In a confession played for jurors today, a Connecticut man on trial for a brutal home invasion said he could not explain why he did not untie two girls before they died in their burning house. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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In the recording, Joshua Komisarjevsky said he closed the bedroom doors where the girls were and could not believe his co-defendant was considering burning the girls alive.
But he said ‘it just didn’t cross my mind’ to untie them before the house was doused with gas and set on fire.
Yesterday, jurors heard Komisarjevsky laughing as he described what he called a ‘home invasion gone terribly wrong.’
Komisarjevsky’s ongoing trial is the second in the case. In the first one last year, his co-defendant, Steven Hayes, was convicted of strangling Jennifer Hawke-Petit and killing her two daughters.
Hayes was sentenced to death, and Komisarjevsky could join him on death row if he’s convicted.
Authorities say Komisarjevsky and Hayes broke into the house in Cheshire in 2007, beat Dr. William Petit with a bat and tied him and his wife and two daughters up as they looked for money. Hayes later drove Hawke-Petit to a bank so she could make a withdrawal, police said.
In yesterday’s horrific confession, Komisarjevsky discussed performing a sex act on 11-year-old daughter Michaela before detailing how he beat a sleeping Dr. William Petit with a bat, tied him up with his family.
He is heard saying he believed her to be 14 or 16.
The girl’s father, Dr William Petit, sat in the courtroom with his head dropped as the tape played detailing the abuse suffered by his younger daughter.
Judge Jon C. Blue had to cut short the recording after one female juror broke down in tears.
Judge Blue said: ‘I understand one of the jurors is having a tough time.’
‘This would be a good time to stop.’
Komisarjevsky is said, with his accomplice, to have tied up the family of four, raped the mother and set fire to the house with the two daughters still inside.
But in previous testimony Komisarjevsky has blamed his co-defendant, Steven Hayes, for turning a home robbery into a triple murder by strangling Petit’s wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and dousing the Cheshire house with gas and setting it on fire.
