IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT -Brian McDonald

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a routine robbery, one that would ultimately prove deadly. One unfolded at three hundred Sorghum Mill Drive was a tragic and horrifying sequence of events that shocked the community and made headlines across the nation. Before the morning was over, missus Hawk Pettit and one of the daughters would be sexually assaulted and the entire house would go up in flames, and only doctor Pettitt, his head bloodied, his legs bound, would manage to escape with his life with the help

of neighbors and local police. The two success two suspects were soon found captured. Now Joshua Commisarjeski and Stephen Hayes away trial for murder. The book this evening that we are featuring is in the Middle of the Night with my host, journalist and author Brian McDonald. Thank you for intervening to this agreeing to this interview, Brian, and welcome to the programme Brian Donald.

crime book called Safe Farber. It was about a woman that was murdered on Nantucket. And so I have a little bit of a track record with Saint Martin's True Crime and my agent and my editor from the first true crime book I did, conspired and called me and asked me if I would be interested in in writing about the Cheshire murders. So I didn't jump into it

right away. It was such a heinous crime. It was, you know, I mean, it involved children's sexual abuse all you know, things that can keep you up at night, you know, And so I but after after reading about it and doing some initial you know, investigating into it, I decided that it was a story and it was a story that resonated so so clearly with in cold blood, you know, the granddaddy of all true crimes. That it was an opportunity that I thought I couldn't I couldn't pass up, So so I did it.

affluence and uh. It's a bedroom community to Hartford, not only Hartford where the insurance companies, uh, you know, the big insurance companies UH have their headquarters, but also to Yale Yale University and a lot of people that work at four the university live in Cheshire. Connecticut. Now. Doctor Pettitt was the endochronologist. His wife was a nurse worked in a local private school, Cheshire Academy, a very well known in the area of private school and she was

the school nurse. Doctor Pettitt had a private practice and also worked out of a hospital up there. He was very well known in the community, very well respected in the community. They had had two daughters, Hayley who was about to enter Dartmouth. She was going to follow her father's footsteps. He had graduated from Dartmouth. She was going to study pre law and michaela who was eleven at the time. And michaela precocious young lady who was a fan of Rachel Ray and wanted to be a foodie,

a chef, celebrity chef and what have you. So they were really the idyllic family. I mean, it was a perfect little block. They lived on. Sorgham Mill Drive is a you know as a block replicated thousands of times throughout North America. It's the kind of block you want to live on, you want to raise a family on. It's something like this happening on a street like that

is so incongruous. It's uh it's it's absolutely shocking. So it was like the perfect setting for a family, for a for the doctor Pettitt's family.

the name, you know, it's Russian. That's that's snow shock. But it's a very famous His grandfather, his adoptive grandfather, Joshua was adopted, was a Russian uh director, a very well known director, Russian director in the in the Bolshoi Theater, the famous Bolshoi Ballet, the Bolshoi Theater, moved to emigrated to the United States, and uh you know, uh, well, I'll tell you a little bit about how how Joshua's family came out. But go ahead, I'm sorry to throw up what was your question?

because he traded He traded up by being adopted. He was adopted the Commissar Jeski's. His parents, his adoptive parents, Ben and Jude Commercer Jessky, were by all indications, a lovely, lovely, lovely couple. There were Christians, they were fervent Christians. Joshua had blown to a series of of I want, I don't want to say fundamentalist churches, but in that vein, you know, very very religious people and and they were also, uh, the surroundings were just amazing. His his grandfather, not the

Russian grandfather, because his grandmother married. It gets a little convoluted here, but his grandmother married the Russian grandfather died as grandmothers married a man by the name of Chamberlain who was a actually a pretty well known writer. He was columnist for several big magazines and also a book reviewer for the New York Times. And he owned a sixty five acre estate in Cheshire, and it was surrounded by horse farms. It was it's beautiful. It's a wooded streams,

babbling brooks, you name it. It was just a beautiful place. And that's where Joshua grew up. His his parents had a small house. They called it the homestead. It makes it sound like it's a bigger place than it actually was, you know. And it was kind of ramshackled when when I went up and start But the I mean, he had he had every every advantage. Now, early on he started to show some he started to show some behavioral problems and and and they had to take him out

of uh public schools, and his mom homeschooled him. But that that didn't inhibit any any education at all. I mean he he his mother was a librarian. His a grandfather who lived on the estate with this, was a writer. His grandmother was a ballet dancer. I mean, they had all of this influence of arts and and and and letters and and uh. His father was Ben Commercer Jeesky. He was a carpenter and an electrician, so we had you know, tutelage in in uh, you know, working with

his hands and everything. I mean, had a wonderfull childhood. It was just it was just great. But around the age of twelve he started to get he had this and you know, I'll tell you a little bit. I actually spoke to him on a number of occasions and had a correspondence with him via letter letters for many months leading up to the trial. But I'll tell you that later. So that's how I have all that This

information comes firsthand. It comes from him. You know, when he was around twelve, he broke into a house he was coming home. He used to he used to leave the house like he'd wait till his parents went to sleep, and about twelve o'clock at night one o'clock in the morning, he'd get out of the house. He'd go out his bedroom window and jump on the garage and then go into the woods, you know, and spend the night in

the woods. And they'd always make it back in time before six o'clock and when his father would wake up, So his father never knew he was out of the house, but he was. He was doing these night night voyages or whatever through the woods by himself, you know. And one day he got he ventured father than he thought, and the son was coming up, and he knew he was going to get caught, so he broke into a house.

