Three Killed in Connecticut Home Invasion

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Zoog, you can whine the liberal whine about how we imprison too many people.

Fact is, had those worms been imprisoned, some decent humans wouldn't be dead. A couple of women wouldn't have been raped.

Lucky, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. Not money.
 
Hey Zoogster,
Earlier I was just being sarcastic about the $10K insurance. I see how you were trying to figure out the values, but c'mon now. I am no doctor, made $45K per year and if I left this earth tomorrow; my wife would have walked off with a smooth $500K in insurance policy. ALL FOR AROUND $50 A MONTH with job insurance. You pay Supplementals and multiples (x3 or X4) on my salary. He was a DOCTOR!!!!! How much is 4X his salary???!!!!!

So your wife would have been able to afford slightly lower than the median home price, and live a short time on the policy. That is certainly not the grand live in a tropical paradise a prosecutor would make it out to be in determining motive. It covers a potential hopefuly unlikely event by providing a safety net to the wife and kids should she live as a single parent after you died. She could pay the mortgage off, and have some extra cash. I guess for some that is motive, but hardly a definitive case.

And lastly, there are too many inconsistencies so far for me. Everyone is dead and he is not. Everyone is shot and he is not, just clubbed. He stands to get paid big time on insurance policy and nobody else.
Everyone was choked to death or died from the fire they started. No guns involved.

This was a gun free crime (because that makes it so much better.:rolleyes:)

Zoog, you can whine the liberal whine about how we imprison too many people.

Fact is, had those worms been imprisoned, some decent humans wouldn't be dead. A couple of women wouldn't have been raped.
Oh I agree in this case it would have been good if they had been locked up. However hindsight is always great. Are you saying all non violent offenders should permanently be locked away for the crimes they may commit in the future, or for less serious crimes they did commit?
Perhaps all drivers that get a speeding ticket should have thier license permanently revoked? It would sure keep them from having an accident in the future too, potentialy harming others.
Just because the desired goal is accomplished does not make it a good choice.

You can use the same logic to take away freedom and liberty from most people. This is a society based on judging people on what they do, not on what they might potentialy one day do.

Also you can go back to the English history in the days when people stealing a loaf of bread were permanently locked up or hanged. When there was a no tolerance policy. When they had debtors prison. Going into debt was a crime, punishable by years of hard labor to pay it off at making a fraction of what you would of as a free man. Where executions were handed out for most criminal offenses.
Guess what? Crime still happened, was still prevelant, and in fact severe punishments for lesser crimes encourages greater crimes because the scales are the same.

If a lesser crime gets near the same punishment as murder for example, you are encouraging murder. If someone gets close to a life sentence for rape or robbery for example, and a life sentence for murder, you would be encouraging predators to get rid of the victim/witness to lower thier risk of being caught without really being able to increase the penalty accordingly. So by trying to save people from one horrible crime by overdoing the punishment, you encourage one even worse. I would rather have such criminals trying to escape after commiting such crimes than killing thier victims. They do this because they know one offense is much more severely punished.

Since you cannot really go higher than life/death penatly, everything else needs to be scaled down accordingly to keep balance. Not because you want to punish them less, but because you need to.

These guys were non violent offenders. They sound like bad guys prior to this, but if they got a similar punishment for burglary that one would get for say home invasion robbery, then criminals would have little incentive to perform non violent burglaries instead of violent home invasions.

Punishments need to fit the crime. Not because we like criminals, but because it makes more sense.
 
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A scheme for insurance money? No way, Lucky.

The doc did not set this one up. Not to suggest your suspicions aren't worth considering, given the circumstances; they are--but, upon consideration, the plausibility here is just about nil. Read the coverage.

A hundred to one, this invasion was pretty much random, and the way it went down suggests it was unplanned and out of control.

These scumbags are close to the worst our society is capable of producing. And I hate to say it, but there will be no eliminating them. We can only hope to monitor and contain them, and we will never be altogether successful.
 
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So your wife would have been able to afford slightly lower than the median home price, and live a short time on the policy.
Hey Zoogster,
I forgot that I was chatting with folk from the northeast. For y'all, $500K is what you pay for a 6 x 9 hut in your area. Well in TX, you can buy several new houses for that kind of money.
So since, wife would pay off mortgage less than $200K on 3200 sq ft and other vehicles loans. Why could she not live comfortably with no bills??? Why would she quit her $40K job??? Maybe if I had a wife that doesn't work that might be a problem. But that would NEVER happen, someone sitting on their butt all day at my house. PLEASE!!!!!


