Rotten Mango - #66: Burned Alive - 7 Hours of Torture (Cheshire Home Invasion Murders)

Episode Date: May 23, 2021

A family of 4 is startled awake by two masked men - they tell them that everything is going to be okay. We just want money - that’s all.  Slowly for the next 7 hours - it becomes clear that’s not all they want. The 11yr old daughter was assaulted. The mother was assaulted and strangled. The house engulfed in flames - all while the police were standing outside.  “A thief in the night. I’ve come to steal NOT your jewels and money. But your personal safety, privacy, and security. I violate your inner asylum of intimacy.” - Cheshire Home Invader / Killer. Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Butter being butterboom. Welcome to this week's mini-sode. This week's mini-sode, it's about a case that I just cannot get out of my brain. I don't know what to tell you. I feel like every couple of months, I will come back to this case, do some more reading on it, and still have no decisive answer on how I feel about it. I mean, what's going on? Are these psychopathic animals that are involved? Why did this happen?

How did this happen? How is it possible that police officers sat outside a house and watched people get murdered inside of it? Like, none of this makes sense to me. I mean, it's going to blow your mind. So I'm just going to murdered inside of it. Like none of this makes sense to me. I mean, it's gonna blow your mind. So I'm just gonna jump right into it. The day is July 23rd, 2007 in Connecticut. At 9.21 in the morning, there's a 911 call placed.

Now, this 911 call is very interesting because it's not placed by a regular civilian. It's a 911 call coming in from the Bank of America, and they say, hey, my name is Mary Lions. I'm the banking center manager, and we have a lady that's in our bank right now who says that our husband and her children are being held hostage at her house. The people that are holding them hostage are inside of the car right now, and she's forced to get $15,000 to bring it out to them. But she told me that if I tell the police or the police find out about this

They will kill the children and the husband So 911 is like what the fork and you have to remember this is taking place in Cheshire, Connecticut, which is like a really suburban place like there's really no crime that happens here It's not like it's LA or New York City. What are you talking about? Let alone a burglary of $15,000. Let alone a hostage situation. What is happening? So she says, okay, well, her name is Jennifer Pettit. She's still in the bank, but her family is tied up at home.

They drove her here. You need to get to their house ASIP, right? So she's like, okay, I'm trying to look at Jennifer. Oh, she's leaving the bank right now. She's leaving the bank. So on this 911 phone call, we actually hear that Jennifer is leaving the bank with the money going back into her hostage crisis.

Less than an hour later, the entire petat household is burned to the ground. Three people died inside. Two of them are children who burned alive. Who were engulfed in flames while they were alive and conscious. And then we have one male survivor. Now when the police get to the house, Who were engulfed in flames while they were alive and conscious? And then we have one male survivor.

Now when the police get to the house, they said that they noticed two things, right? First, that there were two men fleeing from, you know, a car that's coming out of the driveway of the house. And secondly, that the entire house was engulfed in flames. Wait, an hour the cop didn't get to the house? Well, that's the thing. That's what they said once they get to the house, they notice, oh, the house is on fire. Oh, there's two people in the car leaving. But the reality is that people, police officers actually manage to get to the house within minutes of that phone conversation,

of that 911 call. And then they spent the next 30 minutes just sitting outside, scoping out the area. Like, you had multiple police officers there, just scoping it out. Some of them were like watching from the woods behind the house They're just for 30 minutes and it's crazy because so much violence escalates within that 30 minutes I mean it's insane so we're actually gonna be starting with the criminals Which I don't like to do in situations like this But it kind of reminds me of a zero killer case the first person in question is a man by the name of Joshua Commissar Jevsky.

He was 26 years old when this took place. Sui's young. And he actually came from a really, really good family. His adopted family, one of his great aunts, was like the foremost actress on the Russian stage. They had a theater in St. Petersburg named after this woman. She was that talented. Another family member was a Russian theater director and architect, a costume designer.

I mean, they had a strong name in Russia. Now, Joshua's parents, they lived in Cheshire, Connecticut, and they decided, you know what? Let's just adopt some kids. Let's have this beautiful life and have some kids to like spend it with. And Joshua had been born to a 16-year-old who was in a really, really bad relationship, so they thought, oh, well, this is a baby. Let's adopt this baby. And initially, it was really tough, because Joshua, even though he's an infant, he had a long

history of mental problems. So when he's adopted by his adopted parents, I mean, they couldn't. They weren't ready. They didn't know how to handle it. They didn't know that infants had mental problems. They also were very, very religious. Later on in life Joshua is actually kind of recommended therapy. People are like, oh, well you should get some therapy and the parents are like nonsense. We'll just take him to church. We'll pray it out of him. So he starts kind of acting out. Schooling is really tough. He

went from being in regular classes and then later the school is like, okay, well maybe he's not really developing well. He's not doing this correctly. Why don't we place him in special education? So then he moves to those classes and then eventually he becomes home-schooled So he's at home all the freaking time now when Josh is four years old the whole family They decide you know what we're gonna bring in some foster children and they're gonna be a little bit older And we're just gonna keep them on our house and it's gonna be like this big beautiful family. One of those foster kids and older boy decided to sexually assault four-year-old Josh. I mean, I'm talking it started with nude photographs, so he would force Josh to pose for these photographs and then it later escalated to full on

Sodomizing Josh and raping Josh and then later it caught really sadistic like he would burn cigarettes into Josh's skin Now Josh, I mean like I said he already had all of these issues that he's dealing with so he didn't really tell anyone I mean he didn't know how to tell anyone and then on the flip side They're super religious like I said so every single Sunday they would go to church and this specific church was all about sin and evil They were like, you know what, sinful? You know what's evil out in the world? The most sinful thing you can do is be gay. Not be a murder or like a rapist, you know, but it's like be gay.

So he's like, oh my God, I'm evil. Like he's four. He's being sexually abused. And he's like, I'm evil. This church is telling me I'm like the most evil person that walked this planet. What am I doing? What am I doing with my life? So he started having these really, really dark thoughts starting at like four, four years old. So all his abuse was coming from this other boy. Yeah. So the parents were okay. Yeah, the parents were okay, but it seems like they were, like I said, just really religious, not open to having these conversations.

Definitely not approachable, I don't think. I don't think Josh felt comfortable enough to say, hey, mom and dad, this is what's happening right now. So later, there's even allegations that Josh himself would sexually assault his younger sister. The family believed that this was probably true, so we have a situation of the abused becoming the abuser. and according to a lot of people that knew Josh he had an intense attention to detail like this would show up in his drawings he had

almost a photographic memory that's what people said I don't know if this can be proven but that's just what they said about him now he at 14 years old he starts committing burglaries and they're not your regular shmackular burglaries they're not not, oh, well, this is a vacation house. I'm gonna sneak in there and steal some stuff because my parents don't wanna give me money. Or I have a drug addiction. He would sneak into people's houses

in the middle of the night while everyone was asleep while people were home. And he would slowly go about the place gathering all of their valuables. And he used super high tech gear. He had night vision goggles, latex gloves, and then after he got all the valuables together, he would just stay there.

And he would go room to room listening to the people breathe while they're sleeping. He would just listen to that. And when people asked why, he said, I loved the feeling of violating their privacy. Oh my god, that's such typical serial killer. Yeah, that's so creepy. Energy, that's so. Like most burglars, okay, they don't want you to be home. They don't want you to have dogs. They just want an easy in and out here, some cash, right? But he wanted to listen to people sleeping. And the creepy thing is that he remembered every single item that he ever took and where he dumped them even years later. Now that's gonna be really, really intense because his entire rap sheet was filled with burglars. I'm talking 18 different separate burglary arrests. Probably more that he wasn't arrested for.

