NEW HAVEN, Conn (Reuters) ? A jury on Thursday found a Connecticut man guilty of murdering a mother and her two daughters during a 2007 home invasion in which family members were molested, tied up and their house set ablaze.
The jury in New Haven Superior Court deliberated eight hours over two days before convicting Joshua Komisarjevsky, 31, of all 17 charges, six of which carry the possibility of a death sentence.
A sentencing date was set for October 24.
Komisarjevsky's accomplice, Steven Hayes, was found guilty of similar charges last year and sentenced to death. The jury in his case deliberated five hours before convicting him.
The pair were found guilty of killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17, in their Cheshire, Connecticut home on July 23, 2007.
The only survivor, Dr. William Petit, was badly beaten and bound but managed to escape as the house was doused with gasoline and set on fire.
Komisarjevsky stood and showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. His father, mother and sister who at times attended his trial were not there.
Petit sat quietly in the courtroom.
Afterward, Petit said he felt relieved but said this trial had been more difficult than the Hayes trial due to the detailed accounts of Komisarjevsky's sexual assault on his younger daughter.
"This case was harder because so much of it centered on Michaela," the doctor said. "This crime was about sexual predation against women."
Reverend Richard Hawke, Jennifer Hawke-Petit's father, said: "Faith has brought us through the past four years.
"We will always keep our daughter and our grandchildren in our hearts and minds."
Attorneys in the case did not comment. They remain under a gag order until the sentencing is finished.
Prosecutors said at trial Komisarjevsky and Hayes broke into the Petit home early on July 23, 2007 after spotting Hawke-Petit and her younger daughter in a grocery store and following them home. They said Komisarjevsky made Michaela Petit his target.
They forced Hawke-Petit to drive to a bank, where she told a teller her family was being held hostage and she needed $15,000 to pay off the captors.
A bank manager called police but when authorities arrived at the Petit home, it was engulfed in flames. The police have been criticized as being slow to respond.
In the burning house were the two girls, who died of smoke inhalation, and the body of their mother, who had been raped and strangled.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Komisarjevsky had raped the younger daughter and argued the house was set on fire in an attempt to cover up DNA evidence.
"You can say the fate of the family was sealed with the rape of Michaela," State's Attorney Michael Dearington said during closing statements.
Komisarjevsky admitted leaving the two girls tied to their beds in the burning home, which prosecutors said amounted to killing them.
Judge Jon Blue denied a defense request to allow Hayes, who is on death row, to testify.
Connecticut has only executed one person, in 2005, since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Jerry Norton)
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