Slay convict seeks retrial
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Lawyers today plan to have a hearing for one of two men convicted in a 2007 home-invasion triple slaying in Connecticut that involved a Butler County native.
Defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky wants a new trial because his lawyers didn’t have access to recordings of police phone calls about the case that were believed to have been destroyed in a lightning strike, according to court records.
A hearing on the request from Komisarjevsky’s lawyers is scheduled for New Haven Superior Court.
Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes are on death row for the killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela.
Hawke-Petit spent her elementary school years in Slippery Rock. Her parents are the Rev. Richard and Marybelle Hawke.
Hawke-Petit’s husband, William Petit, was severely beaten in the attack but survived.
Both defendants were sentenced to death, but that state’s Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for condemned inmates last year.
The recordings were believed to be destroyed in 2010 before Komisarjevsky’s trial, but backups were discovered at Town Hall in 2014.
Komisarjevsky’s appellate lawyers say the recordings would have helped prove a defense theory that the police response to the home invasion was inadequate, giving reason to question the credibility of officers who testified for the prosecution.
Prosecutors say nothing in the recordings warrants a new trial.
From wire and staff reports