He's twelve years old. He broke into a house, stole a set of keys for a car, and took the car out of the driveway and drove it home so he could beat his father getting up so he wouldn't get caught. And that's how his life of crime started. And it was pretty big was for a twelve year old. There was a pretty big entrance to the last year rhyme stealing a car. But something he realized how and this is according to him, and you know how much of it is. You know, Joshua has a tendency to

exaggerate a little bit. I think it doesn't his but his. I mean, the crimes that he would commit over the next fourteen years leading up to the murders in Cheshire were just enormous. I mean, even if only fifty percent of them were true, it was an enormous life of crime, and an amazing life of crime. He he found out, he said to me how easy it was to break into the house. So he started breaking into the houses

when he was twelve. He'd get on his bicycle he'd have he'd go out the window of his bedroom, like like I said, he'd get on get on his bicycle. He had a camouflage outfit that he sent away for you know, like a male mail order camouflage outfit. He had a dark skull cap. Later on he bought night vision goggles, you know, from the back of a magazine something like that. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm laughing, but I'm not. It's not It's not funny at all. I don't I don't mean, I don't mean to diminish

what what would happened. But you can imagine this kid at twelve, thinking that he was, you know, the burglar, you know, par excellence, and and and he was. He started breaking into houses by the dozens when he was twelve. He broke into houses all over this town of Cheshire and middle in central Connecticut. He broke into houses around the Pettit neighborhood where the you know, the murders would happen. Many years later, he by his own account, broke into

at least two hundred houses during his teens. Sometimes he wouldn't take anything. He would sit in the house. He said, he wrote this whole letter of explaining how it was being in a house with the people sleeping upstairs and them not knowing he was there, and the feelings that he had. He'd listened to the sounds of the house, the pipes, the house settling, the wind in the eaves. I mean, it was really really creepy. He had this,

you know, long, long explanation. Sometimes he wouldn't, like I said, he wouldn't take anything. Sometimes he'd just take a picture off the wall, just to like screw with the people's minds a little bit, you know. I mean there was something. I mean, obviously there was a something was something was a miss he or something was wrong with his you know, with his psyche early on, but he didn't get caught.

He wouldn't get caught. He finally, when he was about I want to say, sixteen years old, he started a fire in an abandoned car dealership in Cheshire and he got caught for that. And because he got caught for that, some of the prior crimes came out. Either he gave it up himself or I'm not really sure how it happened, but he faced the first of a series of judges in his late teens that would he had like a he had this he has this way about him now when I interviewed him, I sort a lot. You know.

It's that he comes across so likable, so polite, so soft spoken. So you know that people wanted to believe throughout his life that there was something in there worth saving, you know, there was something He has these uh, a way of looking at you that that that has an innocence about it, you know, and uh and and and he started to get breaks. You know, one judge after or another gave him you know, uh, you know, put

him in like the parents. The first time, the first arrest, the parents talked the judge into letting them put him in a Christian Christian camp, and and he went into a Christian camp and up up in New Hampshire, and he spent some time up there, and then he got caught for something else, and the judge said to him, uh, you know, uh, you need some psychological help. So they put him in this cycle this it wasn't a mental hospital, but it was a hospital for trouble teens, a place

for trouble teens, but it wasn't jail. And then the third judge, he got caught for something. The third judge said to him, you know, either go in the army or now he's nineteen, either go in the army or we'll put you in jail. So he joined the army. He would ultimately go a well from the army Army reserves about a year later, or less than a year later.

But you know, there was so many missed opportunities early on where and in the meantime he amassed this like enormous number of burglaries, and you know, people were looking the other way. People kept thinking that there's something about this guy that's that's not you know, that's you know, he's too nice of a boy to be worried about, you know, But he wasn't, you know, he had already started to formulate a personality that wasn't a nice boy at all. It wasn't a nice boy at all.

and what you're talking about his mother. It wasn't an adopted it was a She brought in two foster children and one of them was Joshua was six or seven at the time, maybe even younger. I don't I can't remember.