Thanks for the correction, SOMEKID. "For the love of money.....gotta make that money man.
 
The whole northeast is anti-gun, which is why they are now swamped with illegals and rapidly losing long time residents to the Western states.

Not really, VT has no permit to carry, NH "Life free or Die" state is not bad, ME requires a permit, CT and RI both are permit states and are not bad to get them. MA and NY are the bad ones up this way. PA is a fairly gun friendly.

This is truely a sad story. These two need to get what's coming to them. :fire: People may think I'm wierd for carrying around the house and while I'm outside, but if one or both of the adult victims were carrying, I'd like to the outcome would be much different. Our place is kind of in the boonies with a lot of private shooting areas around us. Our town is patrolled by Andy and Barney (no offense intended to LEO it's just that rural here). You can never be too safe. Chesire is a fairly up scale area with little crime, but it only takes a second to become a victim. My wife has re-evaluated her carrying habits as well. She used to think just having me armed was enough...not any more.
 
I live in NY and although my county makes it fairly easy to posses a handgun (I have 3) the weapon to defend my house is a 870 with 12 G 00 buck. My wife is as good as me in handling it.
 
Not really, VT has no permit to carry, NH "Life free or Die" state is not bad, ME requires a permit, CT and RI both are permit states and are not bad to get them. MA and NY are the bad ones up this way. PA is a fairly gun friendly.

Have you ever been to RI?:what: They aren't that bad to get them if you consider restrictions like "work purposes only" and "range purposes only" real permits. To date only 5 out of all 39 towns will issue a permit, and RI is a SHALL ISSUE state:banghead: The local issuing authorities simply don't care what the law says.
 
Zoo, you are missing the point. He was sentenced to 9 years in 2002. Why is he free a mere 5 years later? THAT is the problem. No more parole. Stop the whole thing, and no, I do not care if we have to build more prisons. We should build them with the bare minimums needed for survival. Prison should be a place of unpleasantness, but under current standards they get things like cable, or as another thread pointed out, they get internet access.

No parole, make prisons miserable, and lock up criminals. It will decrease crime further, because the vermin who like to commit crimes will be in jail.
 
Lucky45 said:
And lastly, there are too many inconsistencies so far for me. Everyone is dead and he is not. Everyone is shot and he is not, just clubbed. He stands to get paid big time on insurance policy and nobody else.
And I am certain that you have first-hand knowledge that there is a sizeable insurance polocy on the wife's life? And on the two daughters as well?
 
Stuff like this happens all the time. The only unusual element was the victims were upper crust and well known in the community.

This is true, and those people's lives are no less of a loss to their family members and friends than the loss of this family. However, these people were substantial contributors to society and their community. Their loss from his planet makes it a worse place, and therefore is a substantially worse tragedy and all the more angering.

I doubt not too many tears would be shed (outside of friends, neighbors, and family) if your average person - myself included - were killed like this. That's just the way it is.

This case demonstrates that bad people don't care who you are. This can happen to anyone. Fate does not discriminate and tends to balance things out unless you take aggressive action in your own interests.
 
Stuff like this happens all the time. The only unusual element was the victims were upper crust and well known in the community.

IMO, such crimes should require the needle. And these guys shouldn't have even been considered for parole. Whatever happened to "three strikes and you're out"? These bastards had many, many more chances than that, and now they've gone and done this....

The "criminal justice" system really failed the citizenry in Connecticut, and this family had to suffer for it. :(
 
Have you ever been to RI?

Several of the guys I shoot bullseye with live in RI and have permits in both states. I've never really asked them how hard it was to get them or any restrictions. They may have "range only" permits, but I'm not sure. Most of them live in or close to Westerly, not sure how that town is as far as issuing a permit. They have not complained about the permit, only that you have to have one. Given the location of CT, it is fairly gun friendly except for that silly AWB. I think the point is that if one or both of the adult victims were armed, we'd be talking about one or two parolies pushin' up daisies.
 
father apparently tried to confront the perps when the breakin happened. he got beat to a pulp with a baseball bat. if he only had a gun ...

the girls were tied up, raped, and basically burned to death.

perps met at a halfway house and randomly targeted the family.

a gun was involved - an AIR RIFLE.

courant.com/news/custom/topnews/hc-twosuspects0725.artjul25,0,7814115.story?coll=hc_tab01_layout

Courant.com
Unfathomable
Cheshire Victims' Relatives See Suspects Charged
By DAVE ALTIMARI, COLIN POITRAS, LYNNE TUOHY And DON STACOM

Courant Staff Writers

July 25, 2007

A judge getting ready to send Joshua Komisarjevsky to prison in 2002 called him a "cold, calculating predator."

