Nov 27, 2009

State opposes delaying jury selection in Cheshire slayings (with documents)- The New Haven Register - Serving New Haven, Connecticut

This backwards reasoning on behalf of Joshua Komisarjevsky's lawyers, that Steven Hayes's suicide watch for the past 2 years in prison only "proves " his guilt in the murders of the Petit women, is truly astounding. Moreover, the leap that they make that hayes's guilt somehow equates with thier client's innocence, is even more insulting to our collective intelligence.
Its quite clear to me that this "book" that komisarjevsky spoon-fed writer Brian mcdonald, was created with the express purpose of re-vamping public opinion re komisarjevsky and the events that transpired on the night that Jennifer hawke Petit and her two daughters were murdered.
Despite a gag order imposed somewhat belatedly on the case, many facts including copies of redacted warrents were made public, and these facts were damning indeed for both defendents.

The book in the middle of the night which was in effect co-authored by komisarjevsky, was made in hopes of bamboozling the public and thus the potential jury pool -into believing that co-defendant Steven Hayes was responsible for all of the "really bad crimes" committed that fateful night.
The crimes that are in contention are the capital murder charges- these are the only ones punishable by death.

And thrown in the book for good measure is a generous helping of tragic childhood background replete with purported sexual molestation of komisarjevsky at the age of 14, which we have absolutely no way of verifying especially when one considers the chronic manipultive nature of this guy.
Either way the intention of the book is clear; humanize and very nearly excuse the behavior of this man who admittedly raped an 11 year old girl and at the very least largely contributed to the deaths of three human beings.

But What really irks me is the depths to which these lawyers sink in their rabid attempts to save their client from accountability for his own actions. This is not the first time I've heard or read about komisarjevsky and hayes's lawyers verbally assailing the sole survivor of their clients criminal rampage.


But somewhere in the middle of all of this they tryed the soft peddle approach, wooing Dr Petit and other members of the Petit/Hawke families via a thinly veiled letter from a "restorative justice firm" working on behalf of Komisarjevsky and co, which was in effect lawyers on the states public defender payroll posing as well meaning "intermediaries" between the defendent and surviving victim.
The letter offered to answer "any questions about the crimes" that Dr Petit and family might have and to clear up any misunderstandings" There was a name and a phone number of a third party contact proffered.

Dr Petit, an intelligent man, saw through the subterfuge and proceeded to refer the letter to the office of victims advocate as well as pursuing a protective order againt the entire komisarjevsky defense camp in order to block any more attempts at contacting him or his family.

Almost immediately following this, the komisarjevsky lawyers dropped thier schmoozing and did an about face, lashing out at Dr Petit in the press, accusing him of spear-heading a " public campaign to have their client put to death."

This of course only showed up the disingenuousness of thier recent conciliatory posturing.
Oh yeah, and they didn't like that Dr Petit called their client, a man who admitted to beating Petit in the head with a bat"like he was chopping wood" ...an "animal" . within a letter he wrote to the court.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that komisarjevsky has become indignant over someone calling him an animal in a public forum; Last time, it was the prosecutor assigned to the 12 felony charges that he was convicted of several years prior to the Petit family crimes. He was on parole for those crimes when he decided to break into the Petit's home with a plan of sexually assaulting 11 year old michaela Petit whom he had stalked together with her mom at a neighborhood stop and shop.

In the sentencing transcript for that case, which was conspicuously absent from his criminal file, along with most of his pertinent criminal records when the state decided to parole him, one can read verbatim Mr komisarjevsky bitterly complaining to the court that the prosecutor referred to him as" a wild animal within one of his addresses to the court concerning the seriousness of the crimes.

If you read the rest of the transcript, which is available online, you will see that the presiding judge in that case also called komisarjevsky" a cold calculating predator who is a decided threat to the people of Connecticut"

This was clearly a savvy judge who recognized the signs of a dangerous offender whose crimes were escalating. He had intended Komisarjevsky be behind bars for 9 years minimum with 6 years of special parole. Instead, komisarjevsky was in a halfway house within 2 and a half years and paroled after 3. He was in solitary confinement at his own request during most of that stint due to "issues with other inmates'

Fast forward 4 robberies, a sexual assault of a minor, severe battery and three capital murders later and Komisarjevsky is still indignant over being called "an animal"- This time his hackles are up against the man whose family komisarjevsky stalked and hand picked for an evening of rape and robbery( in the MacDonald book as in his confession to police, he readily admits to this .


What is striking here is the audacity of this guy- He is not content to merely sit quietly and await his trial with even fiegned remorse or humility- but rather HE breaks a court ordered gag on the case, writing and meeting multiple times with a true crime writer for the purposes of publishing a book outlining the crimes and convienently placing all culpability for the murders on his co-defendent- steven hayes.


He knows that the book will be published quickly and this fits his motivation perfect;ly; his own trial is scheduled after hayes and this leaves plenty of time for his "version" of the crimes to take ahold and voila- they are transformed into" fact." Even the newspapers and online magazines seemed happy to oblige him, using komisarjevskys claims in the book and laundering them as verifiable fact. Titles like "2nd killer laughed maniaclly as he ran out of the burning Petit home." Not " first killer trying predicably to place blame for murders on his accomplice...."
Not surprisingly all of the " confessions" that komisarjevsky made in the book were connected to facts that were already well established by very prejudicial evidence against him ie nude pictures of michaela petit on his cell phone, phone records from his cell phone placing him at the Petit home and calls to his house and his job on the morning of the murders- clothing with gasoline and dna found on his person as he was caught fleeing the burning crime scene in the Petit family car. And testimoney of police at the scene one of whom witnessed BOTH MEN LAUGHING AS THEY RAN OUT OF THE BURNING HOME.
And in typical fashion he prattled to police detectives prior to lawyering up, a habit he had of almost bragging about his criminal exploits to astounded law enforcement.

Now Anyone who has watched Dr Petit' conducting himself within the pubic forum knows that he and the rest of his family have shown remarkable restraint when speaking of the two men responsible for the murders of their loved ones.
The fact that Hayes was put on suicide watch shortly after his arrest and continues to be on it for over two years, is not only not indicative of his guilt for the murders. as komisarjevsky and lawyers would have us believe, but rather shows me that Hayes, unlike his criminal counterpart, possesses at least some modicum of a human conscience. I absolutely believe that joshua komisarjevsky has none.

Ive concluded from the start that despite his older age, Hayes was the proverbial follower in these crimes, komisarjevsky the instigator -the crimes were his brainchild. He is a sociopath of the textbook variety-remember the hallmarks of anti-social personality disorder are manipulation, deception and a complete lack of conscience. This isn't to say that Socios cant feign these qualities when neccesary; theyll muster up whatever they surmise is neccesary in order to get out of the various scrapes that they get into with authorities and institutions in their lives- be it school, police depts, courts- crocodile tears notwithstanding.


By all accounts komisjevsky is intelligent and articulate and his boyish appearance that belies the criminal mindset beneath. I am guessing that his looks, his youth and his family's respectable middle class roots all combined to help him in escape appropriate consequences all of his life, whenever he was caught disregarding the rules, or the rights of others (another hallmark of the sociopath persona and teens with conduct disorder)

He set an abandoned gas station on fire at 15. He stalked a young girl who he knew from school repeatedly peering in her windows at night. He broke into neighbors homes over and over again. He was found to have stolen personal items from the women who lived in the homes that he broke into. Pictures lingerie clothing-This is a classic sign of the early stage sex offender. Once thought to be fairly innocuous, peeping toms and panty thieves have been exposed as serious pre-cursors to full blown sexual assault and murder.

Many would have served a full ten years for the sheer quantity and seriousness of the last string of house robberies that he committed in 2002. In almost every case the robberys took place at night when his victims were home, setting the stage for possible violent confrontation. Those home owners were violated, they were victims. Komisarjevsky bragged on more than one occasion that this was the only way "he got off" -breaking into empty houses was too boring he claimed. All of these facts, many of which hed shared with local police upon his arrest, should have been red flags for the Ct judicial system, especially the parole board.

to be continued ...

Attorneys: gag order doesn't apply to Cheshire murder defendant The Republican-American

Boy, these lawyers have no shame whatsoever.

Prosecutors Criticize Defense Request For Delay In Petit Slaying Case -- Courant.com

Nov 26, 2009

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Nov 19, 2009

Nov 15, 2009

Murder in America : The New Yorker

A very good essay that centers around the Petit family murders and thier implication in the bigger picture of our countries violent nature.

Nov 9, 2009

Rihanna: 'No Soul' in Chris Brown's Eyes

Despite the fact that this case involved partner violence and all of its trappings I've stayed away from this story for some time because so much publicity was being given to the case and almost all of it the wrong kind-You know,the kind that would seem to delight in the ugliness of the rich and celebrity falling down on their faces, if you will.



But the other day I caught some of the Rhianna interview with Dianne sawyer and I was soon Struck with respect and admiration for this young woman, who despite a very public experience with severe interpersonal violence, managed to defy the worlds expectations, my own included, and extricate herself from her clearly dangerous relationship with Chris Brown and learn some important things about herself through this ordeal.



For a time just following the assault there was evidence that Rhianna had returned to the relationship- at one point being very vocal about her lack of desire or the need for that matter for the protective order against Chris Brown, which the presiding judge wisely ordered despite her complaints for a minimum of one year.
In fact It seemed almost a foregone conclusion at that point that Rhianna had fallen victim to one version or another of the classic " battered woman syndrome", a variation of the Stockholm syndrome ,whereupon victims of abuse are trapped in a cycle of violence and conciliatory gestures aka the honeymoon period following the episodes of abuse. Bear in mind that this is a very pared down and simplistic definition of these relationships, there are many dynamics at play and very often a victim of ongoing abuse has to be deprogrammed in order to truly break away long enough to pull back and view her own predicament realistically. I think that Rhianna, by the grace of god, was the recipient of some serious intervention and thankfully had the strength to listen, and ultimately listened to her own inner voice, which the longer she was away from the abusive relationship, the louder it became.



So today whilst mulling over the aforementioned interview and what I wanted to write about it on this very forum, the abovetitled caption on a webpage grabbed my attention; I was immedietly compelled to read more about this statement re Browns "soulless eyes."
I instinctively knew exactly what that meant.


 I too have seen those "soulless" eyes.

In fact, I tried to describe this very phenomenon to the local area detective who was assigned to my criminal case many years ago; I believe I likened my assailants eyes during and after the attack to a souless animal .human.



As a survivor nyself there were a good many things that I related to with Rhianna but one of the most emotional for me was something that she said about thinking that the assault upon her seemed to " go on and on and on " and she just kept "wondering "when is it going to stop?"


When I read those words, that exact emotional remembrance flooded back, it seemed the crimes had just happened,, rather than the eight years which have passed since then.



To be Continued as  I have a feeling Ms Rhianna is srill stuck in the cycle.