He got arrested 18 times? Yeah. Oh yeah, thank you for sure. He's gone away way more. And he started getting balls here. He started robbing state troopers houses. So he's like, oh, you're a cop. Let me rob your house in the middle of the night while you're sleeping with probably a

shit ton of guns in your house. That takes a lot of guts. Something is clearly wrong with him. Someone needs to keep an eye out for him because a regular burglar doesn't do this. There is indication that something is wrong with him and something really bad is going to happen. So finally in 2002 all of this starts catching up with him and he is sentenced to nine years in prison. Also in 2002 his girlfriend actually gave birth and somehow he got full custody of that baby while he's in prison and sent that daughter

to live with his parents. So he has a... That's so weird. Yeah, so he has like a full-on kid, but he gets paroled in April of 2007 after just five years of serving his sentence. And people think that this is really strange because even if you go through his court files, the judge said this and I quote, so I don't see somebody that as the state indicated, you don't seem to be somebody that's in terms of committing

burglaries and addict that's just trying to get money for a quick fix. What you do seem like is somebody who is a predator, a calculated, cold, blooded predator that decided the nighttime residential burglaries are just your way to make money. Yeah, exactly. This is what the judge said about this case,

and they still let him go early for good behavior, I don't understand. So they ordered him to undergo substance abuse, mental health evaluations while he's in prison. Now once he gets to prison, none of this information is passed on to anybody. Not the prison staff, not the Department of Corrections. So after five years, they considered him a model perolle. They were like, wow, he's so smart. He's got like a photographic memory He's so polite in prison. He played by all the rules. This is his first time in jail He's young. He's white and he's very bright and he was homeschooled

So they're like, oh, well, maybe that's where all of his quirks come from. You know 18 burglaries That's a quirky thing to do. So they just let him go after five years. I mean, this is insane They never even identified him as someone with mental issues that needed to be evaluated and or treated. They were just like, you're not getting any of that. Go have some fun. So he gets out of prison and he starts these romantic relationships with two sisters at separate times. So Clarice and Caroline, they both had a relationship with Joshua at one point and they both looked super young for their age. So Caroline, she was just 18 when she starts dating Josh, but she looked really young. Like she could pass for like 14. And that is why her dad had a lot

of problems with this relationship because first of all the dads like, wait a minute, isn't this guy like a career criminal? Like he's been in what? He's in jail for 18 burglaries? That sounds like that's his job. Like you don't have time for a nine of five if you're committing 18 burglaries. And on top of that, I think he likes you because he's a peto. I think he's into young looking girls. Something about him rubs me the wrong way.

Wait, so at this point, how old is he? He's like 26. Like in his 20s, she's 18. Wait, 26, did he go to jail at 26? Or he got out of jail? He got a jail he got out of jail at 26 Yeah, yeah, yeah, but she looks incredibly young now the girls I mean they really fell for it care lines that that he was like a hopeless romantic and not a lot of guys out there are Super romantic he would drive Caroline through these rich neighborhoods and he would point at all the house and then say I want a family one day

I want to live in something that gorgeous one day. I don't want something that's broken. I want a close knit family. And she was just kind of wooed by this because you know, guys are age, they're like, I don't want a family. I want to shock on this beer. You know, I don't know.

What do 18-year-olds didn't point to you? I don't really know. Okay, so that's what's going on with Joshua. On the other hand, you have a man by the name of Stephen Hayes. He is 44 years old. So quite a bit of an age gap and it's very interesting how they meet. He allegedly was sexually abused as a child and he claims that he just was betrayed by everybody in his life.

Now he also has a lengthy criminal record. Mainly he loves to break into cars in broad daylight. So this is what he would do. He would drive to the local park that would have this little hiking trail and he would sit there and watch people get out of their cars, grab their little water bottles, and now they go hiking. And he's thinking to himself,

well, no one takes their laptop to go hiking. No one takes our phone to go hiking, so he would just kind of sneak through these little windows and once he sees something, he would break into their car while they're just innocently hiking and steal all of their valuables. And he got arrested multiple times for this. So he too has a daughter that he was kind of on and off in contact with probably because all the trouble that he was getting into and his daughter was actually in the police academy, which is very interesting. Now, his brothers, his own two youngest brothers,

call him manipulative, deceptive, and they just absolutely hated him. When they were young, they said that Stephen would do these things where he would put a revolver to one of their heads and just taunt them, just kind of giggle at them, laugh at them. If anything went wrong in the house, it was never Stephen's fault.

He would lie and manipulate and twist things and tell his mom that it was another younger brother that did it. It's all his fault. And the mom believed him. I mean, he was that good. When he got caught with lying, he would always say, well, mom, you know that I have these psychological problems,

but his brothers are convinced that he is not sick. He is cunning and calculating. There was this one day where he told his little brother, hey, touch the stove, it's so cold. It's like especially cold today, it's like freezing. And the little brother is like, why would this stove be cold? No, just touch it, just put your hand over it

and you'll feel how cold it is. So the little brother being like, you know, I'm a little sister, I get it, I would walk over there and be like, you know what's that? And I would put my hand over it and he does it. And Stephen grabs his hand, slams it down onto the hot stove and held it there.

He had burn marks all over his hands for months, for months after this. So you're talking about very, very dangerous people, two very dangerous people on their own committing crimes, just constantly getting arrested, and then they meet at a halfway house. So after jail, they're placed into a house that's like, oh, well, you have to check in with us every single night,

but during the day, you can try to go live a regular societal life, but during the night, you're checking with us, and they shared the same room. Joshua and Stephen were in the same room together, and they would talk every single day. So they bonded over the fact that they were both trying to stay clean, trying to stay off of drugs. And the crazy thing is they were released out of this halfway house just two months before this horrific crime. Just two

months. Now Stephen didn't really like being out of this halfway house. You would think that that's like the best thing that could ever happen, but he hated it. He moved into his one bedroom apartment with his mom and his younger brother. So Steve is sleeping on the couch in the living room. His younger brother is sleeping on the floor in the living room and his mom is in the room. And the younger brother hated Steve it. Hate it.

He couldn't even stand to be in the same room as Steve it, especially because Steve it would not stop. Just go on and on about how he's gonna change his mom's life. He's like mom, I'm doing this new business venture and I'm taking your car today and I'm just gonna make so much money, don't worry mom, I got you, I'm gonna take care of you, I'm gonna set you up for life, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you in a bigger place, I'll take care of you mom, now nobody believed this, nobody believed that Stephen had any business venture going on

He's just trying to sweet talk his mom so that his mom would let him do these things like take her car Like just free load not do anything with his life and one day his brother confronted him and was like I don't know what you're doing a mom I don't know what you're saying but you need to stop because you're getting are excited and like for what and so Stephen Got into an altercation, broke three of his brother's ribs and gave him a black guy. So he probably should have been arrested for that, but he wasn't and it just seemed like everything was falling apart. So two months after his release from the halfway house, he's been living with his mom and his mom

stringing to catch on. Like this isn't nothing you're saying is happening. You know, none of this is making sense. And I'm getting frustrated. You keep fighting my other sons. I'm gonna kick you out. You're not gonna be able to use my car. And I'm gonna kick you out. I'm fed up. I don't care what you need to do, Stephen,

but you're outta here. So once again, it just seems like his life is going downhill again. And that's when he starts talking to Joshua about, hey, maybe we should start a business. So then you think, what about a contractor business? We both have some work and construction. We've done that before. We could call it JNS repairs.

JNS contractors. What do you think about that? And Josh was like, well, there's a different place. There's a different huge opportunity for us to make some money. And it's not construction. What are you talking about? We just break into people's houses, Steve. Have you ever done that?

We break into people's houses at night, we steal some things, and then we flip it, we sell it. Are you kidding? That's so much better than a contractor business. So Steve is like, oh, well, I've only broken into cards. I don't know how to do that. So they actually do a couple trial runs. They slip into two different houses, but they don't even take much from these houses.