Six yeah, six years old at the time. And this there was a boy and a girl of the foster children, and the boy was sixteen and according to Joshua, and it's and it's the court records, because Joshua would would be arrested when he was twenty two and and in those records, in testimony from that from that trial, he uh it came out that he had in fact been uh sexually assaulted by by this this forster Forster boy, you know, And Joshua, you're right, Joshua says, and I

think the quote is merciless rape that he was and that it went on for months. You know, there's no way, I mean, even though it's court records, doesn't it I guess there's no way short of putting his parents on the stand. And I you know, I don't really know whether they were completely because it went on for so long to substantiate it completely. But there's you know, there's I think there's there's also court records from psychiatrist, psychologists

and what have you that interviewed Joshua. So it's pretty there's a there's a pretty good chance that it actually occurred that he was raped when he was five or six by the by the older foster boy. So you're right.

And and like I said, what what would transpire on sorgum Mill Drive would would certainly uh, you know that that is certainly a huge, huge part of his formative uh, his formation as a as a as a as a human being, but also as a as a criminal and as a you know, a criminal that committed one of the most heinous crimes in Connecticut state history. So you're right, yep.

money for drugs and what have you. He was, no doubt, by the time he met Joshua, almost institutionalized because he had spent you know, a large majority of his adult life behind bars, you know, in a dozen or more different prisons in and around the state of Connecticut. So he was, you know, and and during his trial, Hayes has already gone to trial, and his trial, there was a lot came out about his childhood. It wasn't it wasn't to leave it to Beaver. It wasn't you know

the Huxtables by any stretch of the imagination. He had a rough childhood. His father was a uh you know, his father was in the wind early apparently left the family and the mother and uh, you know, they had it was it was a hard, hard, hard, hard, hard luck life, you know that he had. But he did. He also had two brothers who who went on and did just fine, you know, So it wasn't you know, there's no excuse there for the life that he chose. And you know, like I said, it was it's kind

of a boring story. I mean, it's like he'd get out of jail, it'd start to work, it'd start to smoke crack, he'd start to steal to to perpetuate his his habit, and then he'd get arrested and go back to jail. And that's that's the That was the life from Stephen Hayes. He met Joshua in a halfway house. Uh it's called Stillman House, I believe, And it was on one of the many times he was in the parole process being paroled out into the into the world. And I always say this that you know, however you

feel about that. I mean, there were so many there's so many parts about this crime that have like an evil aura aura or an element of of of evil to it. And the date that they met each other was kind of like one of those one of those things. They met on June sixth, two thousand and six, which is six sixty six, and that was you know, it probably means nothing, but it also was gave me a chill when I saw the when I saw the date,

and they they hit it off right away. Hayes was kind of happy, go lucky guy if you can be as a as a lifelong convict, and he he was, uh a where Joshua was kind of a quiet, quiet guy. But somehow they hit it off. They liked each other, and uh, you know when they did end up going out, they uh I mean being let out of the halfway

house into the into the world. They remained friends and and at first they were, you know, they were trying it looked by all appearances like they were trying to do uh, you know, live a straight and narrow you know, was clean and straight, straight and clean life. They uh both will going to uh cocaine anonymous meetings. They were they both became employed right away. They were doing some uh working for contractors. Joshua was putting roofs on on houses. Hayes.

He got Hayes a job with this company. Hayes was also doing other things. And so it looked for a very short time like they were, you know, trying to actually you know, you know, there's a right to you know, live their life in a law abiding manner.

or some burglary. He knew that this guy could break into places. So what was what was your research? What did you find was the at least their initial plan.

he was saving up for a truck. And part of his parole agreement was that he'd have a place to stay, and his mom signed off on that, and lord knows why she did, because he had, you know, so many times before put her in a position where, you know, where he didn't follow through on his promise. You know, he'd get high or something like that. So but this time it looked like he was going to do the

right thing. He had saved a couple of thousand dollars to buy a car or a truck, and he was paying his mom rent, I think, and you know, he was trying to live the right thing. But then and he was going to these meetings he was going to he was staying clean and sober and uh, but then he got high. I mean, it was as simple as that, because all of a sudden that there were the two or three thousand dollars that he had and a bank account was gone, and his mother got wind of that.

His mother found out about that, and she gave him an ultimatum. Han't been through this so many times before with him, that that he had to get out of the house. So now he was going to violate his parole. If his mother throw him out of the house, that meant the violation of his parole. He was going to go back to jail. So that was his impetus to

to pull a crime. Now. Joshua, on the other hand, had, uh, you know, told Hayes about his exploits, you know, about how what kind of a burglar he was, and we haven't talked about that, but he was. He was. He was an incredible burglar.

