Petit Murder Trial: Coroner Describes Teen Girl's Death in Fire

Petit Trial Testimony Overwhelms Father

However, in earlier testimony it was determined that it was Komisarjevsky who had beaten Dr. Petit into silence with the baseball bat found in the Petit family home at the beginning of the home invasion.

Throughout this morning's testimony Komisarjevsky listened intently, but sat almost casually in his chair, leaning and rocking back in his chair. His father sat in the second row.

The brutal testimony today is all the more poignant for the Petit family as today would have been Hawke-Petit's 53rd birthday. Family members were late to court today as they held a special mass in her honor this morning at a Catholic church.

By 10 a.m. Petit family members filled the right-hand side of the courtroom as they have every day for this trial. They wear small pins showing the name of the Petit Family Foundation despite objections by defense counsel.

At the beginning of today's session, jurors were admonished by Judge Jon C. Blue because several of them had been chronically late.