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misterearl
Posts: 38786
Alba Posts: 0
Joined: 11/16/2004
Member: #799 USA
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For Anji
George Ruhe/Associated Press
CHESHIRE, Conn., Aug. 6 — Dr. William A. Petit Jr., his head bloodied and legs bound, stumbled out of a rear basement door of his two-story home here into a pouring rain, calling the name of a neighbor for help.
The neighbor heard the shouting, but so did the two men inside the house, who peeked outside from an upstairs window. They were both serial burglars with drug habits, having racked up numerous convictions for stealing car keys and pocketbooks.
This time, they took something far more precious.
The men, the authorities say, had already strangled Dr. Petit’s wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and in short order would also kill the couple’s two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. The elder suspect, Steven J. Hayes, 44, had poured gasoline on the girls and their mother, according to a lawyer and a law enforcement official involved in the case, in hopes of concealing DNA evidence of sexual assault. He had raped Ms. Hawke-Petit, and his partner, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 26, had sexually assaulted Michaela.
Moments after Dr. Petit escaped, as the house was being surrounded by police officers, the men lighted the gasoline. The girls were tied to their beds but alive when the gas Mr. Hayes had spread around the house was set aflame.
It was about 9:50 a.m. on July 23 when Dr. Petit, 50, burst into his backyard on what is normally a quiet street in a quiet town of 29,000 in central Connecticut. On this stormy summer morning it was the site of one of the most savage crimes in the state in decades. By 10:01, Mr. Hayes and Mr. Komisarjevsky had been captured. On Tuesday morning they are expected to be presented in New Haven County Court for their first appearance in the venue where they will be tried; they have been formally charged in State Superior Court in Meriden with capital felonies, which could bring the death penalty.
Eddy Curry was lucky.
The comedians among us who think what happened to him is a laughing matter should read the entire story, if their attention spans can stand it
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/nyregion/07slay.html?hp
once a knick always a knick
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