were in the halfway house. So I think it's so the way, although this hasn't didn't come out in the trial, but it'll probably come out in Joshua's trial. The way I see it, at least is that Hayes approached approached Joshua with the with the idea. Now he said, he said to him, you know, why don't we do why don't we do a job together? Now by this time Joshua, who also had a history of drugs and a pretty

pretty extensive history of drugs. I don't know whether Joshua was using by this time, by the time Hayes approached him with this, with this idea to pull a job together, but he must have been. You know. I know that soon after he was at a party where he was drinking, and that that's an indication that maybe he was not too far if if he wasn't already back on drugs. So Joshua said, yes, you know, he said, all right,

we'll pull a job together. But they you know, they had this idea, Joshua, I guess Hayes put a dollar amount on it. He said he needed a big score. You know, he had to get an apartment. He had to get a car or he was going to be sent back to jail. He was going to have to he was going to violate his parole. So, you know, apparently they were they were going to do something that was out of even Joshua's ordinary, you know, they they

came up with an idea. Whether it was Joshua, and I'd have to believe it was Joshua because he was infinitely smarter than Hayes and what have you. He came up with an idea to take a family hostage. He was going to break into the house and he was going to you know, neutralize whatever had to be neutralized, and he was going to tie whoever was up in the house, and he was gonna, you know, spend that time to ransack the house for money and and what

have you. Now that's how it started. However, Joshua's motive for this crime wasn't just about money. If about money at all, I think that he was more or less given, you know, humoring Hayes about the about the idea to get you know, to make that they would find this kind of money in the house. But I don't I don't think that was Joshua's motive at all, and I'll talk about that if you'd like.

more like a dry run. They were like, Joshua was the burglar, Hayes wasn't he wanted to see how Hayes would react going into the houses and stuff like that. He wanted to put him through his paces a little bit. And that's what they did. They robbed two houses the night before. I'm not saying that it wasn't listen to people that those houses that they burglarized. Believe me, they're breathing a sigh of relief that what happened on siorgam Mill Drive didn't happen to them. I'm not diminishing that

at all. But but but from Joshua's perspective, it was more or less a you know, like a dry run. He wanted to see how Hayes would react under the pressure of robbing a house, et cetera, et cetera. So they robbed two houses and they got nothing that they stole. A couple of credit cards they stole there with some cash laying around, some odds and ends, not a lot of stuff, you know. They did, however, take pictures from the house, you know, family pictures of the house, and

and I believe a knife. They stole a knife out of one house. It was scary stuff, but it wasn't Luckily, it wasn't, you know, even close what would happen the following night. The following night, he Joshua had plans to meet Hayes to go out again looking for a place to rob and that day, either that afternoon or maybe it was the afternoon before, Joshua went to stop and shop or a sporting goods store. He bought a pellet gun that uh, you know, handheld the pistol, pellet pistol.

He bought rope, clothesline rope. He bought uh zip ties. He bought other things to to that that he would use on sorga mill drive. Was there a couple of masks, Well, they made the masks out of ski ski hats, you know nit hats. They put eyes in the you know, the cut eyes in the in the in the holes. So they didn't they didn't actually buy the masks, but they bought, you know, he bought the other stuff, and uh, he was Joshua has five year old daughter, or she

was five back then when the crime happened. So she's older now and he he had just gotten custody of her. Now he was only out of jail, I mean, Hayes was Hayes was out of jail about a month. I think Joshua was out of jail, out of the halfway house even less time. So these guys weren't weren't oh no, no, Actually, Joshua was out a little bit more time. So these these you know, they were they hadn't been out in

the population all that long. But Joshua somehow had gotten custody of his of his five year old daughter from from her mother, who was apparently having drug problems at the time, was in some rehab or something, so he

had custody of his five year old. He was living at his mother's house where he grew up in his mother and father's house, And before he met Hayes the knight of the murders, he gave his daughter a bath, he read her Bible stories, put it, tucked her to bed, tucked her in, tucked her, put her to sleep, made

sure she fell asleep. And all the time Hayes is texting him saying, you know, come on, let's go, you know, I'm ready, and Joshua's texting them back, hold your horses and putting the kid to bed, you know, and you know, considering what would happen several hours later, it's just it's just it's I'm sing, Yeah, it's mind boggling. It really is mind boggling. So finally he puts his daughter. His

daughter goes to sleep. He also had a Joshua had a girlfriend who had just moved to Arkansas and her you know, I partly I think her father moved the family, although I guess it was had to be more than this, but to get away from him. She was sixteen years old. Joshua had a series that the girl that the mother of his daughter was fifteen when he impregnated her. He had a sixteen year old girlfriend when the murders occurred. She had just moved to.

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a dark sweatshirt, hooded sweatshirt. She said, I knew some there was, that there was trouble, that he was headed for trouble, you know. And Joshua left the house, left his daughter sleep asleep. His mother worried and got in the family van and went to meet Hayes. Now I jumped ahead a little bit. That afternoon, before all of this happened, Joshua was in the stopping shop parking lot in Cheshire. It was about six o'clock at night. He said he was waiting to get paid from a contractor

he had done some work for. He was supposed to meet him in the parking lot. While he's waiting there, the Pettit family car, a Chrysler PACIFICA pulls up right next to him. In the car is Missus Pettit, Missus Jennifer Hawk Pettitt, doctor Pettitt's wife, and they were eleven year old daughter Michaela. Now Michaela was tall for her age. She was eleven years old. I mean, there's no getting away from that, but she was. She was taller than most of her peers and what have you, and precocious

and bouncy. And Joshua watched MICHAELA get out of the car and go into stopping shop. She was going to buy some groceries for dinner that night. She was cooking, Like I said, she was a foodie, so she was cooking family dinner. And he waited for them to get out of the do the shopping, get back into the family suv, and Joshua followed them to sorgam Mill Drive.

Now he saw the house, he said to me. When I talked to him, he said, the reason that he followed the Pacifica was that because the car said to him that the family had money. Now that's ludicrous. Cheshire, Connecticut, although it's not it's not the top affluent town. You can imagine it is very affluent, and Chrysler Pacifica is not. Is doesn't say money in Cheshire, Connecticut. I mean, you're talking about a parking lot that's filled with Mercedes and Bmwsuv's.

It's not it doesn't save money at all, So that it shoots big holes in that in that excuse Joshua has. But so he had followed the He had followed the Pacifica to the Petitt home sorgum Mill Drive. He knew the area. He had robbed houses in the area there when he was just twelve years old, twelve fourteen years old. So later on when he picks up Hayes, when he meets Hayes, Hayes asks Joshua, do you have any ideas?

And Joshua says, yeah, I do. So they went out and they went to a bar and they did some drink and they went they looked for houses to rob up by this bar in Bristol, Connecticut, which is about fifteen miles north of Cheshire. And then about three o'clock in the morning, Joshua said, come on, I got Let's go to the place that I wanted to go to. And they drove back to Cheshire, Connecticut, and on it was two thirty three o'clock in the morning onto Sorgam

Mill Drive. And you know Sorgum Mill Drive that time of the night, you can hear a pin drop. I mean, it's the most it's it's you know, the quintessential quiet suburban block. And they rolled up in front of the house or a couple of houses down from it. They put their masks on. They walked along the gravel street. It was paved, but there was loose gravel on it. I was on the street. There was loose gravel on it.

You can imagine their feet crunching on the gravel. And they went up alongside the house, up the driveway, and Joshua noticed a light on in the porch was an enclosed porch, and there was a man sleeping on the couch who was docked the Pettitt. Joshua told Hayes to wait in the in the shadows in the trees. It had started to rain a little bit, and Joshua went around the back of the house. There were bulkhead doors. He opened the bulk had doors and was able to

jimmy the door into the basement open. He uh, he had a small little flash light with him. He swept it, swept the basement with the light and found saw a Louisville Slugger baseball bat at the at the foot of the stairs. He climbed up the stairs. And now this guy, he was as stealth as you could be, you know, I mean, he had nobody was gonna hear him come and come and walking on the on the floor or anything like that. He was able to sneak up to

the couch where doctor Pettitt slept. He he raised the bat and and he and he told me that he swung it as hard as he could. He hit doctor Pettitt in the head as hard as he could. Now he has this man who had played golf that afternoon, had a family dinner, his two daughters, and his wife is sleeping upstairs. I mean, it had to be like this is this is the worst movie that could have ever played it. And it was so unlikely that something

like this could happen to this man. Joshua hit him about Joshua hit him about six times, five or six times as hard as he could. Doctor Pettitt has some kind of a heart disorder, and he was on this stuff komit In, which is a blood thinner. So there was blood everywhere. Joshua told me that the blood was all over the all over the room, and all over him and all over doctor Pettitt. But doctor Pettit didn't die.

He he was able to. Uh. Joshua sat him up on the on the bed and told him exactly what he was going to do, you know, and tied him up, and then he let Hayes into the house. And once that happened, they had control over the house, you know.

older daughter's room. Haley woke her up, you know, with the hand over the mouth so she wouldn't scream, and uh, you know, they had the pistols, so you know, doctor Petitt was tied. Of course, they tied him up, gagged and uh, they had the pistols, so it looked like a real gun, you know, the pelic gun looks like a real gun that somebody that doesn't know. And they were able they were able to tie Haley up with

the to the bed and bind her hands. And then they walked into the master bedroom where Michela had gone to sleep with her mother, and uh, they woke you know, the the mother and Michaela up, and they also tied them. They brought Michaela back to her bedroom and tied her to the bed in her bedroom. And now they had the family held hostage, just like that, you know, just like that, they had dominion over the house.

