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The Chesire Murders： The Petit Family - Murder Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:19
Speaker 1: Jhen and Bell worked such awesome parents.
0:25
Speaker 2: They located to Cheshire and decided to raise their girls there,
0:30
Speaker 2: and I think had like a beautiful life there.
0:37
Speaker 3: My aunt was Jennifer Pettitt, and my cousins were Haley
0:40
Speaker 3: and Michayla. I think my earliest memory is being at
0:46
Speaker 3: their house in Connecticut.
0:52
Speaker 4: Mikayla was just like my very best friend.
0:57
Speaker 3: Hailey would make sure we were all like kept in line.
1:00
Speaker 4: It couldn't be more like siblings when we were all together.
1:06
Speaker 2: On July twenty second, two thousand and seven, I was
1:12
Speaker 2: sitting here and my sister had given me a call.
1:16
Speaker 1: She was at the beach.
1:19
Speaker 2: When I picked up the phone, I said, so how
1:23
Speaker 2: are you and she said, I'm great.
1:25
Speaker 1: There's not a cloud in the sky. Is the most
1:28
Speaker 1: beautiful blue sky.
1:30
Speaker 2: It is just the most perfect day.
1:38
Speaker 5: I'm the banking center manager at Bank of America. We
1:41
Speaker 5: have a lady who is in our bank right now
1:44
Speaker 5: who says her husband and children are being held at
1:47
Speaker 5: their house. Honey, Jennifer's headed.
1:53
Speaker 6: We clearly have a fire fatality.
1:57
Speaker 7: I know that there's bodies inside, but how many deaths
2:01
Speaker 7: are we?
2:01
Speaker 8: Looking at the activities at the home took the police.
2:06
Speaker 9: By surprise, none of those officers had ever encountered the
2:10
Speaker 9: scene like they encountered inside that house. It was pretty
2:14
Speaker 9: clear right from the beginning that this was going to
2:16
Speaker 9: be a terrible story.
2:19
Speaker 1: For this too heard of.
2:20
Speaker 10: This family is the worst thing most people could ever imagine.
2:26
Speaker 8: It was outrage that these guys could do something this
2:30
Speaker 8: horrendous to wipe out an innocent family.
2:34
Speaker 7: They were wonderful human beings, and we lost a lot
2:39
Speaker 7: in losing these three women.
2:43
Speaker 8: These women did everything that they were told to do,
2:47
Speaker 8: so it was hard.
2:50
Speaker 9: This was an all American family, women in a beautiful
2:52
Speaker 9: suburban town, and then horror came to their house.
2:57
Speaker 3: I missed all of the future that we had, the
3:00
Speaker 3: future memories, the future of fun events.
3:03
Speaker 4: My mom should have gotten to be with my aunt.
3:06
Speaker 4: I feel so sad that she doesn't get to have that.
3:09
Speaker 2: I don't know how anyone can do this, Like you're
3:12
Speaker 2: not human to me if you do things like this.
3:50
Speaker 2: This one's when the girls came to visit us and
3:54
Speaker 2: Jen and Uncle Billy, and we've had I believe it
3:59
Speaker 2: was an anniversary dinner party for our parents, and the
4:06
Speaker 2: four of you are standing on the stairwell here.
4:12
Speaker 1: And then you're up in the bonus room on this
4:14
Speaker 1: brightly colored floral couch. We had.
4:17
Speaker 4: You probably picked out our outfits.
4:18
Speaker 3: Would you like chat with her about like I'm gonna
4:20
Speaker 3: dress her in this and you're gonna dress her in that?
4:22
Speaker 4: Like they coordinate?
4:23
Speaker 8: Well?
4:23
Speaker 4: Did you guys pre plan things like that?
4:26
Speaker 2: I think we always just made sure we thought you
4:28
Speaker 2: had cute clothes on. This is the one where they're
4:37
Speaker 2: out catching fireflies and we're standing on the porch.
4:43
Speaker 3: My first clear memory is like playing with fireflies and
4:46
Speaker 3: catching them with all of them in my grandparents' front
4:49
Speaker 3: yard in Pennsylvania, and it was really sweet.
5:00
Speaker 2: As a Methodist minister's family, you tend to move around
5:03
Speaker 2: a lot.
5:05
Speaker 1: I feel like Jen and I were a.
5:07
Speaker 2: Lot closer because we always knew we'd be there for
5:10
Speaker 2: each other. As an older sibling, she was constantly giving
5:15
Speaker 2: me advice, and she had a lot of finesse about
5:18
Speaker 2: how to dress, how to.
5:20
Speaker 1: Wear her hair, what looked pretty.
5:23
Speaker 2: I think Jen was very caring about other people and
5:26
Speaker 2: their feelings. I feel like that's kind of what guided
5:30
Speaker 2: her into being interested in becoming a nurse. She was
5:37
Speaker 2: working at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh, and she said, I'm
5:42
Speaker 2: going to go out with this guy. He's in med
5:45
Speaker 2: school here. His name is Bill. He's taking me to
5:50
Speaker 2: a place downtown called Tramps. And I was like, wait,
5:55
Speaker 2: I gotta get this. Like, You're going out with a
5:57
Speaker 2: guy named Bill and he's taking to like a nightclub
6:00
Speaker 2: named Tramps. I was like, I don't know, Jen, this
6:04
Speaker 2: guy just doesn't sound good to me, like he just
6:07
Speaker 2: might be a loser. She went out with him and
6:10
Speaker 2: she had a really good time, and it was just
6:13
Speaker 2: a success story. After that, when they got pregnant with Haley,
6:22
Speaker 2: and I couldn't wait for it because I'd never had
6:24
Speaker 2: a child. When I first met Haley, I could see
6:32
Speaker 2: how Jen and Bill just loved her so much. I
6:37
Speaker 2: just loved rocking her when she was a new born,
6:40
Speaker 2: and I.
