Original subtitles

[Rain falling]

[Thunder]

MAN: Cheshire Emergency.

WOMAN: My name is Mary Lyons.

I'm the banking center manager.

We have a lady who is in our bank right now

who says that her husband and children

are being held at their house.

The people are in a car outside the bank.

She is getting $15,000 to bring out to them,

that if the police are told, they will kill

the children and the husband.

Her name is Jennifer Petit--P-e-t-i-t.

OK. Is she still in the bank?

Yes, she is.

OK. She's being held or...

Her--her husband-- husband and family is being held?

Yes. At their house?

Yes. They're tied up.

She said they drove her here.

I'm trying to look and see where she's gone.

She went outside but I don't--

oh, wait, I see her walking now.

She is petrified.

♪

[Police radio]

And we have--

Again, facts like that I can't comment on.

And a male survivor.

MAN: Upon arrival at the victims' residence,

the first officer observed two male subjects

exit private residence and also observed

the private residence fully engulfed in flame.

The suspect vehicle rammed the Cheshire police officer's car

and continued on Sorghum Mill Road.

WOMAN: Tonight, police removed the body of one of the victims

after a home invasion leaves a mother and her two daughters dead.

SECOND WOMAN: The suspects,

26-year-old Joshua Komisarjevsky of Cheshire

and 44-year-old Steven Hayes of Winsted

were caught while trying to escape in the Petits' car.

Now, the only question remains that why

did this happen to the Petit family.

♪

There's not one word that I can use to describe our town,

but it's a phenomenal town.

[Crowd cheering]

MAN: It's known as the bedding capital of Connecticut,

for bedding plants.

SECOND MAN: It was historically a farming community,

a lot of family farms, and as

the state of Connecticut grew,

as the cities surrounding the town of Cheshire grew,

it ultimately became a bedroom community,

which I think is probably the way most people think of Cheshire.

♪

WOMAN: Returning now to tonight's top story.

A mother and her two daughters are dead,

their father severely injured, after a home invasion

stunned the town of Cheshire.

SECOND WOMAN: The suspects apparently set the house on fire

as well as some of the victims.

THIRD WOMAN: Jennifer Petit, her cause of death

has been asphyxiation from strangulation.

Her daughters Hayley and Michaela died from smoke inhalation.

♪

WOMAN: I got a phone call here on Monday afternoon

from Billy's sister, and I said,

"Hannah, it's about the girls, isn't it?"

And she said, "These two men came in

"at what they think was 3:00 in the morning

"and they beat Billy really badly with a baseball bat

"and his head's all split apart,

"and then they proceeded to do

"all these awful things to the girls,

and they tied them to their beds."

"About 9:00, Jen was made to go to the bank

"and withdraw money and then

"when she came back from the bank,

"they set the house on fire and killed them all

"so that they could try to cover up their tracks, I guess,

but they got the two guys,"

and all I could think was, "Who cares if they got the two guys?

"We don't have our loved ones anymore,

and that's all we had."

Wild lingonberry. Have you ever had that?

Lingonberry.

It's from England, somewhere.

CYNTHIA: The hardest thing I think I've ever had to do in my life

was to tell my parents that one of their other children,

their only other child, was dead,

and their two grandchildren, two of their four.

MAN: She quickly told us that the home was set on fire but

Bill escaped.

We went to the hospital and got to see Bill for the first time.

He was badly beaten and he

tried to apologize to us for not saving our daughter

and our grandchildren.

And we had to convince him that

he was in no condition to be able to save anyone

and we were grateful...

that he was alive.

that he was alive.

This is the last--sort of picture that we had together.

My sister--she was beautiful,

and she was usually, like, the lead in the plays at school.

She was on the homecoming court.

She was captain of the Trojanette team.

So she really was kind of like a winner person.

DONALD: Bill was a committed, dedicated doctor.

Would leave at 7:00 in the morning

and not be back home until maybe 9:00, 9:30.

CAROLYN: When Jen was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis,

Hayley really wanted to raise money because

she felt like if she didn't do anything,

it was possible that her mother could die.

MAN: Hayley was able to raise a little over $50,000

being a spokesperson for the MS Society here in Connecticut,

receiving awards for that, although you'd never know it.

GIRL: I hardly knew about Hayley helping with MS,

and that was just because she was just so quiet about everything,

and she could have bragged about everything she did.

I mean, she was a straight-"A" student.

I think about her all the time.

It's hard not to think about her.

You'll find just something to relate to her about.

♪

MARYBELLE: Michaela sometimes shied away from adults,

but she saw somebody was having a difficult time,

she went to them and tried to help

with whatever she could.

♪

DONALD: Their lives were just centered around

a sense of sociability, justice.

And if I didn't smile about it, I'd have to cry.

MAN: Apparently, these two losers followed

Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her 11-year-old daughter

to the Stop and Shop on Sunday night.

They followed them.

And the first Cheshire police officer to arrive at the scene

heard at least one of the girls screaming from inside the house.

SECOND MAN: Those animals, what they did

to those poor people of Cheshire,

I can't even believe that they're gonna give them a trial.

What kind of laws do we have in this state

where they don't just execute those animals?

Well, Tony, the reaction by the public certainly

is for that, but it is...

[Gunshots]

To destroy a family the way those two did--heinous.

My verdict--fry them. Hang them.

Do whatever you gotta do.

Make sure they ain't gonna walk this earth again.

♪

WOMAN: Can we switch?

Yup.

You need more? Yeah. I'm gonna need a little more.

I don't think evil like this has happened since "In Cold Blood."

I really don't. Not that I know of.

And we went from being a quiet, peaceful town in New England

to overnight people installing alarm systems

and panic buttons and panic rooms.

♪

WOMAN: People in town refer to it as Cheshire's 9/11.

You know, life was one way and then it's another.

♪

MINISTER: God has promised to be with us through thick

and through thin.

All other ground is indeed sinking sand.

♪

Well, first of all... thank you

for all coming out today to honor the memory of the girls.

I'd really like to say thank you to...

people from all over the state of Connecticut

and all over the country.

We've been...

surrounded with love and cards and flowers and prayer

from east to west and north to south.

I met Jen at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh.

4 Med. She was a new nurse

and I was the know-it-all third-year medical student.

I was trying to correct Jen on how to take the blood pressure

the correct way.

[Laughter]

I had about 3 minutes of experience at that point.

[Laughter]

But it became clear pretty quickly that

she knew more about pediatrics and how to care for kids

than I had ever known.

One of the nice things...

CYNTHIA: Billy had never smelled smoke.

He had never seen a fire.

He had said that the only thing he ever heard

of my sister was her, like, pleading nicely

with these two men--"Can you please let me get my purse,

or they'll know that something is up at the bank."

He had his legs tied together

and he hopped up the outside basement steps

and he said, "But sometimes I wish

"I would've just gone to the inside

"because then maybe, even if I had died in there,

I could've done something."

And I said, "No, Billy.

"You couldn't have done anything.

"Attached to a pole with your hands and feet tied

"in the basement with about 6 to 8 3- to 4-inch

openings in your skull?"

And we knew that the police

did not help my brother-in-law out of the house.

So the chances that he lived surviving the blood loss

are just miraculous in my mind.

WOMAN: Joining me on the phone right now is

Lieutenant Jay Markella, the public information officer

for the Cheshire Police Department.

Thank you for joining us.

JAY: Thank you for having me.

WOMAN: Very little detail coming out, though,

about exactly what happened.

Was it when police showed up

that they found the house on fire

and caught these suspects?

Because they were caught leaving the burning house.

Yeah. It worked out so officers arrived on scene

just as the suspects were leaving the residence.

OK. I don't know how far we should go back, but--

I'm a very detective-like person.

I like to know details, and until I know the details

around things, it's hard to figure things out.

I would like to know why my sister and Steven Hayes

weren't stopped at the bank,

why she wasn't held at the bank.

♪

There were some police officers that, off the record,

said to people in the town that they heard the girls

screaming in the end.

Did they try to enter? Did they not try to enter?

And why weren't there policemen looking in the windows?

My sister had no blinds on her windows.

