Book Details Komisarjevsky’s Version Of Cheshire Murders

Author Brian McDonald has written a book telling Joshua Komisarjevsky’s side of the story of the brutal 2007 rape, kidnapping, and killing of the wife and two daughters of Dr. William A. Petit in Chesire, Connecticut.

McDonald corresponded and visited with Komisarjevsky to get the whole story. Here’s a quote:

To be honest, I’m a reluctant true-crime writer. I like happy endings. I took on both projects simply because I needed the work.

Nice.

The book is called ‘In the Middle of the Night: The Shocking True Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood’. I guess books like this are what we get when some writers “need work.”

Professor Called Police After Student Presentation

This happened in October at Central Connecticut State University, but I don’t think I had heard about it until a reader tipped me off this evening:

On October 3, 2008, [John] Wahlberg and two other classmates prepared to give an oral presentation for a Communication 140 class that was required to discuss a “relevant issue in the media”. Wahlberg and his group chose to discuss school violence due to recent events such as the Virginia Tech shootings that occurred in 2007.

Shortly after his professor, Paula Anderson, filed a complaint with the CCSU Police against her student. During the presentation Wahlberg made the point that if students were permitted to conceal carry guns on campus, the violence could have been stopped earlier in many of these cases. He also touched on the controversial idea of free gun zones on college campuses.

That night at work, Wahlberg received a message stating that the campus police “requested his presence”. Upon entering the police station, the officers began to list off firearms that were registered under his name, and questioned him about where he kept them.

Apparently the professor thought the presentation made other students feel “scared and uncomfortable.”

I saw at least one gunblogger in the comments, but I gotta say that this one takes the cake:

Susie
As a student at CCSU i am deeply concerned. I do not agree with Wahlberg and I believe he should be put in prison for saying such things. When someone speaks of promoting guns they are promoting MURDER and should be punished. I’m all for free speech, just not when it comes to guns.

Then, Susie, you AREN’T exactly for free speech, are you?

Prisons beefing up teleconferencing to save money

It costs the state of Connecticut at least $1,600 every time multiple murder suspect Joshua Komisarjevsky appears in a courtroom.

Despite his slight build and boyish appearance, Komisarjevsky is classified as a high security inmate, facing charges of murder, rape and arson from a 2007 home invasion in which a woman and her two daughters were killed in Cheshire.

At every court appearance, a special detail of corrections officers and two state troopers are assigned to accompany him.

So, when Komisarjevsky was due in family court earlier this year on an unrelated matter, prison officials opted for a teleconference. Instead an expensive trip to the courthouse, officers escorted Komisarjevsky down the hall from his cell at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, to a room where he participated in the hearing via two-way video.

I think this makes a lot of sense.

Also, recall that Dr. William Petit, whose wife and two daughters were killed by Komisarjevsky and his partner, has become an activist for the “Three Strike Law.”

Dr. William Petit, whose wife and two daughters were killed by two career criminals in Cheshire, CT, last year, has become an activist for the “Three Strike Law.” The law would five a mandatory life sentence on anyone convicted for the third time for a violent felony.

Petit’s wife and youngest daughter were raped. The mother was strangled to death and the two girls were tied in their beds and left to die when the two invaders set the house on fire.

ABC’s Good Morning America brought on a home defense “expert” who suggested that wind chimes and cactus on the windowsill would deter invaders.

UPDATE: From a commenter:

If cactus was actually effective at stopping malefactors, CT and MA would’ve required a license to buy, sell, and transport it long ago.

Group’s Only Pending Argument Fails

Simsbury, Connecticut:

A Superior Court judge has ruled that a group of local residents failed to show that the Metacon Gun Club poses a threat to the environment, eliminating the sole pending allegation of the three lawsuits the group filed four years ago.

“Based on the more credible evidence the court finds that the plaintiff has not met its burden of proof, and therefore finds for the defendant without costs,” Superior Court Judge William T. Cremins said in his decision.

Federal court had already ruled in favor of the gun club in a similar lawsuit.