It was just to show him, hey, this is how you do it. This is what we're gonna be doing. This is how I get through the house. Everyone was still home. Now one of these instances is really creepy because Joshua actually came out of this house with a family photo. Which is not valuable. I mean, this is just a regular family photo and he kept telling Steve, look, look at this picture. Look at how many adults were probably upstairs.

This is exactly the question you asked. Yeah. What if someone you just come home and one thing is missing, just something is going to be. Yeah. So the question is, if you were a robber and your whole thing was to drive someone insane, you go into their house, right, in the middle of the night, you steal one thing that drives them insane. What would it be? Because obviously, if you take a valuable, if you take cash or a

watch or jewelry, they're like, okay, we got robbed. But it has to be something so strange, you're like, why would they want that? And it just drives that person crazy. Yeah, a family photo. So he would straight up show Steve like guess how many people were probably sleeping upstairs while we were robbing this house. Isn't that crazy? So this is what they're doing now on the other side of town in Cheshire, Connecticut. We have the Pettit family now the Pettit family is One of those families where I could not find one source and I know it's hard after things like this happen but I couldn't find even one source that had anything remotely neutral or negative to say. They were so well loved in their community. So it all starts with the dad William Bill Pettid. They call him Bill and he was a doctor super dedicated. He would get up at 7 a.m. would come home at 9 p.m. just loved his work. And he was so smart.

He actually turned down Yale to go to Dartmouth. So you're talking about a super smart educated guy. And not only that, he was a hard worker. He worked at the cafeteria at Dartmouth, only had a partial scholarship. So he worked, studied, did all of that. Now we have the mom, Jennifer Pettit. She was a nurse at the Children's Hospital. And that's kind of how the couple met.

So she was this new nurse and she had this beautiful blonde hair and these big, big eyes and Bill, he was a third year med student. So he's like, are you kidding me? I'm a med student. So he walks into the room of a patient and of course, Jennifer, the nurse is standing there and she's beautiful. So he starts trying to impress her. He's like, oh, well, let me show you how to correctly

check for blood pressure. I know. Yeah, I'm a third year med student. I graduated from Dartmouth. Okay, I know how to do this. You probably been doing it like this way, but this is how you're supposed to do it. So Jennifer, the whole time she's patiently learning. She's watching carefully smiling. And then she looks at him and then proceeds to do it a different way that was actually the correct way. So he obviously had no idea what he was doing. She knew so much more about taking care of children than he did. Okay, she was a much better nurse than he was a med student at that time and he fell in love. He was like, okay, I have to date this person. So their first date, he takes her

to a restaurant called Tramps. Secondly his parents came his parents came on their first date he just I guess I don't know maybe he wasn't thinking straight he was like I don't think that why wouldn't she want to meet my parents so their very first date was with Bill and his parents out of a strong called trups. And they just fell in love. So they followed Bob, they get married, and Jennifer was the opposite of a doctor's wife in Connecticut. So she becomes a stay-at-home mom, but she was super frugal.

She didn't really like to splurge much. Most of her clothes were from marshals. They didn't care for curtains in the house, which is important. So all the downstairs levels did not have curtains inside the house. Now, they lived in this same house for the past 18 years. Any money that Bill made, which he did a lot, he would give all these lectures on endocrinology

which is his specialty and diabetes with his specialty, right? And he would be eating McDonald's the whole time as this praised doctor because all of the money, every single penny, they wanted to put it straight towards their two daughter's college funds. Because their two daughters were going to be very, very special. So at this point, Jennifer, she gets diagnosed with MS when their first daughter is only nine years old.

And at first, she tries to hide it from her kids. So we have the first daughter, Haley. She is 17 years old in 2007 when all of this takes place and when her mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she was devastated. This 17 year old girl was so devastated that she decided I have to write a handwritten letter to all of my friends because I need to raise money so that my mom can get treatment. She called it Haley's Hope, and she hand wrote letters to everyone in the community, all of her family, all of her family friends, and they raised over $50,000

to help her mom. And so she's like, wait a minute, I'm doing well for my mom, I can help more people. So she actually became almost like a spokesperson for the MS Society, the MS community, in Cheshire, Connecticut. I mean, she won awards for this, but she never bragged about it. Is that not crazy? Like, most of the kids at school, they're like,

go and appointees, they had no idea that she was doing all of this extra work. She never talked about it at school. Didn't want to get praised for it. She was a straight-A student. She was an athlete. She was an advocate, never bragged about it, got early acceptance into Dartmouth, just like her dad. So she would stay up until acceptance into Dartmouth, just like her dad. So she would stay up until the middle of the night in her dad's office, just working, writing these essays with her dad. Like, that was the type of daughter she is.

And then we have Michaela, who was 11 years old at the time that all of this took place. And she was a little bit shy. That's what everyone says. She liked to walk while looking at the ground because she was that shy. But if she ever saw anyone alone, she would be like the first one to go and talk to them, because she just didn't want people to be alone.

And the entire family, I mean, their lives surrounded around community and love. That's about it. Michaela's favorite quote was, you must be the change you wish to see in the world. And she was so excited because once her sister went to college, she wanted to help the MS community and she would call her team, Michaela's Miracle. So July 22nd Sunday rolls around and it was just a regular Schmeggler Sunday. Hayley was at a friend's house, she was on her way back and the other three family members they had gone to church. So by the time that Sunday night dinner rolls around, they're like, well, what should we eat for dinner? Now here's what's interesting. Michaela has been an avid watcher

of food network. And this 11 year old girl, she can really cook. So she was like, you know what, mom, I'm going to make the whole family pasta. You can take a rest lady. Okay, I am going to make the whole family a tomato sauce pasta with fresh local tomatoes. That's what I'm going to do. But I need you to drive me to the market because I'm 11 years old. So Jennifer takes Michaela to the local stop and shop, which is like a grocery store, right? And there happened to be a guy there shopping. And it was Joshua. Joshua saw them walk out of their car, which was a nice Mercedes, and

he seemed to immediately take an interest in this 11-year-old girl. Just immediately. There was something that was like, oh, this 11-year-old girl, I should follow her around the store. So he starts following them around the store and he watches them load up their groceries, get back into their Mercedes, and he thinks, well, a Mercedes is a nice car, I wonder if they live somewhere nice. So he gets into his car and he follows them home. And sure enough, they live in a nice house.

So he's thinking to himself, well, this could be a great money-making opportunity. I mean, think about how nice it would be to be like them, to have no financial stress or worries about money problems, they must be living the life. I know, I know, we talk a lot about very, very heavy things on this podcast, but it's kind of nice to balance that out with something a little bit lighter. Our sponsor for this episode is Wicked Close. They sell clothing that's a little bit dark, a little bit creepy, but it's also a little bit funny too.

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And the site is super fun to look through. Even their customer reviews are actually hilarious. So one of them is that the pros, great design and fit, cons. Now I'm haunted by demons. It's a weird time out there, okay? We dive into a lot of heavy subjects. It's kind of nice to take a minute to laugh. This is their first time sponsoring this podcast, which is really exciting. So if you guys have a minute, please consider going through and taking a look at what they have to offer. That's wickedclose.com. And if you guys use coupon code rotten, you can get 10% off of any purchase. If you want to save some time, you can get that coupon automatically applied by going to

a link they set up just for you. That's wikidclose.com slash rotten. Anyway, let's get back to the show. Meanwhile, Michaela, she rushes into the house, she starts cooking up that pasta, she's so excited, and they eat in the sunroom, all of them, the whole family, and they just sit around talking. So after dinner, they're like putting away the plates, and the dads like, hey girls, your favorite shows on.