I just want the facts.

And nobody has told us what really happened.

MAN: And today, a state prosecutor said

he'll seek the death penalty for Komisarjevsky and Hayes.

Today, the state charged the men with 6 counts each

of capital felony murder.

MAN: I was driving back from the Adirondacks with my wife,

coming through the Berkshires, not a care in the world,

and I get a cell phone call.

Probably why I turned pale was because,

you know, I had a sense as a lawyer

where this was headed right from the beginning.

You know, capital case, death penalty case, high profile.

And in my own head, I knew right away

that that case was coming in to this office

and that I'd be involved.

[Siren wailing]

Steven Hayes and Mr. Komisarjevsky

were coming into Meriden court for arraignment.

Right from the first time that we met,

Steven Hayes was suicidal, depressed,

just doesn't really understand how this all happened.

His record is lengthy.

He's got all these burglaries.

Most involve car burglaries, and in this state, burglary

includes the break-in of a car.

And they were all daytime.

He'd sit and watch. People would park their cars.

They'd go walking on a trail.

Break into their car and take a laptop or a radio or a phone.

So you were not dealing with someone who

had the kind of classic history of violence

and all of a sudden stepped into the big time

in terms of the next level of violence.

You just didn't have it.

There was no reason that anyone

would ever look at that history and think,

"Well, this guy's gonna do something really bad one day."

♪

GIRL: The first time that I found out about my dad

I was probably about 5 years old.

He would, like, take me to the movies

and he really tried to be that father figure to me, but

for whatever reason, he just couldn't stay out of trouble

and so when he went back to jail,

like, he would write to me and I would write back

and that was our way of communicating.

♪

"Dear Alicia, hello, honey, and how are you doing?

"I haven't heard from you in a while

"and neither has Grandma.

"I want so bad never to hurt you again

"and I feel like I am because I'm still here.

"Every day, I wake up wondering if today will be the day

"that my name is called.

"The stress is almost unbearable...

When I first found out about the incident,

I just came back from the police academy.

And my mind was just like-- I told him to call me

if something was wrong.

I needed to talk to him. I needed to get answers from him.

What made him get together with this one guy

and do what they did?

Whose idea was it?

Was it just one

or was it both or did it just happen?

It's just like, there's no easy answer,

and I might not like the answer I get,

but it's all-- it's all just "why?"

♪

WOMAN: The details of 26-year-old Joshua Komisarjevsky's past

are more in-depth, and some say even more disturbing.

His rap sheet reveals a...

MAN: We were right in the kitchen here

and we got a call from my brother Ben,

and he said, "I think Josh has been involved

in this home invasion."

And I said to him, I said, "Home invasion?

This was a murder. And Josh was involved?"

So you see the name spelled out,

the Komisarjevsky name,

and you sit there and you hold your head in your hands

and you can't believe it.

And you want to cry.

♪

This young man's a monster, and that is not

the way that we as members of this family behave.

We spent all of our time in Cheshire

and we lived in a home that was a home of arts and letters.

This is my aunt Vera Komisarjevsky,

one of the foremost actresses on the Russian stage,

and there's a theater in St. Petersburg

that's named after her, and this is my father

Theodore Komisarjevsky, theater director,

architect, costume designer.

♪

When we drove up to Cheshire,

my brother's house was just swarmed with media

knocking on the door, trying to get statements from them.

I think it's hard for anybody

to be able to deal with that kind of a situation,

but probably more so for them

because they were individuals who basically had

withdrawn from many aspects of public life.

♪

They ultimately posted a notice on the outside of their door,

but that was it, and from that time on,

they've had nothing to say.

♪

MAN: It was so disappointing, because I knew

I was the last person, therapeutically,

that met with Josh and could really

paint a picture of him in a different light,

and I knew that the media and most people's opinion of him

would go against what I saw and what I knew.

Josh just wanted to do better things with his life.

Staying clean, reconnecting with his family,

and possibly going forward with an education

to become an architect.

♪

I saw someone who created some beautiful designs.

These sketches.

I mean, this kid was amazing.

This is something that's unnatural.

This is pure talent.

♪

He had to have practiced this and worked on this for years.

♪

But when we talk about the-- just the pure evil,

how am I gonna go in there and tell them

that this was a good kid,

and that I was really close to him,

after what he did?

Joshua was a little, skinny, frail kid.

I saw him behind the bars.

He had on his cream-colored jail uniform.

He was slight. He was polite.

He's adopted. He went from regular school special ed to home school.

This whole package didn't make sense to me.

Burglary, burglary, burglary, burglary, and burglary.

Genius that he is, and he is a genius in some respects,

with a photographic memory and attention to detail that

no normal mind could possibly retain,

he told them every burglary he did.

♪

He knew every item he took, passports,

what dumpsters he threw it in.

♪

Joshua could get into a third floor,

steal things, know which denominations of bills he took

a year later or two years later.

Tell you where each wallet was,

what kind of pants they were taken from,

where the pants were--on the floor or on the bedpost,

in the closet.

Stay there for hours, not get caught.

♪

Joshua used relatively sophisticated equipment for a burglar--

night vision goggles, latex gloves.

After he robbed a house, he would stay there, on occasion,

and listen to the people breathing,

and go from room to room, listening to the occupants breathing,

for no apparent purpose.

That was the frightening part of it.

He'd rob state troopers' houses, which takes some guts.

And I said, "Judge, he needs to be watched.

"This kid is sick.

"You're never gonna see him again or he's gonna be

"the worst criminal to pass through these doors,

because that's the kind of a mind he's got."

♪

There's no obvious flag here.

WOMAN: No obvious flag. The new chairman of the Board

of Pardons and Paroles says

that the two suspects in the brutal Cheshire home invasion

and triple murder were capable of doing

what they allegedly did.

There's no evidence that we've seen yet that they were

recently--failed any drug tests.

They were both employed. They were both living

in what appeared to be stable households.

♪

MAN: Komisarjevsky was arrested for 18 home invasions,

and the warning bells in there

should have been ringing very loudly.

Under a 10-year-old law, prosecutors are supposed to

order a transcript of the sentencing proceeding

and send that along to the parole board.

I used to be a prosecutor.

I helped write this law I'm talking about.

Because I knew that it's at the sentencing

that you really find out everything you need to know

about this offender and the crime.

The problem is none of this ever got

to the Department of Corrections.

None of this ever got to the parole board.

So from the point of view of the Department of Corrections,

they got first time ever incarcerated inmate.

Young, white, bright, home schooled, remorseful,

never identified as a person with high mental health needs

because he didn't come across as that type of person.

He was a real manipulator.

The typical sentence for burglary

is a maximum of 10 years in prison for each offense.

Komisarjevsky could have still been locked up

for two lifetimes.

It was possible. It didn't happen.

♪

[Rain, thunder]

WOMAN: I went to Bank of America to open a new account

and Mrs. Petit was at the counter.

All I saw was white blond hair and a white piece of paper.

The teller handing it to the manager

and the manager really just running right behind me to her office.

And she just left.

It's very delicate.

3 lives were taken that should not have been.

Things happened in a manner that--

and I'm not saying the police--

because when you have a hostage situation,

you wait until-- you have to assess,

but she was screaming for her life.

"He's in the basement." Conscious.

Bound by the ankles. Daughter loose upstairs.

Very strong girl.

How did it happen?

Cheshire Police. No one is talking.

No one.

MAN: Lieutenant, good morning, sir.

LIEUTENANT: Good morning, Dan.

First of all, the Cheshire Police Department

in their response to this initial call

was absolutely outstanding.

They did a stellar job.

The chief and all those personnel and Cheshire P.D.

deserve a lot of praise and credit.

MAN: People are asking about a timeline, you know,

when did this occur, when did that occur?

We don't detail that information.

That's--that's--that's not something

that really the public really needs to be

concerned about at this point in time

and it has more of an impact on the case itself.

You know, the type of injury, the scene

that one may try to envision in their mind,

we're not gonna detail that.

We're not gonna discuss, you know, how someone died

over and above manner and cause,

which we'll give manner and cause of death

but we're not gonna get into great graphic detailed description.