Pettitt to the bank and withdraw money from it. And you know, to wait till nine o'clock in the morning. So they got in the house. It's at three. You had six hours that they were in this house. Can you imagine the terror of this family? Uh, these these girls you know, went through We're thinking and uh you know, at some point Joshua sent Hayes out for uh for

to Phillip. They found gallon uh win your wipe or fluids containers in the garage and empty the fluid out of the containers, and he sent Hayes to a gas station. So as soon as that, as soon as they made that move, they had decided that nobody was going to live in that house, you know. I mean, there was a whole lot of things said in the trial that, you know, they were going to take the family out of the house and burn the house down for DNA

evidence and stuff like that. But that's all that's all nonsense. As soon as they as soon as Hayes went to the gas station, they had made up their minds that they were going to kill everybody in the house, you know. And when Hayes was at nine o'clock in the morning, things started to really spin, spiral out of control, descent into like a hell. Hayes brought Missus Pettitt to the to the bank at at at nine o'clock in the morning. Now it's raining pretty hard outside. While Hayes is uh

in going to the bank with Missus Pettitt. Joshua was in Michaela's room. He stripped her, He took pictures of her naked with his with his cell phone. He had at least he at least sexually assaulted her, although in the Haz's trial it came out that in fact it wasn't it was much more than just assault. Joshua told me that he masturbated on her, and in Hayes's trial it came out that it was much worse than that, to an eleven year old girl bound and tied on

her bed. Apparently he took pictures of Haley too, the eighteen year old girl. When Missus Pettit came back from the bank, Stephen Hayes raped and strangled her. She was the first her them that morning. Uh uh. And then they took the gasoline and spread it all over the uh the the main floor of the house, all the way up the stairs, around the beds where the girls were. The girls watched them, you know, the girls saw them

pour the gasoline around their beds. This whole time. Doctor Pettitt is still, according to his testament, he was going in and out of consciousness. They had moved him into the cellar and tied him to a post in the cellar. So he wasn't he wasn't He didn't have an eye view first person, you know, a clear view of what was going on. He heard things up in the house, but he he really didn't know. And then either Hayes or driving now in the meantime, Oh, I forgot this.

This is this is the past part. The missus Pettitt, Well, she taking fifteen thousand dollars out of the bank rights on the back of the of the what you oral slipped and my family is being held hostage in my house, and that she's able to tell the teller that they're not going to harm my family if you don't call the police, And of course the bank manager right away

notifies the police. The Cheshia police come, you know, the cavalry comes to the house and they their response was criticized, and I believe rightly so, I mean, they spend so much time trying to get just the right equipment, you know, the swat team you're talking about, I don't know, a twenty man police force in Cheshire, Connecticut, and they put helicopters in the air and everything and securing a perimeter.

In the meantime, the people that they're trying to save are still alive, but wouldn't be for very long, you know. So they had the house surrounded and either Joshua or Hayes lit the match and dropped the match, and both of them ran out of the house. They were caught. They had a the house went up in flames, an inferno, and you know, you can imagine, you know, I mean, it was doused with gasoline. You dropped the match. The house went up like a like a tinder box, and

Hayes and Joshua were caught. There was a roadblock at the end of Sorger Mill Drive. They tried to run right through it. They totaled the card. They were in the Petit Petit suvy trying to make their escape, and and you know they were they were apprehended, you know, one hundred and fifty yards from the house, so there, you know, they didn't get far. But by that time the house was just an inferno. And you know, they

said that they heard the girls screaming. Neighbors heard the girl screaming, and you can't you can only imagine the horror that that would happen. Doctor Pettitt was able to escape. He was able to get out of the house. He crawled through the basement bulkhead doors, hopped to a to the neighbor's house next door. He's actually he testified at the trial. Now Hayes Hayes trial was just culminated, just finished, and Hayes was sentenced to nice. Yeah, yeah, Hayes was

sentenced to death. The first death sentence in you know, probably fifteen years. There was an execution in two thousand and five, but that fellow was that criminal was sentenced ten years before. So it's the first death sentence in a long time. And Joshua's trial occurs in early February or mid February, actually it begins, so and you know, there's probably a very good chance that he's going to be sentenced to death also, so you might have a double execution in Connecticut, first time ever.

to him where people were really critical. It surprised him, but he said he had quite a few people calling him, you know, exploitive. Maybe tell us about your experience. I thought it was interesting the response from doctor Pettitt too as well.

up and and and interview him. And this is months years before his trial, you know, I mean, and that the Department of Corrections didn't ask me what I was doing, who I was, and I put my name on a visitor's list and the next thing you know, I'm interviewing Joshua commercer Jeski and I've and I had three face to face interviews with him in in the maximum security

prison he's being held. So I had all of this information and it was and it caused quite a star in Connecticut because the book came out before the trial, and they thought it was going to uh, it was going to you know, because so much of it was Joshua's story that that it thought that it was like, you know, it was going to help the defense. You know, that he that that it was going to show him in a sympathetic light. And so actually nothing could be father from the truth. I just told it the way

it was. I mean, it wasn't and it I don't I don't believe, but it just tells his life story, you know, and in fact, he had every advantage, you know, like I said before, the way it didn't come from a bad background at all, you know. So so when the book came out, I got it was just a firestorm of reaction, mostly from people and uh, you know, in in in the neighborhood, in the area of Cheshire, Connecticut.

