Convicted criminal Steven Hayes will escape death row after capital punishment was deemed unconstitutional.
On Wednesday, Hayes was handed a reduced sentence.
In July 2007, Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky broke into Dr. William Petit’s home before tying him up in the basement.
Petit was forced to listen as Hayes raped and murdered his wife. Petit escaped before the men set the house on fire, which killed his two daughters (pictured above).
Hayes was convicted of murder, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree sexual assault and 13 other counts in 2010 was sentence to death.
Komisarjevsky was also sentenced to death in 2011.
A year later, a law was passed that abolished the death penalty, for future sentencing only. The 11 people on death row at the time, including Hayes and Komisarjevsky, were still meant to face execution. However that changed in August last year when the ruling was revoked.
A Connecticut court re-sentenced Hayes to six consecutive sentences of life without possibility of parole.
According to the Daily Mail, Petit said on Twitter, ‘It is a very sad day when a prolonged trial and decision and sentencing by a jury that took 4.5 months to seat is overturned by a legislature that ignores the wishes of the people of CT.’
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