You know, we're not gonna talk about assaults.

We're not gonna talk about weapons.

MAN: Say what we don't know.

What happened.

And the next--

the ensuing half-hour.

Yeah.

Between the time Hayes and Hawke-Petit

returned home?

Mm-hmm. And the time--

I don't want to say, "The first Cheshire police."

No. They were arrested

coming out of the house?

Time they were arrested.

Yeah. "That may only be answered at trial."

MAN: If you can answer some of the questions, go ahead and do that.

Yup. And then...

MAN: There's so little information and there's so many

rumors and innuendo circulating.

People are clamoring to find out what happened.

The "Day" possibly proposed

that William Petit was somehow involved.

Speculation.

The sooner, I think, we get all the information,

the sooner folks can really start healing,

because the unknown is just as frightening

as what happened, in a way.

You have all these people saying all this stuff, you know?

Just tell us what happened, and then we can deal with it.

It's almost like not knowing is--

kind of keeps that wound open, you know?

I don't know. It's gonna be a while

till we see trial, so...

♪

THOMAS: It's starting to pan out that the state's claim

is pretty strong, overwhelmingly strong.

And that what's at stake at this case is life or death.

You have the gasoline aspect of it.

You know, the sexual assault. Horrible crime scene photos.

You have the right defendant. You have the right perpetrator.

What do we do? Isn't this the case that death is warranted?

And, um...and I can't accept that.

Once you allow the death penalty to go forward,

then the next case comes along,

and it's OK for the next case

because that crime was horrifying,

and what if that's a mistake?

What if that's an innocent guy?

And this notion of that, if you execute somebody,

you know, you'll save money.

You know, that's the furthest thing from the truth.

You know, we have pretty much a blank check.

So I'm reminding everybody, listen,

Steven Hayes is ready to plead guilty to all of these charges

and take a sentence of life without the possibility--

at least it'll be over now.

You know? There'd be--the case would be done,

there wouldn't be any appeals,

we'd stop spending all this money,

we would not have to traumatize everybody

with the facts of this case.

♪

♪

DONALD: As a United Methodist minister,

I am a minister of a church at large

that is opposed to capital punishment.

That has put me between a rock and a hard place.

We certainly don't approve of torture of people, but

we feel that there has to be some justice in

how people are dealt with

when they are so inhumane

in their treatment of others.

♪

WILLIAM: You know, it just makes me want to cry.

Jennifer, Hayley, and Michaela,

they were kind and they were sweet.

They looked out for other people,

they cared about other people, and spent their time

helping people, so for them to suffer, you know,

horrific--horrific deaths seems incredibly unjust.

I mean, it would seem incredibly unjust for anybody,

but obviously they were the 3 people

that I knew and loved the best in the world,

and it just--the contra--

contra--the opposition of the--

just absolute evil that attacked us

versus the goodness that they represented

is--is just worlds apart.

♪

[Sigh]

A benign visit to the grocery store

to get milk, bread, toilet paper.

Oh, and "People" magazine,

because a family that my brother killed

is on the front cover.

And my brother's picture is in it.

He raped a woman. He choked her to death.

He poured gasoline on two little girls

and he set them on fire.

How does a person do that?

♪

They paroled him in November and he--he peed funny,

and so they threw him back,

and they paroled him 5 months later.

I--personally, they're fucking stupid

because they don't get it.

You don't care enough about the people in your society

to put these type of people back out on the street.

And I want to say that-- it's really tough for me to say

because one of those people is my brother.

Steven at birth or soon thereafter.

Steven around 3. Steven around 5.

Matthew around one, Matthew around 3.

Then we get into these.

Steven, Matthew, Brian.

Where I got the blond hair, I have no idea.

Dad. That's where you got it.

You, Kathryn, and--and Steven

all had the light hair.

Who is Steve? He's manipulating,

he's deceptive,

and he's my brother.

God, look at that.

And I remember that. See, look at where his hands are.

I remember that day. He was pinching me, he was grabbing me.

I mean, I'm about to frickin' burst out in tears here.

He's just laughing his little ass off.

Yeah. Fuckin' noodge.

Deceiving. Always. Manipulator.

"Mom, it's not me, it's Matt."

Mom and her 3 boys.

And that's probably the first Christmas

since 1979

that all 3 of us were in the same room for Christmas.

Only to go back to jail again.

Mm-hmm.

You know, this is the evolution of

Steven in prison life.

Monday, when I saw it on the news,

all's I heard was that there was

the home invasion and whatnot,

and it seemed like something Steve would do.

But if he'd never-- ...smashing of the police cars

and the breaking and entering and stuff like that.

But the killing, the raping, and the burning.

That could've been Josh.

I don't know who was the mastermind.

Well, obviously, neither one of them,

because they got caught, and they did something--

Well, being a mastermind

doesn't mean that you don't get caught.

Honestly, you know, it is, it is

the equivalent of the perfect storm.

If he wasn't smoking drugs, then, you know,

I say flip the switch and fuck the trial.

Flip the switch.

I hope it doesn't even go that far.

As nasty as it sounds,

I hope somebody puts a bullet in his head.

That's not gonna happen. Outside the courtroom.

He's in solitary confinement.

Yeah, well-- They will--they will keep him away

from every God-living soul.

When he's on his way into the courtroom,

he has to get out somewhere.

They're not gonna risk his life,

because the state wants to kill him.

They're not gonna give that privilege up

to anybody else.

You know, I think that it should be the death penalty.

♪

Aah! Ha ha!

MAN: Both my daughters, Clarice and Caroline,

had a relationship with Joshua,

and I believe that he picked my daughters out

due to the fact that they looked like they're very young.

When Josh wanted to marry Caroline,

we had a phone conversation.

I don't know if Josh was asking for my blessing,

but in that phone conversation, I said, "Joshua,

"I have two major concerns.

One is I think you're a career criminal."

And then the second thing I shared with him

is that's he's a pedophile.

And in both of those, he-- he never really

changed his voice.

All I remember him saying is, "I'm sorry you feel that way."

WOMAN: "Dear Caroline, good evening, sweetheart.

"When I wake every morning, the sun is just starting to rise.

"Its light dances across your picture,

"radiating your beautiful eyes and pretty smile.

"It's the best part of the day.

"A calming mix of hope, beauty, and tranquility.

"Take care, Caroline. Smile. Someone's thinking of you.

"Strength and honor, sincerely, Joshua.

P.S.: Miss you."

We called Joshua the hopeless romantic.

That was the biggest side I loved about him,

because how many guys are out there that are romantic?

You know? Not very many,

and he was super romantic, and that's the way I am.

I'm super romantic.

♪

When I went to Cheshire,

we would go around the neighborhoods,

the rich neighborhoods,

and he'd look at all these houses

and be like, "Man, you know, I want to live in

something that nice and that gorgeous."

He wanted to have a family.

He was like, "I want a family. You know, a good family.

I don't want something that's broken."

♪

"If I were home, I would have sent flowers

"and some sort of creative surprise

"with this little note of admiration.

"Actually, if I were home, I would have shown up in person

and, well, who knows."

♪

Me and Joshua did have a very sexually active relationship

and he did like to tie me up

and, of course, you know, I was the submissive one,

and sometimes I was the dominant one.

But most of the time, I was submissive.

♪

Joshua always asked me, you know, "Is this too tight?"

"Are you OK?" Joshua always was concerned.

♪

Joshua was definitely a soul mate

and that's what killed me the most.

[Crickets chirping]

I saw Steve and Josh together every day, every day.

They were always talking. Because Steve was--

Steve was very, very versed in recovery.

Steve knew the N.A. book back and front.

His nickname was "Mr. N.A."

And I think Josh kind of absorbed a lot of it

and was able to get that knowledge from Steve.

"For this addict, drugs are not my main problem.

"I am my main problem-- my self-destructive

"attitude and behavior.

"What I like about getting high is to escape my feelings.

"I've self-medicated so much

I don't know how to feel anymore."

This is his own words. He's writing this.

"Unresolved anger controls me.