6:41
Speaker 1: Think I loved her like she was my own.
6:45
Speaker 2: After Jennifer had Hailey, two years later, I was pregnant
6:50
Speaker 2: with Evan, and then two years after I had my daughter, Lydia.
6:57
Speaker 2: Two years later Jen had Michayla. They started to just
7:01
Speaker 2: call her KK or kk rosebud Hi, show me.
7:06
Speaker 1: What you have there? Can you show me in the
7:09
Speaker 1: morning before you go how you ride a zip blind?
7:13
Speaker 1: So nicely.
7:18
Speaker 3: K was super soft spoken, but I think she went
7:21
Speaker 3: out of her way to look out for other people.
7:23
Speaker 3: She would be the person that would look around and
7:25
Speaker 3: be like, oh, you're by yourself. I'm going to make
7:27
Speaker 3: sure that you're included. She's just like my little best friend.
7:33
Speaker 3: There wasn't anything Haley wasn't good at. She was like
7:37
Speaker 3: classic older child. I never got to have an older sister,
7:40
Speaker 3: and I never got to have a younger sister. And
7:42
Speaker 3: that's what it felt like when we were all together.
7:44
Speaker 1: Hey, Hi, I had to get you on video before
7:49
Speaker 1: you go home, Lydia. Did you have fun with your cousins?
7:56
Speaker 1: You liked sleeping with that one? You girls had a
7:59
Speaker 1: big slumber party in here.
8:01
Speaker 4: Huh. Yeah.
8:13
Speaker 3: The last time that I saw Haley, McKayla, and Auntie Jen,
8:17
Speaker 3: all of us went to our boat in Carolina Beach
8:21
Speaker 3: and we just spent every day like sun up to
8:23
Speaker 3: sundown at the beach. And it's the same beach that
8:26
Speaker 3: my mom grew up going to with Anti Jen. Hailey
8:31
Speaker 3: would make sure we were all kept in line and
8:32
Speaker 3: like everyone had sen screen on and we were all
8:34
Speaker 3: ready to go and play. And my brother would always
8:37
Speaker 3: want to go off and do some sporty thing. Her
8:40
Speaker 3: and Evan could just like hang She could like rough
8:43
Speaker 3: and tough with any of the boys. I'm sure she
8:45
Speaker 3: could kick his butt like up and down in every sport.
8:47
Speaker 3: So it was I feel like he had a best
8:50
Speaker 3: friend there too.
8:53
Speaker 2: I was sitting here and my sister had given me
8:57
Speaker 2: a call. She said, it was so fun when Haley
9:01
Speaker 2: and Michayla and I all came down and visited your boat,
9:04
Speaker 2: like we really want to come back and bring Billy.
9:08
Speaker 3: I've been texting back and forth with Mikayla, excited about
9:10
Speaker 3: it and calling her about it.
9:13
Speaker 4: We kept kind of going.
9:14
Speaker 3: Between all of us, and the more excited I could
9:17
Speaker 3: get Michaela, the more she would then go to her
9:19
Speaker 3: mom and be like, we're so excited, We're going to
9:20
Speaker 3: make sure this happens. I remember hanging up and being like, Kay,
9:24
Speaker 3: talk tomorrow. I love you, like just real fast, like
9:28
Speaker 3: things weren't done, like our conversations weren't over, but that
9:32
Speaker 3: was it, Like yeah.
9:46
Speaker 8: In two thousand and seven, Cheshire was the kind of
9:48
Speaker 8: town where people would feel comfortable if they didn't lock
9:51
Speaker 8: their doors.
9:53
Speaker 7: Cheshire was one of those places that felt like it
9:57
Speaker 7: was picture perfect, like you just couldn't imagine that you
10:01
Speaker 7: weren't safe.
10:03
Speaker 8: Was there a crime there, yes, but it was typically
10:08
Speaker 8: very low level type things I cannot recall in my
10:14
Speaker 8: thirty nine years of being a prosecutor. You know this,
10:19
Speaker 8: something like this never happens there. It just doesn't.
10:34
Speaker 5: I'm the banking center manager at Bank of America. We
10:37
Speaker 5: have a lady who is in our bank right now
10:40
Speaker 5: who says her husband and children are being held at
10:43
Speaker 5: their house. Honey, Jennifer Pettitt.
10:49
Speaker 9: The nine one one calls from the bank manager, and
10:52
Speaker 9: I think the police didn't really understand what it was.
10:56
Speaker 9: It took them five minutes to respond to the bank,
10:59
Speaker 9: and in that time frame, Jennifer left the bank, got
11:02
Speaker 9: in the car, and they drove back to the house.
