Petit Family murders. trial coverage, warning! graphic evidence photos.

[Duchess]

Holy fuck! His lawyer states that like we should have sympathy for that murdering motherfucker. Who the hell cares about his well being? No one in their right mind would. I would be delighted to learn that this is torture for him. It makes me happy to know that he is uncomfortable.

[Lady Cop]

we can only hope the other cocksucker co-defendant joshua komisarjevsky, hangs himself in jail before his trial, to spare Dr. Petit and the rest of the family having to go through this ordeal again.

[Duchess]

Does that young man have access to news? Is he aware of what is going on with the trial right now? How long do you expect something like this to last? I always have lots of questions about stuff, I like details. Sorry.

[Lady Cop]

please don't be sorry, i am glad someone is following this with me.
he may get newspapers in jail, but sometimes the jail will hold back the newspapers that relate to his case. since it could influence his case/testimony. not that he'll ever take the stand. and in jail (not prison) he won't have a TV he can control.

this hayes trial is going fast. i think there will be a quick verdict and then more lengthy penalty phase. his lawyer has only one job or goal, to keep him out of death chamber and get him life. guilt is not an issue.

[Lady Cop]

this is it until monday. they'll probably have hayes on a suicide watch until then.

NEW HAVEN — Testimony in the Steven Hayes case has adjourned for the day after his attorney expressed concern for his medical condition.

One of Hayes' attorneys, Thomas J. Ullmann, said at the start of today's session that Hayes had a seizure last night and urinated all over himself. However, he said he believed that Hayes was well enough to be in court. However, after the lunch break, he said he did not think Hayes' could continue because of his medical condition.

Judge Jon C. Blue agreed to halt proceedings until Monday. Friday had aleady been scheduled as a day off.

Ullmann said he thought Wednesday's testimony may have "triggered" the seizure. That testimony centered on the horrifying details of July 23, 2007, when emergency workers discovered the bodies of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, in their burned-out Cheshire home.

Hayes, 47, could face the death penalty if convicted.

During morning testimony, state police Sgt. Karen Gabianelli testified that investigators found three bulky Bank of America envelopes in a beach bag inside the getaway vehicle used to flee the Petit home. The vehicle belonged to the Petits.

Inside the envelopes, she said, was $15,000 —three bundles of $5,000 each — zip ties, a wool facemask, and Latex gloves.

The money was returned to the bank, and detectives tried but were unable to get fingerprints off the envelopes.

Gabianelli said Hayes was in the passenger seat and Komisarjevsky was in the driver's seat.

Also found was a cell phone belonging to Komisarjevsky. Gabianelli said she tried to get voicemail messages from the phone but the account was "shut down for non-payment." The phone company said they could not retrieve those messages.

Another vehicle was searched, a red Chevy van belonging to Jude Komisarjevsky, Joshua's mother.

Ash-Covered Bedroom

Testimony this morning turned to Hayley's second-floor bedroom. Photos displayed in court showed the once busy, colorful room was now covered in soot and ash.

Gabianelli focused her search for evidence on Hayley's ash-covered double bed. There, she removed nylon ties and rope from the bedposts.

She said police believed the ties were used as restraints. Also in Hayley's bedroom, a police dog trained to hit on accelerants identified a spot there.

The police dog also indicated a flammable material may have been poured on the floor of Michaela's room.

Hayley's body was found at the top of stairs leading from the first to the second floor. Michaela's body was found in her bedroom, with her wrists bound and tied to her bed. Hawke-Petit's body was found on the first floor.

At the end of Michaela's daybed, there was a 36-inch piece of rope tied to a post. "We believe it was used as a restraint for Michaela," Gabianelli said.

And on an ottoman, near stuffed animals, there was 11 feet of rope. A baseball bat was found in her room.

Inside the Petit's ransacked master bedroom, an open jewelry box lay on the bed.

"It looked like it had been gone through pretty good," Gabianelli said.

Clothes littered the closet and all the drawers to the furniture were either removed or ajar, she said.

A cord to the telephone was disconnected.

Gabianelli also testified that she found a blue and yellow scarf tied to the bedposts and a 42-inch rope laying on top of a family photo collage.

[Lady Cop]

burned shirt, beds and bedposts with ties.

[Lady Cop]

Dr. Petit:
"I guess if there's anything to be gained from the senseless deaths of my beautiful family, it's for us to all go forward with the inclination to live with faith and help a neighbor, fight for a cause, love your family. I'm really expecting all of you to go out and do some of these things with your family in your own little way to spread the work of these three wonderful women."

