A Connecticut judge has sentenced Joshua Komisarjevsky, 31, to die today for the brutal murder of a mother and her two daughters during a home invasion in 2007. “This is a terrible sentence, but one you have written for yourself,” Judge Jon Blue told Komisarjevsky in New Haven Superior Court. “Your crime was one of unimaginable horror and sadness,” the judge said. “Your fate is now in the hands of others. May God have mercy on your soul.”
Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, was raped and died of strangulation. Her daughters died of smoke inhalation as the home was set afire. Hawke-Petit’s husband, Dr. William Petit Jr., was tied up and beaten, but escaped before their home went up in flames. “July 23, 2007, was my own personal holocaust,” Petit Jr. said. “Evil does live among us.”
Komisarjevsky targeted Hawke-Petit and her younger daughter at a grocery store and later went with Hayes to their home as the family slept, police said he confessed to investigators. He bashed Petit with a baseball bat, tied him up and ransacked the home.
Police caught Komisarjevsky and his accomplice, Steven Hayes, 48, as they tried to flee.
Komisarjevsky’s sentencing brought to 11 the number of men on the Connecticut’s death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Connecticut has executed only one person, in 2005, since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, the center said.