11:06
Speaker 8: The police arrived shortly after receiving the call from the
11:10
Speaker 8: bank teller. They surrounded the house in different locations. Approximately
11:16
Speaker 8: five to ten minutes later, they observed some flames coming
11:21
Speaker 8: from the house.
11:23
Speaker 7: I got a call from one of my coworkers and
11:27
Speaker 7: she said, just wanted you to note we have a
11:29
Speaker 7: report of a.
11:29
Speaker 6: House fire in Cheshire. It sounds pretty bad.
11:33
Speaker 7: By the time I got there, I knew very clearly
11:37
Speaker 7: this was far more than just a house fire.
11:42
Speaker 9: At the time, I was a reporter at the Harvard Current,
11:45
Speaker 9: and I got a phone call from a state police
11:48
Speaker 9: source that this was going to be a bad case.
11:51
Speaker 9: Over the scanner, you could hear that they were trying
11:53
Speaker 9: to get in because they knew there were people in there.
11:57
Speaker 6: It was difficult for anybody to know where to turn from.
12:01
Speaker 9: They had people running down there, you know, photographers and
12:04
Speaker 9: reporters running down to the scene, so it was a
12:07
Speaker 9: pretty hectic situation.
12:19
Speaker 7: I'm watching them desperately trying to get indoors and they can't.
12:24
Speaker 7: That tells me there is somebody still inside. They would
12:27
Speaker 7: not be so frantic to get in if they were
12:29
Speaker 7: not trying to save a life. Then we start hearing
12:33
Speaker 7: smatterings of they've got people they're putting in handcuffs.
12:37
Speaker 8: The police had arrested two people leaving the scene at
12:42
Speaker 8: a high rate of speed.
12:44
Speaker 9: There was a roadblock. They tried to smash through the
12:47
Speaker 9: roadblock and didn't succeed, and they were arrested at gunpoint
12:51
Speaker 9: while the fire was burning.
12:55
Speaker 7: As reporters were all just beginning to get bits and
12:58
Speaker 7: pieces of information, things changed very fast, not just for us,
13:04
Speaker 7: but for all of the first responders. Neighbors are telling
13:07
Speaker 7: me they think at least some of the family members
13:11
Speaker 7: were still in the house. But then another neighbor said
13:14
Speaker 7: to me that an ambulance was in the area of
13:18
Speaker 7: the back of the Petit house and that doctor Pettitt
13:22
Speaker 7: came out of the basement, and they're not sure what
13:25
Speaker 7: that was all about.
13:27
Speaker 11: Mercy, are you bullied?
13:28
Speaker 12: Yeah, I got Phil.
13:31
Speaker 11: Hadn't hear who hurt my neighbor.
13:34
Speaker 9: The neighbor at first didn't recognize him. He was screaming
13:37
Speaker 9: for help. He had multiple head injuries that were bleeding.
13:41
Speaker 9: His hands were bleeding, his risks were bleeding. When they
13:44
Speaker 9: got to the hospital, they determined he had lost almost
13:46
Speaker 9: seven pints of blood.
13:55
Speaker 7: From the information that we were given doctor Pettitt, It
14:00
Speaker 7: had fallen asleep in the sun room watching TV.
14:04
Speaker 8: In the middle of the night. He woke up found
14:07
Speaker 8: himself being struck by a hard object in the head
14:11
Speaker 8: numerous times. He began bleeding profusely. It was in his eyes.
14:18
Speaker 8: He couldn't see, but he could make out. There were
14:21
Speaker 8: two people. He had heard a voice saying if he moves,
14:26
Speaker 8: shoot him. Put a couple of bullets in him. He
14:29
Speaker 8: was led downstairs into the basement. His hands and ankles
14:33
Speaker 8: were bound with plastic zip ties. He was tied up
14:38
Speaker 8: to a support.
14:40
Speaker 9: Pull during these six hours or so that they were
14:44
Speaker 9: in the house. Police believe he was unconscious because of
14:47
Speaker 9: the beating.
14:59
Speaker 4: I was only thirteen. Everything happened.
15:02
Speaker 3: My mom was trying to convince me to do some
15:03
Speaker 3: kind of math worksheet or something, and I remember trying
15:07
Speaker 3: to distract her by being like, well, why don't we
15:09
Speaker 3: calling to Gin? And then her home phone rang and
15:13
Speaker 3: it was my uncle's sister.
15:17
Speaker 4: I remember handing my mom on the phone, and.
15:19
Speaker 3: Before she picked up the phone, she said something happened.
15:23
Speaker 4: To the girls.
15:25
Speaker 2: Because I'm thinking in my mind, like why would you
15:28
Speaker 2: be calling me, like you never call me, You would
15:31
Speaker 2: only call me if they can't.
15:32
Speaker 1: Something must be wrong. And I said, are they dead?
15:36
Speaker 1: And she said how did you know?
15:41
Speaker 2: She said, well, there were these two men and they
15:44
Speaker 2: like came into.
15:45
Speaker 1: Their home in the night.
15:46
Speaker 2: They like broke in somehow through the basement, tied the
15:50
Speaker 2: girls to their beds, and they.
15:52
Speaker 1: Beat Billy really badly.