Equipped with night-vision goggles and armed with a knife, he would slash his way through screens into houses around his hometown of Cheshire, stealing mostly electronic equipment and petty cash to pay for a drug habit.

Steven Hayes had a record more noteworthy for its length than the severity of the crimes - decades of larcenies, burglaries and check forgeries. Hayes committed most of his crimes in the northwest corner, near his home in Winsted - far from Sorghum Mill Drive in Cheshire, where the horrific events that landed him back in court played out early Monday.

The two met in Hartford in 2006, at a residential drug treatment center, and then again in a halfway house where they lived for nearly five months.

This spring, Komisarjevsky and Hayes, listed as nonviolent offenders by the state Department of Correction, were both paroled - Komisarjevsky, 26, released in April, and Hayes, 44, in May.

On Tuesday they appeared together again, this time in Superior Court in Meriden to face a litany of charges stemming from a home invasion that left a mother and her two daughters dead and a community in shock.

Although it is still unclear why they chose the home of Dr. William Petit Jr., one thing is certain, police say: The "calculating predator" and the career criminal descended to a level of violence that is almost unfathomable.

When the ordeal was over, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters, Hayley Petit, 18, and Michaela Petit, 11, were dead. The girls, sources said, were tied to their beds and raped, then left to burn after gasoline was poured around their beds and ignited.

Late Tuesday, the state medical examiner's office said Hawke-Petit was strangled and her daughters died of smoke inhalation. Their deaths were ruled homicides.

William Petit was beaten almost beyond recognition with a baseball bat, tied up in the basement and left for dead, only to make his way out of the house and to a neighbor before his home exploded into flames.

Komisarjevsky and Hayes were arraigned Tuesday. Each is charged with aggravated sexual assault, arson, robbery, kidnapping and risk of injury to a minor. Komisarjevsky was also charged with felony assault, possibly in connection with William Petit's beating. Bail for each was set at $15 million, and they are being held.

Authorities are believed to be considering whether to bring murder and capital felony charges against both men, which would make them eligible for the death penalty.

William Petit is recovering at St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury.

"Our precious family members have been the victims of horrible, senseless, violent assaults. We are understandably in shock and overwhelmed with sadness as we attempt to gather to support one another and recognize these wonderful, giving, beautiful individuals who have been so cruelly taken," the Petit family said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Komisarjevsky lived 2 miles from the victims' home in Cheshire. His parent's house at 840 N. Brooksvale Road is a small, 1½-story bungalow with an overgrown front yard and children's toys - a rocking horse and a plastic slide - on the side.

Associates of the family said Komisarjevsky has a 5-year-old daughter, Jayda, who has been living with him and his parents. An older man was seen carrying a small child into the house Tuesday afternoon followed by several police detectives. Komisarjevsky's family released a brief statement later:

"This is an absolute tragedy. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the Petit family (and all those whose lives they touched). We cannot understand what would have made something like this happen. There is nothing else we can say at this time."

State police detectives and members of the state fire marshal's office combed through the Petit home all day Tuesday, and new details of what happened inside emerged.

William Petit may have confronted the burglars shortly after they broke in, sources said.

Police recovered $15,000 that Hawke-Petit was forced to withdraw from a bank that morning while the rest of her family was held hostage. She told bank officials who balked at giving her the money that she needed it because her family was being held hostage. Bank officials then notified police.

About a half-dozen relatives of the victims were in Superior Court as the suspects made their first appearance before a judge. A blond woman, who did not give her name, leaned forward and sobbed as the two prisoners were brought into court. Another relative tried to comfort her. The family left without speaking to members of the press.

Hayes, a pudgy man with a shaved head, was brought into court first. He wore an orange prison jumpsuit, his hands clasped to a thick belly chain around his waist. A bail commissioner rattled off a litany of criminal charges dating back to when Hayes was a teenager in the '80s.

The court official said Hayes was on special parole in connection with an October 2003 burglary conviction out of Bantam. He was given a five-year sentence and his release date from parole was May 4, 2008.

Hayes also has a conviction for possession of marijuana in 2002 and several convictions in 1996 and 1997 for passing bad checks, forgery, petty larceny and escape from custody, the latter stemming from an incident in Hartford in 1996. In 1993, he was convicted of a burglary charge in Litchfield and given a five-year suspended sentence and five years of probation.

