Kimber1911_06238
Member
Here is the sequence of events, according to sources and police statements.
1. Early morning. Two intruders enter family home at 300 Sorghum Mill Drive, Cheshire.
2 . About 9 a.m. one intruder forces Jennifer Hawke-Petit to drive to the Bank of America on Route 10. She alerts a bank employee that her family is being held hostage. Minutes later, Hawke-Petit and the intruder arrive back at the house.
3. Cheshire police officers arrive and find the home in flames. Fleeing suspects crash the family's vehicle into an officer's cruiser, then into two other Cheshire cruisers, before being taken into custody a block away. At some point, a badly beaten William Petit stumbles from the burning home and makes it to a neighbor's home. Emergency personnel find bodies of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and daughters Hayley and Michaela.
Relatives of the Petit family attended the arraignment of Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky.
By COLIN POITRAS, DAVE ALTIMARI, LYNNE TUOHY And HILDA MUÑOZ | Courant Staff Writers
8:13 PM EDT, July 24, 2007
CHESHIRE - The woman killed in a horrific home invasion Monday in Cheshire was strangled and her daughters died of smoke inhalation, the state medical examiner's office said tonight.
Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters, Hayley, 17 and Michaela, 11, were killed in the attack. Their deaths were ruled homicides.
A fourth family member, Dr. William A. Petit Jr., was beaten but survived, stumbling to safety as the home was consumed by a fire allegedly set by the suspects.
Two recent parolees who apparently met at a halfway house for nonviolent offenders were arraigned Tuesday.
Joshua Komisarjevsky, 26, of 840 North Brooksvale Road, Cheshire, and Steven Hayes, 44, of 5-H Horne Ave., Winsted, each face a multitude of charges, including first-degree aggravated sexual assault and first-degree kidnapping. State police said the investigation is continuing and that more charges will be filed.
Both suspects have long criminal records and were on parole after serving time in prison for past burglaries. They were arraigned on the new charges in Superior Court in Meriden, with bail for each man set at $15 million.
Among other details to emerge about the case today:
William A Petit Jr., may have confronted the burglars before he was badly beaten with a baseball bat, tied up and left in the basement.
His two daughters were tied to their beds, a source said, and at least one was raped.
Police have recovered $15,000 that Petit's wife was forced to withdraw from a bank that morning while the rest of her family was held hostage.
Relatives of the victims released a statement decrying the "horrible, senseless, violent assaults."
Komisarjevsky and Hayes apparently met at a Hartford residential drug treatment program in June 2006, and spent approximately 5-1/2 months together between that program and another halfway house, until Hayes failed a urine test in late November.
The pair were both at Berman House treatment center on Sargent Street in Hartford from June 13 to July 25. They reunited at Silliman House on Retreat Avenue in Hartford, where both men's stays overlapped from July 31 until Nov. 26, 2006.
Silliman House is a 24-bed work release program where former inmates receive counseling, employment assistance, financial management services, housing assistance, substance abuse treatment and other help. Residents are also tested for drugs and alcohol and given life skills and anger management training. Beds cost an estimated $64.95 per day. Once employed, residents must contribute 35 percent of their weekly gross pay, up to $100 a week.
Town police officers who raced to the Petits' home at 300 Sorghum Mill Drive Monday morning said they saw Komisarjevsky and Hayes running from the burning house and attempting to escape in a car owned by the victims. After ramming three police cruisers, the suspects were arrested at gunpoint.
Inside the home, Petit, a prominent doctor who was beaten and tied up in the basement, was able to hop up the cellar stairs as the flames spread. He was the only one to make it out alive.
As he struggled, flames roared around Hawke-Petit, a popular nurse at Cheshire Academy, who was unconscious and possibly already dead on the first floor.
The charred body of his older daughter, Hayley, a recent graduate of Miss Porter's School in Farmington, was found at the top of the main stairs.
In a second-floor bedroom down the hall, the youngest in the family, Michaela, was found tied to a bed. Her body was too badly burned to immediately tell how she died.
Based on statements that the two men have provided, police now believe that William Petit may have confronted the burglars and was badly beaten with a baseball bat, tied up and left in the basement, sources said.
The criminals were armed with a baseball bat!!! His wife and daughters were killed, at least one daughter raped and he was badly beaten. A person who practices a lot with a pistol could have deterred these criminals. Another example of how the police can't always protect you. If you can't fight your way to a phone you are helpless. This is why we must fight for RKBA!!!