15:54
Speaker 2: And I was like, you mean he's still alive, and
15:59
Speaker 2: she said, well for now, I remember going out on
16:03
Speaker 2: my deck and just thinking, oh my goodness, like I
16:09
Speaker 2: have to call my parents and I have to tell
16:11
Speaker 2: them that not just their daughter, whom they love dearly,
16:16
Speaker 2: is dead, but their two grandchildren are also gone. And
16:22
Speaker 2: I just scream this guttural scream.
16:28
Speaker 3: I sat next to her as she told my grandparents
16:31
Speaker 3: what had happened to their daughter and their grandkids.
16:38
Speaker 4: That's tough.
16:48
Speaker 3: I remember when we got to Connecticut, we were staying
16:51
Speaker 3: with my uncle's sister. It just felt like this like
16:55
Speaker 3: terrible movie that we were in.
16:59
Speaker 2: I had fears of being in public. I thought, if
17:04
Speaker 2: two men could do this, how do we know we're
17:07
Speaker 2: not the company of people that can do other horrible
17:10
Speaker 2: things to us. We went on to see Billy in
17:15
Speaker 2: the hospital because it was really all we wanted to
17:18
Speaker 2: do was just to like see him.
17:24
Speaker 3: I remember going to the hospital and seeing my uncle
17:26
Speaker 3: for the first time and just being like I cannot
17:28
Speaker 3: believe that he's alive, like touching and holding my hand,
17:31
Speaker 3: like I can't believe you look like that and you're
17:34
Speaker 3: responding in your life like that was a miracle in itself.
17:39
Speaker 2: Seeing him there, laying in that bed and hearing him
17:42
Speaker 2: saying I'm so sorry, Like it's me.
17:45
Speaker 1: And not her laying here.
17:47
Speaker 2: I know you would rather wish it would be her
17:49
Speaker 2: and not me, And I was like, no, Billy, don't
17:52
Speaker 2: think like that.
17:55
Speaker 1: We wish it could have been all of you.
17:58
Speaker 2: But here.
18:02
Speaker 8: It was clear that he was having a very very
18:04
Speaker 8: difficult time dealing with what happened, and that's understandable.
18:10
Speaker 11: I mean, he's lost everything.
18:15
Speaker 2: They said he'd lost so many pines of blood that
18:17
Speaker 2: he really shouldn't have lived.
18:23
Speaker 8: The two people arrested were Stephen Hayes and Joshua Commerzerjeski.
18:32
Speaker 8: Both of them had extensive criminal records.
18:36
Speaker 9: He's had a raft of petty larcenies and burglaries. The
18:39
Speaker 9: last one that had put him in prison was for
18:42
Speaker 9: breaking into a home through a window. Joshua Thomas or
18:46
Speaker 9: Jesske is twenty six. At the time, he.
18:48
Speaker 8: Was known to the Cheshire Police Department as someone who
18:52
Speaker 8: was a problem.
18:53
Speaker 9: He prided himself on breaking into people's houses at night
18:57
Speaker 9: and literally watching them sleep.
19:00
Speaker 8: It gave him a feeling of superiority over others, and
19:05
Speaker 8: he liked that feeling of power. He had been sentenced
19:09
Speaker 8: to a significant sentence.
19:11
Speaker 9: In jail Thomas or Jesski and Hayes had been released
19:16
Speaker 9: early from prison, so technically both of them still should
19:20
Speaker 9: have been in jail when this occurred.
19:22
Speaker 8: Once released, they both met up at a halfway house
19:26
Speaker 8: and decided that they were going to hang out together
19:31
Speaker 8: and commit crime.
19:33
Speaker 9: These guys had broken in and brutally murdered this family.
19:38
Speaker 9: It could have been any house in any suburb in
19:41
Speaker 9: Connecticut where this happened, and people were freaked out.
19:53
Speaker 8: Commerce Ajesski and Stephen Hayes did confess to certain aspects
19:57
Speaker 8: of the crime. They both fully admitted, Hey, look, I'm
20:02
Speaker 8: a burglar. I broke into the house. We were planning
20:05
Speaker 8: to steal money. Both of their stories was, well, it
20:09
Speaker 8: was the other guy who started the fire. He's the
20:11
Speaker 8: one who killed these people, and it was never supposed
20:14
Speaker 8: to get that far.
20:21
Speaker 9: They broke into the house at three am, hit doctor
20:24
Speaker 9: Pettitt with a bat, tied him up in the basement,
20:26
Speaker 9: tied up all the girls in their bedrooms.
20:30
Speaker 8: The perpetrators found a bank statement, and it was at
20:34
Speaker 8: that point they directed missus Pettitt that she was to
20:38
Speaker 8: go to the bank and would draw the fifteen thousand dollars.
20:44
Speaker 7: Jennifer Pettitt went to the bank with Stephen Hayes, and
20:48
Speaker 7: she managed to pass a note to the teller saying,
20:51
Speaker 7: my family is being held hostage.
20:54
Speaker 6: Call the police.
20:56
Speaker 10: Stephen told missus Pettitt that if she did anything to
21:01
Speaker 10: alert a teller that they would kill her children and
21:05
Speaker 10: her husband. So even with that very credible threat being laid,
21:10
Speaker 10: she still took the risk to try to save her family.
21:14
Speaker 1: I think she looked distraught.
21:16
Speaker 2: I know she probably had the fear of what was
21:21
Speaker 2: happening to the girls back at the house on her mind.
21:25
Speaker 1: I don't know if she knew what was going on.