But it was violent, it was vitriolic. I had phone calls and letters and emails and calling me everything under the sun, saying that I was worse than than than the criminals that I deserve worse than what they get. I mean, it was pretty and it was really personal. It was a very personal thing, and you know, they questioned my motives and my you know, uh you know, call me a you know, like you said, an opportunist, and you know, all of this stuff, and none of

that was anything. It was a news story to me. I was I was covering it as a news story, you know. It was it was. It was a horrible crime, and it was a terrible thing that but it's a news story and it deserves to be written about it that deserves to be covered. And just because I got an interview with a guy that wasn't my fault, where

was I going to turn it down? No, I'm not going to interview him, you know, I'm not going to interview the one of the only two people surviving that had a a a first hand view of what happened. I mean, doctor pettit too, but doctor pettib was in the basement. But there's only two people alive that could tell you what happened inside that house, and I talked to one of them, you know, and I'm going to say, I'm not going to use that of course I'm going to use it. So so, I mean, you could go

on Amazon dot com and see the city. There's like, I don't know how many reviews there are, but there's quite a substantial amount of reviews, and like ninety five percent of them are the worst possible review you can really, but percent of them are they didn't read the book. They didn't read the book, and they say it and there in their critique, in their in their review with a book, how dare this person do that? And how

dare him do that? And you know, I mean, you know, you can understand they needed to be mad at at somebody. You know, this was this would rip the hole in this community up there. It was just such a bad, bad crime, you know, and they needed somebody to be mad at. And I came along and I was the target, no doubt about it. And and doctor Pettitt, you know, I have nothing but respect and an enormous amount of empathy for the man. I mean, can you imagine what

what You can't imagine what he went through. And but he was vocal about the book. He made no no secret of.

machinery goes into effect. You know, these books get printed, and you know, it's like it's like once the writer sends it in, it's out of their hands, you know.

you know what I mean. It was front page Hartford Current News for for weeks, you know. So it was big, big stuff in Connecticut, and I knew that was going to get that reaction, but I didn't care. I would have held off on it. I would have said, all right, you know, I'll wait till after the trial. You know, I'll wait after. But my publisher publishers thought differently. They said, no, no way, we're going to capitalize on this. So the

book came out, and you know, it did. It did inhibit It did upset the trial process because they were going to try Joshua commercer Jewski first, and because the book is so laden with information about him, they decided to try Hayes first. So in that sense, it did did cause a problem. But it was also they also said it was going to taint the jury pool. Taint

the jury pool, can you imagine? I mean that the fact of the matter is is that that they insisted that I guess doctor Pettitt, But the prosecutor insisted on going for the death penalty here, so that both Hayes and commercer Jewsky were going to plead guilty to life without parole. They weren't going to contest it. They were going to go to jail for the rest of their lives. But the prosecution said, no, we want these guys we wanted we want to we want them sentenced to death.

So because of that, they have a trial that gets covered coverage worldwide, coverage, absolute worldwide. I mean, doctor Pettt's going to be on Oprah tomorrow afternoon. I mean, the the the uh, the uh, the interest in this, the the coverage of this thing was just insane and and every lurid detail about what happened to the eleven year old michaela, her sister, uh Haley, and Jennifer Hawke Pettitt

was displayed all over the newspapers, all over everywhere. I mean, it was just you couldn't you couldn't, you couldn't look at this, the testimony and evidence that was presented at this trial. And that's because of the decision by the prosecutor. And I would imagine doctor Pettitt to go for the

death penalty. So the fact that no matter that my book was going to taint the cheryl, can you imagine them trying to get a jury for the next trial for Joshua's trial, Now it's going to be I mean, who's not gonna in Connecticut is not going to know about this case and know about all of the you know, so so you know, I guess that was that was doctor Pettitt's thought about it, you know, and you know

him here too. I think he needed somebody to be mad at, you know, And and you know, if that's if that's the way it is, that's fine with me, you know, because you know, I, like I said, I don't you know, I never wanted to hurt this man, and I thought I portrayed his family with dignity and respect in my book. I know I did. I went out of my way to do it. I mean, there was nothing wrong, there was nothing bad there to do it anyhow, but I was not but I did not sensationalize.

