The sentence is death for Steven Hayes one of two humanoids who did a home invasion three years ago in Cheshire Connecticut. They robbed, raped, strangled and set on fire Joanna Hawke-Petit, and her two daughters Hayley (17), and Michaela (11). The defense attorney had the unmitigated gall to actually play the race card (despite everyone being white) by claiming that a different standard was applied because the victims were affluent, suburban white people. Sometimes I hate lawyers! It will be years before Hayes (who looks like Uncle Fester from The Addams family) takes the eternal death nap. The other freak will go on trial early next year.  Actually the needle is too merciful for them, I wish they could be electrocuted and perish in great agony.

by Sarah Netter, Kaitlyn Folmer and Brandon Bodow

Though the jurors in the Connecticut home invasion trial spent four days deliberating before sentencing convicted murderer Steven Hayes to death, a meeting afterward with the sole survivor was one of the hardest moments.

“That was probably the toughest moment for me when it came to keeping the waterworks from starting,” juror Herbert Gram said of their meeting Monday with the Petit family in a courthouse basement room.

And they all were surprised to hear what the Petits had to say.

“We didn’t understand why they were thanking us” after all they’d been through, juror Maico Cardona said. “We followed the letter of the law.”

But for the family of murder victims Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 47, and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, the verdict brought a rush of emotions — gratitude, sadness and something even more overwhelming.

“I guess a huge sense of relief that it was over,” Hawke-Petit’s sister, Cindy Hawke-Renn, told “Good Morning America” today of her reaction to the verdict. “I guess I was glad that they came to the decision that they did.”

“I felt like if any crime ever called for the death penalty, this probably did,” she said.

[…]

The trial and sentencing phase was grueling for the jurors and the Petit family. Dr. William Petit, the sole survivor of the 2007 home invasion that left his wife and children dead, sat stoically through most of the trial, leaving only when the testimony about the rape and murder of his youngest daughter became too much to bear.

Jurors were shown crime scene photos of the three women after their Cheshire, Conn., house had been torched in an effort to erase the evidence — Hawke-Petit had been raped and strangled and Hayley had managed to free herself after being tied to her bed, only to die from smoke inhalation on her way to save her family.

Michaela, who had also been raped, was found still tied to her bed.

[….]

Read the rest here: Death Penalty in Connecticut Home Invasion Case Brought Family ‘Huge Sense of Relief’