Desperate hours

Michaela's pasta was on the boil. The tomatoes were sliced.

Her homemade sauce was ready for the Sunday evening meal she was making for her sister and mom and dad.

The state of Connecticut is releasing few details about the investigation. The story from here on out -- what happened in that house after the Petits' Sunday dinner -- is pieced together from published reports and official sources, based partly on statements the two men -- Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes -- have given to police. They are detailed statements that no one wants to be true.

We think after dinner, the two Petit girls settled in with their books.

Hayley, the older daughter, was in the last book of the "Harry Potter" series.

Michaela, the younger, was just starting the first "Harry Potter."

The watchers -- Komisarjevsky and Hayes -- were closing in. They'd been discussing the pretty blonde woman and the girl from the supermarket and knew which driveway on Sorghum Mill Drive the two had turned into. Now they were forming their plan. It wouldn't be Komisarjevsky's showtime for a while yet.

As a cool summer night settled in over Cheshire, Connecticut, the lights in the Petit house clicked off.

The girls were in their separate bedrooms upstairs, and Mrs. Hawke-Petit was in the master.

Dr. Petit was in the enclosed sun porch, reading, but he too had dozed off.

Altimari: They're all sleeping. Dr. Petit is sleeping on a couch … reading some medical journals. It was not unusual for him to fall asleep on the couch while he was doing work.

Komisarjevsky and Hayes had parked their truck at the Quarry Village condominium complex about a mile and a half away from the Petit house. Zero hour for their plan was 3 a.m.

They began walking through the darkened lanes of suburban Cheshire, the two paroled convicts.

It's believed they went in through the cellar door, Komisarjevsky likely calling the shots.

Altimari: It really fits exactly what he had done many times before. The difference is he had another guy with him this time. He wasn't alone. He had Hayes with him.

Right away they must have encountered the sleeping Dr. Petit.

Altimari: ...and he wakes up or he's somehow either they confront him or he confronts them. So I think they were surprised to find someone right there on the couch.

There's a baseball bat. Did they bring it with them or just find it in the house?

Dr. Petit is cracked across the forehead.

Altimari: He was beaten pretty badly. Unconscious. Left on the floor bleeding. And then at some point awoke. And they beat him some more and they dragged him into the basement and tied him up to a pole in the basement where he basically was left unconscious.

Two petty thieves with no known history of violence had taken their first steps together on a monstrous journey and there was no turning back.

Altimari: What we don't know at that point is does someone wake up when they hear the doctor being beaten? The assumption at this point, without knowing, is that someone else woke up and now they're in a situation where the house, the people in the house know they're there.

Dr. Petit had been on the sun porch. Up the stairs to the right was the master where Mrs. Hawke-Petit was sleeping, and the girls' bedrooms were down the hall from one another, with a bath across from Hayley's room.

The horror was quickly escalating. At some point the women were separated, with Mrs. Hawke-Petit downstairs while Hayley and Michaela were still upstairs. Officials believe the men had tied the girls to their beds.

Murphy: Tied to their beds?
Altimari: Tied to their beds and Hayes sexually assaults Mrs. Petit and Komisarjevksy sexually assaults the 11-year-old girl.
Murphy: Rapes them?
Altimari: Yes.

We know the state police have obtained search warrants for the records of the two cell phones the pair had with them.

Altimari: And we believe that they were text messaging each other inside the house. What they were saying is unclear at this point, but there was some communications...
Murphy: I'm, I'm with the mother? Where are you? What's going on?
Altimari: One is upstairs. One's downstairs it seems. Because Hayes is, I believe, downstairs with the mother. And Komisarjevksy is upstairs with the 11-year old girl.

At Komisarjevsky's 2002 sentencing for the string of home burglaries, a judge had sized him up as "a predator, a calculated, cold-blooded predator."

And now before dawn on Sorghum Mill Drive, he'd lived up to that description.

He knows if he and Hayes are caught after this rampage, they'll go away for a long time. Maybe life without parole.

Their DNA could be on the mother and daughter.

Altimari: At some point after 5:00 a.m. Hayes takes four containers. And he leaves the house to go get gasoline. And Komisarjevksy's in the house with the family and he takes the time to call his boss and leave a message that that he's not going to be coming to work that day because his daughter was sick…
Murphy: And he was just involved in the...
Altimari: ...this is right in the middle of this whole thing...
Murphy: ...in the rape and kidnapping of a family?
Altimari: Right. He, right in the, you know, three hours into this ordeal.

Hayes buys gasoline -- four containers' worth at a local station -- and then gets lost on the way back. He calls Komisarjevsky for directions.

Their plan is heading into the final hours.

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