So they loved watching this show called Army Wives. So they're like watching Army Wives in the room, and Bill is getting exhausted, so he's like, oh man, I'm gonna lay on the couch in the sun room because all the girls are taking up the space on the couch in the living room So he lays out on the sun room and he's wiped out I mean he went golfing that day He did some work that day so he just falls asleep instantly with a newspaper on his chest So after the show is over the rest of the girls are like, okay, well, what should we do? They lock up the entire house. They go upstairs. Now since dad is asleep downstairs,

Michaela was like, Mom, can I sleep with you? So Michaela falls asleep in her mom's room in the master bedroom. And the rest of the night, Joshua was outside watching, and then eventually he decided, maybe I should go home. So he goes home to his own daughter, and he stays up with her, spend some time, and finally, tucks her into bed.

Meanwhile, he's texting Steven. And Steven texts him, I'm chomping at the bit to get started. Need a margarita soon because they were planning on breaking into more homes that night. Joshua doesn't respond so Steven says are we still on? Josh says yes. Well soon? Okay, okay hold on Steve, I'm putting my kid to bed. Hold your horses, and Steven

texted back, dude the horses want to get loose, LOL. So have they been robbing people at this point? Yeah, about two people. So Steve wants money? Yeah, he wants money, but I don't know if that's his primary motive either. Okay. But it seems like maybe Steve wanted money more than Joshua did. Because he was about to get kicked out of his mom's place.

So they meet up and at first they're driving around thinking about, well, should we rob another place? Is that how we're gonna get money? Maybe, maybe we should go to a bar and follow these drunk people home. Maybe we point a gun at them and say, hey, we're gonna go to an ATM and you're gonna withdraw as much money as possible. Maybe that's, maybe that's a move today. Should we do that?

Well, no, that would be too much risk. And I mean, what is it? $500 is the maximum limit. I mean, how many people would we have to rob today? And then we're gonna get caught. Eight times have cameras. Come on, Steve, be better at thinking. And then finally, Josh is like, wait a minute.

I saw a house today. So I went to the grocery store and I followed this family home and now their house is nice. Their car was nice and I'm thinking that they probably have a good amount of cash inside. We just robbed the place, they're probably sleeping, we sneak in, go around, get all the valuables, get out. What do you say? I'm not so freaking good. But they weren't super planned.

So they're like, what do we do? What if we get caught? We need masks. So Joshua decides he's going to tie a shirt around his face. Literally tie a shirt around his face. He cut out some holes for his eyes. Steven put on his work hat, pulled it down over his face, cut out two holes for his eyes as well. So this was really in prompt to their only weapon was a BB gun that Steven had in the car that they bought at Walmart the day before all of this. A BB gun. So you think at this point Joshua was motivated by the 11 year old and Steve has no idea. Yeah.

And so Joshua and Stephen's plan on the outside, what they told each other is that we're going to sneak in in the middle of the night. The family is going to be tied up. All of them are going to be tied up and then we're going to rob the place, leave them unharmed, tied up. They're going to call the police but we'll be long gone. It's the perfect plan. So they get to the house in the early hours of like three in the morning of the 23rd and they find that the basement door is unlocked. So they sneak into the house and they see that there's a baseball bat against the stairs of the basement. So they're like perfect. We need another weapon. So they take that and they sneak upstairs.

The first person that they come across is Dr. Pettit who is sleeping on the couch in the sunroom. And this is the creepy part. Joshua claims that he stood behind him watching him sleep for a good 15 to 20 minutes. Now he claims that the reason that he did this is because he didn't want to hurt him. He didn't want to slam the baseball bat on him. But there was no other choice. I mean, how are you gonna subdue this man without beating him

on the head with this baseball bat? So we just stood there for a good 15, 20 minutes staring at this man, sleeping. And then finally, he brings up the bat and swings it on his head. He hits him four or five times on the head and he starts bleeding profusely. Now according to Josh, Dr. Pettit let out and I quote an unearthly scream.

I couldn't take his screaming. I just kept hitting him till he backed into the corner of the couch and then quietly he was just staring at me with wide open eyes. Just sheer confusion. He's dead? No, just confused. I mean, imagine there's a guy hitting you with a bat. He's wearing a t-shirt as a mask. And you're screaming and he's hitting you and now he's just staring at you and you're just like confused. I mean, you just woke up in the

middle of the night. What's going on? So they zip ties wrist, they zip ties ankles and they look at each other. And that is when he tells Steve if he moves, put two bullets in him. So they tell Dr. Pettit, come down. We're just here for some money. You know, once we get it, we're gonna be long gone. Just cooperate with us. We're gonna get the money. Is anybody else home?

We just wanna know so that we can get this money and get out of your hair. It's just a regular operation. Family wasn't working, no? No, so he says, there's three girls upstairs. One of them is my wife, you know like a my wife and my two daughters are upstairs Okay, sounds good So they grab a bunch of rope and they start heading upstairs their thought process was we're gonna do the same thing

We're just gonna tie everyone up So they go into the master bedroom and they find Mikaela asleep in there as well So they're like oh shit, okay one of the youngest daughters is sleeping in here with the mom. And Joshua ties up Michaela, the 11 year old, that he was stalking at the grocery store that day, and Steven ties up Jennifer. And both of them, they were awake, confused, and scared, but they were both compliant. So they tied them up and then placed pillowcases over their eyes, like empty pillowcases. And then they go to Haley's room and they tie her up as well. They go back to Jennifer and they ask, well, where are all the valuables?

And so she starts telling them, well, this is where I keep my jewelry, this is where that. And they're like, no, we want cash, we don't want jewelry, we want straight up cold hard cash. She's like, well, we don't really keep that much cash around the house. So they keep ransacking the house and they're just not satisfied. So they keep going back to Jennifer, like, where's the freaking cash? And she tells them, I, we have this like safe, you can go in this safe, this is the code, right?

So they go into that safe, yet again, there's no cash, but they come across this checkbook that said that there was $40,000 inside of this bank account. So I don't know how like this checkbook was working in 2007, but it just, maybe it was like one of their balancing sheets that they were doing. So it said that they had $40,000. So they're like, well, we want some of that.

But we don't want the whole $40,000 because that probably pissed off the bank. That would probably make the bank be like, oh, red flag, red flag, why is this random woman just taking out her entire life savings? What's going on? We want about $15,000. But the only way to get cash from a checkbook

is if we go to the bank. That is so strange. Yeah, $15,000 for this type of crime. Yeah, no, like especially when you know they have $40,000. Yeah. That's so odd, don't you think? All of it is so odd. So they go back to Jennifer and they're like hey

We want $15,000. We saw that you have $40,000 in your bank account at Bank of America. We want it She's like, okay, yeah, absolutely whatever you want so that my children are safe So they kept telling her okay, perfect. We get the money. We're on our merry way. So right now It's about 4 a.m. Bank of America opens at 9 a.m So I guess we're just gonna all have to hang out here now Jennifer I mean she's just trying to keep her composure like her entire family her kids are at risk So she's like yeah, whatever you guys want 9 a.m. I will walk into a bank and get whatever amount of money you guys need

So they're staring at her and they're getting excited. They're like, huh? This is this is good, right? They're like looking at each other, like we did it. We did it. We're about there, right? And they said that they were surprised by the youngest daughter. Josh keeps talking about Michaela

because they had locked eyes. And Josh said that he was so taken aback at how calm Michaela was. She had this look in her face that she understood, like, you know, why they're there? Why they're invading her house and she just understood. She just had this look in her face that we wouldn't hurt her, we would be on our way.

And that just kind of caught me off guard. That's what Josh said in his interrogation by the police. So they had to wait for the banks to open at nine. That's a good five hours. They didn't want anyone to try to run, So they decided to move Michaela back to her room and tied her to her bed post. Now, Josh says something that's really, really strange. He said that he didn't tie her to tight to the bed

because she had eczema and he didn't want to hurt her. And he had eczema before, so he understood. He has eczema, so he's like, I get it. You have eczema, I don't want you to get itchy, you refer to hurt your skin. So I'm just gonna tell you loosely. So then he goes to Haley's room and ties her to the bed, and then he ties Jennifer to her bedposts and she was sprawled out on her stomach and it was just a really uncomfortable position. And then they decide, okay, let's go back downstairs and go through all of it again.