"It haunts me day and night,

"sometimes to the point of obsession,

even scary fantasy."

MATTHEW: One of the comments that Steven

had shared with me was

he didn't know what was gonna happen

but something big had to happen

because he had to get away from my mother's house.

BRIAN: May to July, in a one-bedroom apartment,

my mother in the bedroom, Steven on the couch, me on the floor.

And I didn't ever want to be home.

I just didn't, so I'd stay out until

I had to come home to go to sleep,

because I couldn't stand to be in the same room with him.

And then I'd be lying, making believe I'm sleeping in the morning

while he's having coffee with my mom just

running all of his bullshit out of his mouth

about how he's gonna take care of her

and he's gonna be making all this money.

MATTHEW: He's going to reshift and reshape my mother's life

and get them a bigger place, and, you know,

it's gonna be Steven taking care of Mom and--

on a scale from here to here,

there was that much of me

that actually believed it was gonna happen.

We got into a very physical confrontation one night

and he broke 3 of my ribs and gave me a black eye.

And, you know, I probably should have had him arrested then

because that would have been violation of probation.

Then he would've went to jail and none of this would've ever happened.

MATTHEW: Things were already falling apart.

The lies that Steven had been telling for the last two months

were coming back.

My mother was finding out about it.

She was getting ready to boot him out.

"I don't care what you have to do.

"You need a halfway house. I don't care.

Get out of my house."

So that was Friday.

I don't know the specifics of what happened

Saturday and/or Sunday, but, you know,

things were definitely ramping up to something.

♪

MAN: A day or two before the crime occurs,

Steven saw that his life was once again going downhill,

and he says that he locks himself in a hotel room

with crack cocaine and heroin

and goes on this drug binge

with a desire and hope that he would kill himself.

♪

He leaves the hotel room feeling like he's failed

at this suicide attempt, leaving him, in his view,

more desperate.

He shows up at an A.A. meeting in Hartford and there's Joshua.

And Joshua started talking to him about

ways to make some real money.

The last contact I had with him before the crime, I think, was

Sunday night?

We said our usual good nights and "I love you" and then

the next morning, I tried to get ahold of Joshua.

Me and my mom were walking to the car and I looked at my mom.

I go, "Mom, something's wrong."

I was like, "Joshua's not answering his phone.

I think something happened."

I was like, "Something definitely is wrong."

♪

Ms. Komisarjevsky did call me on--

I'm pretty sure it was Monday, and she told me that

Joshua went out late that night

and he was wearing dark clothing, like his hoodie.

And Ms. Komisarjevsky told me that he only does that

when he's going out to rob houses.

[Tires screech]

♪

[Chipping ice]

The lights that the candles make I think can help to radiate

the--the love that's needed.

♪

Well, they're gonna ring the bells

at the churches for 3 minutes,

one minute for each of the Petit women.

♪

WOMAN ON TV: You'll remember that last summer,

at what police describe as a random home invasion

and, of course, the darkness that happened on that day

will never be forgotten, but perhaps

for the first time tonight, there is a glimmer of hope

that perhaps some good could come from this evil.

Now, the money raised here will stay in Connecticut.

It will go to the foundation that was founded

by Dr. Petit in the names of his daughters--

Michaela Miracle and Hayley's Hope--and...

[Bell chiming]

MAN: Good morning, everyone. PEOPLE: Good morning.

This is a hearing in-- a continued hearing

in a matter of a complaint brought by

Colin Poitras and the "Hartford Courant"

against chief of fire department, town of Cheshire...

COLIN: We applied through the town of Cheshire

for more material right after the crime took place.

We finally got new information yesterday.

A complete transcript from the time of the initial call

from the bank official regarding Mrs. Petit being at the bank

saying she might be held hostage

to the time the two suspects were arrested

outside the Petit household.

And our review of this document, which is heavily edited

to protect potential witnesses, the town has told us,

raises the possibility that officers on alert

could have maybe stopped this car

with the suspect and Mrs. Petit

as they were coming home from the bank,

perhaps could've beat them back to the house,

could've separated the two suspects at that time

and maybe things would've had a different outcome.

And what's still out there is no one knows

what the initial 911 call said,

what the bank official said to police when she called.

♪

What were they told? Was it clear?

Did they know they have a hostage crisis?

♪

There's always more information that is yearned for,

either in a journalistic sense, a due diligence reporting sense,

and sadly, in a salacious sense.

So it is hard to say, "No,

I don't have anything to tell you right now,"

over and over again.

♪

MAN: Upon arrival at the victims' residence,

the first officer observed the private residence

fully engulfed in flame.

SECOND MAN: Yeah, it worked out

so officers arrived on scene

just as the suspects were leaving the residence.

♪

I get really tired of the stories that say,

"Oh, by the time the police showed up,

the house was already in flames,"

and that's not true at all.

♪

When Billy came out of the house,

he was pretty sure that he saw men in the woods hiding behind trees,

and we think those were all the police officers,

and he was calling out to a neighbor

while hopping across the yard, tied and badly beaten.

That should have raised the police eyebrows to say,

"What are they doing in there?

We need to get in there and find out."

MARYBELLE: That's why I wrote letters to the police.

I felt like, and I expressed in my letter that--

that their--their goal was to catch the men,

whoever were guilty, and above and beyond the saving of lives,

and I felt their priorities were very much askew.

Why didn't they just have a bullhorn

or something saying, you know,

"This house is surrounded.

"You're not going to get out of this alive,

so come on out"?

Why didn't you just go to the door

and break a window or something

and go into that house?

You know, my--my whole inner person said,

"These were precious people.

Why didn't you enter the house?"

♪

CYNTHIA: We've asked a lot of questions,

written a lot of letters.

But they have not sat with me

and they have not sat with my parents

to tell us what happened and what unfolded

and why and how.

I believe that truly they think they did something wrong.

I've heard all kinds of things-- that it was a small town

and they hadn't had the experience in the past.

I think they were afraid.

MAN: I just can't say enough good things

about how proud I am of the extraordinary effort

of our police officers and our firefighters.

They're extremely well trained,

they're a great group of professionals,

and I think today exemplified the finest of what

the police and fire are all about in this community.

And I can't thank them enough because

without their great work, this could've been a far worse tragedy.

We were very, very fortunate...

I was just literally shocked when I heard him say that

and that there were no further casualties or something,

and I thought, you know, how bad does it have to be?

I mean, I thought it was awful,

and he was commending them

on what a great job they had done

and I--I was sorry, but I didn't feel they did a great job.

I mean, if they had done a great job, nobody would have died.

THOMAS: As you look through this dispatch,

you can't help but walk away thinking,

you know, that there's another tragedy within the tragedy

that occurred to the Petit family here.

9:21:28--initial call comes in to the police department 911.

And this is the call that was actually from

the bank manager.

MARY: I will watch and see what kind of car she gets in.

I'm in my office with the door--with the lights off.

My teller said that she saw the driver.

He had a black hood over-- a hoodie and a baseball cap on.

DISPATCHER: I'm gonna keep you on hold for

another couple minutes, all right?

OK. [Beep beep click]

♪

THOMAS: Some police officers were actually at the scene

within seconds or minutes of when

Steven Hayes and Jennifer Petit get back to the house.

They had the phone number of the house early on.

Nobody made a call. Nobody knocked on the door.

9:56. Two suspects are moving into Chrysler.

9:57. There is a fire also at the scene.

Initial call comes in at 9:21.

This is over a half an hour later.

They were actually at the scene for 30 minutes.

[Siren wailing]

The strangulation of Jennifer Petit occurred.

The rape of Jennifer Petit occurred.

The pouring of gasoline occurred throughout the house

and the actual setting on fire of the house.

All of this is taking place

while the police are watching the house

setting up their perimeter.

It's really outrageous.

♪

[Geese honking]

WOMAN: Filling in for Ed Flynn today on "Talk of the Town."

We're gonna take a quick break,

and when we come back we're going to be joined

by Dr. William Petit from the Petit Family Foundation,

so stay with us.

Yeah. 1984.

Our first guest.

There's no audio for me...

