(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN
A death sentence for a crime its lone surviving victim calls his “personal Holocaust.”
Fox News has details.
“Joshua Komisarjevsky, the now-convicted killer of that home invasion in Connecticut. He was just officially sentenced to death in superior court. The Connecticut man slapped with six counts of death plus 150 years in prison.”
By all accounts -- the crime -- horrific. In 2007 -- Komisarjevsky and accomplice Steven Hayes tortured a family of four. Dr. William Petit was beaten with a baseball bat and tied up. He’s the only surviving victim of the ordeal.
His wife and two daughters -- 17 and 11 years old at the time -- were sexually assaulted before being tied to their beds, doused is gasoline and set on fire.
Steven Hayes was convicted in 2010 of killing the daughters -- but Komisarjevsky maintains despite his conviction he didn’t kill anyone or rape 11-year-old Michaela. The Associated Press reports, when he learned he’d be executed -- Komisarjevsky said quote “I wonder when the killing will end.”
But Dr. Petit says the sentencing fits the crime. WTNH was there for his press conference.
PETIT: “We certainly have been criticized over the years that this is vengeance and blood lust. But this is really about justice.”
CNN’s Brian Vitagliana was in the courtroom when the judge handed down Komisarjevsky’s sentence. He says, Komisarjevsky told the court he would never find peace again. But the judge told him...
“...this is a terrible sentence but one you wrote for yourself. He said, your fate is now in the hands of other. May God have mercy on your soul. And when you're listening to those words, it's extremely powerful.”
According to the Associated Press, Komisarjevsky’s lawyers argued their client was sexually assault as a child -- and that Komisarjevsky suffered from a mood disorder and depression. He called his death sentence a quote “surreal experience.”
