Court nixes appeal of Cheshire killer
HARTFORD — The Connecticut Supreme Court rejected the appeal of a man convicted of murder, sexual assault and other crimes in the killings of a woman and her two daughters, ages 11 and 17, in a 2007 home invasion.
Justices issued a 7-0 decision Monday upholding the convictions against Joshua Komisarjevsky. He appealed on several arguments including that the state’s failure to move his trial out of New Haven to counter pretrial publicity denied him a fair trial.
Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes are serving life prison sentences for the killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters, 11-year-old Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley, in their Cheshire home. Hawke-Petit’s husband, Dr. William Petit Jr., now a state representative, was severely beaten but survived the attack.
Hayes and Komisarjevsky broke into the house at about 3 a.m. July 23, 2007, the day after Komisarjevsky noticed Hawke-Petit and Michaela shopping at a Cheshire supermarket. He followed them to their house and then told Hayes they would make a good target for burglary and robbery.
The invaders spotted Petit sleeping in the sunroom downstairs and beat him on the head with a baseball bat. They then tied him up in the basement, woke up the two daughters and their mother, and tied them to their beds.
Several hours later, after the bank opened, Hayes forced Hawke-Petit to drive there with him so she could withdraw $15,000 for the perpetrators. But soon after they returned to the house, Hayes raped and strangled her. One of the perpetrators applied a match to gasoline that had been spread throughout the house. The girls died in the fire.
Petit heard the commotion and managed to break his ties and escape from the basement hatchway to seek help. As the house was consumed in flames, Hayes and Komisarjevsky fled, crashing the Petit vehicle into a nearby police barricade, and were apprehended.
Hawke-Petit and Michaela also were sexually assaulted.
The crimes and their viciousness drew worldwide attention, becoming the subjects of TV shows, documentaries and books.
Both Komisarjevsky and Hayes were sentenced to death, but the punishments were changed to life in prison without the possibility of release after Connecticut abolished the death penalty in 2015.
Komisarjevsky’s appeal also claimed the state failed to disclose evidence, placed him in unconstitutionally strict prison conditions and failed to correct false expert testimony against him.