Brian McDonald

three years ago this week:

joshua komisarjevsky, then 26, was telling friends that he was depressed because his 16-year-old girlfriend, caroline, had moved away. the pair first met at a christian summer camp when caroline was just 8. joshua was dating caroline's older sister at the time. caroline wrote to joshua in jail and the pen pal relationship evolved into a surreptitious conjugal visit and then furlough flings. but by the time joshua was paroled, caroline's family was already planning a move to rogers, arkansas. at a barbecue a few days before the Cheshire murders, joshua told friends that he needed to get his hands on some money so he could join caroline in arkansas. the night before the Petit murders, just before joshua went to meet steven hayes, caroline and joshua engaged in a cyber sex session in which caroline emailed joshua x-rated photos of herself.

steven hayes' triple murder trial begins sept. 13th, joshua's follows soon there after

in a not-so-flattering review of my first true-crime book, Safe Harbor, new york times reviewer marilyn stasio made this general statement about the genre: "the language of true crime," she wrote, "is so inelegant it seems to dishonor the dead."

after watching last night's show i get what she meant.

contrary to many news stories about In the Middle of the Night, joshua komisarjevsky rarely looked to shift the blame to hayes for what happened that morning in Cheshire. out of all the information joshua gave to me in his letters and during my interviews with him, only once or twice did i get the feeling that he was giving up hayes. one of those times was when he told me about the book hayes was reading in the months leading up to the Cheshire murders.

that book was a topic of discussion in New Haven Superior Court yesterday and could be introduced as evidence by the prosecution during the Sept. trial. it is explosive material and supports what i've always believed--as motives go, monetary gain was second to the primary reason hayes and joshua broke into the Petit home early that July morning: the Cheshire home-invasion was rape; planned, executed and murderous.

a third alternate juror, described as a middle-age New Haven woman, has been chosen for the steven hayes triple homicide trial. the number of jurors now stands at 15. twenty are needed to complete a panel of jurors, alternates and back-ups for the trial that begins in mid-September

over the past two weeks, two jurors have been excused by Judge Blue months before steven hayes' trial starts including a Guilford woman yesterday. our number is back down to 14.

maybe the court should take out an ad for jurors in the AARP mag. the commitment in Sept. could be as long as three months, an incredible burden on employee and employers. then again, defense counsel knows that the olds are more likely to vote for the needle. they could look for jurors within the roles of the unemployed--9.3 percent at last check in Ct. wouldn't suit prosecutors though. lacksters are traditionally anti-death penalty. it adds up to a slow slog in superior court.

i might have been presumptuous in inferring that the ullman/culligan team will step on the gas as the patio party season nears. yesterday, 24 jurors were interviewed and none chosen. the process of seating a murder jury in Connecticut is catatonic in its pace--you could paint a house with Wite-Out quicker.

i still think a panel of 20 jurors (reg.,alternate and backups) will be completed by the end of May,

Judge Jon Blue pulled something of a Pontius Pilate yesterday by washing his hands of the "how nuts is hayes" question. in his refusal to allow hayes to skip jury selection, Judge Blue cited Suzanne Ducate (you remember her, right? the DOC psychiatrist?) who back in March gave hayes the thumbs up to continue the trial, and the defendant's own lawyers who waived the last hearing on their client's competency.

in essence, the judge said in his eight page decision, if hayes does something crazy from here in, don't blame me. go see Ullman or the prison shrink.

it's good to be king (or Prefect).

in one of the first letters i received from joshua komisarjevsky there was a description of his and hayes' attempted escape from the Petit house on the morning of July 23rd, 2007. having set the house on fire, and having no idea the police had them surrounded, Joshua and hayes ran from the house and jumped into the Petit's Chrysler Pacifica. joshua was behind the wheel. police had roadblocks (more…)

in a voice that one observer called soft but confident, steven hayes changed his plea to guilty of all capital charges against him. he made the statement right after Judge Jon Blue had declared him competent to stand trial. Hayes' words stunned everyone in the courtroom, even his own counsel.

a lot of things have to happen before hayes is strapped to a gurney. but one thing is for certain, this evening Steven Hayes is a lot closer to being executed than he was yesterday.

out of all the reasons joan ellis, the administrator of the Freedom of Information Office of the Ct. DOC., gave for refusing the FOIA request by the New Haven Register for documents concerning steven Hayes' suicide attempt she forgot the most important one: releasing the documents would make the Connecticut jail system look like they have the Marx brothers in charge. (more…)

ok, one of three scenarios will begin to play out Thursday at steven hayes' competency hearing in New Haven Superior Court: One, hayes will be found competent, in which case the trial will start up again. Two, hayes will be found incompetent, in which case the trial will be postponed and a treatment of psychotropic drugs and therapy proscribed to help him back to competency, or, Three, defense will argue that steven hayes is permanently incompetent, and that the charges against him should be dropped. (more…)

so as we turn the corner on March and head into April and presumably the restart of Steven Hayes' trial, I thought I would take this time to list some of the key players in Act 1 of The New Haven drama. As Shakespeare said...

Principals:
1. Thomas Ullman: Hayes' attorney, death penalty opponent and master of the four-corner offense
2. Michael Dearington: state's attorney, and tepid death penalty crusader
3. Judge Jon C. Blue: his honor
4. Dr. William Peit: survivor, victim's rights spokesperson
5. Steven Hayes: accused, suicidal and incompetent?
6. The jury (so far, six have been chosen) (more…)

judge Jon Blue scheduled the next court hearing in the wandering preamble of steven hayes' triple murder trial for April 1. in the meantime, a crack team of psychiatrists and social workers will try to get to the bottom of the defendant's suicidal depression and determine whether or not he's fit to be tried.

just a layman's opinion, but maybe he's depressed because he has to live the rest of his life thinking about the lives that he ended.

lost in yesterday's headlines: a sixth juror was chosen, only 14 to go.

hindsight is 20/20. the reason the state chose to prosecute hayes first is because they believe, as joshua komisarjevsky told me, that hayes committed the first murder that rainy morning, raping, then choking to death Jennifer Hawke-Petit. the murders of the two Petit girls, who died of smoke asphyxiation, could be seen as occurring during (more…)

republicans in the Ct. legislature have proposed a bill that would streamline the death penalty process by limiting appeals. the bill would also allow victim's family members to address the jury before sentencing, instead of after as the process stands now. this past week, Dr. Petit spoke in front of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee in support of the legislation.

hayes will remain in the observation cell in Mac-Walk infirmary until further notice. (more…)

stacked one on top of the other, steven hayes' parole records are about six inches thick. they weigh as much as a library dictionary. as a body of work, they are the story of recidivist's voyage through the inept world of Connecticut's criminal justice.

for just about all of those years, most of his adult (more…)

what if steven hayes wasn't only thinking about ending it all? what if he figured that though 10 klonopin and 10 doses of thorazine might kill him, chances are it was nothing more than a quick high and a long nap. hayes had plenty of experience taking pills. he was a drug addict for most of (more…)

it's hard to disagree with today's editorial in the New Haven Register (see link to the left). Connecticut's Department of Correction continues to bungle the handling of two of their highest profile residents. However, as it has done many times, the Register continues to write that In the Middle of the Night tries to shift blame from komisarjevsky to Hayes. That's just not true. (more…)