09-22-2010, 06:50 PM
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.
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.