Corrections Officer Overheard Defendant in Petit Trial Admit to Murder

NEW HAVEN, Conn. Sept. 28, 2010 — -- Steven Hayes, standing trial for the deadly 2007 home invasion in Connecticut, admitting to killing at least one of the three female victims, according to testimony heard in a New Haven court today.

Corrections Officer Jeremiah Krob, who has been responsible for the continuous observation of Hayes while he sits in prison, testified today that he has overheard conversations Hayes has had with another inmate, Vernon Cowan, in which he admitted to killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit.

Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, died during a gruesome invasion of the family's Chesire, Conn., home in July 2007.

Hayes allegedly told Cowan that he didn't know if he could "go through" with killing Petit-Hawke, according to Krob, but when he spotted police cruisers outside the family's home that July day, he did it.

"He never mentioned how he killed Mrs. Petit. He just stated that he did kill Mrs. Petit," Krob testified.

Some of what Krob heard was in conversations between Hayes and other inmates using an inmate communication system.

Krob said Hayes talked with his cell neighbor by placing "empty toilet paper rolls and placing it over the sink drain and talking to each other through that system."

The officer told the court that Hayes had told the other inmate that investigators would find physical evidence of sodomy when they examined his alleged accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky. Komisarjevsky, will face a trial of his own at a later date.

"Hayes did mention that Komisarjevsky had taken cell phone pictures of the youngest Petit girl and was trying to e-mail them to his friends," said Krob.

Hayes and Komisarjevsky allegedly tried to cover up their crime by setting the house on fire after tying the girls to their beds.

"Hayes was concerned about being charged with arson. He believes that he couldn't be charged with arson because he had only poured gasoline down the stairs of the Chesire home, not lit the match," said Krob.

The fire allegedly set by the two ex-cons was so ferocious that there was no chance of rescuing the three victims from the flames, according to other expert testimony today.

Paul Makuc of the state fire marshal's office told the jury who will decide the fate of Hayes that the fire that killed the two Petit girls and burned the body of their mother was set "by human hands."

The "ignitable liquid" used to start the fatal fire contained accelerants, helping the flames to travel that much faster through the home, Makuc told the New Haven courtroom. Hayes and his alleged accomplice are accused of pouring the gasoline like substance on the bodies of the Petit daughters and around their beds.

Makuc's said that there was "no carpet left" in the room where Hawke-Petit's body was found, and that "some parts of her body [were] nearly completely consumed by the fire."