courthouse. good morning, laura. good morning. you know the family of jennifer petit has said from the very beginning, they want to see justice in this case. and this could be just hours away from hearing a verdict from one of the men who shattered their family back on july 23rd of 2007. closing arguments concluded yesterday with both the prosecution and defense laying out the most horrible and most sympathetic words they could. for hayes, the defense attorney, that meant bringing him face to face with the jury. at a podium, a very rare move, hayes stood just feet away from those jurors as his defense attorney said this is a human being. hayes eyes were cast down as his lawyer explained he is living a life behind bars of torment and guilt for what he did. his lawyer urged the panel to spare his life and said that if they wanted to end hayes torment, they should kill him. if they want him to suffer, they should give him life in prison
in a connecticut courtroom. and this case could mean the death penalty for the man convicted of brutally murdering jennifer petit and her two young daughters in a brutal home invasion. we will go live to the courthouse as to how it s going. shaun belat had a tough debate with barney frank last week the two going toe to toe. wait until you see what happened after the candidates left the stage. you quit the jokes, you know it s not funny at all. are you serious? that was not funny. you just tried two jokes and they weren t even funny. you re really standing here and heckling me, is that really how you do it. you were talking to me first. you guys believe this? [ male announcer ] the turn changes everything.
steven hayes. the same jury will now decide if hayes will get the death penalty for the murder of jennifer hawk-petit and her two young daughters. after the verdict was read, a shaken dr. william petit thanked the jury and offered his thoughts on their verdict. there s some relief, but my family my family is still gone. it doesn t bring them back. it doesn t bring back the home that we had. but certainly a guilty verdict is a much better sense of relief than a verdict of not guilty. nbc s jeff rossen has been covering the trial from the beginning. just watching dr. petit there, it s just heartbreaking. most of us felt the verdict was a fore gone conclusion.
so what happens next? so this jury that decided that steven hayes is guilty on 16 of 17 felons. that includes six capital charges that do carry the death penalty, this jury goes home for a couple weeks. on october 18th they come back to the courthouse. the same people who today decided that steven hayes is guilty of terrorizing, torturing and killing his family, jennifer petit and her two daughters, 11 and 17, they come back and will decide if he s put to death by lethal injection or if he gets life in prison. the defense has said, yes, my client did these crimes. but they tried to put all the blame on the other accomplice, saying he was the master mind. this was simply a robbery gone bad. steven hayes had gone in to rob the family. then it was the other man s idea, the man on the right side of your screen, to really set the house on fire, to tie them up. and to tie the girls up, to
with no pressure to buy. now join the millions of women who have made the switch to olay, completely risk-free. if you don t love the results, you ll get your money back, guaranteed. go online now for a $3 coupon. and love the skin you re in. jenna: happening now now in connecticut jury deliberations moments away in a deadly home invasion trial. defendant steven haze facing the death penalty, he s one of two men charged in the horrific murders of these women. jennifer petit and her two daughters back in 2007.