MAN: We go directly to you. On 9...

WOMAN: OK.

MAN: 8, 7...

WOMAN: Dr. Petit is here, and

as many of you recall, you know, it wasn't that long ago

that, you know, you suffered a tragedy,

losing your wife and your two daughters

in a home invasion.

Talk a little bit, if you will, Dr. Petit,

about the mission, about the mission

of the Petit Family Foundation.

It's essentially to help out

people with chronic illnesses,

which was a nod to Hayley,

who was accepted at Dartmouth and wanted

to major in biology and considered

medicine or other careers.

And to help people affected by violence in their life,

which there's obviously far too much of,

as evidenced by the shootings in Oakland

and the shootings in Pittsburgh.

WOMAN: There are a few things that make me mad as hell,

and one is when I heard that the legislature

was even talking about, even considering

abolishing the death penalty here in Connecticut.

And I'm beginning to wonder,

do I have anything in common with this state anymore?

I mean, what the heck?

One of the studies that has been done,

and it does get brought up by people--

Study, study, study.

Well, this study actually has some

very good statistics, which are

most violent criminals who commit the most heinous of crimes

don't see the death penalty as a deterrent

because their sociopathic activities

don't take into account consequences.

How do you feel about that, Dr. Petit?

Death penalty's clearly a deterrent, because

the person that has committed the violent crime

can no longer commit it again,

so that person is removed from society,

and I think they've forfeited their right

to live in a civilized society, and--

the taking of a life, the opponents like to say

it's murder by the government, but

that's a semantic issue, because

murder is the unlawful taking.

We have laws set down for certain reasons,

and certainly the defense attorneys spend

lots of time and lots of our money

using the law to their benefit,

and the law says that for certain crimes,

there's an ultimate penalty, and society's

believed in that for thousands of years.

And that fight will continue, and I know

that is one of the things you're gonna fight passionately,

to make sure that those laws stay in place,

and no better spokesman than you, Dr. Petit,

for why these laws are here.

MAN: State lawmakers are considering a bill

that would change the death penalty law,

and Dr. William Petit gave his opinion

on the same day of a hearing for one of the men...

WILLIAM: Death penalty opponents

speak of the inviolable sanctity of life.

They love slogans such as "Do not kill in our name" and the like.

Thus, I assume that death penalty opponents

value the lives of murderers more than their victims.

Specifically, to me, as a victim...

MIKE: You know, if you're for the death penalty,

this is the poster child, no question about it.

If you're against the death penalty, like I am,

this guy is the poster child for the death penalty.

I mean, him and Saddam Hussein, right?

Kind of hard to argue the case.

But it's not a philosophical debate anymore.

This is reality.

And the ordeal you have to go through,

once it's a death penalty case, is considerable.

♪

MAN: It's a guaranteed multiple-years ordeal

in terms of just the trial, and after the conviction,

scores of years of appeals and frustration.

And all this time, the focus is on the murderers.

They become mini-celebrities.

MIKE: You have to go into gruesome detail about what happened,

because the prosecutors must prove that

the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors,

and the aggravating factor is unusually cruel and heinous.

In other words, you have to prove that

compared to other triple murders,

this one is much worse.

Once this gets under way, people are not gonna like what they see,

and it's just starting to get under way now.

And so I guess I'd say to Dr. Petit, you know,

I don't know who's giving you advice, but

I think if anyone's implying to you that

there's a realistic hope that these guys

would ever actually be executed, I think they're misleading you.

MAN: The one and only time we had an execution here, in my lifetime,

in Connecticut, was this guy Michael Ross,

and that was after 25 years of drama to get to that point,

and the guy asked to be executed.

The reality is that you'll feel

like you're making progress every day,

but it's gonna go on forever.

♪

[Machinery beeps, whirs]

DONALD: It'll probably be two years before they even start

selecting of the jury.

I'm getting pretty old.

I hope I live long enough so that I can attend the trial.

I want to see justice done.

[Keys clicking on keyboard]

MATTHEW: "Attention Detective Fran Budwitz

"of the Connecticut State Police.

"I give this statement to aid and assist those

"who now have the burden and huge responsibility

"of seeking justice.

"My earliest memories of Steve go back to age 4 or 5.

"Steve presented himself as the apple of everyone's eye.

"What many people did not see was the brother I knew.

"Being young and naive, I arrived home from school in seventh grade.

"Steven and his friends were using the oven

"to dry out some marijuana.

"He turned on the burner on the stove.

"He told me it was really cool and put my hand over it.

It's cool. You won't get hurt.

"As soon as I put my hand over the burner,

"he pushed my hand onto the hot burner

"and I had ring scars that lasted for months.

"To say there hasn't been a history of violence,

"well, this should--this should serve to say

"the predisposition was there.

"It was always there.

"Within two months of moving, Steve took my mother's car

"in the middle of the night.

"Upon calling the police, the relationship

"with my mom, Steven, and the law enforcement officials began.

"Steven is not sick.

"Steven is cunning and calculating.

"Please exercise discretion.

"I will assist how I can.

"However, there is enough to hang him

"without any family involvement.

"Steven is alone. He will answer to God,

"he will answer to the law, and my prayer is

"he will answer to himself before fate hands him

his final sentence."

♪

I don't know.

I'd like to be there from the beginning of each trial

through the end of each one.

If there are things to look at that they had to endure,

I feel like it's part of my life to know

what they lived through or died through,

and I just feel like it's not to punish ourselves,

it's just to know in the end and have that finality of

"Oh, this is how it looked.

This is what they say they did."

♪

MAN AS KOMISARJEVSKY: A thief in the night, I've come to steal

not jewels and money but your personal safety,

privacy, and security.

I violate your inner asylum of intimacy.

I piss on your optical illusion of peace and innocence.

I feast on your animosity.

The Petit family passed through their fear

into the calm waters of abject terror,

like mesmerized rabbits cornered by a springing predator.

To see that fear, that emotional pain I feel every day

manifested on another's face

validates that this pain in me is real.

♪

The shockwaves of my self's hopelessness

reverberated its bitterness through my rocked soul

at the realization that I crossed life's bridge of depravity.

The awakening of my shadow, repressed within,

reaching its zenith that morning

with rapturous control of Michaela.

Her age was insignificant.

Come on, Shadow. Come on, Rummy.

Inside. Let's go. Let's go. Inside.

CAROLINE: On the phone, Joshua denied raping the 11-year-old,

but I knew Joshua raped that 11-year-old.

I just knew. And he kept--

Joshua kept telling me that he didn't

and I didn't believe him.

I couldn't believe him.

Because I was raped in ninth grade,

and...

Before I left, I told him about it.

♪

I know he didn't know Michaela at the time,

but I feel like maybe he was thinking of a Michaela

while he was doing that stuff to me.

♪

Punishment that would be good enough for him

would be having done to him what he'd done to them.

♪

WOMAN: Roll cue to video.

Sure. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

There are two suspects, but Steven Hayes

goes on trial first.

He is in court today, but he looks

very different from his mug shot.

He's lost weight, he's in a regular striped shirt and pants,

no handcuffs on him in front of the jury.

And it is because this case has gotten so much publicity

that picking an impartial jury could be difficult.

MAN: Sunny, you were inside the courtroom today.

What sort of state did Komisarjevsky appear to be in?

He's much heavier now. He sort of has a buzz cut.

MAN: Komisarjevsky is dressed in a suit

and engaged in the process.

Now, if you're wondering how long this is all going to last,

we're talking about several months.

This morning, the judge told the...

WALTER: From the courthouse, I don't think Cheshire's

but about a 15-minute drive.

Everybody knew this case.

Terry Nichols, Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bombing cases

were number 2 and 3.

Komisarjevsky was number one.

Talking to almost 2,000 prospective jurors,

everyone had made conclusions based on the publicity,

and that conclusion was very clear.

Joshua Komisarjevsky was guilty.

75% also expressed the opinion that Joshua should die.

I've never had a jury selection where

people would jump out of their seats--"I'll kill him now."

It's in the news, Internet. how could you miss it?

What did you think when you saw him?

Um...I just think he's a murderer.

