Recipe
A moving account of the shocking, summer 2007 Connecticut crime that is still making national headlines, Murder in Connecticut examines what happened to Dr. William Petit, his wife Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and their two daughters, Hayley and Michaela, in the early morning hours of July 23, 2007 in the quiet town of Cheshire—and how their community rallied bravely around the sole survivor of this vicious home invasion. Who was the Petit family? How were they marked for murder by their killers, Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes? How could these men have dreamed up such a heinus crime? The murders—with haunting similarities to the case in Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood—had been so horrifying that, for days, they were on the national news just as much as the local news. The sense of home-invasion-related nervousness was unparalleled since the 1969 Manson murders. Gun sales in central Connecticut skyrocketed, as did those of home security systems across New England and beyond. Lawmakers were quick to revisit get-tough-on-crime initiatives—from “three strikes” legislation to tighter parole regulations. But it was the public voice of the sole survivor and his community that was truly inspiring. Instead of retreating into silence, the residents of Cheshire marched forward. Rallying around the heroic words of Dr. Petit, they heard the call to action—and they responded.