And I try to be as uh as as uh you know, to put them in the light that they deserved. And I and I think I did so, you know, but you know, what are you going to do? He's you know. So that's that's how that played out, you know.

any anything of the commission of the crime. But as despite that, even there was other evidence, documentary evidence that was given to me, so I in turn contacted police. Now was any part of the criticism and was there was about that that you potentially could have had some evidence? I mean, you're you're talking about the only living witnesses. So when joshu Wa talks about Hey and Hayes talks about Joshua, was there anything like that? And and did

you have any responsibility to go to authorities? And was there any criticism because you didn't and you acted like a journalist and just held back the information. Tell me if there was anything like that in your.

lot of stuff, but there was. But where my hands were tied was there was a gag order on this on on on everybody involved. So the police couldn't talk to me, The lawyers couldn't talk to me. Hayes didn't wasn't going to talk to me. So there was nobody I could go to to uh corroborate Joshua's story. You know, there was nobody I could go to to say, well, what's what's your side because they couldn't do it. They were they were, they were, they couldn't they couldn't talk

to me. So so but but that said, you know what, the way Joshua's narrative of the crime plays almost to the to the note, the way the prosecution uh uh portrayed the crime. The prosecution's narrative in their in their portrayal of the crime in court was like they were

reading my book. I swear. There was like just there was just like a few points where it varied, you know, but all the things about Joshua hitting doctor Pettitt, about the tying up the girls, about going out for the gasoline, about uh, you know, Joshua's roll in the house, being being the the alpha of this of this duo, all of this stuff that that that I all of the information that I got from Joshua was substantiate, substantiated by the prosecution, you know, so you know he was, he was.

He proved to be a credible, incredible, incredible uh source, He was a credible source. Joshua. Now, uh, he he never copped. He never admitted to killing anybody. He said that he didn't uh, he didn't want anybody to die in the house and stuff like that. And that's where his story starts to lose lose its validity, because there's no doubt that that you know, he was, he was. It was his plan to kill everybody in the house. I have no doubt I have I don't. I don't doubt that for a second.

as as he might have might have been. Because even though he said to me, I don't care, he said, I I know they're going to execute me, and I don't care. I want to die, and Hayes said the same thing. You know, Hayes has said the same thing. But they're both they're both criminals, and they're both liars by by nature, you know. So so you know, I think that he got to the point where it where he could have said, yeah, you're right, I dropped the match and I sort of fire go up around the

girls and I ran out of the house. But he never said he wouldn't say that to me. But it was it was, you know, it was it was. I mean, it's pretty certain that that that happened.

a whole history of it. Seems like he stopped maturing in his excuse me, his sexual appetite when he was sixteen because he had a girlfriend who was sixteen when he was sixteen, and then he's up dating anybody older than sixteen until he was twenty six and arrested the last time.

death or that. During the penalty phase, they used letters that Joshua had written to me because they had copied every Department of Correction copies all the letters, so they

had letters. They introduced that source material into the trial, and they said things at that time that were that put me in a very bad light as a journalists, as a human being, you know, And and in court it came out so and it had nothing to do with Hayes's whether Hayes was should be put to death in that and I'm absolutely certain that it was done to humiliate me because I think that I had put

the Department of Corrections. I mean, they came out looking you know that they let me in there to interview this guy three times. You know that they let all of that, They let me carry on this correspondence with this guy. This is, without a doubt, the highest profile criminal in Connecticut in twenty years. I mean, without it down, nobody's even close second, you know, And they absolutely they it was like I was visiting a relative, you know.

I mean, I had such access to this guy and and and I no doubt ruffled, ruffled those kind of feathers. And I and and that the book came out before the trial. I think because doctor Pettitt was such is such an influential presence up there, and he really really was, you know, adoring the trial and what have you. I think that, you know, I think they went out of their way to to h to embarrass me, you know, and uh and and uh you know, I think that you know, and I probably I'm still there is still

an investigation going on that. Uh it supposedly an open investigation by the Attorney General's office and to me and and how I got into visit uh Joshua, you know, and uh, you know that I misrepresented myself that there was there was other things that that came up that were discussed in trial. Like I said, if you want me to talk about it would be more than willing to. It's going to take a little time to explain it though, And you know, so I don't know what's going to happen.

I might even be subpoena because for because Joshua's trial, because I'm the only journalist to have interviewed him. I mean, I'm probably outside of his lawyer, the only person that has this kind of information that that you know.

that an ongoing thing? And I find it strange that they would let you have this correspondence Meanwhile, they let you in seemingly like they didn't.

copy those letters. So I thought it was interesting that you said that the Department of Corrections would record all those letters or keep copies of those letters. But it seems like just to me that they didn't catch wind to what was going on till you came into the picture and then came forward, and then they said, oh listen, we better go back there. And like some people may read a letter, and some people may really read a letter, if you know, yeah.

trial's not even till next year. You said sometime. And I don't know if I'm a predictor of anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if they call your name up and have you involved even somewhat, because those letters are much better than any confessional ever ever be it's you know, it's much better when the perpetrator said this, and it's written very strong evidence for sure. But anyway, thank you

very much, Brian. I really appreciate it. People who are listening to the program have been listening to Brian McDonald with his book In the Middle of the Night, the shocking true story of a family killed in cold blood in the middle of the night. Thank you very much, Brian McDonald for coming on the program and a great interview. Thank you very much. Thanks Dan, have a good evening,

all right, bye bye bye bye. You've been listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them with your host Dan Sataski. Good evening.