21:27
Speaker 2: With Billy, because he was kind of absent and in
21:31
Speaker 2: the basement.
21:40
Speaker 8: Doctor Pettitt also provided us with some new information concerning
21:45
Speaker 8: the event.
21:46
Speaker 9: Right at the time when Jennifer and Stephen Hayes returned
21:50
Speaker 9: from the bank.
21:53
Speaker 8: Doctor Pettitt heard like a thud. As he described it,
21:57
Speaker 8: it sounded like a body or something the floor above him.
22:02
Speaker 8: Doctor Pettitt really didn't know what was going on upstairs.
22:06
Speaker 11: He didn't know.
22:08
Speaker 8: He also heard a voice saying, don't worry, it'll be
22:12
Speaker 8: over in a few minutes.
22:14
Speaker 9: Jennifer was killed in the living room right above where
22:19
Speaker 9: he was tied up, so that's part of what he heard.
22:24
Speaker 8: It was at that point when he realized he needed
22:27
Speaker 8: to do something and he had to get out of there.
22:32
Speaker 10: As a medical doctor, he knew the extreme amount of
22:35
Speaker 10: blood he had lost that his blood pressure was actually
22:37
Speaker 10: lowered as a result. He was trying to take steps
22:41
Speaker 10: such as standing up, just to raise his blood pressure
22:44
Speaker 10: enough that he had a hope of getting help for
22:47
Speaker 10: his wife and children.
22:50
Speaker 9: She was able to break free and he ran out
22:54
Speaker 9: the back bulkhead that the two guys had come in,
22:58
Speaker 9: which was still open.
23:00
Speaker 10: He could barely stand up or walk. He literally log
23:04
Speaker 10: rolled to a neighbor's house.
23:07
Speaker 9: Back upstairs. They started spreading the gasoline around the living room,
23:12
Speaker 9: on the stairs, in the bedrooms, and then lit the
23:17
Speaker 9: fire as they were running out of the house.
23:20
Speaker 7: They were running at the same time that Jennifer had
23:24
Speaker 7: just been murdered, and Bill is out the back door,
23:29
Speaker 7: and it's all happening at once, but the girls were
23:33
Speaker 7: still alive.
23:37
Speaker 8: To think that these young girls were restrained and having
23:42
Speaker 8: gasoline poured in their bedrooms knowing that eventually someone's going
23:47
Speaker 8: to light a fire, I can't imagine what that was like.
24:09
Speaker 1: So these are wet and wild. The four of you
24:12
Speaker 1: on laying on a towel, that's so cute.
24:21
Speaker 2: And this one you all went to get cotton candy,
24:24
Speaker 2: so you're stuffing your mouths.
24:26
Speaker 1: Cotton candy look perfect. She's so happy. Mikayla was a
24:36
Speaker 1: lot of fun.
24:36
Speaker 2: She always like had this cute, little smirky grin that
24:39
Speaker 2: I could relate to.
24:44
Speaker 3: What do we have any there?
24:46
Speaker 4: Too?
24:47
Speaker 3: Sleepy? Because Haley was so strong, so smart, all of
24:53
Speaker 3: the perfect first child things. Hailey was just like brilliant
25:01
Speaker 3: and it was just like insane at athletics.
25:04
Speaker 2: She was definitely on a path to something greater. And
25:08
Speaker 2: to think that that was all cut short, it was
25:10
Speaker 2: just so sad. I wanted to go to their home
25:20
Speaker 2: because I wanted to see that.
25:23
Speaker 1: It was all real and it did all happen.
25:27
Speaker 2: The outside didn't portray really what happened inside the home.
25:32
Speaker 8: Going into that house is not something I'll ever forget.
25:37
Speaker 8: Upon going into the front door, you were confronted with
25:43
Speaker 8: just a black, charred mess and the smell of smoke
25:48
Speaker 8: and burnt material it saw you could smell. The most
25:53
Speaker 8: disturbing of all, though, was going up those stairs because
25:58
Speaker 8: we knew when we went in there that two young
26:01
Speaker 8: girls had died on that second floor, and that was
26:05
Speaker 8: very hard to deal with. It was quite evident that
26:10
Speaker 8: there had been accelerants poured. You could see the poor
26:14
Speaker 8: patterns on the floor.
26:16
Speaker 10: The police literally tracked the gasoline that was left up
26:20
Speaker 10: the stairwell into the rooms of the two girls. This
26:24
Speaker 10: leaves a very different mark than if there was just
26:28
Speaker 10: a regular fire occurring, so they could actually see the
26:30
Speaker 10: exact pathway the fire took.
26:40
Speaker 1: There were ties still attached to the beds.
26:47
Speaker 3: Hayley was able to untie herself and like she got
26:50
Speaker 3: out of her like restraints, and instead of going to leave,
26:53
Speaker 3: she went to go try to untie Mikayla.
26:56
Speaker 9: It was clear that she was running to her sister's
26:59
Speaker 9: room and she was overcome by the fire and the smoke,
27:03
Speaker 9: and her body was found at the top of the stairs,
27:05
Speaker 9: not too far from the entrance to Mikayla's room. Michaela
27:10
Speaker 9: never was able to get free.
27:12
Speaker 2: I'm sure Haley was trying to figure out a way
27:14
Speaker 2: to get Michaela out of her bindings, and she would
27:19
Speaker 2: never have left that home without her little sister.