They rummage through the house, they gather all of their cell phones, put them in the same place so that they could keep track, make sure none of the family members snuck away a phone and called the police or something, and then they're like, oh shit! My car's parked outside. Josh is like, my car's parked outside on the street. So if the police are the neighbors,

they might wake up soon and they see it because we're not leaving until nine. So they go downstairs and they're like, hey, doctor, pet it. Well, they don't know his name. They're like, hey, dude, we need your car keys. So they get the car keys and they leave the house with everyone just tied up. So they drive the pet it family car and Josh's car to a separate location and then Josh leaves his car in this parking lot.

Get's into the pet it family car with Stephen and drives back Insane so they did just left the family completely alone and I'm not saying that this was an opportunity for any of them to escape Because it wasn't first of all the daughters are young and they were tied up to their bed So with Jennifer and I'm sure she tried escaping and Bill he was I mean he was pretty much in and out of consciousness at this point and tied up With zip ties so it was not an opportunity of escape, but it's just how balsy are these people? What is going on? So once they get back to the house, Joshua starts going through all the rooms, making sure all of his hostages are comfortable, and he specifically decided to take care of Michaela.

He went into a room and she was really stressed out. You know, at first she was calm and collected, but now that she separated from her mom, she was sweating through her entire blanket, and he went downstairs, got her a glass of water, and untied her hands, and asked if she wanted something else to drink. And then when she was done with her glass of water, he let her lay back down,

but he never tied her hands up again. Because he wanted her to be, and I quote, a little more comfortable. I felt comfortable not tying her up as she was very well behaved, very compliant. And he stayed there on her bed just talking to her for a while about music, her hobbies. And then he was like I should probably check on the other members. So he leaves. He leaves and checks on the mom. Still not tying her up? No, her hands are free.

I mean, but she's 11 and she's terrified. And you know, she's told once they get the money, everything's going to be good, right? And the tensions were building between Joshua and Steve. Because Josh felt like Steve is being too loud. Stop going through the house so loudly. Why are you stomping around? We don't want to get the neighbors' attention.

What's wrong with you? And the stress level was so intense inside this house. They had never been in this type of situation. they start realizing well the sun's coming up shit The dad probably has to go to work So they go downstairs and they're like what's your supervisor's name where do you work? They find out he's a doctor, so they're like Which probably make him call and tell them that he's late because he's like a doctor, you know They're like no, no, no, we don't want him to do that.

They go back to Jennifer and they're like, hey, where do you work? She's like, well, I'm a teacher and it's, you know, it's the summer, so it's a non-issue, you know? I only teach sometimes, it's fine, I don't have work. Okay, well, you should probably check up on your kids. So they untie Jennifer and they lead her to Haley's room to just be like, hey, it's okay, it's mom, you're gonna be fine. And then they lead her to my

Kayla's room and helped with her anxiety. And then they bring her downstairs to the living room, tie her up again. And now Jennifer was forced to call Bill's work and say, hey, my husband's not gonna make it because he's not feeling well. Which again, they had been married for 22 years. Everyone at work knew her. This was not a creepy strange or out of the norm. This was like a very loving, wife thing to do. So since she didn't do anything bad on that phone call, the duo they feel really comfortable that she's gonna go to the bank, she's not gonna run off.

I mean, she's listening to every little word that we tell her. She could have screamed, call the police, you know? Something into that phone. No, no, no. She's looking out for her family. So this is good. So they make her sit in that living room until 9 o'clock rolls around. And they just leave her there.

Meanwhile, the duo, they start searching the rest of the house and tensions are still rising. There's no shades downstairs and Steve literally keeps walking back and forth across the windows and Josh is getting super pissed at this. And then, Josh claims that Steve had a brilliant idea. Steve pulls him aside into the office where nobody can hear them and tells him I'm gonna need to go buy some gasoline. Josh is like, huh? We're just grabbing the money though, why do we need gasoline? And Steve's like, no, no, that's not how DNA works. Even a drop of sweat or one piece of hair that fell from

our head is enough to put us in jail for life. You don't understand, Josh. We already have our DNA in the database. So here's what we're gonna do. After we get the money, we're gonna put the entire family in the car, the Mercedes, and then we're gonna drive maybe like a block away, and then we're gonna set this entire house on fire with nobody inside so that I can kill all of the DNA. Oh shit! But you used my name in front of them! You call me Steve in front of them.

Oh my god, there. Yeah, but there's like 5 million steves they never saw our face! I can't believe you did that. You used my freaking name. We gotta kill him. We have to kill him in the fire. So that's what Josh claims. Steve has a completely different version of the story.

Steve claims that he wanted to burn some DNA evidence with gasoline, but he never wanted to kill them. We'll get to the discrepancy a little bit later, right? Josh claims to be upset. He's like, that wasn't according to the plan. We're just here for the money. What's going on? We had pillowcases over the family's head.

We would pull up and down our mask, but they never, there's no way. They're not going to be able to identify us. And do you know how many steves are convicted felons? Steve? So many steves. Get it together. But they disagreed. And it seemed like they were not going to get to a, you know, an amicable agreement. So they just kind of go off and do their own thing around the house. Steve starts going into the garage and taking out gallon bottles of windshield wiper fluid and starts dumping them into the sinks so that he can use these gallon tabs to go to a gas station and get gasoline. So Steve and just leaves, Josh with everyone,

without even saying anything, goes to the gas station, fills up the bottles with gasoline around eight in the morning. He had four gallon containers by the time that he gets back to the petat house. Now nine o'clock is rolling around. They decide to untie the mob. They force her. Will Stephen forces her by BB gun point, which she probably thinks is a real gun,

to drive to the bank. So she is driving under duress. So just her and Steve and Josh is home alone. While they're at the bank, Josh decides, why don't I go over to Mikaela's room? And he starts talking to her about school summer plans, you know, stuff like that. And he said, and I quote, one thing led to another. He raped her. And the police asked her, was it against her will? 11 year old Michaela's will? Obviously it was.

I think that they just asked for the confession, right? And he said, her hands were tied, but her feet weren't. It started off against her will, but she wasn't resisting or anything. That is what a 26 year old thinksold thinks about an 11-year-old rape. So he started off by performing oral sex on Michaela and then he used a pair of scissors to cut off her shirt and her skirt, then he took out his cell phone and took multiple pictures of her. And these were horrific pictures. Really bad pictures. And then he raped her.

Now there is speculation that she was sought-amized, according to the autopsy results later. He claimed that he let her take a shower because he had ejaculated on her. But DNA evidence suggests that he tried to get rid of the evidence. There was parts of her body that had some remnants of bleach on it. I don't know if that was used as an accelerant for the fire or if that was to get rid of his semen. Semen was found inside of her body as well. So he rapes 11-year-old Mikaela and his entire excuse to the police was, well, I thought she was 14. I'm not really sure that makes anything better, Joshua. Rape is still rape. And 14 is still under age, but he was like,

well, I thought she was like 14 or 16. He claims that he had no idea that she was 11. I just, none of this matters. So, yeah, they go to the bank. Jennifer is just greatly telling the bank teller, please call the police because my family is being held hostage. And that is when they place that 911 call. She gets back into the car with that money

and they drive home. Now when they get back, there's so much tension between Josh and Steve. So Steve's version of the story is that he comes home and Josh is like, hey, let me show you something and he shows him the pictures of Michaela. So he's like, oh yeah, we gotta kill them because I left too much evidence in that room.

So that's Steve's claim. He says that Josh felt like they needed to kill the whole family because he had raped Michaela. Now Josh is saying that Steve's like, we gotta kill him before we leave, we gotta go, go, go, go, go, go. Like, we gotta get out of here, we gotta get the money, so we gotta pour the gasoline, we gotta go, right? So Joshua claims that at this point he's arguing, so there's just so much tension, it's

just so hectic I'm assuming, right? Because either way, either way, the story goes. I mean, it's just an absolute shit show. So they both at this point trying to kill the families. So they're both at this point trying to put the blame on each other. But it seems like they're going to kill the family. But Steve is saying that, oh, it's because Josh raped Michaela. And Josh is saying, it's because Steve is worried about DNA right right that we have to kill the family

So they're kind of pushing the idea of killing the family onto each other But it seems like both of them were in agreement that this is the only way so they're arguing about okay Well, we got to kill this family later on they start arguing about whose idea it was but either way It's tense either way one of them wants to kill them the other one one allegedly doesn't. It's just a high-tent situation. And Steven looks out the window and he sees an unmarked vehicle. This is not a vehicle that looks like it belonged to one of the neighbors. It was literally parked right outside the petat house. So he's thinking to himself, that looks like the unmarked vehicle of a police officer. So he gets super pissed because he's like Jennifer must have said something at the bank and he says that he's

snapped. He says that he just lost control in this high stress situation. The cops are outside. He's done for and he's pissed. So he goes over to Jennifer and he pulls down her pants and he rapes Jennifer. And then he's what he wanted to do when there's cops outside. And then he strangles her to death with his bare hands. This entire process takes about 15 minutes. Her kids are upstairs, her husband is downstairs tied to a pole in the basement. Police are outside and she is being raped and strangled to death. Police were at the house.

And what are they doing? They were just standing out there for 30 minutes. During the rape and strangulation of Jennifer Pettit, the police were on the premises. So he rapes and strangles are any decides, well, we got to do something. We got to burn the house down for sure now because now we're really screwed. So he starts dousing gasoline. So he's going into the kitchen putting gasoline everywhere in the hallways on top of Jennifer everywhere. So Jennifer had died of his fixation.

The rest of the family is still alive, still tied up. They go upstairs and they start dousing gasoline onto the two girls who are alert, awake, and conscious, and know that something's about to happen. Because I mean, gasoline has an intense smell, they know something that's happening, right? So they're getting gassed with that gasoline, their entire rooms are just filled with gasoline and then the two men, they start running downstairs and they realize what is second, that noise! And they look outside and Bill had untied himself and he was running away.

Dr. Pettit had freed himself. So the way that it happened is this entire time when he was in the basement tied up, Dr. Pettit, he was in and out of consciousness. So this entire injury, he had lost seven pints of blood. The human body only has about nine to 12 pints of blood. And you die at the 50% to 2-3rd mark. 50 to 75% is like, oh, deadly.

That's where he's at. Yeah. So he was conscious, just in and out of consciousness. He was not in his alert state. He was incredibly weak. He could barely even try to slither up the pole to get into a standing position. He tried and he would just faint multiple times, right?

He heard this thumping noise coming from the living room. And he thought to himself, are they beating my family with bats? No, no, no, like, are they beating them just like they beat me? No, no, no, no, no, no, think straight. Okay, it's going to be okay, Bill. They're probably ransacking the house. The truth was that thumping noise was Stephen raping his wife. And he had this jolt of adrenaline because even though he was like, I got a think straight, no, they're just ransacking the house, he kept thinking, what if he's beating my family to death, right? So he had this jolt of adrenaline and he thought to himself, it's now or never, they're gonna kill us all, you know, let's be real.

So he's completely bloody, completely dizzy and he knows that he's too weak to go up the stairs and fight these two guys to save his family. It's not gonna work. They're gonna all die if he tries to do that. So maybe he can try to get to a neighbor's house and call 911. So he starts rubbing the plastic ties on his hands. I mean his hands were just bloodied up by this, right? He frees himself, tries to untie his ankles, but there's no time. So he starts hearing some moaning upstairs. Like really, the moaning was the sound of Stephen strangling Jennifer, but he hears

the moaning and he starts screaming at them like what's going on? And one of them yells down, don't worry, it's all gonna be over in a couple minutes. So he stands up and things are not looking good for Bill. So he had actually been on a blood thinner since 2004 for his health. So he was losing a lot more blood than most people would in this time period. So he's wobbly. Everything's going black every two seconds. And he's like, okay, I can do this. So he crawls out the basement window and he starts hopping because his

ankles are tied to his neighbor's house. And he's looking around and he sees a bunch of faces in the woods. Later we find out those are cops and they don't help him. Why? I don't know. And he collapses onto his neighbor's driveway and his neighbor happened to see this and runs out and he could not identify this person. He was like who is this person? Meanwhile, Bill had been his neighbor for the past 18 years. But he was so bloodyed up. Bill had been his neighbor for the past 18 years, but he was so bloody up. So he's like, who is this? And he runs out and he's just called the police, called the police, and he's like fainting

on the neighbor's driveway. Yeah, the police are already here. So police are seeing this. Yes. Not doing anything. Yeah. So the two monsters, they realize Bill is free, so they start freaking out more. They start pouring more gasoline all over Jennifer, putting accelerant everywhere, and they're

like, okay, we gotta start the fire and we gotta get out of here. So they grab all of the valuables and they try to light a couple matches and it doesn't work, Steven's like it's not working. So one match doesn't work, second match doesn't work, finally the third match lights and he throws it into the kitchen and it just engulfs inflames instantly and that fire spreads through the hallway and there was just nothing that was going to stop this fire. We later find out there are autopsy results that Haley and Michaela, they both died of smoke

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So the two guys just lit this match. They're in the car and they see as they're trying to reverse that there is a bunch of unmarked cars blocking the driveway. So they're like, oh my god, these are cops. Cops have surrounded this place. The house is about to go down. It's on fire. There's bodies and their bill has escaped.

They decide what's the best way out of this. They reverse into the unmarked vehicles. They slam into them and they start trying to drive around into the curb and then they hit these thick bushes and then they start getting caught up in these bushes and he's like What do I do? It's he said that it's almost like he forgot how to drive Josh is driving and he's like I forgot how to drive and Steve's yelling at me and I'm like wait do I reverse what do I do and he looks up and They're surrounded by cops guns are pointed all at their heads. They're told to get out and lay on the pavement

But he decides, I'm gonna keep going. So he almost runs an officer over and then he hits another patrol car and suddenly everything went blurry. So the airbags were deployed. They were like, okay, now for real hands out, hands out, get out, get out, right? And they all get out and this time it's very interesting. Josh keeps telling them, okay, like my name is Josh. This is what's happened because they're asking for identification. Meanwhile, Steven's given out a fake name. Josh is like, yeah, there's people inside, Steven's like, I don't know about that. I don't know. I don't know. I couldn't really tell you. So they're like

giving different stories. Steven's completely lying. It seems like Josh knows that they're gonna find out, but Steven's still trying to be like, yeah, my name is this strange. I just thought that was a strange detail. So during all of this, Bill but Steven's still trying to be like, yeah, my name is this. Strange. I just thought that was a strange detail. So during all of this, Bill is laying on his neighbor's driveway, looking at his burning house. His ankles are still zip tied.

His scar was just gashing with blood, and the ambulance hadn't arrived yet. There's a cop standing close to him holding a rifle, and he keeps screaming at them, the girls, girls the girls and he tried to stand up twice and each time he fainted and fell to the ground. The fire was so hot and bad that once the firefighters put out the fire they went inside and they said that the heat was unbearable even in their suits and they claimed that you know a fire has to be incredibly hot for us to feel this amount of discomfort, because we're wearing gear. It was, it was bad.

After all of this, the two of them, they're put in jail and it's about to be a shit show, and Joshua starts writing in his prison diary before the trial. And he writes this, Dr. Pettit is a coward. He could have saved his entire family if he wanted to. If you don't want to defend your family, then take your chances with the criminal while police sit outside and follow protocol. What does that mean?

He's saying that Dr. Pettit was putting faith in the police, but the police weren't doing anything. They were just sitting outside. So they put their lives in the hands of the criminals. And he called Dr. Pettit a coward for not saving his family. And he went on to say that Haley is a fighter, the eldest child, she continually tried time and time again to free herself.

Michaela the youngest was calm and Mrs. Pettit, her courage was and is to be respected. She could have stayed inside the bank where she was safe, but she did not. Mr. Pettit ran away right before the fire. He fled when his own life was threatened. Time and time again, I gave him the chance to save his own family. And he wrote about being a burglar. A thief in the night, I've come to steal. Not your jewels and money, but your personal safety, Not your jewels and money, but your personal safety, privacy, and security. I violate your inner asylum of intimacy. I piss on your optical illusion of peace and innocence.

I feast on your animosity. The Pettit family pass through their fear into the calm waters of abject terror, like mesmerized rabbits cornered by a springing predator. To see that fear, that emotional pain, I feel everyday manifested on another's face, validates that this pain is real. So he's saying that he saw the pain that he feels everyday on the petit family, and it just was a validating experience. What? I am not an angel. I've never claimed to be. The scars on my soul have defined me as different from others.

I resent the idea that Michaela was raped. So he claims that he only performed oral sex on Michaela and that she was not raped. And I quote, Spared her that degree of demoralization. Even though Autopsie shows suggestion of Sodomy and Seaman inside of her body, but he said that he only performed oral sex on her and ejaculated on her, and I quote, in a vulgar display of power I ejaculated on to her.

As for why, we'll be accumulation of years of pent up aggression. And he also admits to taking photos of Michaela and his whole plan, he claims it's not for CP, but is to blackmail the pet at family afterwards. He said that this was going to be his way to make money, is to show them the pictures and say that he was going to show them to everyone in the community if they didn't pay up large sums of money. And he ended it with Michaela, angel of my nightmares. My pain to yours does not compare.

How could I have turned my back walking out that door, knowing your fear and sorrow? Michaela, Haley, Jennifer, forgive me please. I am damned. Take my life. What? So the whole family, Bill was hospitalized, the two men they were arrested, and the rest of the family, while the coroner showed up, the medical examiners had to show up, and the rest of the family, including Jennifer's parents, they rushed to the hospital to see

Bill, and the first thing Bill would do, he just kept apologizing and apologizing because he couldn't save Jennifer, and he couldn't save their grandchildren and they told him you are in no condition to be apologizing we are grateful that you are alive. So they have the funeral and Dr. Pettit is the entire house that burned down with his family had no clothes. You know, he had lost seven pints of blood. He had this gash on his forehead, like really big, and thousands of people showed up for this funeral. I mean, everyone was in shock the whole time, but they were even more shook because Dr. Bill, Dr. Pettit, went up to give a speech. And nobody expected it, considering how sick he was, considering how heartbreaking this entire thing was. But for 22 minutes, he talked. He even made people laugh. He did imitations of his youngest daughter. And he said that, I guess if there's

anything to be gained from the senseless deaths of my beautiful family, it's for all of us to go forward with the inclination to live with a faith that embodies action. Help a neighbor, fight for a cause. Love your family. I'm really expecting all of you to go out and do some of these things with your family in your own little way. To spread the work of these three wonderful women. Thank you. And the crowd of thousands stood up and clapped for more than a minute.

And it was a chit-chou. I mean, this peaceful town overnight, you had instantly families were installing alarm systems, panic buttons, panic rooms. The town referred to it as, and I don't know if some people might find this insensitive, but the town itself referred to it as Cheshire's 9-11, because it was like there was a life before, and then there was a life after. The whole community was affected by this. I mean, none of this makes sense, right? And then there was these lingering questions from loved ones like, wait, why wasn't Jennifer

stopped at the bank? Why wasn't she held at the bank before the police arrived there? Why didn't the police meet her at the bank? Why didn't the police stop them as a traffic stop? Yes. So that at least one of the perpetrators could provide some information or Jennifer could to say, hey, these are how many people are in the house.

This is what's going on. Why didn't they do any of that? This is off the record. A lot of police officers off the record were reportedly telling some of their loved ones in the community that they had actually heard the two girls upstairs screaming in the end. And they did not try to enter

Why I mean I guess they were what's the what's going on? What happened to the police the whole time? Yeah, so the questions are why aren't the police looking through the windows? You know the windows didn't have blinds downstairs. Why didn't the why didn't they try to scope it out the police had the home phone number Since the get go so why didn't they call if you're talking about a hostage situation, you try to call, you try to negotiate, you try to say what do you want guys, right? But they didn't do any of that. So at first the Cheshire police, they were super tight-lipped. They were praising themselves. The lieutenant was interviewed and he said, first of all, the Cheshire police department in their response to this initial call was absolutely outstanding.

They did a stellar job. They deserve a lot of praise and credit. And then a couple months after, on November of 2007, the court imposes a gag order, which bars police, witnesses, and lawyers from speaking with the news. So then, finally, people are just hammering this down. We want the timeline. Give us the police timeline because what's going on? We have too many questions.

How can the community is an upward? We don't trust our own citizens. We don't trust the police. What was the timeline? Eventually the timeline was released, but a lot of the stuff was redacted, except for like, to the defense attorneys. And there was just a lot of weird stuff going on. Officers could have stopped the two in the car on the way home.

They were within range. They could have stopped. They could have beat them to the house even. They were within range. When Billy came out of the house, he was hopping, tied up, badly beaten, trying to get help for his family. And he saw a bunch of people hiding in those woods.

Yes, those were police officers. Yeah, that probably should have alerted the police to think, oh shit, something is happening. What's going on there? We should probably find it out, right? Nope. It seemed like the final goal of the police was to catch the guilty men, not save lives.

Because they were like, this is such a bad crime. If we don't catch these people, it's gonna be a huge scandal. So we would rather catch these people and the town feels assured. That's what they're waiting behind. Yes. Until they see them. Yeah. Versus trying to get in, trying to talk to them, trying to do something. I mean, I get it. A hostage situation is really intense. And I am sure that I don't even begin to understand the complications, the real complications of how to deal with it. But the fact that you didn't even try to get in contact Nobody else was alerted. I'm sure there was like not even one FBI agent that you could call

The fact that come on three people kill where you when you guys were right outside Then there's got to be something else should have been done. No like come on Yeah, and maybe the question is, because stuff like this doesn't happen, maybe they weren't prepared, or they thought maybe talking to them, and then it escalates, now it involves the police. Like a hostage situation where the police are actively talking to the perpetrators,

and then a hostage ends up dead. Maybe the blame is put on the police more now. Like, what did you do? Why did you piss them off? I don't know. I can't completely shit on them, but for sure, I cannot say one good thing about this. I'm not telling them how to do their job because I obviously don't know how to do that type of job, but I just think that something could have been done. That wasn't this.

It's definitely not a stellar job. Yeah, like they were saying, and I think that makes it worse. Like, if you didn't do a good job, just shut up. Why are you going out there praising yourself? I think even the mirror at one point praised them. It was just a shit show. It was an absolute shit show. So you're praising these cops while Jennifer was raped

and strangled and the entire house was doused in gasoline, set a fire, bill escaped, bloodied up, and you guys were just outside? I wouldn't really call that stellar at all. The police argued that they're dealing with a hostage situation. They didn't know how many men were in the house, what kind of weapons that they had. So they were told by their higher ups,

not to enter the house and do not communicate with anyone, because they didn't want to alert the criminals that they were there. I don't know what kind of plan that is. So the official timeline at 9.21 a.21am was the initial 911 call from the bank. Police officers were at the scene, the house, the petter house within minutes. Some of them got there like literally right after Steven and Jennifer went inside the house. They had the phone number to the house, nobody called, nobody knocked on the door, and at 9.57, the fire was ablaze. So they just stood out there for 30 minutes.

