The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Images that cannot fade away: 10 years covering the Cheshire murders
There have been many times over the past 10 years when I have had the fantasy — I think I’ve even dreamed this — that in the early-morning hours of July 23, 2007, I transform myself from a mild-mannered reporter to Superman.
After hearing anguished cries from far away, I speedily fly to the Petit home in Cheshire, swoop into that house, punch out Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, blow out the flames, untie the two Petit girls and their mother from their beds and turn the perpetrators over to the police.
I’ll bet many other people who have been touched by this tragedy, which occurred 10 years ago today, have had similar dreams or fantasies.
We in Connecticut are particularly haunted by this triple homicide because it happened so close to us, in a usually tranquil neighborhood, perhaps quite like the street on which we live. And it happened to a wonderful family.
My connection to it is that I cover New Haven Superior Court for the New Haven Register. And so I was assigned to report on the lengthy trials of Hayes in 2010 and Komisarjevsky in 2011. I’m the only reporter who was there every day of those wrenching trials. I felt I had to be there as a witness.
But months before the first trial began, before dozens of other reporters descended on that courtroom from all over the country, I dipped in and out of observing the laborious process of selecting a jury.
Try to imagine how difficult it was, given the publicity about those crimes, to find people who at least said they could be impartial.
The first time I saw Bill Petit Jr., the ever-grieving lone survivor of the home invasion that wiped out his family, he was standing alone in a corridor outside the courtroom during a 15-minute break from the jury selection for the Hayes trial.
I can’t remember whether, when I introduced myself to him, I said something like, “I’m sorry for your loss.” How could that possibly convey one’s feelings? I’ve been saying this for years to other families in that courthouse who have lost loved ones to murderers. But, your wife and both children?
In a clumsy effort to somehow express my empathy, I told him my wife’s name is Jennifer and that I am the father of two daughters. His wife was named Jennifer Hawke-Petit. His daughters were Michaela and Hayley, who were 11 and 17 at the time of their deaths.
Petit always struck me as brave and dignified, struggling mightily to stifle his anger and outrage as he sat in court, just a few feet away from the two men who had done this to his family.
Because he is only human, he must have also been dealing with recurring but unjustified guilt that although he was brutally beaten in the head
with a baseball bat and tied to a pipe in his basement, he “should have been able” to save his wife and daughters. He tried to do so by finally breaking loose from the pipe, crawling out of the basement door and over to his neighbor’s house, calling out for help. But moments later, his house was rapidly consumed by flames, a fire spread after one of the perpetrators sprayed gasoline throughout the two floors and lit a match.
How did Petit hold himself together? We can never know. I have another memory of him, from March 2008, at a charity event in the Cheshire High School gym. After he was introduced to the crowd, with all eyes on him, he calmly dribbled a basketball and sank a foul shot. Swish.
During the trials, I tried to give him “space,” as did most of the other reporters. But I got to know somewhat his parents, Barbara and Bill Sr., his sister, Johanna Petit Chapman and his sister-inlaw, Cynthia Hawke-Renn. They too were unbelievably brave and dignified, bearing witness and taking care of Bill Jr.
Covering those trials was anguish, a daily ordeal. In addition to sitting through the testimony of police officers, medical people and others who had seen the aftermath of the carnage, we saw pieces of clothing and crime scene photos.
The worst part was seeing photos of the victims. That evidence was not shown to the public; reporters were given a chance to sit in the jury box one day after court was adjourned and look at the photos as they were passed over to us.
Such images can never be wiped from your mind.
In the middle of the Komisarjevsky trial, as I sat at Yale Bowl for the Yale-Harvard game, I happened to be with a group of people who included a psychiatrist. Perhaps needing to somehow unburden myself, I described to her what I had been going through for my job. She listened for a while, then told me, “I really hope you’re going to see a therapist after this is over.”
One time I discussed this with two other reporters. We wondered whether what we were going through would lead to post traumatic stress. But none of us sought professional help. We simply talked it out with our spouses at night.
This is not meant to be a pity party. I am well aware that whatever I went through is a speck of dust compared with the searing pain of the Petit family.
What to say about the perpetrators? It was clear from the testimony and other sources that Komisarjevsky and Hayes, after horrific childhoods, became petty career criminals with no history of criminal violence until that night. It was the combination of those two, like a lethal chemical combustible reaction, that caused the events in that house to escalate. These were two guys egging each other on, to “man up.”
Searching for a better answer, I visited Hayes in prison in September 2013. He was then on Death Row, as was Komisarjevsky. The Connecticut Supreme Court later would rule the death penalty was unconstitutional and so the two men then received sentences of life in prison without the possibility of release.
At least Hayes was remorseful. He said, “I’ll never forgive myself.” He described feeling “guilt, shame and remorse.”
He told me he didn’t know why it happened, how it got so out of control. He said he “just snapped.”
Hayes added, “I don’t deserve to live.”
Reporters are not supposed to show emotion or choose sides. But we’re human too. At the conclusion of the second trial, when that jury had sentenced Komisarjevsky to die, the Petit family stood together on the courthouse steps. Bill Jr. did most of the talking as reporters asked questions. The Petits were spent; still shattered, perhaps feeling somewhat vindicated or relieved. But forget about them having “closure.”
As the Petits turned to leave, I found myself faceto-face with Chapman. Without thinking about it, I reached out and gave her a hug. Yes, I hugged her. Human emotion.
During all the pretrial hearings, jury selection and the trials, I stayed away from the crime scene. I thought it might not be good for me psychologically to “go there.”
But last week I decided it was time. As I drove to the site, I felt a sense of mounting dread and sorrow, which increased when I got closer.
Sorghum Mill Drive is like thousands of other tree-lined streets in America: quiet, with attractive houses and lawns and gardens, birds singing overhead. That’s why this crime resonated with so many of us — “That could have been my home they attacked, my family.”
The Petit house no longer exists. It was torn down and the community replaced it with a beautiful memorial garden. There is a stone with an inscription of three flowers and the words “three angels.”
Another carved stone carries messages such as “be kind,” “count your blessings,” “harm no one,” “yearn for peace” and “forgive.”
I was alone there on an utterly serene Wednesday afternoon. I sat on a bench in the middle of the garden and thought about the contrast between quiet peace versus loud horror.
As I pulled away in my car, a Bob Marley song came on the radio: “No Woman No Cry.”