[Siren wailing]

♪

"Frustrating day, but two more jurors were selected.

"That came in at 8:13 this morning.

"Still need 4 more jurors, 6 alternates,

and two substitutes."

MATTHEW: So it's about 11:00 this morning

my time Pacific time,

and one of Steven's attorney's called.

They went in to check on him this morning

and he was unresponsive.

Steven's lying in a coma induced by, you know, a medical team.

They're not sharing why.

You know, the attorney said that he could very well die.

And they're expected to be back in court tomorrow.

They can't proceed without him in the room.

♪

THOMAS: Steven squirreled away

9 or so doses of Thorazine and Klonopin.

And you might question how this could happen.

About a year before this, Steven Hayes had made a suicide attempt

and one of the things they found in his cell

was a suicide note.

I quote, "I am sorry. All I want to do is die.

"It is the only way to end the pain I go through

"every day 24/7, and more important,

"the pain that trial will bring to others.

"Time to go to the last undiscovered country.

"Although I am not the monster that Josh is,

"I am one nevertheless.

"A coward, because I could not do what was right.

"Looking back on my life, I was nothing but

"a self-centered asshole who cared only of himself.

"But the ironic facet to this is

"I have always had the ability to change.

But cowards don't change. They become me."

♪

WOMAN: The judge actually toured Hayes' cell yesterday.

It's called a safe cell, which will protect him

from harming himself.

We learned a lot-- he also wears

something called Ferguson clothing, which

an inmate wears if they're in jeopardy of killing themselves,

because they can't tear up the clothes

and use it as a noose.

Good day. Good morning.

SHELLY: How difficult, Dr. Petit, is it to sit in there

and have them discuss Hayes' conditions in prison

for two hours at a time?

The lights being on?

Uh, it's difficult. Uh...

Somehow, it was OK for the defendants

to bind us and beat us and rape us and torture us

and set the place on fire, but you can't be--

can't be held in a cell with the lights on,

and somehow there's something wrong with that.

THOMAS: It's surreal. The entire prosecution

is geared to killing Steven Hayes,

and so here he is trying to kill himself

but we won't let him do that,

because we want to extract our pound of flesh.

It's really a sick kind of process, in my opinion.

♪

Tragedy in trial! Front page!

Tragedy in trial! Front page!

[Horn honking]

MAN: Right now, both sides are inside this courtroom.

All eyes are on what's going to happen

in these opening arguments.

The heavy, heavy security around Steven Hayes

brought in by authorities on a convoy of vehicles...

SECOND MAN: There's no cameras allowed in the courtroom,

so you're not going to see what's actually going on in there,

but tweeting is allowed.

THIRD MAN: A juror has been excused.

It's because she said she couldn't be fair,

because she heard news reports

of Steven Hayes' suicide attempt.

This jury will end up making two decisions.

One will be the guilt or innocence of the defendant,

and if they find him guilty,

then they would have to decide

if he should get the death penalty

for the crime.

CYNTHIA: Going into the courtroom, Steven Hayes

was, like, off to my left.

I look at him and I think,

"I still can't believe that you did this."

♪

I said as soon as I found out that my sister died,

"Just come into me, be a part of me."

So I kept staring at him,

and sometimes I think, "Is that a part of her

"saying, like, Stare at him.

Don't take your eyes off of him.

Like, he--he can't be trusted."

♪

DONALD: I'd like to say a few things to these guys.

I'd like them to answer me the question,

do they know what it is to be terrorized?

WOMAN: After waiting more than 3 years,

the Petit and Hawke families are ready for this process

to finally begin,

and are hopeful in the end that justice will prevail,

and we think of Jennifer, Hayley, and Michaela every second of every day.

It is a system, you know, and people say it's

the best system in the world,

but it's a--it's a maddening system at best.

People spend a lot of time parsing words

instead of really trying to get to

what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil.

But it's the system we have, so we're hoping--

we're hoping that the system we have will give us justice.

♪

MAN: Today's date is July 23, 2007.

Statements taking place

at the Cheshire Police Department headquarters.

Joshua Komisarjevsky, do you know why you're here?

OK. And you went to Stop and Shop in Cheshire?

THOMAS: On the night of July 22,

Josh and Steven were texting each other.

Steven texting Josh about "When are we gonna get going?"

It was kind of like an excitement about

going to burglarize this house.

♪

He drives down to Cheshire.

He and Josh go to a bar.

And then they start looking for this house

that Josh knows about from when they were

shopping at Stop and Shop earlier.

It's always been my opinion that he was attracted by

the young girl Michaela rather than the money

or the Mercedes.

♪

Josh was born into a family with a history of mental problems.

Then he was adopted by a family

that had no ability to cope with mental problems.

And so he was doomed by biology, and then he was doomed by fate.

When Josh was 3 years old, the family took into the home

two foster children, a girl and a boy.

And Josh underwent really horrible and extensive

sexual abuse at the hand of Scott.

♪

I think it started off playing little sex games,

having him pose naked, and then it proceeded

to full-scale anal intercourse

and to Josh's being burned with cigarettes.

Against the background of all of this,

Josh is at a church in which it is taught

that there is evil in the world

and probably the greatest abomination of all

is homosexuality.

And so you've got a what, a 5-year-old,

a 6-year-old, a 7-year-old listening to this

and thinking to himself that I am fundamentally evil,

I have engaged in that kind of activity,

and really not being able to tell anybody about it.

♪

ERIC: There's a theme that I saw in Steven's life of...

of betrayal.

Steven had been sexually abused as a child,

which led him to become more emotionally

disconnected from people.

The turning towards drugs and the desperate state of mind

that he found himself in,

all of this helped explain

how Steven could've done what he had done.

♪

MAN: KK. Obviously she told you

her nickname or whatever is KK,

or you made that up?

WOMAN: I met Josh when I was 13.

Josh's parents started attending the church that we went to,

the Evangelical Bible Church.

And we dated--we were in a relationship

for about two years.

We started, um, dating when I was 14 or 15

and then our relationship was ended by the church.

♪

Throughout the whole course of our relationship,

we were always trying to not have sex.

That was the goal. It felt deeply, deeply sinful.

♪

Our church community was our home school community,

and Josh's family and mine as well

had a very specific idea of good and evil.

♪

The devil was understood to be an entity that you could know,

so if Josh had anxiety, it was the devil.

If he did something wrong, it was because he was being used

as a agent of the devil.

Josh spoke some to me about the sexual abuse

that had happened to him,

but there wasn't even a way for him

to tell me without weeping.

Josh had terrible anxiety attacks.

His home was not ever safe for him.

The safe place was being away and hiding in the woods.

♪

He was trespassing and sneaking around,

spying on people, long before it was a criminal offense.

I think that he envied people

and he would daydream about being them.

♪

ERIC: They find beer in the refrigerator

and drink throughout the night.

Steven finds jars of quarters and coins.

They found a Bank of America book

and they're waiting for the morning.

However, Steven worries that

he's gonna leave DNA evidence in the house,

and he starts...obsessing.

And Josh tells him, "Fire destroys everything."

THOMAS: "We'll get the people out and we'll burn the house down,

we'll get them somewhere, and then we'll get the hell out of here."

That's what Steven was thinking about.

ERIC: Steven goes into the garage.

He finds containers and starts driving

to find a gas station.

♪

THOMAS: When Steven gets back with the gasoline,

Josh had changed the clothes of Michaela

because of activity that he was involved with

in terms of sexually abusing her.

And part of that occurred while Steven was out on the gas run,

because we know that because of Josh's photographs

that he took on his cell phone before the bank.

♪

The first set of photographs showed Michaela.

They were leg shots and genital area shots,

but they were clothed.

The last shots while they were at the bank

were much more graphic.

Really awful, awful, awful photographs.

Those are the kinds of things you never forget.

They kind of become emblazoned in your mind.

It just shows the level of depravity

of Joshua Komisarjevsky.

♪

Joshua was committed--against the wishes of his parents,

he was committed and spent, I think, two weeks at Elmcrest.

He was clearly in terrible shape

and suicidal.

