Trial for Steven Hayes Validates Worst Fears Re Petit Crimes

Note; This Blog centers around issues concerning violent crime, violence against women and victims rights. It is based out of Fairfield County Connecticut.

I have been writing about The Petit family crimes since shortly after they happened. Considering the focus of my blog and the nature and proximity of these crimes Chasing Justice soon began to focus much of its energy around the crimes, as well as the legislative happenings that emanated from the discovery of certain fatal flaws within Connecticut's Judicial system that basically enabled the Petit crimes to happen.

It has been a long road and there is a lot of information gathered, and written about, within three years of Postings. The very first Posts can be found in the September 2007 archives ( be certain to hit older posts once you are within that month/year, listed to the right of the Blog) and they continue consistantly until the present trial.

It is an intense read and cannot nor should not be quickly scanned as one would scan a series's of tweets. I suggest for those interested in finding out more about this case, particularly how it was enabled to happen) to parse the posts out over time and give them a chance to settle.

Chasing Justice aims to exist on a different plane than most of the online News and media sources that have concurrently followed this "story".
As a survivor of violent crime, I write with the victims of all crimes, foremost in my mind, And every word that I do pen, is driven by a desire to be a voice for all victims of violence, especially those who have been silenced, either by the hands of their assailants, by their own trauma, or , by a system that does not care to listen to them.
I write with an eye on Change within that system, and this begins as any true change does - with truth.

Day six
Unfortunately, the information gleaned from today's testimony at the Trial for Steven Hayes, verified all that I believed-and feared took place on the morning of July 23 2007 concerning motive and details of the crimes committed against Jennifer, Hayley and Michaela Petit.

The text messages that the men made prior to the crimes alone told me, that as I'd strongly suspected, this was a crime well planned and one that revolved around sexual violence. I have staunchly believed from the start that the money was secondary to these two reprobates, it was a bonus to them, likely unplanned and perhaps I thought had been a desperate attempt by Jennifer Petit to buy the men's goodwill, even bribing them to leave her daughters alone-ie to not sexually abuse them. I believed that this was a very plausible scenario.

I also felt in my gut that Michaela had most likely been fully sexually assaulted, especially once I had learned that there were cell phone photos taken of her in the shower - that information had leaked out shortly after the crimes in the fall of 2007, I knew right away that this was an attempt to rid her body of the DNA that he or both men had left upon her little body. And i could not believe that as all reports seemed to be saying that Hayley somehow had evaded any sexual molestation. It did not stand to reason that two sexual predators wouldn't take advantage of every female in the house, even considering Komisarjevskys pedophiliac preferences.

I also feared that although the girls had technically died of smoke inhalation, they had probably suffered burns from the fire as well, before they died. It seemed to me then that the fire happened so quickly once lit and although I wished and hoped for a scenario where both girls were quickly overcome and rendered unconscious from the smoke and passed in this way.

I knew this was likely not the case, especially after hearing where poor Hayley's body was found; on top of the stairs directly within the line of the poured and lit gasoline. That information came out long before the official gag order was put on the case, making details, especially credible details from law enforcement etc. very scant.

Upon learning about these crimes in July 2007 by a friend and client who worked for Bank of America, I became increasingly upset for months, easily imagining the girls terror, during both the assaults as well the last horrendous minutes of the fire and the murders.

As I put the bits and pieces of information together that were leaking out through various sources on the Internet etc I was particularly bothered by report after report citing this as a "robbery gone awry"

All kinds of pundits were trounced out to give their idea of what had probably happened in the Petit home and they all seemed to believe that it was a "burglary turned into something terrible once Dr Petit was surprisingly encountered by the burglar's downstairs in the home

Some shows like Dateline even had pundit/guests that almost sounded as if they were laying blame on poor Dr Petit for being downstairs and thus provoking the rest of the crime spree. All completely incorrect assumptions.

I knew at once that these crimes revolved around sexual assaults violence power and control. Likely common traits that these two men undoubtedly discovered they shared when they began to socialize at the Hartford halfway House c/o state of Connecticut, where they initially met.

Eventually, or perhaps right off the bat, they clicked onto their shared fantasies of rape and sexual sadism and it was a matter of time before they discussed a plan to live it out.

In the meantime, I was growing increasingly sick and tired of the media and the press getting it wrong. This wasn't about being right, unwittingly the media were aiding and abetting these men, promoting this much more innocuous and less sinister, version of a break- in gone bad. Extremely important, as it indicated motive and the issue of premeditation, which is essential to the capital crimes charges against both men.

In early September, I set out to right at least this one wrong, which I knew with my power of the pen, I could do. Looking back to the September 2007 archives, this is when I'd recovered enough to begin writing about the crimes and setting things straight. I haven't stopped since.


I have to admit that I wished and hoped for another scenario a million times, a different ending, and I prayed that it was not as bad as I suspected it was for Mrs Petit and the girls, yet from the facts that I had accumulated by then, combined with what I knew about the mind of sociopaths' and sexual sadists feeding off one another, I knew instinctively it was.

Today's testimony only gave complete credence to my assertions and fears, and even managed to surpass them. I am disgusted and filled with a grief that is so profound, words cannot describe it.

My heart goes out to the Petit and Hawke family's and all of their friends and loved ones. May God give them some respite and healing from all of this