27:25
Speaker 10: Haley was just seventeen years old and Michaela was only eleven.
27:29
Speaker 10: These two offenders had no intention of leaving these victims alive.
27:36
Speaker 8: Going into the house, as difficult as it was, it
27:40
Speaker 8: was a necessary thing.
27:43
Speaker 11: The two people.
27:43
Speaker 8: Arrested had given versions of what happened, and it was
27:47
Speaker 8: necessary to go into the house to see whether or
27:50
Speaker 8: not the evidence that was found in the house matched
27:53
Speaker 8: up with what they were telling police.
27:56
Speaker 10: Police wanted there to be no ambiguity on this. They
28:00
Speaker 10: wanted as much physical and forensic evidence to make sure
28:03
Speaker 10: they're both found guilty in court.
28:06
Speaker 8: There are a number of feelings that go through your
28:09
Speaker 8: head when you go to a crime scene such as this, anger,
28:15
Speaker 8: frustration that it couldn't have been stopped, in sadness of
28:20
Speaker 8: the tragedy that the community had lost three vibrant young women.
28:28
Speaker 13: Uh, yeah, you.
28:29
Speaker 11: Had a family. Yeah, it's hard, hard.
28:44
Speaker 8: When you have a young daughter who's the same age
28:46
Speaker 8: as the younger victim. Here.
28:49
Speaker 11: It kind of hits home.
29:01
Speaker 7: When the memorial service happened. Bill had been in the
29:04
Speaker 7: hospital still and so we didn't know if the.
29:08
Speaker 6: Doctors were going to release him to even come.
29:12
Speaker 2: I remember seeing Billy before he came to the church.
29:17
Speaker 2: We observed a doctor removing the stitches from his head.
29:22
Speaker 2: I just remember thinking, he's so black.
29:27
Speaker 3: And blue, watching my uncle leave the hospital and sitting
29:31
Speaker 3: behind him and like still seeing all like the stitches
29:33
Speaker 3: and like the open wounds in his head, and like
29:36
Speaker 3: it's unreal to picture that. He was like okay, like
29:39
Speaker 3: I have to be there for my family now.
29:42
Speaker 2: I remember when I saw Billy get up to speak,
29:45
Speaker 2: just thinking, oh my gosh, like he's really getting up,
29:49
Speaker 2: He's going to do this.
29:51
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it.
29:53
Speaker 7: There was a collective gasp in the room.
29:58
Speaker 3: He talks about Mikayla as like the kid that would
30:01
Speaker 3: go out of her way to take care of the flks,
30:04
Speaker 3: and he like explained it as like funny looking kid
30:07
Speaker 3: KK was just showing those like little things that she
30:10
Speaker 3: was going to be a great human.
30:14
Speaker 7: He was immensely proud of his daughters, and I think
30:18
Speaker 7: he relished every moment with them.
30:22
Speaker 3: I remembered him talking about Haley and just like how
30:25
Speaker 3: strong and athletics she was and how close she was
30:27
Speaker 3: to her dad was really special. I wanted someone to
30:32
Speaker 3: love me the way that he loved my aunt. He
30:35
Speaker 3: was talking about her like she was glowing.
30:40
Speaker 7: It was very clear that his family was the center
30:42
Speaker 7: of his world, that Jennifer was his best friend. His
30:48
Speaker 7: general message was when you leave here, remember who they
30:53
Speaker 7: were and let that guy you to do things in
30:57
Speaker 7: their memory that exhibit it's their kindness and their compassion
31:02
Speaker 7: and their excitement for life.
31:04
Speaker 10: You know.
31:05
Speaker 6: It was a message of this was a horrible thing,
31:09
Speaker 6: but this cannot be how.
31:11
Speaker 1: We remember them.
31:13
Speaker 6: We have to remember who they really were.
31:16
Speaker 3: If we can keep doing the good that they would have,
31:18
Speaker 3: then that's the best that we can do.
31:34
Speaker 9: Because this was a death penalty case, it took several
31:36
Speaker 9: years for them to actually go to trial. The trials
31:39
Speaker 9: were held in New Haven's pretty a court.
31:42
Speaker 8: Each of them were blaming the other for basically escalating
31:47
Speaker 8: the event which led to the murders, and so they
31:51
Speaker 8: had to be tried separately.
31:53
Speaker 9: Age went to trial on September thirteenth, twenty ten.
32:00
Speaker 8: Was tried on seventeen counts. Those involved assault charges, kidnapping,
32:08
Speaker 8: home invasion, and felony murder, as well as urson murder.
32:14
Speaker 9: Thomas Jesski went on trial about a year later, in
32:16
Speaker 9: September twenty eleven.
32:20
Speaker 8: Joshua commers Er Jeski was tried for the same crimes
32:24
Speaker 8: as Stephen Hayes.
32:33
Speaker 9: It was clear that the case really started the night
32:35
Speaker 9: before when Joshuacamas Jesski happened to go to the stopping
32:40
Speaker 9: shop at the same time as Mikayla and Jennifer to
32:43
Speaker 9: get supplies to make some pasta dinner.
32:47
Speaker 8: Thomas er Jeski saw Mikayela in the grocery store and
32:52
Speaker 8: immediately took a liking tour.