WALTER: The records are very clear that Joshua

wanted to try the medication,

Joshua wanted the therapy, but the parents rejected it.

Not only did the parents reject it,

but they immediately took him up

to the Alton Bay Christian Center.

FRAN: People would say that he was seeing demons

and he believed that.

and would pray that they'd go away,

and people would gather around him and pray over him

and lay hands on him and speak in tongues over him.

Exorcism. That was kind of a regular part of our lives

when it came to dealing with anxiety.

He ended up breaking into my room at the discipleship house

to come and see me.

He was essentially excommunicated for doing that.

His whole life, everything, was just gone overnight.

There was no addressing that perhaps this was a desperate kid

who actually didn't--wasn't wrestling with the devil

but had experienced trauma and was losing his grip.

♪

Some people called our office asking if we would--

we would take Josh on in spite of

some of his legal difficulties as a member of our tour.

I just gave Josh a little bit of responsibility

and let him know that I expected him to be a leader,

and he blossomed.

He just loved it.

We came to the end of that tour and it was a good tour.

I think it wasn't long after that

that Josh joined the Reserves.

Then he was discharged

and then that's when

his troubles started again.

♪

[Thunder]

MAN: Morning rolls around. They untie Mrs. Petit.

Steven takes her to the bank.

Mrs. Petit is in the bank.

It's taking longer than he thought.

♪

MAN: You performed oral sex on KK?

JOSHUA: On KK.

Did you take pictures of her?

Now, you said you let her get dressed again.

How--how is it she came upon being undressed?

Because you originally said she was dressed.

MAN: No one disputes that he committed this crime.

Eventually, he tells the police officer

that while Hayes is gone, he goes upstairs

and sexually assaults KK.

At that point, the judge stops the tape.

He says, "A juror is having problems

with this testimony, with this evidence,"

and that he's gonna stop it for the day

and they will continue again tomorrow.

A very difficult day in court here, LaToya.

...start again?

We're good.

Thank you very much.

CYNTHIA: Komisarjevsky was calling my youngest niece "KK."

Like, you know, who are you to be using that term

and calling her this, like, term of endearment that we use?

OK, you show me that baseball bat again

that you hit Billy with and I'll show you how it feels.

You want them to lose a daughter.

You want their house to burn down.

You want them to see how it feels.

And--and other times, you think, "Gosh, who am I?

Like, this is wicked. How could I wish this on anybody?"

♪

ERIC: Steven is becoming anxious.

He calls Joshua.

Joshua tells him, "Everything's gonna be fine.

The plan is gonna work."

After a period of time, Mrs. Petit

comes out of the bank with money.

When they arrive back at the house,

Steven is under the belief that the crime is over.

Now they could leave.

But Joshua tells Steven that, we have a problem.

He had left DNA with one of the children

and he had to kill them and their dad,

and Dr. Petit had died from the injuries,

and that now he had to get his hands dirty

and kill Mrs. Petit.

THOMAS: I believe Steven, but from the first time that Josh

talked to the police, he tried to save himself

by blaming Steven for all the horrific stuff that occurred.

ERIC: Steven tells me that he felt betrayed by Josh,

that he felt dragged into this horror of a crime,

and he also felt in a crazy way betrayed by Mrs. Petit,

because he looks out the window and he sees police cars,

and he realizes that Mrs. Petit must have

informed bank officials.

He is triggered into this state of rage.

He strangles Jennifer Hawke-Petit,

he pulls down her pants, pulls her legs up,

and he vaginally rapes her after he strangles her.

MAN: Which is where the dad was.

ERIC: Steven hears Josh telling him they have to leave.

Spread the gasoline and let's get out of here.

MAN: Why did you close the doors?

You knew they were tied but you closed the doors.

Empty bottles of--

Of gasoline, so he went back up with another bottle?

OK.

♪

[Siren wailing]

WOMAN: All of these family members

that have had to relive

the horror of what happened inside of that home

the night they were all tied up

has been heartbreaking to watch inside of the courtroom.

The images have been absolutely devastating

of the crime scene...

MAN: When it's all put out in front of you,

it's very gruesome.

It's--it's insane to just hear

and it's just affected the whole town

and it's like the whole town is just reliving it all again,

and it's not easy for all of us.

♪

CYNTHIA: These are pictures of, like, the accelerant pattern

that they showed.

They went from, I think where Hayley's body was upstairs

into her bedroom and onto her bed

and then down the hall and into Michaela's bedroom

and onto her bed.

And when they finally put the fire detective on the stand,

I saw Michaela was tied and she had gasoline dumped on her

while she was alive and alert,

and that at least Hayley, I know,

was probably burning while she was breathing.

And that was just a really hard thing to learn,

because I never really knew if the girls were alive

when they were burning or not,

and it kind of was made true to us

that that was the case with Hayley,

that she had walked while she was on fire,

because she fell down and the front of her

was more burned than the back of her.

I was crying and I just felt like

I wanted to get out of that courtroom and scream

and just say, you know,

"I can't believe what's going on in there."

You know, I just--it's making me so angry,

and I can't understand why somebody couldn't have

ventilated that house for the girls while they were still alive,

and I just--I want it to be so different.

WOMAN: We're finally seeing the defense

giving tough questioning to the Cheshire police officers

who initially responded to the call of that home invasion.

The officers said they followed protocol.

Dr. William Petit has always supported

the actions of the Cheshire Police Department.

One captain testifying that the incident

did not make sense at first, and he said,

"It still doesn't make sense today."

♪

THOMAS: Steven admitted to killing the mom.

He admitted to raping the mom.

He admitted to spreading gasoline,

I mean, so it's not like

he was trying to get himself out from under in any way.

And yet Josh was getting this story out

that Steven knew was false.

Joshua tried to minimize the sexual assault,

not make it out to be a rape,

that it was just contact and ejaculation,

which is absurd given

the scientific evidence that exists.

He tried to blame Steven solely for being the person

who initiated the gasoline and lighting the gasoline

when there's gasoline on both of their clothes.

Josh Komisarjevsky was the one who was suggesting

that they go into a house where people were,

and for Steven, this was a foolish thing,

because he was obviously with a guy who

was uncontrollable.

♪

And I think it haunts him, really haunts him,

as to why he didn't walk away.

Steven's in an isolation cell 24 hours a day.

He has nightmares.

He has nightmares about his own kid burning.

This is the way his incarceration will last forever.

So you know, I don't know why we have to kill

someone who's in a position like that.

It's like being buried alive.

WALTER: We, the defense team, always believed

that Joshua never had the intention to kill anybody.

After he bashed Dr. Petit's head several times,

later on, he got a towel.

He wiped the blood away from Dr. Petit's head.

He then got two pillows, put them behind his back,

and he got two cushions, and his explanation,

which is in his confession, was that he did so

because he thought Dr. Petit wasn't comfortable enough,

and he was concerned about his comfort.

Why didn't he simply walk in and undo the bindings?

Dr. Leo Shea, a neuropsychologist,

testified that Joshua was unable

to make quick decisions in stressful situations.

What occurred with Michaela is absolutely unexplainable.

Such a horrendous crime committed on such a young girl.

People go to jail for a long time for crimes like that,

but you don't get the death penalty.

When Joshua was apprehended, when he was pulled from the car,

he was straight with the police.

When Steven Hayes was pulled from the car,

he gave a phony name, and when asked,

"Was there anybody in the house?"

he said, "I don't know."

When Joshua was pulled from the car,

he gave his name and he said, "There's a woman inside,

I believe she's dead, and upstairs there's two girls,"

and he expressed to the police

that there was some urgency to the situation,

which was pretty obvious because at that time,

the house was burning.

To me, these are things that are inconsistent

with intending to kill somebody.

[Crowd cheering, horns honking]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Everybody came here safe,

you know, just to support.

WILLIAM: You know, the teachers after Michaela died said

whenever...

whenever someone in the class-- [Cheering and applause]

[Whistles]

She said, "Dr. Petit, I just have to tell you that

"your daughter Michaela was always the one to

go with the kid who was excluded,"

and I thank you for standing up for justice

and what is morally and ethically correct.

