Desperate hours

The smoldering char of the Petit house and a suburban street in Cheshire, filled with fire trucks and police cars, was chilling evidence that there is no social contract that protects the good people amongst us.

Even if you pay your mortgage, mow your lawn and send your kids to good schools -- live as decently and honorably as the Petits -- evil can still find you, even while you're sleeping in your own bed.

Lt. Jay Markella (Cheshire P.D.): We do have three confirmed fatalities at this time. Two of them female, third I don't want to speculate right now...

What happened inside the yellow crime tape cordon was too much to absorb for neighbors who'd slept well, had morning coffee, unaware that their neighbors just a few dozen yards away were being strangled, set on fire, murdered.

Neighbor: It's one thing breaking and entering -- that's awful enough. But to then murder people? Why, why? What did that accomplish? That breaks my heart.

When Cheshire learned that the ultra-violence done to beloved members of their community had likely come at the hands of two criminals with 38 previous felonies between them, the initial outrage was aimed at the state's eight member parole board which let them out of prison on early release.

And there was second guessing about the cautious strategy of the Cheshire police department. A police officer was reportedly seen near the Petit house by one neighbor as early as 9:40 am, shortly after Mrs. Petit and Hayes returned from the bank and while the two girls were still alive tied to their beds.

That sense that the institutions of state government -- designed to protect -- had failed them came to a head with a "three strikes rally" at a local park. The message was: lock the thugs up and throw away the key.

Bartoli: ...to do what we can in our own small way to see that this atrocity never happens again.

Home burglar alarm installers saw their business soar in the next few weeks.

Applications for gun permits increased eightfold.

Bill Glass: Some people are panicking, I hate to say it. People are panicking. People that hadn't locked their doors in 20 years are locking their doors.

In early August Komisarjevsky and Hayes were brought into Superior Court in New Haven under heavy security. The two men faced a judge as some onlookers shouted "killer" and "scumbag." They were charged with six capital felonies each, and are each being held on a $15 million bond. Neither has entered a plea yet. Prosecutors say they'll seek the death penalty for both.

The two men have reportedly given detailed statements to authorities about "what" they did, but the "why" may always be a mystery.

Clint Van Zandt: If I'm the sociopath, I don't care. I don't owe you anything. I don't have to explain it.

Former FBI profiler and NBC news analyst Clint Van Zandt, after years of cases involving serial killers and mass murderers, has come to know very well the disturbed mind of the sociopath.

Murphy: Clint, how do you read the personalities here? What's the dynamic?
Van Zandt: These are two different types of sociopaths. Hayes is someone, he's not sophisticated. He breaks car windows. He steals purses. This guy's a schmuck.
Murphy: Career felon.
Van Zandt: Career felon. Nickel, dime, snatch and grab and go again.
Murphy: And what about Komisarjevsky?
Van Zandt: Different breed of cat. Young guy. Smart guy. Talented guy. You know, this is where this bifurcation takes place, where someone is capable of greatness in society or greatness in the criminal world. This guy chose that path of criminal world.
Murphy: How do two guys with non-violent history get together and go Manson?
Van Zandt: You have this perfect meeting, this perfect storm of sociopaths that come together where one or the other might not be capable of this horrific act. But you put them together, they prey off each other.

And, Van Zandt says, they goad each other on, building to a frenzy of violence in the Petit home, one that might not even have happened had Dr. Petit not nodded off on the sun porch.

Clint Van Zandt: Let's say had Dr. Petit been upstairs asleep in the bedroom, had all the doors been locked, the m.o. is that these guys would have come in, burglarized a house, and left again.
Dennis Murphy: So you think if there hadn't been the confrontation with Dr. Petit, this might have been the third type of the burglary that weekend?
Van Zandt: You know, this is something I've thought about ever since this terrible thing happened, Dennis. Was the fate of that family sealed once they confronted the doctor? Once they--
Murphy: Is that the moment?
Van Zandt: Is that the moment when they said, "OK, we beat this guy so badly…"
Murphy: Maybe he's already dead.
Van Zandt: He may well be dead anyway. So in for a penny, in for a pound. Let's take this house down.
Murphy: How do you see those awful seven hours going down? You almost don't want to think about it.
Van Zandt: It has to have been one of the more horrific seven hours that anyone has ever lived in their life. You know, you're trying to protect your family. And you're trying to explain, you're trying to rationalize with two sociopaths who could give a damn less what you say that you'd do anything they want. If they want money, if they want belongings, anything. Just please take it. And they're saying, "Oh, yeah. We're going to take it. We're going to take everything we want, lady." And they did, Dennis, to include their lives.

Three lives: wife and mother, two daughters.

Now it was left to the sole survivor of that twisted rampage to somehow try to heal and move forward.

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