32:55
Speaker 9: He had a weird infatuation with young girls. He followed
33:00
Speaker 9: them home and watched the house for a bit, and
33:03
Speaker 9: they called Hayes and told him to come down to
33:07
Speaker 9: Cheshire that they were going to make a big score.
33:11
Speaker 10: He'd sexually assaulted Mikaela after hours of having her be
33:15
Speaker 10: tied up. This I think was the primary.
33:18
Speaker 1: Goal the robbery.
33:20
Speaker 10: It was actually just an additional thing that they were
33:23
Speaker 10: able to get out of this horrific crime.
33:27
Speaker 8: The sexual assault on Michaela took place while he had
33:33
Speaker 8: sent Hayes and missus Pettitt to the bank. When Stephen
33:38
Speaker 8: Hayes got back from the bank with Missus Pettitt, Kamazujeski
33:42
Speaker 8: kept pressuring him. I assaulted the girl, now you have
33:46
Speaker 8: to assault the mother. Stephen Hayes did strangle her to
33:51
Speaker 8: death after sexually assaulting her. They were intent on getting
33:56
Speaker 8: rid of whatever evidence could connect them to those actual assaults,
34:01
Speaker 8: and that was a big reason for the fire to
34:04
Speaker 8: cover up their culpability. There was accelerant on both of
34:12
Speaker 8: the defendants, on their footwear, on their pants, and so forth.
34:17
Speaker 8: As far as we were concerned, they were both entered
34:20
Speaker 8: up to their eyeballs.
34:29
Speaker 7: I think some people never heard autopsy results before, especially
34:32
Speaker 7: involving a crime.
34:35
Speaker 6: It's always hard.
34:39
Speaker 8: Haley and Mikhaela Pettitt both had died from smoke inhalation.
34:43
Speaker 8: They had also suffered burns from the fire, having direct
34:48
Speaker 8: contact with the flames.
34:52
Speaker 6: I think one.
34:53
Speaker 7: Thing that did seem to really strike people was that
34:58
Speaker 7: Haley had managed to get free and make it to
35:01
Speaker 7: the top of the stairs before she collapsed. She fought
35:05
Speaker 7: so hard to save Mikayla and just didn't quite make it.
35:12
Speaker 8: There was extensive accelerants that were poured on that stairway
35:19
Speaker 8: that clearly showed the intention of the perpetrators was to
35:23
Speaker 8: make sure that no one was going to be able
35:26
Speaker 8: to escape down the stairway. Jennifer's body had been extensively burned,
35:33
Speaker 8: which appears to be an effort to destroy evidence of
35:36
Speaker 8: a sexual assault. Despite the fact that it was said
35:40
Speaker 8: numerous times by these defendants that there was no intent
35:44
Speaker 8: to do that, they did it. It's kind of an
35:47
Speaker 8: explanation that doesn't really make much sense. There were twelve
36:02
Speaker 8: jurors in total. They all had to agree unanimously that
36:06
Speaker 8: the defendant was guilty. They found Stephen Hayes guilty of
36:11
Speaker 8: sixteen charges. He was found not guilty of the arson, and.
36:17
Speaker 10: That's because the jury was not convinced beyond a reasonable
36:20
Speaker 10: doubt that he's the one that's at the match that
36:22
Speaker 10: lit the fire that started the arson.
36:25
Speaker 8: But they felt that the death penalty was the appropriate penalty.
36:32
Speaker 7: Joshua was convicted on all seventeen counts and sentenced to death.
36:37
Speaker 8: I was satisfied with the verdicts.
36:40
Speaker 11: I thought justice was done.
36:44
Speaker 7: Not long after Joshua was convicted, Connecticut did decide to
36:48
Speaker 7: eliminate the death penalty, and so their cases were commuted
36:53
Speaker 7: into a sentence of life in prison without the possibility
36:57
Speaker 7: of parole, which means they will die in jail.
37:01
Speaker 8: Three young women are gone, and it's a loss. It's
37:05
Speaker 8: a big loss to the community. It was a big
37:07
Speaker 8: loss to the family. It's just unfortunate that they never
37:11
Speaker 8: had the opportunity to do the good things that they
37:15
Speaker 8: were destined to do, and that's tragic.
37:24
Speaker 9: When we finally did get the nine to one to
37:26
Speaker 9: one records and dispatch, it showed that police were outside
37:30
Speaker 9: the house for roughly twenty six minutes.
37:35
Speaker 10: How that could have changed the trajectory of this horrific case.
37:39
Speaker 10: I'm sure that just ways on the rest of the
37:41
Speaker 10: family members. Did it have to happen like this?
37:46
Speaker 2: There were no blinds and no curtains on my sister's windows.
37:48
Speaker 2: How could they not have seen what was going on there?
37:52
Speaker 2: You could have just looked in and seen that my
37:54
Speaker 2: sister was like already laying there.
37:56
Speaker 1: But at least you could have saved the girls.
38:01
Speaker 3: They were outside their house and they should have done something.
38:03
Speaker 3: I can't like harp on that because it destroys me,
38:06
Speaker 3: but that stuff matters.
38:08
Speaker 10: When people are taking hostage and there's a intruder in
38:13
Speaker 10: a home, the police are always concerned, is this person armed?