[Cheering and applause]

THOMAS: Dr. Petit is pretty much out there

with his foundation, which is obviously a really good thing

and should be supported,

but we're in the middle of the state trying

to get the death penalty.

So as much as I have incredible sympathy for him,

I think his outspokenness in this case

has really affected any ability to get a fair trial

for either of these two defendants.

WOMAN: What happened, what was said

during that conversation with Dr. Petit

that made you just make a 180?

Dr. Petit came in with his sister-in-law Mrs. Chapman.

They said if the legislature this year

votes to repeal the death penalty,

it'll make it harder for the jury

to make the decision of the death penalty

for this monster, this Komisarjevsky.

I can only imagine that one-on-one conversation.

You're sitting as close as probably we are now.

You have no idea. I could not bring myself

to cause this man any more stress.

He's a monster. He is a monster,

and I said, "He's such a monster

"they should hang him by his penis

out from a tree in Main Street."

I can't think of anything bad enough

that should happen to that man.

♪

ALICIA: I actually got to see Steve twice,

the past two Sundays.

When I first saw him, I wanted to cry,

because I haven't seen him in so long,

but I just didn't want to cry under those circumstances.

You have all the guards standing right on top of you.

And you can't talk about the trial because,

like, you know that the phones are pretty tapped.

I know that the family wants him to be dead

and it all to be over with,

but, like, my side of the family,

we just want him to, like,

take responsibility for what he did

without the consequence of the death penalty.

That won't bring anyone back.

What happened happened and his death

isn't gonna bring about much justice.

MAN: Steven Hayes walked into room 6A.

For the first time, he saw a familiar face.

It was his brother Matthew.

The first time that we believe a Hayes family member

has been in court.

♪

MAN: Prosecutor Michael Dearington said,

"These two beautiful girls and loving mother were killed

because Steven Hayes wanted money."

Defense attorney Thomas Ullmann argued that life without parole

is the harshest punishment Steven Hayes could be given.

MAN: State's attorney Gary Nicholson

did not mince words as he spoke to the jury

in his closing arguments this morning,

saying that Joshua Komisarjevsky is, quote,

"No shrinking violet.

He played a starring role in this crime."

Nicholson hammered the point

that Komisarjevsky was first in the house,

the first to use violence, and had plenty of opportunity

to leave the home.

He gave Steven Hayes directions back to the house,

but Hayes went and bought gasoline.

It's not fair, is it?

No. No. No. Mm.

You know, all I think of is the impact that our girls

could've made upon the world.

And, of course, none of that will ever come forth from

Joshua Komisarjevsky.

MAN: What's the jury weighing?

Aggravating factors against mitigating factors.

The aggravating factors brought out by the prosecution--

the heinous nature of the crimes.

For the mitigating factors that the defense presented,

they pointed to a very difficult

early childhood of Joshua Komisarjevsky.

The defense said they turned to prayer instead.

They also pointed to a series of concussions when he was a boy,

drug use in his teenage and early twenty years,

all saying it mitigates what happens.

It means he didn't really know what was going on,

couldn't make a decision to stop what was going on

that night in July of 2007,

and so his life should be spared.

No verdict today.

We do expect a verdict by the end of the week.

WILLIAM: We're good. You guys can reach, right?

DONALD: Oh, Lord, we gather around this table

as family and friends.

We stand at a place in the trial where

we wonder what will take place.

But we pray, O God, that we will be able

to be strong enough

to accept whatever the outcome may be,

that it would be your will that would be done.

For we ask it in the name of Christ. Amen.

ALL: Amen.

This is all about death or life without parole.

Really, it does seem like

the most kind, humane thing

you could do for a person

is to allow them to just die.

I thought of how much that challenges the jurors.

DONALD: A lot of pressure has been placed upon their shoulders.

I'm glad I'm not in that room.

Yeah.

Never get those pictures

out of their heads for the rest of their lives, you know?

It's been very traumatic for everyone.

♪

WOMAN: This is a case that had just rattled people,

and a lot of people say that if there is a case

that warrants the death penalty, this is it.

Wait a minute. I want to read you something

that we're--we're getting some word on,

and you might be able to explain it to us.

The jurors are standing. The clerk is reading the verdict form.

Count 4, no statutory mitigators.

Both aggravators are proven.

OK. The defendant is sentenced to death, Sunny.

MAN: The jury returns.

Death penalty verdict.

MAN: Death for the monster who slaughtered

the Connecticut doctor's family.

Tonight, a Connecticut jury has done something very rare.

A Connecticut jury has recommended death

for Steven Hayes.

He's convicted of raping and murdering a mom,

Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and her two daughters, Hayley and Michaela.

THOMAS: The verdict was devastating.

Steven wanted a death verdict

and knew we did everything in our power

to prevent that from happening,

in spite of his own efforts to kill himself.

♪

[Siren wailing]

MAN: This case gets attention in Australia.

It got attention in Europe.

You know, this was any town, America, any family America,

and when you saw just how that was shattered

in a few hours, I think that's powerful...

Count 5 is death.

The second count, count 5

in the murder of Michaela Petit, is death,

that he intentionally caused the death of a person

under 16 years old.

All right, count 10 is death.

That's--he intentionally caused

the death of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, the mother.

OK, count 11 is death.

MAN: A couple of marshals came up behind Joshua in cuffs

and really no reaction at all.

Given the public outrage for these horrendous crimes,

that we just couldn't get a fair jury here

and we still feel that way,

and that's why we had filed a motion to change venue

and believe it should have been--

should have been granted, so that'll be

one of the main appellate issues.

I believe the death penalty is just barbaric

and it puts us in line with countries like

China, Yemen, Iraq, Iran.

I don't know what other purpose it serves

other than simply revenge.

Walter Bansley III, thank you very much.

Denise, of course, yeah,

we're gonna have continuing coverage here.

The death penalty has been given

to Joshua Komisarjevsky.

♪

We are satisfied that the defendant has been judged

to be the murderer, the rapist, and criminal that he is,

and now he's been condemned to the ultimate penalty.

We certainly have been criticized over the years

that this is vengeance and blood lust, but

this is really about justice.

We want to go forward with the Petit Family Foundation

and try to continue to create good out of evil and...

The defense did what they thought they should do.

I thought a lot of it was particularly distasteful.

We saw picture after picture after picture,

and every time one of those pictures went up, I thought,

"Charles Manson was a baby once.

I'm not sure that this is particularly relevant."

I'd just like to thank our justice system

as well as the jury members,

listening to a lot of things that they would much rather

not heard or seen.

I believe that without our defense attorneys,

we could not have the outcome that we have,

so we have to even be appreciative

that there are defense attorneys that will take cases like this.

And I believe God's will has been done.

I don't really want to answer any questions.

I--I feel so sad that my answers...

I don't know if any of the other defense attorneys--

MAN: ...on death row now.

There will be automatic appeals.

There will be appeals upon appeals.

This will go on for years and years and years, and...

♪

JEREMIAH: We offered to plead guilty to every charge

in the information against us

so long as death wasn't the result.

And so Joshua would've been sentenced

to life without the possibility of release.

It would've happened, you know,

3 weeks after the crime had taken place.

Josh would've disappeared into the--into the great abyss

of the penal system, and would never be heard from again.

But that wasn't a serious enough punishment for the state,

and of course, the state was being

goaded on by Dr. Petit.

And so we had to go through 3 years of Hayes and Joshua

and just forcing the people of Connecticut

to relive that crime day after day after day

I think kind of coarsened the social fabric of Connecticut.

It would've been so much better just to throw those guys in jail

and throw away the key, but--

GIRL: She's pitching!

[Applause, indistinct shouting]

♪

♪

DONALD: The most difficult thing that I had to do in my life

was to bury my own child and two grandchildren.

♪

I don't think there will ever be closure

for our family.

Jennifer was too much of a giving, loving person,

and I don't think that we will ever, ever,

if we live another 100 years, would ever want to forget her.

So if closure brings forgetting,

I don't want that closure.

[Birds chirping]

[Dog barking]

♪

♪