[Duchess]

I have a question about the photos. I know that the older daughter was found still tied to the bed, the lower half of her body angled off the bed. Was that the daybed? Did those monsters throw gas on her and then ignite it? I ask because of how the bed appears to be burned.

[Lady Cop]

the youngest had the daybed. i don't think gas was poured directly on them. but around the beds and rooms. they died from smoke inhalation. the older daughter was found on stairs/hallway landing and the little one was tied and half off bed. god it makes you cringe and want to weep.

[Duchess]

Oops. I mixed up the names.

[Lady Cop]

State Police Sgt. Karen Gabianelli also talked about the use of accelerant inside the Petit home. Jurors were shown photos of Hayley's burned bed, with a piece of melted material, apparently used as a restraint, on the bed post. She said accelerant traces were found on the carpet in Hayley's bedroom and in the hallway outside her room. She said traces of accelerant were found on Hayley's shorts.

Containers, believed to have been used for gas, were found on both the home's first and second floors, Gabianelli said. She said both gas containers located on the home's second floor were melted.

Gabianelli testified that Michaela's shorts and T-shirt were burned and that SHE HAD BEEN WEARING THEM. JESUS. She said Michaela's clothing was tested for traces of accelerant but did not testify on what the results were.

trial resumes monday.

Police Sgt. Karen Gabianelli.
tee-shirt.

[Lady Cop]

The judge overseeing the trial of a man accused in the horrific home-invasion murder of a Connecticut doctor's wife and daughters was hospitalized last night, forcing a postponement in the proceedings until Wednesday.

New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon Blue was in fair condition at Yale-New Haven Hospital, which refused to provide further information.

[Lady Cop]

today's testimony, NY TIMES:

NEW HAVEN — A riveted courtroom heard a murder defendant’s chilling account of the Cheshire home invasion on Wednesday, including details of sexual abuse of victims. The account was given by a state police detective who spoke to the suspect, Steven Hayes, hours after his arrest.

The detective, Anthony Buglione, told jurors how Mr. Hayes emotionlessly described the crimes against the Petit family. In many of the details — including the sexual assaults — Mr. Hayes describes his co-defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky as being in charge. Mr. Komisarjevsky, the younger of the two, is to be tried separately.

The two men, after beating Dr. William A. Petit, were holding the mother, Jennifer Hawke Petit, and her two daughters in the home. Mr. Hayes said that after taking Ms. Hawke Petit to a bank to get $15,000 ransom, he returned to the Petit house to find himself in a confrontation with Mr. Komisarjevsky.

“Josh inferred he had had sex with the younger child,” the detective quoted Mr. Hayes as saying. The jury heard separately Wednesday that four photographs of the younger of the Petit daughters, Michaela, who was 11, were later retrieved from Mr. Komisarjevsky’s cell phone. In the photographs, she was on her bed.

In their confrontation, Mr. Hayes told the detective, Mr. Komisarjevsky said Mr. Hayes “was not doing any of the dirty work.”

Then, according to the detective’s account, Mr. Hayes described going upstairs to Michaela’s bedroom. He told the detective that he saw that the child was in different clothing than she had been wearing when he had left the house with Ms. Hawke-Petit and had appeared to have taken a shower.

The detective said Mr. Hayes stated Mr. Komisarjevsky then said that Mr. Hayes “would have to have sex with the mother to square things up between them,” meaning him and Mr. Hayes.

Mr. Hayes said he then sexually assaulted Ms. Hawke-Petit, according to Detective Buglione, speaking deliberately but displaying no emotion, who said he had taken notes on Mr. Hayes’s statement.

He said Mr. Hayes described being nervous as he subjected Ms. Hawke-Petit to sexual intercourse. He also recounted that Mr. Hayes told him, “Joshua was walking in and out of the room with a baseball bat” during the sexual assault. It was evidently the same one Mr. Komisarjevsky had used earlier to attack Dr. Petit, who was bound and tied to a pole in the basement.

On Wednesday afternoon, the medical examiner took the stand as a long day of difficult testimony continues and the judge warned the jury that they will be seeing some "clearly disturbing photos." Michaela was burned.

Before the medical examiner began to testify about the autopsy or the autopsy photos were shown, the Petit and Hayes families left the courtroom for the first time since the case began.

[Lady Cop]

Jesus God there is no hell horrible enough for these guys.

The two ex-cons accused of torturing a Connecticut family during a brutal home invasion snapped pictures as they sexually assaulted two of their alleged victims, according to testimony heard in court today.

In what has become a continuously heartbreaking and graphic murder trial, computer and technology expert John Farnham was shown eight pictures off Joshua Komisarjevsky's cell phone, taken while he and defendant Steven Hayes allegedly brutalized and killed Dr. Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11.

The jury was spared the shocking images, but Farnham was asked to describe each one. In two, he said, Komisarjevsky -- who will face trial after Hayes -- was photographed nude and posing suggestively. Five showed a young female with her arms tied above her head, with a cloth over her face and a close up of her underwear.

The eighth photo was of an older female, her legs splayed.

Dr. William Petit, the lone survivor of the July 2007 home invasion, was visibly upset during Farnham's testimony, but remain composed, occasionally gripping a courtroom railing.

Petit walked out of the courtroom Wednesday after listening to a detective recount Hayes' alleged confession of the crime. He also skipped the medical examiner's testimony, which continued into today and included details of the rape of his 11-year-old daughter.

Medical Examiner Wayne Carver testified today that Hayley was found laying face down in the hallway, but that the front of her clothing was more severely burned than the back, indicated she'd been directly exposed to fire. She died from smoke inhalation.

He speculated that she had managed to free herself after being tied to her bed and made her way down the hallway and that Michaela had likely died a painful death.

[Lady Cop]

komisarjevsky has a little daughter who was 5 at the time. he had custody of her and took good care of her. how could he do this??
semen was found in little 11-year-old Michaela's anus.



Under cross-examination by defense attorney Patrick Culligan, Farmhand said he found eight photographs on Komisarjevsky's cell phone.

Farnham described the photos, which were not shown to the courtroom. He looked and sounded uncomfortable as he described them. Dr. William Petit Jr., who was beaten in the attack but escaped, was pale and braced himself, putting his hand on a bench in front of him.

The first two photos, at 9:41 p.m. and 9:43 p.m. on July 22, showed Komisarjevsky touching his erect penis.

The third, taken at 7:27 a.m. on July 23, showed a young female, a cloth over her face, dressed in a skirt and a sleeveless shirt lying on a bed with her arms up above her head. The next photo showed a close-up of the girl's private area at 7:51 a.m.. The next showed the same girl lying on her back. Then one, at 7:52 a.m., showed the girl on a bed with her legs tied. The last showed an older female lying on her back, her private areas exposed, at 9:14 a.m.

Earlier, Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, the state medical examiner, started yet another somber day of testimony.

When 17-year-old Hayley Petit's body was found face down at the top of a stairway July 23, 2007, the ropes on her ankles were burned and her clothes were in tatters from the flames that consumed her. Her skin was destroyed. She died of smoke inhalation, Carver said, but burns to the front of her body suggested she was exposed to flames while still alive.

Dr. William Petit Jr., the only person to survive the home invasion, had left the courtroom when the 6-foot-6-inch-tall Carver hobbled with his cane to the witness stand.

As they did Wednesday, jurors again viewed autopsy photographs, this time of Hayley, a gifted scholar and athlete who was supposed to attend Dartmouth in the fall of 2007.

The courtroom was silent as the jurors passed the photos of Hayley's body across the jury box. The rest of the courtroom — including Hayes — was spared from viewing the photos.

One photo was of Hayley's voice box and trachea, cut open to show the soot inside. After viewing, three jurors looked over at members of the Petit and Hawke families.

Under cross-examination, Thomas J. Ullmann, one of Hayes' attorneys, focused on Carver's testimony about the autopsy of Michaela.

He suggested to Carver that his testimony that Michaela's body showed no signs of trauma in the genital area did not preclude a sexual assault. When Ullmann asked him about swabs he took of the girl's anal area, Carver said the area tested positive for both enzymes for semen and sperm cells.

[Duchess]

There has to be a punishment worse than death for these monsters. I don't think paying with their life is sufficient.

[Lady Cop]

i have to interject this...i have noticed MANY people reading (and printing out) this thread daily. i know this case has generated a lot of interest.
if you are reading this thread it would be very much appreciated if you joined Mock and voiced your opinions. it's a very tough case to listen to the details and imagine the victims' agonies.
i am doing my best to keep this narrative (thanks to Conn. news outlets) up to date.
thankyou for reading and even printing it out. add your voice.

[Lady Cop]

This July 2007 police photo released Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010 by the Connecticut Judicial Branch as evidence in the Steven Hayes trial in New Haven, Conn., Superior Court, shows restraints used on Jennifer Hawke-Petit, according to testimony by Dr. Susan Williams, associate medical examiner.

[Lady Cop]

i wanted to add some beauty to this heartbreaking thread~~

[Lady Cop]

the Petit family did not want their "sympathy". and i hope donovan is held in contempt for violating the gag order.
this is not the komisarjevsky trial.

Katie Rohner New Haven Independent:

“We are deeply sympathetic to the sadness of the Petit family. Probably this is very small solace.”

Jeremiah Donovan shared this sentiment on Friday with the press. “Probably” turned out to be an understatement.

Donovan is the lawyer who will represent Joshua Komisarjevsky when he is tried for his role in the Cheshire triple murder case. The small solace Donovan was offering was his assurance that Michaela Petit had not been anally raped by his client the morning she died. Komisarjevsky, he told the press, only ejaculated on the young girl —and Donovan wants the family to believe this because his client said so.

Donovan made that statement outside the Church Street courthouse where his client’s alleged accomplice, Steven Hayes, in on trial for his role in the same crime, the 2007 Cheshire home invasion and murders of members of the Petit family.

Hayes is on trial for capital felony murder, arson, kidnapping, sexual assault, and other charges. Komisarjevsky will face the same charges next year.

On Friday, DNA experts and a fire marshal gave dramatic testimony during day seven of the Hayes trial. Forensic scientist John Schienman, discussed how DNA is analyzed to find consistencies in blood and seminal fluids taken from crime suspects and victims. He found DNA matching William Petit’s profile in blood samples taken from Komisarjevsky’s sweatshirt, the Petit basement, the garage floor of their neighbor, and a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. Petit was beaten with the bat and tied to a basement pole during most of the ordeal. Hayes was found to be a “contributor” in a DNA sample taken from a vaginal swab of Jenniifer Hawke-Petit. He is accused of raping her.

Dononvan was concerned about the finding that Komisarjevsky was a contributor to DNA found on an anal swab of Michaela.
Donovan, a well-respected former federal prosecutor who once argued for the abolishment of the insanity defense, now defends those accused of crimes. He sits in Courtroom 6A every day observing testimony and taking notes, During the lunchtime break on Friday, he held an impromptu press conference on the courthouse steps to clear up the “mistaken impression” he felt the Petit family had about the true nature of Komisarjevsky’s sexual assault on 11-year-old Michaela. His extraordinary statement, which is premised on a detailed confession that “Josh” gave police on July 23, 2007, not only angered the Petit family and, seemingly, the lawyers on both sides of the Hayes case; it also mystified journalists, and appeared to violate a court-imposed gag order prohibiting such communications.

Petit, the lone survivor of the 2007 attack, and his sister, Johanna Petit Chapman, were huddled outside the courtroom consulting with former federal prosecutor and current Quinnipiac law professor Jeffrey Meyer, who is advising the family. Chapman accused Donovan of trying the case on the courthouse steps and said he should be held in contempt of the gag order. Donovan did give the impression that he was offering “evidence” of Komisarjevsky’s statement made to police the day he was arrested. However, Komisarjevsky’s statement has yet to be substantiated by a witness—namely the detective who took the statement—and subjected to cross-examination in a court of law, because he hasn’t been tried yet. As it stands, it is still a potentially unreliable, possibly self-serving confession that qualifies only as hearsay when offered by Donovan to courthouse reporters.

Donovan claimed that Komisarjevsky’s statement was corroborated by some of the witnesses in the Hayes trial. Not only is that an inaccurate statement—whether Michaela was anally raped was not confirmed either way—but he appeared to be refuting evidence and manipulating testimony given by experts in the Hayes trial to further the interests of his client. Whether his statement was truly meant to comfort the family (It is hard to imagine how it could) or he was acting as a zealous advocate, his action could get him into trouble.

Donovan acknowledged that he is subject to the gag order that was imposed by Judge Roland Fasano nearly three years ago with regard to the Hayes case, which the judge recently extended to cover the Komisarjevsky trial as well. The gag order restricts attorneys and parties in both cases from publicly disclosing or discussing the cases. Fasano’s concern was (and remains) that pretrial publicity may prejudice potential jurors or influence the outcome of the trial. Donovan said believed his statement was not prohibited by the order.

Violations of court orders qualify for criminal contempt sanctions. Donovan could face a penalty of six months in prison or a fine of $500, or both, if Fasano or another party files a complaint and he is found to have willfully violated the judge’s order. He also may be found in violation of the Connecticut Rules of Professional Responsibility, which provide sanctions for attorneys found to have engaged in professional misconduct. Whether his statement will subject him to disciplinary action by a statewide grievance committee, like a reprimand or worse, is not clear, but a complaint could be filed.

Gruesome evidence was offered later Friday by Fire Marshal Paul Makuc that Michaela and Hayley Petit were doused with an accelerant while tied to their beds. His testimony was interrupted by the sound of Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World” coming from a cell phone. It was Donovan’s cell phone; he was swiftly ejected from the courtroom. That was bad luck for Donovan. The rest was bad judgment.

trial resumes monday.
donovan: