Well-known US doc & family held hostage in home invasion *THE DRAMA Intruders take wife to withdraw money, she alerts bank teller
*THE TRAGEDY Police rush over to house, but only manage to save husband
A HORRIFIC attack on a doctor and his family has shocked an affluent US suburb in which they lived.
Mrs Jennifer Hawke-Petit (third from left) manage to tip off bank employees but was not able to save herself or her two daughters Hayley and Michaela. Husband Dr William Petit Jr survived with severe injuries. -- Pictures: AP
Around 9am on Monday morning (9pm Singapore time), local police officers raced to Dr William Petit Jr's home in Cheshire, Connecticut, responding to a tip-off that the family was being held hostage.
They were too late.
According to the Hartford Courant, by the time the police reached the neighbourhood lined with luxury homes, flames had blown out the rear of Dr Petit's house and two men were already running away.
Inside the burning house, Dr Petit, a prominent doctor and father of two, hopped up the cellar stairs as the flames spread.
He had been brutally beaten on his head and left tied up in the basement.
He was the only one to make it out alive.
His wife, Mrs Jennifer Hawke-Petit, a popular nurse at a nearby health centre was already dead on the first floor.
The charred body of his oldest daughter, Hayley, 17, was found at the top of the main stairs.
In a second-floor bedroom down the hall, the youngest in the family, Michaela, 11, was found tied to a bed. Her body was too badly burned to tell how she died.
As the police closed in, the two fleeing suspects jumped into the family's SUV parked in the driveway and rammed a police car that tried to cut them off in front of the house.
The SUV then slammed into two more police cars at another roadblock and the mangled car rolled to a stop 10m away on a neighbour's manicured front lawn.
Tragically, the tip-off that alerted the police to the brutal attack came from Mrs Hawke-Petit.
She had been forced by the intruders to withdraw money from a nearby bank. While there, she managed to alert bank employees that brought the police.
Her heroic efforts could not save her or her daughters.
Investigators believe the two men barged into the home sometime after 3am and held family members hostage.
Shortly after they returned to the house from the bank, the suspects set fire to the residence and fled.
Early yesterday, two men were charged with the killings.
Joshua Komisarjevky, 26, and Steven Hayes, 44, were due in court later in the day on charges of assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, burglary, robbery and arson. State police said additional charges were likely.
According to a Department of Correction web site search, Hayes was sentenced in 2003 for up to five years behind bars for burglary. His release date was unavailable.
A court official told WTNH.com that Hayes has more than two dozen criminal convictions going back to 1980.
The State of Connecticut Criminal Conviction database shows Komisarjevsky was convicted in late 2002 and early 2003 of burglary and has a record of more than 20 separate burglaries.
Dr Petit was listed in serious but stable condition at St Mary's Hospital in Waterbury Monday night.
Neighbour Kim Ferraiolo said she had spoken to Dr Petit the previous evening and nothing seemed amiss.
'They were the nicest people, just a great family,' said MsFerraiolo.
She said DrPetit likes to tend to his flower beds and 'has a great sense of humour.'
Dr Petit, 50, is a prominent endocrinologist and medical director of the Joslin Diabetes Center Affiliate at The Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain.
His wife, 48, was a nurse and co-director of the Richmond Health Center at Cheshire Academy.
Daughter Hayley graduated in June from Miss Porter's, where she was editor of the school newspaper and also co-captain of the crew team and a member of the cross country and basketball teams. She was set to attend Dartmouth College, her father's alma mater, where she planned to study medicine.
Both daughters were heavily involved in fund-raising causes for multiple sclerosis, which their mum suffered from.
taken :
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/st...36898,00.html? 
