Jurors sentenced Joshua Komisarjevsky, 31, to death on December 11th for the triple murder he committed in 2007. Komisarjevsky's partner during the crime, Steven J. Hayes, received the same sentence just one year earlier. The two broke into the Connecticut home of the Petit family where they proceeded to beat up and sexually assault the family members before setting the house on fire. Dr. William A. Petit Jr. was tied up in the basement and beaten with a baseball bat while his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, was raped and strangled. Komisarjevsky and Hayes also sexually assaulted the two daughters, Hayley and Michaela, before tying the girls to their beds and setting the house on fire, killing the two girls from smoke inhalation (Glaberson). .
Dr. Petit, the only survivor of the family, attended the court proceedings. "I believe God's will has been done," Petit said outside the courtroom after hearing the verdict. "The pain is there forever" (Glaberson). .
Komisarjevsky already endured an additional trial where he was found guilty of the killings as well as several other crimes, including sexually assaulting the 11-year-old child and taking photographs of her on his cell phone. In this trial, the jurors unanimously voted for capital punishment for six different capital counts. Timothy Anderson, the juror who was last to vote for the death sentence, recalled how many of the jurors, composed of seven women and five men, cried during the voting. The jurors' deliberation lasted for almost 20 hours over 5 days (Griffin). Anderson held out the longest on his vote, "but when you look at the whole thing, it's so horrific" (Glaberson).
The defense lawyers attempted to paint a picture of a troubled life to gain sympathy for Komisarjevsky and sway the jurors to vote for a life sentence in jail rather than capital punishment. They revealed that Komisarjevsky was sexually abused as a child, which led him to a life of drug abuse coupled with self-mutilation by using glass, knives, and razors to cut himself.
