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Accelerant Used To Spread Fire In CT Triple Murder

92410hayes.jpg It was another day filled with brutal testimonies in the trial of Steven Hayes, one of two men accused of perpetrating a brutal home invasion and murder of a family in Connecticut. A state fire marshal testified that gasoline had been poured onto the beds and bodies of 17-year-old Hayley Petit, and her 11-year-old sister Michaela, the two children killed in the attack.

The two girls had been tied to their beds for more than six hours before Hayes and his partner, Joshua Komisarjevsky, burned the Petit's house to the ground. Investigators believe that the flames were so intense that it burned through Hayley's restraints; the girl's body was found just outside her bedroom doorway. Both girls died of smoke inhalation, while their mother Jennifer Hawke-Petit died of strangulation before the flames engulfed her body. Paul Makuc, the fire marshal, tried to shield the gruesome crime scene photo of Michaela's charred body from the surviving family as he showed the "pour pattern" to the jury. Some of the jurors cried at the photo, and the aunt of the two young girls ran out of the courtroom.

While this testimony was being given, lawyer Jeremiah Donovan's cellphone rang, playing the incredibly inappropriate "Joy to the World" through the courtroom. Donovan is the lawyer for Komisarjevsky, who is accused of raping Michaela. Donovan held a press conference yesterday to deny the rape charges, and offer his sympathy, which the family was outraged about: "We don't need his sympathy. We don't want his sympathy," said William Petit's sister, Johanna Petit Chapman.

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Comments [rss]

  • TheTruthYouSeek

    What the fuck is Felix. It was a short, correct assessment.

  • Guest

    wha? if you do not know what the fuck felix is, ...

    ... hmm. y'know, you just might be better off -- stay that way.

  • Karen

    There's Felix the Cat...

  • TheTruthYouSeek

    You used "brutal" twice in the first couple sentences, cause you're a shitty shitty shitty writer and you an that Jena Xana or whatever her name is only are able to do this because it is a blog. Embarassing.

  • just saying

    Don't like the writing on Gothamist? Then why the hell are you always here?

    P.S. Defense attorney Jeremiah Donovan should also burn in hell.

  • virgilstarkwell

    Feel better now? You're a very big deal.

  • Guest

    felix v.2: "the grammatical shift"

  • Guest

    dear inmates,

    please give these animals hell. you'll be having fun and doing the right thing.

    thank you.

  • John L

    +1

    We should donate money to any inmate's commissary that gets rid of these two.

  • inoyourider

    Poster scumbags for the death penalty.

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