NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A jury condemned a man to death Friday for killing a woman and her two daughters during a night of terror in their home, a gruesome crime that evoked comparisons to Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and halted momentum to abolish the death penalty in the state.
The jury took five days to deliberate defense attorneys’ request to spare the life of Joshua Komisarjevsky in light of abuse he suffered as a boy.
Komisarjevsky will join his accomplice, Steven Hayes, on death row. The two paroled burglars tormented the family of four in a New Haven suburb before killing Jennifer Hawke- Petit and leaving her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, to die in a fire. The only survivor, Dr. William Petit, was beaten with a baseball bat but escaped.
