Posted on 10/21/2010 3:12:53 AM PDT by Scanian
Blue-state Connecticut has undergone a jolting metamorphosis over the past three years, with potential ramifications for the Senate contest between Linda McMahon and Richard Blumenthal. Many residents have become a lot more like red-state Texans than blue-state New Englanders. Now, they're enthusiastic supporters of the death penalty and are fond of handguns and shotguns. It's all due to a horrific home invasion in 2007 in the affluent town of Cheshire, a New Haven suburb.
Chilling details of the "Cheshire Murders," as they're known, have played out in a New Haven courtroom this fall during the first of two trials. Now, the proceedings are in the penalty phase after Steven Hayes, 48, was convicted of murder and rape. Jurors must decide if he should get life in prison or the death penalty. According to a recent opinion poll, Connecticut residents overwhelmingly favor lethal injection.
On July 23, 2007, at 3 a.m., Hayes and fellow career criminal Joshua Komisarjevsky, now 30, burst into the home of the Petit family. Three family members were murdered: Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and daughters Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. Mrs. Petit and Michaela were raped. The sole survivor was Dr. William A. Petit, Jr., then 50, a prominent physician and diabetes specialist who was beaten senseless with a baseball bat and tied up. He eventually freed himself and stumbled out of his home to summon help from neighbors.
Interestingly, the Cheshire Murders have repeatedly overshadowed Connecticut politics -- putting anti-death penalty Democrats on the defensive. Democrat lawmakers in May 2009 revealed themselves to be out of touch with voters when pushing through a vote to abolish Connecticut's death penalty. It followed a debate overshadowed by the "Cheshire Murders." Governor M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, vetoed the law.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Har!! All insipid comments should start off with personal insult.
It just makes things easier.
How long ago were you "younger"?
If it was more than 20 years ago, it may have been true "back then".
You are implying somebody is lying about this heinous crime? What the hell planet do you come from? You want to see the charred bodies of the girls or something?
I don’t think that’s what he’s saying.
The idea that home invasions are rare might have been the case years ago but they are commonplace now. And in good neighborhoods.
You COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY misread my post. After reading my post a second time, I can see that my poor phrasing is to blame. I USED TO BELIEVE that home invasions were as rare as Polar Bears in Hawaii. Now, every time I open the paper, I read of another horrible crime such as this one.
Probably nothing.
He was sound asleep when the perps came up and beat him senseless on the front porch. The they took him to the basement and tied him up.
What they did to the wife and two daughters was unpeakable. It was far, far worse than Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood”.
Think nothing of it. :)
Usually a higher capacity magazine, a barrel near the minimum legal length and a cylindrical (no choke) bore.
Given the crime in question, I should think Connecticut residents would favor a Louisville Slugger with 16-penny nails....
Yikes...wait until Paladino sees that thing!
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