Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky first crossed paths at a Hartford, Connecticut, drug treatment center in the summer of 2006, according to police.
Both men, career criminals, had been in and out of jail for similar non-violent crimes. Twice they had overlapping stays at the same halfway house or drug center, and the two attended Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings together and became friends, according to a detective’s report. NA Daytona Meetings in Holly Hill Florida.
They shared similar interests — often the downfall that led them into the criminal justice system — but nobody knew at the time that their friendship would result in what police and prosecutors say was one of the most brutal crimes in memory in the prosperous town of Cheshire, Connecticut.
Connecticut killer sentenced to die for “unimaginable horror”
New Haven, Connecticut (CNN) — A judge in New Haven sentenced a 31-year-old man to death Friday for his role in a deadly home invasion that killed a woman and her two daughters in 2007.
Jurors convicted Joshua Komisarjevsky in October on six capital felony charges. The 12-member jury had recommended death by lethal injection on each of the counts.
“The task of sentencing another human being to death is the most sober and somber experience a judge can have,” said Superior Court Judge Jon Blue.
Komisarjevsky responded Friday, saying that he “came into this trial angry and defiant.”
It’s a “surreal experience to be condemned to die,” he said. “Our apathetic pursuits trampled the innocent.”
He said, “I did not rape. I did not pour that gas or light that fire.”
“I will never find peace again and my soul is torn,” Komisarjevsky added.
The family of his victims left the courtroom before Komisarjevsky spoke.
Richard Hawke, in a victim’s statement prior to the sentencing, said the killings of his daughter and granddaughters had left him “half-past dead.”
“They offered to give you everything you asked for, you didn’t have to take their lives,” he told Komisarjevsky. “You will from now on be known as a prison number in the book of death. You are now in God’s hands.”
The man convicted of being Komisarjevsky’s accomplice, Steven Hayes, was sentenced to death in 2010. Juries convicted the pair on charges that they beat and tied up Dr. William Petit Jr., raped and strangled his wife, molested one of their daughters and set the house on fire before trying to flee.
Photos of Petit Crime Scene-
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/slideshow/evidence-photos-petit-murder-trial-11658978
July 18th 2013 Katie Couric Show with Mathew West and the Cheshire Murders-
http://www.katiecouric.com/on-the-show/2013/07/18/cheshire-murders-matthew-west/
Here’s the link I was talking about! It’s about halfway down the 4th paragraph.
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/07/02/documentary-the-cheshire-murders-debuts-july-22-on-hbo/190077/
AA/NA, has ever-increasing numbers of violent offenders with untreated psychological disorders who are let out of jail early and mandated to ANONYMOUS meetings. This is far from a “microcosm of society.” They know this is true but cover it up and deny it to protect the organization’s image, rather than its members, refusing to implement SAFETY GUIDELINES!
Call and e-mail AA/NA headquarters and ask than to implement guidelines like other, less dangerous organizations do.
http://stinkin-thinkin.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ATTACHMENT_TO_TOPIC_002-PREDATORS.doc.pdf
On the Katie Couric show they will be interviewing relatives of the victims and the murderers who have come together to somehow make peace with this tragedy. I am 100% for love understanding and forgiveness!.
The awareness that this site is raising has to do with how so much of this could be prevented from happening in the 1st place, at 12 step anonymous meetings! If AA/NA would follow their own advice, do an honest inventory, admit the truth about the risks involved and show they really care, by implementing safety guidelines, so much of this would be nipped in the bud!
There is HBO special airing this month on July 22 about this tragedy.
Read how the infamous, Cheshire CONNECTICUT MURDERERS met!
Watch Katie Couric and Mathew West July 18th 2013 about the Cheshire Murders of the Petit family. The killers met in AA and NA.
http://www.katiecouric.com/on-the-show/2013/07/18/cheshire-murders-matthew-west/
Many people in the know that I have spoken with such as probation officers and psychologists are all-too-familiar with the problems associated with Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. I have heard repeatedly from these and other professionals about the fact that these unsupervised anonymous meetings are more often counterproductive to true recovery. They all too often serve as a sort of hook up place for like-minded court mandates who teach each other new tricks. The meetings are also well known to be targeted by those who may be looking to score or practice their predatory behavior on the vulnerable who are in the early stages of their recovery. Similar to problems that the churches have had, these groups have huge backlogs of complaints of abuses that have been met with denial and cover-up by the organization’s headquarters. Quite often, as we have experienced here in our community, the police and courts enable this denial and cover-up to protect the image of these groups that they send felons to in ever greater numbers.
Remember this one? Guess where these brutal murderers met one another. Many people don’t know the facts!
CHECK OUT THE, “ RUDE AWAKENING,” story along with AA/NA PHOTOS IN PUBLIC PARKS AND CHILDREN’S PLAYGROUNDS to understand the problems our community has been having!
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Joshua was actually the treasurer for his Cocaine Anonymous group. When Steven Hayes met him he was impressed that Joshua was working the program. It appears they were both pretty involved in 12 step meetings. Yet AA/NA/CA did not address their underlying mental health problems, and they both went on to commit these horrific murders.
Here is an excerpt from trial-
‘Both a drug counselor and his parole officer testified that he was actively complying with terms of his parole after his release from prison in 2007, working steadily and showing clean drug tests.
In the spring of 2007, Komisarjevsky was working at a roofing company earning about $500 a week, leading a Cocaine Anonymous group, and fighting to get custody of his daughter from her drug-addicted mother, according to the testimony.’
To think in the spring of 2007 he was leading a Cocaine Anonymous Group, then by July 2007 he commits the worst crime in Connecticut history. So even when it appears AA/NA/CA members are’working the program’,they can be very dangerous indeed.
Good update! Remember this horrible Connecticut murder case that was in the national news? Not only did these two hook up at these anonymous meetings but this guy was chairing meetings and was the TREASURER! Does anybody else think that there might be a more appropriate place for these groups to hold meetings than in a park next to the playground just so they can smoke and not pay for a meeting room? Check out the 12 step 7th tradition about taking responsibility and paying their own way!