38:17
Speaker 10: Will they just shoot and kill the hostages immediately? A
38:22
Speaker 10: lot of illogical thinking happens, and that's what police are
38:25
Speaker 10: afraid of. And they take extra precautions to make sure
38:29
Speaker 10: that they're protecting the lives of the victims so these
38:32
Speaker 10: terrible outcomes don't occur. However, there are rules that allow
38:38
Speaker 10: police to deviate from that because they think there is
38:41
Speaker 10: imminent danger or time is of the essence. There's a
38:44
Speaker 10: crime ongoing, and if they don't do it immediately, then
38:47
Speaker 10: in fact, lives or evidence could be lost. But in
38:51
Speaker 10: this small town where they hardly ever experience this, they
38:55
Speaker 10: probably weren't that well versed in these types of rules.
38:58
Speaker 8: The fire was right before the defendants fled the saint,
39:04
Speaker 8: so certainly if the police go on in there before
39:07
Speaker 8: the fire was lit, good chance the girls would have
39:10
Speaker 8: been saved.
39:12
Speaker 11: But it's very.
39:13
Speaker 8: Difficult when you're presented with a situation and you simply
39:17
Speaker 8: don't have all the facts to make a decision that
39:20
Speaker 8: could end up questing people's lives. The police afterwards felt
39:26
Speaker 8: terrible they might have been saved the Petit women, and
39:30
Speaker 8: unfortunately it didn't turn out that way.
39:40
Speaker 2: Billy, my brother in law, was like, what would you
39:42
Speaker 2: do with that property if you were me, I'm like,
39:45
Speaker 2: that house just needs to be taken down. Nobody wants
39:47
Speaker 2: to try to refurbish a house where that awful thing happened.
39:53
Speaker 7: He turned it into a memorial garden for them, and
39:57
Speaker 7: people in the community helped tend it and it is beautiful.
40:05
Speaker 8: After the verdicts, I felt we should go.
40:09
Speaker 13: Yeah, and it was kind of like to get some
40:16
Speaker 13: closure for myself.
40:21
Speaker 8: It's a peaceful place. I think it's a place that
40:25
Speaker 8: people go to remember the family that lived there, to
40:31
Speaker 8: remember the Petit girls and Missus Pettit and kind of
40:37
Speaker 8: reflect on their lives. They were extraordinary people and so
40:47
Speaker 8: there'll always be in my thoughts.
40:51
Speaker 7: Cheshire carries this. It was a tremendously traumatic event. That
40:58
Speaker 7: never had anything like this and haven't had anything like
41:01
Speaker 7: it since then.
41:08
Speaker 3: I still do feel like I'm lucky that I have
41:10
Speaker 3: such special people to grieve, and I think that all
41:12
Speaker 3: comes from like watching my mom handle it, because she
41:16
Speaker 3: lost everybody like it felt like she was like left
41:18
Speaker 3: behind kind of, and she met it with grace.
41:24
Speaker 2: At my daughter's wedding, she was given very small charm
41:28
Speaker 2: that I keep on the mirror in my car, and
41:31
Speaker 2: it had like a picture of the three girls in
41:36
Speaker 2: the middle of it. It was wrapped with a ribbon
41:39
Speaker 2: at the bottom of my daughter's bouquet, so we felt
41:43
Speaker 2: like walking down the aisle, the girls were right there
41:46
Speaker 2: with her.
41:53
Speaker 1: Who's getting ready to go home? We've had a great time. Hey,
42:01
Speaker 1: so what'd you get?
42:01
Speaker 13: Back?
42:02
Speaker 2: Seat book?
42:07
Speaker 1: Go santy chin back.
42:09
Speaker 10: We're gonna get.
42:12
Speaker 2: Bye ye bye bye.
42:24
Speaker 3: This past summer, we finally like buried my aunt's ashes,
42:27
Speaker 3: Like it took this long because my grandparents' wish was
42:31
Speaker 3: like them to all be buried together. And I got
42:34
Speaker 3: to hold my husband's hand through all of that and
42:36
Speaker 3: be like he got to see I guess that side
42:39
Speaker 3: of everything. And that was my full circle moment where
42:45
Speaker 3: like I got to show Sullivan where I grew up
42:47
Speaker 3: and made all these memories with my cousins, and we
42:49
Speaker 3: got to catch the fireflies and like do all the things.
42:54
Speaker 2: The positive things that I think of when I see
42:56
Speaker 2: my daughter with her son are things like what a
43:00
Speaker 2: great mother my sister was to her daughters, and what
43:05
Speaker 2: a good family they had, and how they worked very
43:10
Speaker 2: hard at trying to educate their daughters to.
43:13
Speaker 1: Make them be the best people they could be.
43:17
Speaker 3: It's been so long since I've gotten to like have
43:19
Speaker 3: them and be around them and like listen to them laugh.
43:24
Speaker 3: I love that always get called like a mini Jennifer.
43:28
Speaker 3: I thought she was like this perfect, beautiful human. I
43:31
Speaker 3: just wanted to be her, Like I love that we
43:34
Speaker 3: match and look similar, but like I would have loved
43:38
Speaker 3: the comparison now, like I would have loved to stand
43:41
Speaker 3: next her and.
43:41
Speaker 4: Take the.
43:43
Speaker 12: Kick to looking to the looking to it
44:22
Speaker 8: To