Oct 3, 2009

Sage Opinion Piece Regarding The Petit Crimes

I found the two noteworthy Op-Ed pieces regarding the Petit family murders the one found in Thursdays Connecticut Post-linked at this Posts title header is particularly sage. The writer is most astute, as she expounds on the fact that these crimes had little to nothing to do with robbery nor should they be labeled home invasion:

This was a set of crimes that revolved around violence control and dominance primarily against women-and a girl entering puberty as well as her teen aged sister. Joshua Komisarjevskys attraction to 11 year old Michaela Petit began at an area supermarket; he had spotted pretty shy Michaela Petit earlier that summer evening whilst Michaela was shopping with her mom at an area supermarket

In Joshua komisarjevsky confessions to The Cheshire Police he admitted to spotting the Attractive Mrs Petit and her eleven year old daughter Michaela in the store parking lot, where he made his clandestine appraisal and proceeded to follow them home. They were driving in a Chrysler Pacifica and as Cheshire Connecticut was a upper middle class community, this was among the rows of BMW's,  Lexus's etc, a moderately priced car. It certainly did not scream money, nor did the Petit's relatively modest raised ranch home, where KOMISARJEVSKY the experienced stalker/ thief followed the unsuspecting pair, several miles from the supermarket where they shopped.

As a professional thief who had a lifelong habit of breaking into homes only at night when the homeowners were home sleeping (the opposite rule of standard theory- thus pointing to other issues littering this career criminals mind) he made a cursory examination of the house, its points of entry and drove off undetected. According to sources Steven Hayes met up with komisarjevsky at some point that evening.

They hatched their plan which I am certain revolved around the sexual assaults ie control/power of the attractive Mrs Petit and her 11 year old daughter Michaela-

Komisarjevsky and Hayes met in a halfway house during their final stints serving drastically shortened sentences, care of The Connecticut Parole Board, who, despite the fact that each man had thus far accrued over 25 felony convictions each within their lifetimes, made the ill advised decisions to award them both with early release parole, a decision that in effect sealed the Petit family's fate. Komisrajevsky resumed his lifelong habit of robbing houses with homeowners sleeping upstairs, the very night that his correction dept tracking anklet was removed. This time however he had a  pal with him as his intentions were different. He needed a second man in order to tale control of a house filled with females--and likely at least one male head of household.
partner,-Jennifer Petit was sexually assaulted by Steven Hayes and 11 year old Michaela was sexually assaulted by Joshua Komisrajevsky, komisarjevsky actually took nude photos of the little girl tied up in compromised positions At the age of 28 he had a history of involvement with very young girls, in fact impregnating a fifteen yr old girl when he was 25 years of age himself. If only he had been charged with statutory rape at that time he would have had a record as a sex offender and by the time he'd committed the last slew of robberies that landed him in prison -he likely would have received a stiffer sentence than the nine years the judge gave him. But those nine years magically turned into three, with komisarjevsky out of prison itself and into a halfway house in less than two years!

From this retrospective vantage point it is safe to say that the sexual assaults, not robbery, were the actual motive for the entire nights crime spree and subsequent carnage. Once again it comes down to violence against women: As many people know, rape is not about sex, but about dominance control and power, which in my opinion is what lies behind these crimes.

There is usually at least one sociopath within a pair of murderer/rapists like these two men, and its safe to say that komisrarjevsky is the more intelligent and manipulative of the two men, but it appears as if Steven Hayes was at the very least a sexual sadist and possibly a sociopath himself who had misogynistic tendencies who likely shared a hatred of what both men saw as wealth, privilege and/or affluence- qualities and ways of life that as felons with extensive criminal records, they figured themselves on the outside looking in.

As the link above suggests, do not be fooled by the 15,000 extorted from Jennifer Hawke Petit, as this was truly incidental to this crime-icing on the cake if you will excuse such an awful metaphor. And as is always the case there were signs of a sexual criminal in the making in both Hayes and Komisrajevskys criminal development. Hayes was forever frequenting prostitutes and had had serious weapons charges dropped within the multiple plea bargains he'd received within the normal course of things down at the various area courthouses where each of his dozens of crimes were heard.

 I am certain if one were to dig just a little bit there would be other women whom he had sexually assaulted date raped or attempted such with. The fact that he relied heavily on prostitutes for his sexual and companionship needs, as well as being known as a "pervert" shows a severe dysfunction in relating to women in a healthy fashion.

Komsiarejevsky gave the system a plethora of warning signs re his development as a predator:
he was found to be stealing underwear and lingerie from teen aged girls he'd become infatuated with to the point of making the girls life's miserable, stalking them hiding in trees and watching them through windows- this As reported by a Cheshire policeman began when komisarjevsky was 15 .

Later on there were trophy's taken from homes that he was now breaking into on a regular basis, mostly for the "rush" as he typically took very small items of little value but bragged to his then girlfriend and now mother of his small daughter, that he could not get off, if the house was empty. This speaks loudly of a sexual predator not a true thief. In fact he usually stole small items of limited value His trophies did include however photos of some of the women that lived in the houses that he robbed, as well as articles of clothing that belonged to them.

Many of the sign posts of sociopathology were quite overt by the time Komsiarjevsky was arrested for his first set of serious felonies which involved a total of 20 houses he'd broken into.-Yet nobody, including the dept of corrections acted responsibly with this information.

