts were read, Komisarjevsky — wearing a dark suit and tie and looking heavier and more clean-cut than the slim, shaggy young man seen in his 2007 mug shot — stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He kept his eyes down and showed no expression but seemed to drop his head lower each time the jury forewoman pronounced him guilty.
Komisarjevsky, 31, was convicted on all six capital felony charges, so he automatically will go through a death penalty hearing before the same jury, scheduled to begin Oct. 24.
Komisarjevsky looked dazed and yawned as he exited the courtroom. His parents and sister, who appeared in court earlier this week, were not there for the verdict.
On Thursday evening, defense attorney Jeremiah Donovan said that Komisarjevsky's defense team planned to "redouble" its efforts in the penalty phase
Defense attorney Walter C. Bansley III agreed, saying, "We have confidence in the jury system, and we look forward to presenting mitigating evidence that we no doubt think the jury will view with reasonableness, compassion and mercy."
Jurors also found Komisarjevsky guilty of assaulting Petit; four counts of kidnapping; causing the three deaths during the course of the kidnappings; sexually assaulting Michaela and causing her death during the course of the sexual assault; burglary; and arson.
Petit, the only family member to survive the home invasion, fought back tears as he sat close to his sister, Johanna Petit Chapman, in the courtroom gallery. Some jurors looked at him as the verdicts were read. All of the jurors appeared to keep their composure and did not become overly emotional.
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. He blamed Hayes for the killings and for pouring the gasoline and igniting the fire that led to the deaths of Hayley and Michaela from smoke inhalation. Hayes admitted raping and strangling Hawke-Petit, 48.
Last year, Hayes, 47, of Winsted, was convicted of 16 of 17 charges that he faced in connection with the home invasion and was sentenced to die by lethal injection.
A Fifth-Grader's Final Hours
Just hours before announcing their verdict, the jurors emerged from their deliberation room for a break, a few with reddened eyes, folded arms and frowns. It's not known how much jurors were reacting to the rape and murder of Michaela, but legal sources said that several jurors had cried during deliberations. During the trial, jurors viewed disturbing photographs of the young girl.
One photograph of the crime scene showed Michaela's body lying face down, tied to her bed. Her clothes were burned, her blond hair fanned across her charred bed. Other photos, taken on Komisarjevsky's cellphone, were explicit shots of the child from the neck down as she lay bound to her bed.
Testimony was cut short one day during the trial when a juror became visibly upset listening to a recording of the chilling account of the home invasion that Komisarjevsky gave to police the day of his arrest. Jurors listened as Komisarjevsky talked calmly and slowly about performing oral sex and masturbating on Michaela as she was tied to her bed.
During the trial,New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington told jurors that he didn't like having to discuss the rape and murder of the 11-year-old girl. But the 69-year-old, buttoned-up prosecutor spared few horrific details of the fifth-grader's final hours in both the evidence he presented and during his final arguments.
Komisarjevsky opened that door himself in his police confession, admitting that he saw Michaela and her mother at the local supermarket hours before the break-in and followed them to their Cheshire home. Komisarjevsky told police that during the home invasion, he talked with Michaela in her bedroom about music, "school and summer plans."
Then, with Michaela tied to her bed, Komisarjevksy said, "one thing led to another and I ended up … performing oral sex on her — on KK," Komisarjevsky said. Komisarjevsky said he had heard her mother and sister call Michaela "KK," her family nickname.
At one point, Komisarjevsky said he "had locked eyes" with Michaela. "I was kind of taken back by how calm she was being."
Komisarjevsky then said, "She had this look on her face that she understood, like you know that, yeah, we were here, and we were invading her home and that she understood, like she seemed to have this look on her, you know that, she understood that we, we wouldn't hurt them, we'd just be on our way, and, uh, that sort of caught me off guard."
Komisarjevsky told police that he thought Michaela was 14 or 16. Dearington argued in his closing statements that if Komisarjevsky had talked to the girl about school, he would have known that she had just finished the fifth grade.
'Nauseated And Sickened'
On Thursday, Petit said the Komisarjevsky trial was more difficult to sit through than the Hayes case because of the focus on Michaela.
"She was a sweet girl. She was 11. She was actually the kid in her class who would always stand up against the bullies. … I'm sure she was completely terrified and that was very, very difficult for all of us to hear," Petit said.
Petit, 55, said he and the rest of his family were "nauseated and sickened" by Komisarjevsky's matter-of-fact account of his assault on Michaela and his claim that they had struck up some kind of bond.
"I think everybody in the family was, I guess the politest word, was nauseated and sickened that somehow someone who would invade a home and bind and terrorize an 11-year-old girl would talk about it as though he was best friends with her," Petit said.
