Family of mother murdered with two children speaks out after killers escape death penalty

THE family of a woman who was raped and then murdered alongside her two children has spoken out after one of the men responsible has escaped the death penalty in the US.

Cynthia Hawke Renn said on Tuesday: “some people are too evil for this Earth.”

She is the sister of Jennifer Hawke-Petit , who was tragically killed when Joshua Komisarjevsky, 35, broke into her home with his accomplice Steven Hayes.

The two men beat her husband Dr William Petit with a baseball bat then tied him to a pole in the basement.

Hayes strangled and raped Hawke-Petit, 47 while Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted their daughter Michaela, 11, and then they both and her sister Hayley, 17, to a bed, which they soaked with petrol and set alight. The two girls died from smoke inhalation.

The murder, which happened in Cheshire, Connecticut, in the US, in 2007, horrified the nation. Dr Petit was the only survivor, and has been a supporter of the death penalty since his terrible ordeal.

However, Hayes has already had his death sentence commuted, meaning he no longer faces a lethal injection.

Komisarjevsky, has now been saved due to the Connecticut Supreme Court changed the law to ban the death penalty – he has been given six life sentences totaling 140 years.

Hawke-Renn, speaking to the said: “Sometimes there are people on this Earth that are too evil for this Earth.

“People say that that death penalty is barbaric but sometimes the punishment has to fit the crime. I don’t think that death is good enough and I don’t think that life is prison is enough either.”

The 55-year-old thinks that due to the horrific violent nature of her sister and nieces death, the two men may try and come after her if they can get out of jail.

Her mother now has Alzheimer’s, and it is a relief that she can no longer remember the shocking circumstances under which hey had their lives taken from them.

Renn’s husband has terminal cancer, and her father died last month: “All I have left are my daughters, it’s just very hard.”

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4-3 capital punishment should be banned in August last year.

Komisarjevsky was given a reprieve by Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue – he also told Hayes, 53, he would get his sentence commuted and would serve six life sentences.

Dr Petit, who remarried and has a son, Bill, now runs a foundation with his wife Christine -the  which is in memory of his first wife and two daughters.

It helps to finance programs for chronic illness, and providing assistance for those who has been affected by violence, as well as funding education projects.

In response to the death penalty being overturned in the state, Renn said she thought that most people would feel Hayes and Komisarjevsky were still deserving of it for their crime.