In fact the state of Connecticut gave him a veritable break upon break setting him loose after merely a third of a sentence that his last judge clearly meant to be a strict 9 year stint, Recognizing Komisarjevskys predator like criminal behavior and the unique danger he posed to the people of Connecticut-this as per his admitted need for a "rush" only choosing to break into homes that were occupied at the time and this after stalking his victims from trees and such with night vision goggles and toting a knife presumably brought to cut screens, though possibly to be used for other purposes if the need arose or an opportunity presented.

Who knows how long Komisarjevsky was fantasizing about raping the women and.or children in the homes that he was breaking into compulsively? We do know that many many signposts were ignored by his family, the court system, the dept of corrections and the parole board.

Hayes had a sizable criminal history as well, although it appeared to be that he was less organized in his robberies and assorted other crime,s many of which seemed to revolve around drugs; He was supposedly a crack addict at one time, although often drug addiction is used by offenders as fasle motives for crimes in an attempt to get lighter sentences and or drug rehab for first and second time offenders.

Interestingly, and important to note is that Neither man had any drugs in their systems on the night of the Petit murders. This might be because they had both been towing the line with their parole officers, knowing that regular drug testing mandatory with parolees in Connecticut. Both men had full time jobs as was also part of their parole requirements. Komisarjevsky in fact called his roofing employer from the Petit household in the early hours of the crimes, explaining that he wouldn't be coming into work, using the excuse that his then 2 year old daughter was "sick"

This image sickens me to no end. That this reprobate took time out of his busy morning ransacking a house, beating a father of two with a bat and sexually assaulting an 11 year old who he knew Hayes and he were going to kill along with the rest of this family. To calmly call his boss, making certain to keep his job and perhaps keep up appearances for the Parole board who required full time employment is a telling sign of utter detachment and calm while the gasoline was already purchased and the plan had been made to kill the family once the money was procured. Komisarjebslys DNA was everywhere in that home and especially in MIhcale's room and her little body.  As felon's both men had thier DNA on file, this was now additng up to a life sentence for the rape and kidnapping of a child, nebver mind the beating hed given the doctor father with a bat. For all he knew the man might die. No, theyd decided by the time they had Jennifer Petit untied long enough to call DrPetits office to tell him that he was ill and would be late"

The cell phone call would only give proof of his exact whereabouts at the time of the crimes due to the existence of cell phone towers this unless he used a throw-away phone with prepaid minutes. This simply astounds and disgusts me. Classic sociopath behavior-Zero conscience, with completely narcissistic motivation.

What happened here seems clear to me; these two men met at this halfway house, got to know each other a bit swapped some crime stories and broached the subject of their shared interest- tying up females rendering them helpless and at their mercy and raping them-- women and teens from affluent homes were probably seen as prize victims to these men as they both had deep senses of inferiority and likely hated what they perceived as the "other side". A life that they believed they would never live. They therefore struck a pact to own these people for at least the night and then destroy them at their will.

William Petit was attacked and beaten as he lay sleeping in his lightly lit sun room, where he'd fallen off reading as was often his habit. The men later admitted to clearly seeing Petit through a window as they first stalked the house at 3 am that morning. This puts an end to the whole accidental stumbling upon Dr Petit while just planning on robbing the house idea that was widely being speculated and indeed circulated as fact for months after the crimes occurred.

The men purposely with aforethought set about eliminating the biggest threat of the household Dr Petit who at 6 3 was a fairly imposing man albeit in a completely vulnerable somnolent state when the men attacked him with a baseball bat to his head-" I hit him as hard as I could as if chopping wood at least 10 times, komisarjevsky would later recount for author Brian McDonald, who rather sleazily encouraged komisarjevsky to break a court imposed gag order on the case that was in place at the time, in order to interview him for what turned out to be a hastily and poorly written paperback that managed to be published and distributed before anyone could stop it.

The book was based upon letters McDonald had exchanged with accused Petit family rapist/murderer and later, actual interviews, which McDonald somehow managed to procure, despite heavy security measures this he did purportedly by posing as an attorney with the corrections dept Guards and checkpoint employees. Once it was? discovered that he was a writer, his name was taken off komisarjevsksys visitor list and the Jig was officially up.

But not in time to prevent a book that was for all intents and purposes co-written by one of the killers of the Petit family in a transparent attempt to get his "version" of the crimes widely circulated to the public in order to influence the potential jury pool and play down his involvement with the capital murder charges(Which carry the death penalty) This via bookstore shelves amazon and even the local Cheshire library, the head of whom decided, despite angry protests from hoards of townspeople and Connecticut citizens alike enraged at the prospect of this Book being for sale let alone stocked in the very town's library where this family resided and died violently.

Despite reams of Petitions from enraged and disgusted town members the Cheshire library continued to cite the first amendment as its reason for choosing to stock this illegal (IE gag order broken) poorly written and obvious attempt by komisarjevsky to try to inject his version of the crimes which naturally shifted blame for the capital crimes to Hayes and gain sympathy from the prospective jury pool ; The book clearly tried desperately to humanize him, regaling the reader with a history of "childhood molestation" which among other things were elaborated upon by the author of Joshua's "surprising likable and soft spoken nature"

 That very same manipulative nature and boyish countenence convinced Jennifer Hawke Petit that he wouldn't hurt her or her girls, as long as she got the men the money that they asked for, and did not call the Police.  Tragically she was mistaken, led down that path by the smooth talking fresh faced younger man who did all the talking..

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