He added that Michaela was shy, even around male family members.
"She, until she was 11 years old, wouldn't look my brother-in-law in the face. … She was incredibly shy around men. … To hear a statement that they locked eyes and there was some sort of bond was really sort of nauseating and really beyond the pale, because that is not something that Michaela Rose Petit would have ever done with a man who had broken into her bedroom and sexually assaulted her."
Petit said he was not surprised that Komisarjevsky showed no outward emotion after the verdict.
"He's convinced himself of his innocence," said Petit.
Petit said that in the four years since the murders, there have been "occasional moments of peace, but the trial brings everything back in sharp focus."
Petit said he felt "relief … that the jury had reached a guilty verdict on 17 of 17 counts" and he praised the jurors and prosecution team. But he noted that "we're only part way there and [prosecutors] still have a lot of work to do." He noted that the penalty phase was not as clear-cut as the evidence phase and said, "It will be very difficult to sit through."
The Rev. Richard Hawke, Hawke-Petit's father, said: "We are a united family. We are people of faith, and it's that faith that has brought us through these past four years, and it is that faith that will continue to keep us together and strengthen us for the future and to be able to live through this experience — never forgetting it, because we will always keep our daughter and grandchildren in our hearts and in our minds."
As she left the courtroom, Hawke-Petit's mother, Marybelle Hawke, was composed as she reacted to the unanimous verdicts, saying, "There was some peace in knowing that there is punishment when people do something wrong."
Outside the courtroom, Dearington, who successfully sought a sentence of death for Hayes last year, was congratulated by people, shaking his hands.
"We're happy for the family," he said, declining further comment because of a court-imposed gag order attached to the case.
'Gifted Manipulator'
In closing arguments earlier this week, Dearington portrayed Komisarjevsky as cold and calculating, a liar and the one in charge of leading the deadly home invasion.
He described Komisarjevsky as a "gifted manipulator" whose own defense psychology tests showed that he was persuasive and had "superior" verbal ability.
Dearington and prosecutor Gary W. Nicholson said that it was Komisarjevsky who led the break-in at the Petit family's Cheshire home, beat Petit with a bat and tied up the family.
Dearington called Hayes a "puppet" and said that Komisarjevsky was "pulling the strings."
Nicholson reminded jurors that it was Komisarjevsky who spotted Hawke-Petit and Michaela at the supermarket hours before the home invasion. Nicholson said that Komisarjevsky stalked the family and took Hayes to the house.
Komisarjevsky "saw a beautiful young girl, attractive mother, a nice car and he wanted to know more. … He wanted what they had," Nicholson said. "Make no mistake, this intrusion was Mr. Komisarjevsky's idea."
State medical examiners testified during both trials that the girls died of smoke inhalation. Testimony showed that there was soot in their voice boxes, airways and lungs, meaning that they were inhaling smoke while they were still alive. Michaela died in her bed. Hayley, who was also tied to her bed on the home's second floor, managed to free herself but collapsed and died at the top of the stairs.
Nicholson asked jurors to imagine what was going through the minds of Hayley and Michaela, who lay tied to their beds as gasoline was poured on them.
"Ask yourselves, what terror they felt … they knew the end was near," Nicholson said. "Hayley and Michaela knew they were going to die a horrible death. They were screaming for their lives. They were screaming for mercy, any help they could get."
Nicholson reminded jurors that Komisarjevsky didn't untie them. "What did the defendant say he did? He closed the door. … Was he in a situation where he didn't want to hear their screams?"
'A Damaged Lad'
In his defense arguments, Donovan called Komisarjevsky a "damaged lad," troubled by a history of sexual child abuse, concussions and illegal drug abuse. A psychologist's report said that Komisarjevsky turned to self-mutilation in his adolescence, carving the word "hate" into his arm because he told the psychologist that it was "soothing."
"I hated everything about my life. I had been abused and I wanted others to know what it was like to hurt, to lose something," Komisarjevsky told New York psychologist Leo Shea, who wrote the report.
Shea's report said that Komisarjevsky told him that a 15-year-old boy, whom his family took in as a foster child, sexually and physically abused him from about the age of 3 until 6.
"My earliest memories were of anal sex, oral sex, cigarette burns, etc.," Komisarjevsky told Shea, according to the report.
Under cross-examination, Shea agreed with prosecutors that such a "perfect storm" does not necessarily lead to criminal behavior.
Komisarjevsky is the father of a daughter. The child is now being cared for by a maternal relative after authorities deemed her mother unfit to have custody.
Joshua Komisarjevsky Recorded Murder Confession
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