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.
