The conviction makes Komisarjevsky, 31, eligible for the death penalty.
The jury began deliberations on Wednesday morning and it took them about nine hours to return a verdict of guilty on charges he murdered Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, Hayley Petit, 17, and Michaela Petit, 11.
He will now undergo a death penalty hearing to determine if he spends the rest of his life in prison or is condemned to execution by lethal injection.
During the trial jurors heard runtime:topic id=”PECLB0000033″>Joshua Komisarjevsky’s chilling audio confession, in which he admits sexually assaulting 11-year-old Michaela Petit but denies any involvement with the three murders inside the Petit home, provides the framework for his defense in the capital case.
In the tape-recorded statement, played for the jury on the third and fourth days of his trial in the 2007 Cheshire home invasion case, Komisarjevsky said he took part in the break-in solely for the money.
The taped confession dovetails with the defense lawyers’ strategy of distancing Komisarjevsky from his alleged accomplice, Steven Hayes, and of keeping their client from being convicted of a capital crime.
Komisarjevsky admitted that he cut off Michaela’s clothes with scissors, performed oral sex on her, ejaculated on her stomach and then took pictures of her with his cellphone. He admitted that he tied up Michaela and her sister, Hayley, 17. He also admitted that he repeatedly beat Dr. William A. Petit Jr., the attack’s sole survivor, in the head with a baseball bat.
Komisarjevsky said that when co-defendant Hayes returned from a bank with Petit’s wife, Jennifer-Hawke Petit, after forcing her to withdraw $ 15,000, all he wanted to do was flee.
But, Komisarjevsky said, Hayes “started talking about killing people.”
Hayes, who was tried last year in the case, was convicted and sentenced to death. Komisarjevsky, 31, also faces the death penalty if convicted.
Hayes, said Komisarjevsky, was “worried about DNA and that I’d used his first name.”
Komisarjevsky said that he wasn’t concerned about DNA because he’d allowed Michaela to take a shower after the sexual assault.
In his statement to police, Komisarjevsky said he told Hayes, “No one’s dying here today. … It’s not going to happen.”
He said the thought of killing anyone was “unconscionable.”
He said Hayes responded, “I’ll take care of it.”
Komisarjevsky said that a short time later, he discovered that Hayes had strangled Hawke-Petit. He said he knew from his EMT training that she had been strangled and was dead.
At that point, Komisarjevsky said, they realized that Petit had escaped from the basement where they had tied him up.
In his recorded account, Komisarjevsky said Hayes responded by dousing the kitchen with gasoline.
No comments:
Post a Comment