When people read the paper or turn on the news, there is a certain expectation that they will be confronted with crime and the actions of some of the world's worst criminals. Despite the expectation the country was taken by surprise and horror when the July 2007 news broke of the Cheshire Connecticut murders of the Petit family.
At approximately 3 a.m. Josua Komisarjecsky surprised Dr. William Petit, who was sleeping on the porch, by beating him with a baseball bat. After that Komisarjecsky and his accomplice Steven Hays bound William with zip-ties and made him lead them inside the home where his wife, Jennifer and two daughters, 11-year-old Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley were asleep. The girls were tied to their beds and held hostage for over seven hours while the two forced Jennifer to go to the bank early in the morning and withdraw $15,000 while with one of her captors. She was able to alert the tellers to what was going on and police surrounded the house after she got back.
The two men spent their time during the standoff beating William and leaving him for dead in the basement. Jennifer was raped and strangled to death while Michaela was sexuall assaulted. Before the two men left the surviving family members for dead, they doused the house with gasoline and burned it down. Only William was able to escape.
Five years after this horrific incident shocked the town of Cheshire and the rest of the nation, HBO debuted a documentary, which outlined the aftermath of the home-invasion.
Fillmmakes David Heilbroner and Kate Davis spent five years in Cheshire documenting the crims and the effects on the Petit family, the families of the killers and the community. In addition it raises several accusations about the police response during the standoff while the family was tortured and eventually killed.
"That's all Cynthia and her parents, the Reverend Richard Hawke and Marybelle Hawke, that's all they wanted, just, 'Tell us what happened and why, and we can move on with our lives,' and the police literally didn't answer their letters, and have not for five years. They still haven't answered their letters," Helibroner said in an interview with Yahoo TV. "It's going on six years now. They were shocked. These are local Cheshire police, paid for by tax dollars to protect and serve, and when we were making the film, I went to the Chief of Police of Cheshire, and I spent two different meetings with him for an hour, and said, 'This film is going to criticize the police department in all these different ways and we need your point of view. We'd like to have you respond. Why did you not answer? What happened that morning? Just give us your side of the story,' and they refused."
The documentary premiered on HBO "The Cheshire Murders" premiered on HBO earlier this week.