Hayes was arrested three months later and charged with forgery and violating his probation. He was sent back to jail but it was unclear Tuesday how much time he served before being released again. Hayes also has a record for theft of a firearm and carrying a firearm without a permit, officials said.

A bail commissioner said Hayes was issued 23 disciplinary tickets during his times in prison. Three members of the Department of Correction's special emergency response team accompanied the two suspects to court.

Judge Christina G. Dunnell set Hayes' bail at $15 million and ordered him held without chance of release because of his parole status. Hayes' public defender, Tom Conroy, asked for Hayes to be put on a suicide watch. Conroy said Hayes was taking pain medication.

Someone in the court hissed, "Scumbag!" as Hayes was led back to the holding pen. Hayes' case was transferred to Superior Court in New Haven and continued to Aug. 7.

Komisarjevsky, a slight man with tousled black hair and a thin mustache and beard, was also out on parole at the time of the home invasion.

Public defender David Smith, Komisarjevsky's attorney, said his client attended a year of schooling at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield. Dunnell set Komisarjevsky's bail at $15 million and transferred the case to New Haven with an Aug. 7 continuance date.

Attorney Patrick Culligan, head of the state public defender's office special capital felony unit, was on hand for Tuesday's court proceedings. Culligan said outside court that it was "conceivable" that the state could bring more serious charges and it was his department's policy to be present and prepared in advance.

Nancy Manning, a diabetic patient of Petit's from Rocky Hill, was also in court. She said she felt compelled to be there.

Manning said she wanted to know "why they didn't get stopped and why didn't someone throw away the key long, long ago."

"One looks very young, the other very callous and cold-hearted," Manning said later outside court.

Komisarjevsky and Hayes met when they were both at Berman House residential treatment center on Sargeant Street in Hartford in June 2006. They were there from June 13 to July 25, and their stays at Silliman House on Retreat Avenue in Hartford overlapped from July 31 until Nov. 26, 2006. Between the two places, they spent 51/2 months together - until Hayes failed a urine test and was sent back to prison

Robert Pidgeon, chief executive officer of Community Solutions Inc., which runs Silliman House and six other halfway houses for the Department of Correction, said he doubted the two men were assigned to the same employer while at the halfway house, but said, "They certainly saw each other."

Although Pidgeon said he did not have a detailed report of their behavior and performance at Silliman House, he said he doubted there were problems before Hayes failed the urine test. "I can tell you [corrections] would yank them back quickly if there was a problem," Pidgeon said. "They're very good about that."

Correction department records show Komisarjevsky was sentenced in January 2003 to nine years in prison for second-degree burglary. He was released to a halfway house in June 2006.

Since his offense was non-violent and the sentence longer than two years, the Board of Pardons and Paroles considered his parole after he had completed 50 percent, DOC spokesman Brian Garnett said. He was granted parole on April 10, 2007.

Hayes was sentenced to five years in prison for third-degree burglary in 2003. In June 2006 he was released to a halfway house, but was sent back to prison five months later for drug use. He was granted parole on May 3, 2007.

Correction department officials say the two men had been reporting to their parole officers since their release and had full-time jobs. Officials would not reveal where they worked.

A state senator whose district includes Cheshire called for a review of the state parole board's decision to release the suspects into the community despite their lengthy records and prior convictions.

"Issuing judgment and laying blame is counterproductive," said Sen. Sam Caligiuri, R-Waterbury. "Nevertheless, three people are dead. ... We owe it to the victims, their families and friends, and to the public to find out why these suspects were seen as ready for supervised parole and what action the state can take to prevent such a horrific thing from happening again."

Komisarjevsky was first arrested in May of 2002 for a series of burglaries in the Cheshire area. Shortly after, state police linked him to 11 burglaries in the Burlington area. It was at his sentencing on those charges that Superior Court Judge James Bentivegna in Bristol called him a "cold, calculating predator."

State officials said that Komisarjevsky started burglarizing homes when he was 14 but that most of the crimes occurred during an eight-month spree between July 2001 and February 2002 after he had bought night-vision goggles.

Prosecutors said he stole more than $20,000 worth of goods from his victims.

Several of those victims were stunned to learn Tuesday afternoon that the man who had broken into their homes is accused of the horrific Cheshire crime.

"That was him? Really? That just sends chills up my spine," Jamie Maheu said. "He just escalated from what he did six years ago."

