William Petit and “the girls.”
Bound at the ankles by hard, plastic “zip ties,” disoriented from a severe head wound, William Petit “rolled” up the driveway of his neighbor, David Simcik. “Dave, Dave, Dave,” he called.
Lying on his side, Petit banged on the garage door. When it opened, his neighbor did not recognize him beneath the blood and swelling.
“Dave, it’s me, Bill. Call 9 – 1‑1.”
A plainclothes policeman appeared seemingly within seconds. Gun drawn he asked Petit, “Who’s in the house?”
“The girls,” Petit cried.
The policeman, dressed in a heavy, black SWAT uniform, yelled two more times, “Who’s in the house?”
Twice more Petit cried, “The girls are in the house.” Finally, the policeman told Petit to “stay down, you’re a witness” — to which, Dr. Petit beseeched “the girls are in the house.”
Three years after two men brutally killed his wife and two daughters and nearly killed him, William Petit told that story Tuesday to Room 6A of Superior Court on Church Street in downtown New Haven. He was indeed a witness.
He told that story, and many others, about the day of the triple murder and the family it abruptly destroyed.
Amid all the matter-of-fact recitation of bloody, unimaginable acts, it again kept coming down to “the girls,” Petit’s wife Jennifer and his daughters, Hayley and Michaela. It came back to memories and anecdotes that belong in scrapbooks and family-table stories, and they proved as powerful Tueday as the bloody facts of the triple’s murder’s commission.
Petit testified in the second day of the the Cheshire home invasion and triple murder trial of accused co-murderer Steven Hayes.
Prosecutor Michael Dearington first guided Petit through a series of questions regarding how long he lived at 300 Sorghum Mill Drive in Cheshire and the nature of his medical practice. Then he turned the questioning to the events of July 23, 2007. Petit took a deep breath.
Petit and his wife had been married 22 years in 2007. The jury heard Petit describe Jennifer’s training and career as a registered nurse, specializing in pediatrics, and her diagnosis in 1998 of multiple sclerosis. He recounted Michaela’s fiftth-grade year at St. Margaret’s‑McTernan School in Waterbury, where she progressed from Brownies to Girl Scouts, participated in school sports, and played two instruments.
The jury heard most of all about Hayley, who had just graduated from Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, where she played three sports, co-captained the basketball and crew teams, was nominated student leader of sports, and excelled in French, English, and Biology. He recalled how 9‑year-old Hayley, learning of her mom’s illness, started a group called “Hayley’s Hope” in order to raise enough money to cure her mother and help others with MS. This memory, coupled with her early-decision acceptance to his alma mater, Dartmouth, appeared to forge a special connection between father and daughter.
Next Dearington led Petit through the last day he spent with his wife and daughters: He had “asked the girls” if it was OK to play golf with his father in Farmington that afternoon whlie they went to the beach. He called them to check on dinner plans and was instructed to look for corn or vegetables at a farm stand.
The girls, for their part, would pick up ingredients at the local Stop-n-Shop. That visit that would turn out to have tragic consequences.
Michaela, who loved cooking, helped prepare the meal. While “the girls were chatting at the table,” Petit shifted to “what Jen called the Florida room,” which is where he would later be beaten awake by strangers around 3 a.m.
Petit remembered alerting the girls to the start of one of their favorite programs, “Army Wives,” at 10 p.m. Like any other indulgent dad, he relinquished the room and fell asleep in the room next door.
Jennifer, Hayley, and Michaela were savagely assaulted and murdered the day after they went to the beach and made dinner for dad. But the jury, and others present in the courtroom, also caught a poignant glimpse of this family’s everyday life in all its warmth and familiarity. There were photos of Hayley’s worn sneakers, Jennifer’s pocketbook, souvenir glasses that held spare change, the strand of pearls he bought that “must be Michaela’s because hers were not finished,” whereas Hayley’s complete strand was safely draped over a small statue on his bureau so “then we would know where it was.”
A picture of an IPOD station that he bought “for the girls for Christmas” was in the SUV in which the defendant attempted to flee the burning Petit home on July 23.
Perhaps convenience and routine prompted the shorthand, “the girls,” that Petit used often when speaking of Jennifer, Hayley, and Michaela. But as he described himself as ” the guy around the house surrounded by women,” it was clear that this was the identity that gave Petit his greatest comfort and pride, and offered some of the most searing testimony heard in Courtroom 6A.
Previous installment of the Petit Trial Court Diary: