NEW HAVEN, Conn (Reuters) – A judge formally sentenced Joshua Komisarjevsky to death for the murders of a mother and her two daughters during a brutal home invasion in Connecticut, saying he committed a crime of “unimaginable horror.”
Judge Jon Blue on Friday told Komisarjevsky, 31, that he alone was to blame for his new address on death row after the 2007 triple murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters Hayley Petit, 17, and Michaela Petit, 11, and beating of husband and father Dr. William Petit Jr.
“This is a terrible sentence but one you have written for yourself,” Blue told Komisarjevsky in New Haven Superior Court.
“Your crime was one of unimaginable horror and sadness,” the judge said. “Your fate is now in the hands of others. May God have mercy on your soul.”
He set an execution date of July 20, 2012, pending an appeal, which could drag out the matter for years.
Before the judge spoke, Komisarjevsky, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, denied he killed or raped anyone.
But he told the judge, “The clock is now ticking and I owe a debt I cannot repay.”
Komisarjevsky now joins his accomplice, Steven Hayes, 48, who was sentenced to death last year for killings in which Hawke-Petit was strangled and the girls died of smoke inhalation after the home was set afire. Hawke-Petit was raped and Michaela Petit was sexually assaulted.
The killer’s portrayal of innocence was in stark contrast to the “evil” described by the sole survivor of the attack, Dr. Petit, who told the court how Komisarjevsky’s actions had destroyed his family.
“July 23, 2007 was my