The Cheshire Murders Page #8

because they can't tear up the

clothes and use it as a noose.

Is it on?

Yeah.

Good day.

Good morning.

How difficult, Dr.

Petit, is it to sit in there

and have them discuss Hayes' conditions

in prison for two hours at a time,

the lights being on?

Uh, it's difficult. Uh...

Somehow, it was okay

for the defendants

to bind us and beat us

and rape us and torture us

and set the place on fire,

but you can't be,

can't be held in a cell

with the lights on,

and somehow there's

something wrong with that.

It's surreal.

The entire prosecution is

geared to killing Steven Hayes,

and so here he is

trying to kill himself

but we won't let him do that,

because we want to extract

our pound of flesh.

It's really a sick kind of

process, in my opinion.

Tragedy in trial!

Front page!

Right now, both

sides are inside this courtroom.

All eyes are on what's going to

happen in these opening arguments.

The heavy, heavy security

around Steven Hayes

brought in by authorities

on a convoy of vehicles...

There's no

cameras allowed in the courtroom,

so you're not going to see what's

actually going on in there,

but tweeting is allowed.

A juror has been excused.

It's because she said she couldn't be

fair, because she heard news reports

of Steven Hayes'

suicide attempt.

This jury will

end up making two decisions.

One will be the guilt or

innocence of the defendant,

and if they find him guilty,

then they would have to decide

if he should get the death

penalty for the crime.

Going into the courtroom,

Steven Hayes was, like, off to my left.

I look at him and I think,

"I still can't believe

that you did this."

I said as soon as I found out

that my sister died,

"Just come into me,

be a part of me."

So I kept staring at him.

And sometimes I think, "Is that a part

of her saying, like, 'Stare at him.

"'Don't take your eyes

off of him."

"'Like, he, he

can't be trusted.'"

I'd like to say a few things

to these guys.

I'd like them to answer

me the question,

do they know what it is

to be terrorized?

After waiting

more than three years,

the Petit and Hawke families are ready

for this process to finally begin.

And are hopeful in the end

that justice will prevail,

and we think of Jennifer, Hayley, and

Michaela every second of every day.

It is a system, you know, and...

People say it's the best

system in the world,

but it's a, it's a

maddening system at best.

People spend a lot of

time parsing words

instead of really

trying to get to

what is right and what is wrong,

what is good and what is evil.

But it's the system we have,

so we're hoping...

We're hoping that the system

we have will give us justice.

Today's date is July 23, 2007.

Statement's taking place at the Cheshire

Police Department headquarters.

Joshua Komisarjevsky,

do you know why you're here?

Okay. And you went to

Stop and Shop in Cheshire?

On the night of July 22, Josh

and Steven were texting each other.

Steven texting Josh about

"When are we gonna get going?"

It was kind of like an excitement

about going to burglarize this house.

He drives down to Cheshire.

He and Josh go to a bar.

And then they start

looking for this house

that Josh knows about

from when they were

shopping at

Stop and Shop earlier.

It's always been my opinion

that he was attracted by

the young girl Michaela, rather

than the money or the Mercedes.

Josh was born into a family with

a history of mental problems.

Then he was adopted by a family that had

no ability to cope with mental problems.

And so he was doomed by biology,

and then he was doomed by fate.

When Josh was three years old,

the family took into the home

two foster children,

a girl and a boy.

And Josh underwent really

horrible and extensive

sexual abuse at

the hand of Scott.

I think it started off

playing little sex games,

having him pose naked,

and then it proceeded to

full-scale anal intercourse and to

Josh's being burned with cigarettes.

Against the background

of all of this,

Josh is at a church in which it is

taught that there is evil in the world

and probably the greatest abomination

of all is homosexuality.

And so you've got a, what,

a five-year-old, a six-year-old,

a seven year old,

listening to this

and thinking to himself

that I am fundamentally evil,

I have engaged in

that kind of activity,

and really not being able

to tell anybody about it.

There's a theme

that I saw in Steven's life of...

Of betrayal.

Steven had been sexually

abused as a child,

which led him to become more

emotionally disconnected from people.

The turning towards drugs and the desperate

state of mind that he found himself in,

all of this helped explain how Steven

could've done what he had done.

- You did?

- Yeah.

KK. Obviously she told you

her nickname or whatever is KK,

or you made that up?

I met Josh when I was 13.

Josh's parents started attending

the church that we went to,

the Evangelical Bible Church.

And we dated, we were in a

relationship for about two years.

We started dating

when I was 14 or 15

and then our relationship

was ended by the church.

Throughout the whole course

of our relationship,

we were always trying

to not have sex.

That was the goal. It felt

deeply, deeply sinful.

Our church community was

our home school community.

And Josh's family

and mine as well

had a very specific idea

of good and evil.

The devil was understood to be

an entity that you could know,

so if Josh had anxiety,

it was the devil.

If he did something wrong, it was because

he was being used as an agent of the devil.

Josh spoke some to me about the sexual

abuse that had happened to him.

But there wasn't even a way for

him to tell me without weeping.

Josh had terrible

anxiety attacks.

His home was not

ever safe for him.

The safe place was being away

and hiding in the woods.

He was trespassing

and sneaking around,

spying on people, long before

it was a criminal offense.

I think that he envied people and

he would daydream about being them.

They find beer in the refrigerator

and drink throughout the night.

Steven finds jars

of quarters and coins.

They found

a Bank of America book

and they're waiting

for the morning.

However, Steven worries that

he's gonna leave DNA evidence

in the house, and he starts...

Obsessing.

And Josh tells him,

"Fire destroys everything."

"We'll get the people out

and we'll burn the house down,

"we'll get them somewhere, and then

we'll get the hell out of here."

That's what Steven

was thinking about.

Steven goes into the garage.

He finds containers and starts

driving to find a gas station.

When Steven

gets back with the gasoline,

Josh had changed the

clothes of Michaela

because of activity that

he was involved with

in terms of

sexually abusing her.

And part of that occurred while

Steven was out on the gas run,

because we know that

because of Josh's photographs

that he took on his

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