State Judicial Branch
Police making an arrest at the scene.
A bank manager called 911 at 9:21 a.m. on July 23, 2007 to report that Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her family may be hostages at their home. The distance from Cheshire police headquarters to the Petit home is only 3.1 miles; Mapquest indicates it takes only 8 minutes to get there.
Why did it take over 30 minutes for police to make any form of contact with anyone in or near the house?
Steven Hayes’s attorney popped that question in Superior Court on Church Street Tuesday — and revealed one way he’ll try to rescue Hayes from the death penalty.
The lawyer, public defender Thomas Ullmann, was grilling Cheshire police Captain Robert Vignola in Room 6A of the Church Street courthouse. Ullmann’s client, Hayes, is the first of two men accused of a murder the brutality of which startled the nation, the July 2007 murder of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters in Cheshire. Hayes stands accused of 17 crimes including capital felony murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, arson, burglary, and assault.
In the first days of the trial, Ullmann made no attempt to convince the juror that Hayes did not participate in the horrific killings.
On Wednesday his strategy became clear: he’ll seek to spread the blame for the deaths, not just to Hayes’ co-defendant, but to the Cheshire PD.
For the first time since the trial commenced, a buzz filled the courtroom after Ullmann’s biting cross-examination of Capt. Vignola. It felt as though the Cheshire police department and its protocol were on trial as well.
I have heard people question why it took so long for the police to act, whether sneaking up to or storming the home would have worked, or why Jennifer Petit wasn’t intercepted at the bank before she left. No one doubts the commitment or care that the police officers took that day to try to help the Petit family or the anguish they feel over the outcome. But many have wondered why there seemed to be so little real engagement in the police response to the scene.
In this same vein, Ullmann questioned Vignola extensively Wednesday about entries in a police log that indicate much preparation but little action in a dire situation.
Testimony and a police log seem to suggest that during the time officers spent setting up roadblocks and trying to determine whether to make phone contact with anyone in the Petit home, Jennifer was strangled and the house was set afire.
“All this setting up,” Ullmann said, “not excusing what happened, the fact is you were too late.”
“No attempt to approach the door?”
“No.”
“You advised them to stand by until a better perimeter was set up?”
“Yes.”
“The bank manager said Jennifer was petrified, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Isn’t the worst time in a hostage situation is after they have the money?”
“I don’t have that information.”
The question left hanging in the air was whether quicker, more decisive action by police officers could have saved Jennifer, Hayley, and Michaela Petit.
But another lingering question was how Ullmann’s short battle waged on the Cheshire police Wednesday would help his client’s case. Was this questioning meant to imply that if police had acted faster, things would not have “got out of control,” as Hayes stated repeatedly to the arresting officer? Or does perceived hesitation of police officers to treat this as an imminently deadly situation somehow bolster Hayes’ claim that no one was supposed to get hurt and help mitigate his culpability in a capital case?
Ullmann conceded in his opening statement that Hayes sexually assaulted and strangled Jennifer Petit. That fact could well overpower any criticism of the Cheshire police in the jury’s eyes. Following Vignola’s testimony Wednesday, jurors reviewed the most brutal of evidence in the case — graphic photos of the bodies of Jennifer, Hayley, and Michaela. They were “broke down” at the site of the “charred bodies,” as a front-page Register headline put it.
Meanwhile, Ullmann elicited information during cross-examination that hints at a strategy portraying Hayes’ co-defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky, as the juvenile delinquent turned adult architect of violence.
Who escalated the violence or could have predicted its eruption in those final minutes of life in the Petit home may be addressed more in the disposition phase of this case — where the real battle will take place. Wednesday the courtroom was left with the sincere and sad assertion of Capt. Vignola that had there been any indication of violence, “I would have been the first one through the door.”
Previous installment of the Petit Trial Court Diary:
• Day One: Deceptive Calm
• Day Two: It Was All About “The Girls”