A Quilt, A Puppet Theater
Bring Home The Horror

In photos, a long, black line called a ​“trailer” originates on the first floor and winds its way throughout the Petit family home in Cheshire. The trailer snakes around furniture and doorways, visiting the family room, the kitchen, and the foyer on its way up the stairs. It ends beside and over the beds of Hayley and Michaela Petit.

On July 23, 2007, with the flick of a match, the trailer, created with gasoline, came to life. It licked at the baseboards, the stair treads and the risers, turned the ceiling sheetrock and insulation into ash, and fed its voracious appetite until, as State Fire Marshal Paul Makuc explained, there was ​“no oxygen left for either life or the fire.” 

The last day of testimony in the murder trial of Stephen Hayes Tuesday featured the usual lurid references to unspeakable violence and theatrics (in this case involving another defendant’s attorney).

But the most powerful moments in the Courtroom 6A on New Haven’s Church Street came in the form the pictures of what survived the trailer’s flames: a kids’ puppet theater, a quilt, otherwise prosaic images from the shattered domestic life of the home in Cheshire where Hayes and an accomplice allegedly murdered Jennifer, Hayley, and Michaela Petit and torched their home.

It was the testimony of Fire Marshal Makuc that raised that searing tale from the ashes. Makuc traced the fire and smoke from its ​“area of origin” on the first floor to where it claimed the lives of Hayley and Michaela on the second.

Since the trial began, I have been moved by how much those of us who are strangers to the Petit family have come to learn about their lives and, in the case of Jennifer, Hayley, and Michaela, their deaths. William Petit, the husband and father who survived, has shared with the courtroom his memories of the last day he spent with his family. It is an intimate and humbling experience, necessitated by a horrific crime.

As graphic photos popped up all week on the courtroom’s big screen, depicting burnt debris that was once furniture and charred spaces that were once colorful living areas, it was hard to imagine what the interior of the home was like before the fire.The photos of the rooms that were not completely destroyed offered glimpses of a life that was at once unique and very much the same as many of ours.

I am sure that each one of us sitting there felt a twinge at least once when something struck us about what we were seeing in those photos or hearing in testimony that was too familiar, too close for comfort. 

A basement photo showed a free-standing puppet theater that resembles the one my kids once used but now ignore in their bedroom. Next to it were two wooden child-sized rocking chairs — no doubt one for Hayley and one for Michaela. A telescope begged the question: Who was the amateur astronomist in the family? And where did the cats go who used the two filled kitty litter boxes sitting by a basement wall?

Novelist Francine Prose wrote recently of ​“how eloquently the humblest domestic artifacts communicate the joys and sorrows of family life.” In one basement photo, those joys and sorrows perversely collide in the image of a single decorative quilt made for Hayley as a graduation gift from an elementary school teacher. It was used during the crime to cover Petit while he was tied to a pole and it became stained with his blood.

Hayley and Michaela’s rooms at one time could have looked like any teenaged girls’ rooms. I could make out an assortment of pictures pinned to the walls, fluffy down comforters, and white wicker night stands. What looked like a small replica of the Eiffel Tower sat on a table in Hayley’s room. I wondered if the family traveled to Paris together — or was it a dream destination for the college-bound girl? And the long orange and black stripped stuffed snake draped over an ottoman: Did Michaela win that at a carnival the way my daughter did once? Here too the ordinary is tinged with the sinister; the pictures on the bedroom walls appear curled at the edges from the heat of the fire, the bedding is singed, and there are melted restraints around the bedposts. And leaning against Michaela’s bed, sooty from the smoke, is the Louisville Slugger baseball bat that has figured so prominently over the eight days of trial.

It was a small bit of testimony regarding the Petit’s master bedroom that shook me in particular. After Petit was beaten with that bat, the defendants headed upstairs, according to Hayes’ statement to police. In the master bedroom, they found Jennifer and Michaela sleeping together on the queen bed. We saw a photo of the bedroom. We could imagine a startled mother and daughter waking up on the bed to a real-life nightmare. There are many nights that my 11-year-old falls asleep beside me while I am reading in bed. Sometimes I fall asleep too until my husband comes in and I take her up to her bed. Suddenly, the sense of comfort and protection I felt from certain rhythms and routines of daily life seemed in danger, vulnerable, even penetrable.

Trial testimony has concluded. The lawyers will now prepare for closing arguments on Friday. For eight court days, we followed a trail of fiery destruction through the Petit home with the aid of photos and testimony. Off to the side we discovered a vision of a family’s life before terror descended on it — and it felt familiar and fragile. 

Previous installments of the Petit Trial Court Diary:

• Day One: Deceptive Calm
• Day Two: It Was All About ​“The Girls”
• Day Three: Defense Strategy Emerges: Spread The Blame
• Day Four: Pieces Fall Into Place
• Day Five: Numbers Tell A Story
• Day Six: Suffering Takes Center Stage
• Day Seven: A Gagged Order