Man Given Death Penalty for Triple Murder

A man who took part in one of the worst crimes in Connecticut history that garnered comparisons to the grisly family murder in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was sentenced to death on Monday, according to The New York Times. After deliberating for three days, a jury voted unanimously to sentence Steven J. Hayes to death for a horrifying incident that saw Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky enter the home of the Petit family in the quaint suburb of Cheshire, Connecticut, on July 23, 2007, where they proceeded to tie the family’s two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, to the bed, sexually assault the mother, 48-year-old Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and her youngest daughter, strangle the mother to death, and then set the house ablaze, killing the two girls. Hayes’ trial began on September 13, and Komisarjevsky will be tried next year. While Connecticut state law provides for execution by lethal injection, because of appeals, it will be probably be many years before Hayes faces execution, if ever, according to death penalty lawyers.