About a month after Maheu and her husband, Paul, were married, Komisarjevsky broke into the home they owned on Wildewood Run. Komisarjevsky's home at the time was nearby, on Wilderness Way in Bristol. The Maheus didn't know until the next day that someone had sneaked into their house overnight. Cash had been stolen from the husband's wallet, and papers from the wife's briefcase had been scattered in the doorway.

"My wife is still nervous about leaving windows open in the evening, and I agree with that. We stopped using the window air conditioner at night. This still affects her - it was not a good feeling," Paul Maheu said.

Another victim, who requested anonymity, said she nearly caught Komisarjevsky burglarizing her home on Wilderness Way.

"I had gone to bed, shut down the house and heard something, as if a paperback book had gotten knocked off a kitchen counter downstairs," she said. "I immediately woke up and yelled at the top of my lungs `Get out of here now.'"

The woman ran out the garage door and called 911 from under a streetlight.

"We found out later that I scared him by yelling and he tripped; he was carrying my stereo outside and hit his head on the concrete floor," she said. "I didn't sleep right for at least a year. I was awakened by fear. I got an alarm system - I'm a big believer in alarms now."

Contact Dave Altimari at [email protected].

Courant Staff Writer Hilda Munoz contributed to this story.
 
The whole northeast is anti-gun, which is why they are now swamped with illegals and rapidly losing long time residents to the Western states.

Maine is one of the most gun friendly states in the country. Sure there are probably a couple with more relaxed laws, but we don't really have any restrictions here. Well, other than the damn federal laws and CCW permits. No waiting periods, no restrictions on type, including class III. no magazine capacity limits. No limits on other self defense things like pepper spray, tasers, etc. There are a number of southern states that are more restrictive than Maine.
 
Correction - Connecticut is a "may issue" state.

Double recorrection, CT is actually shall issue as long as you meet the same criteria most other Shall issue states have.

If your local issuing government wont issue you a temp permit, you may appeal to the board examiners and they will issue you a CT permit as long as you are qualified like everyone else.
 
+1 on romma's comment. It's actually pretty easy to get a permit here as long as you have kept out of trouble.
 
So it seems reasonable now to infer from the expansive piece in today's Hartford Courant (posted above) that if the doctor had been armed with a 12-gauge, or with some other firearm that he knew how to handle, he might have thwarted the invasion and saved his family.

Did he try to confront them with a baseball bat? If that's all you've got, I guess that's what you do. But a tragedy like this one, rare as it may be, illustrates why people have to consider home defense tactics (and weapons) more seriously than the great majority of people do now.
 
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no might about it...If you have a firearm that you know how to use and there are two criminals without a firearm, you will win every time. such a tragedy
 
Zoogster said:
Punishments need to fit the crime.

Right-o. I'd probably be in a long line of volunteers to douse the perps with gasoline, repeatedly shove splintery broomstick up their (places where the sun don't shine), and drop a match for a perp-roast.
 
Tragic and sad. As we on THR already know, this is why one should own firearms, train oneself to use them properly, and (in my opinion), locate them around your house, out of sight but easy to get to.

We will never know if having firearms would have helped this family. And, there is always the possibility that these thugs would have taken the family's guns and shot all of them. But, I'll put my money on being prepared and taking that risk.

I certainly hope the authorites charge them with capital murder. I'm guessing they will.
 
I'd probably be in a long line of volunteers to douse the perps with gasoline, repeatedly shove splintery broomstick up their (places where the sun don't shine), and drop a match for a perp-roast.

Sign me up.
 
We will never know if having firearms would have helped this family. And, there is always the possibility that these thugs would have taken the family's guns and shot all of them. But, I'll put my money on being prepared and taking that risk

Better to be armed to fight and maybe be executed later(assuming all goes to pot) than to be burned alive. Honestly, my heart goes out to the Doctor and the rest of the families. There can be a lot for the rest of us to learn from this tragedy.
 
Here's info on the nightmare that happened in my neck of the woods:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_family_murder

I live in the ghetto. If I cross the main road at the end of my street, it instantly turns into this "nice" neighborhood where people put forth a massive effort to live in a fanatasy land. They leave their doors unlocked, leave expensive things sitting on their car seats, have the situational awareness of sea slugs, and are WAY anti-gun. Their stuff is constantly stolen and they're stunned and baffled every single time. Even after the horrific murders their ENTIRE plan for dealing with violent gobblins is to call the police. They say that to do anything else is "living in fear". So they admit that they have chosen to live in a gov-sponsored delussion.
 
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