And the police refused to talk to the family members. The family have tried to write countless letters, just to ask, what happened? Give us a timeline, you know? Nothing, they were just ignored. So this trial was going to be really intense. Connecticut decided to pursue capital punishment against both of them. So the two monsters, they decided, well, we don't want to die.

So they decided to offer up a deal. They said, hey, prosecutors, we'll plead guilty and accept life in prison without parole. And the community and the nation, they don't have to be traumatized because the trial of this is going to expose a lot of these nasty details. So just give us life and present. They said, no, we're going to pursue capital punishment.

Thank you. And this just really broke the community because there were a lot of people in Connecticut who were against capital punishment, but they were so confused. Because when something like this that is so inhumane, I mean, this is like the poster child for people who are for capital punishment. It's just so inhumane, you're talking about kids, you're talking about rape and torture and for what? For nothing.

And the thing is I feel like, I don't even know if they can be helped. You know, the guy went in the prison, he was in prison for five years, and he came out, the first thing he wanted to do is go back to what he was doing. And what he was doing is not robbing, but pray on humans. Like a predator. Yeah.

Exactly. It's not that he is in need for money. He just needs to find a better way to like, find a job, right? This is like your biggest nightmare. It's just someone who's so illogical. Like, just straight up evil. Yeah. And so they were like, yeah, we're going to go with the capital punishment. And even Steven's brothers, they were interviewed and they said, as nasty as it sounds, I hope someone puts a bullet in his head. They wanted their own brother to get the death penalty. So Steven's trial would go first on October of 2010 and he just sat there the whole time

with this blank dumb look on his face, no remorse, just no emotion, just looking dumb. Now Joshua's trial was October of 2011 and he would actually be the opposite, he would look around, jot down notes, occasionally smile, talk to his attorneys, he's acting like this is a cocktail party. So his whole defense was that he was sexually abused by a foster brother at four and he was raised in a religious house to believe that he is unlovable. That was his entire excuse for this. So during the trial, the forensic detectives, they introduced evidence that was stored in

these medical, like medical, uh, metal boxes, right? And inside was Haley Sh shirt, a scrap of denim from the jeans that Jennifer wore, McAillous torn shorts, and they opened it. And after 38 months later, it all smelled so strongly of gasoline. You could smell the gasoline through the courtroom. And so the verdict for both of them

was that they were found guilty on all charges. Capital felony charges of murder, sexual assault for Josh and Stephen kidnapping, and none of them showed emotion. So both of them were sentenced to death and they were sitting on death row. Stephen Hayes actually did a few podcast interviews. Don't know why. What's wrong? I feel like, I Don't know why. What's new?

I feel like, I don't know. He is very manipulative. I could only listen to a couple minutes of it because I was like, I don't even care what this guy has to say. I don't believe a single word unless it's in a court file. This is, he is so disgusting and acting like he cares. He said that he just became somebody else that the last few minutes were just filled with rage and stress and he will never forgive himself for that.

Yeah, nobody cares Stephen, nobody cares. Like why did you buy the gasoline, right? And he's like no, it's not to burn the house down. I thought the sheer presence of gasoline would force the police to bring in hazmat suits. And he's like trying to argue that if police to bring in hazmat suits. And he's like trying to argue that if police came in with hazmat suits they would get away further because it would take longer DNA, it would be harder to process. I don't know.

This guy was on something. He also is suing the prison staff for denying him medical care and harassment and psychological torture charges. He is seeking half a million dollars in damages. This guy is seeking half a million dollars in damages. And then in August of 2015, Connecticut abolished the death penalty. So, both of the sentences are now converted into life in prison without the possibility of parole. Both of them have attempted suicide in prison and both have failed. So Bill spoke to reporters and he said that Mikaela was an 11-year-old girl

tortured and killed in her own bedroom surrounded by her stuffed animals. And Haley, she had a great future. She was strong and courageous and Jennifer helped so many kids and she can't do that now. And even at they give an impact statement, you know, at the sentencing, right? And Bill was there and he was crying and sobbing and they were just staring at him. Steve was just staring at this guy and they said it was this weird moment of the man who poured gasoline on the girl while she was still alive just stares at the man who poured gasoline on the girl while she was still alive just stairs at the man who raised her. So the aftermath of Bill's life, he hasn't been a doctor since. He started the Pettit Family

Foundation to honor his family. He's the president and it awards scholarships to students that are affected by chronic illnesses and they sponsor local centers and they raised over $1.8 million. All day he's super busy. They received, I think, 25,000 letters and the whole family, the padded family, they write back to every single male or by hand. They received letters from China, from Italy, entire classrooms of kids would write letters together and send them at the same time. And he would write back to every single one of them.

And so he's really busy during the day. But during the night, he has to take pills to go to sleep. He only sleeps on the edge of his mattress. And for the longest time, every night at 3am, he woke up every single night because that is when the break had happened. And he starts asking himself the questions, you know, the same questions. What if he went upstairs instead of out of the window? What if he did this? What if he did that? And he says that he doesn't have good days. He just has good hours. And all of his friends and

families say that they haven't seen the old bill yet. He did remarry to a woman by the name of Christine and they moved into this little house together. And what's interesting and great is that she never let's him forget his life that he loved. She encourages him to talk about Jennifer and the kids. And she's always there mentioning Jennifer. She just doesn't want him to forget them. And she says it's weird because she knows that if this tragedy didn't happen She wouldn't have met him. She wouldn't have this love of her life. And she knows that But she's very grateful. Does that make sense? It's like this really strange feeling of you know He would have stayed married to Jennifer and they would have had this completely different life

No, so it's very complex And he's still working on the foundation. He's just started this thing called Michaela's Garden, where there were seeds from Michaela's plants that are now being sold in packets for $10 that are the funds go to the foundation. They have big donors. They have like fellow doctors that were donating like $10,000 checks in the mail.

But they also had some of the most heartbreaking ones, where handwritten notes with a crumbled up $1 bill, because that's all these people had to spare, and they wanted to send it to the Pettit Family Foundation. There would be kids in Connecticut who would have birthday parties, and they didn't want presents every year. They would want people to donate to the Pettit Family Foundation. And in 2013, Christine gave birth to a baby boy and they named him William Pettit III. And in May of 2016, William Pettit announced the bid for Connecticut's 22nd House District

and he currently serves as a representative for the Connecticut House of Representatives. Wow. The House of the Pettit Family was demolished and the whole process was intense. They had a friend of the family that took over the handling of the insurance because obviously you don't want Dr. Pettit to do that. And the friend of the family was like, well, have you looked inside? Maybe I should go inside. Take one final look. And the insurance agent flat out told him, is the owner a friend of yours? Then don't go in. It's the worst thing

I've ever seen about the fire in the house. So they demolished it and they set up a memorial garden in the place where the house was. And that is how the seven hours of torture for the Pettit family has turned into something good, something helpful for the world. I come back to this case so many times. I think just like this past year, I think I've mentioned like wanting to talk about this case on different occasions and I just could never do it because I don't have like a like a conclusion. I don't have like a feeling. I feel like sometimes people want me to have a feeling like how do you feel about this afterwards? I just don't understand these perpetrators. He's obviously a raging pedophile I believe. I believe that he is someone who gets off on fear and he would have kept doing it and kept doing it. And I don't know what the case is with Stephen.

I mean, he's evil, but what was the purpose of this for him? This was a really intense emotional minisode. I'm sorry that I kept crumbling up my words today. I feel like I'm having a brain fart because this case has been on my brain and it's taken up 99.9% of all my thoughts right now. I feel like I'm having a brain fart because this case has been on my brain and it's taken up 99.9% of all my thoughts right now. I can't stop thinking about it. Please let me know what are your thoughts And I hope you guys enjoyed this week's mini-sode and I will see you guys on Wednesday. Bye