FAMILY DEFENSE & HOME PROTECTION

An Unspeakable Attack

Dr. Petit, his wife, and their two daughters lived an idyllic life Cheshire, Connecticut. But on July 23, 2007 it was ended by two convicted criminals Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky. They broke into the home of respected physician William Petit Jr. and his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and began a reign of terror that resulted in the savage beating of Dr. Petit with a baseball bat, and the murder of Dr. Petit’s wife and two daughters, Hayley, 17 and Michaela, 11.

Komisarjevsky picked Jennifer and Michaela as targets after seeing them at a grocery store. He followed them to their home, left, and later returned with Hayes around 3am in the morning. After smashing in Dr. Petit’s head as he slept in the basement on a couch and tying him up, they went upstairs and found Michaela in bed next to her mother, having fallen asleep while reading a Harry Potter novel. Hayley was snoozing in her own bed. All three girls were bound, and pillowcases were put over their heads. The horror they must have been experiencing is impossible to articulate.

As the sun rose, Hayes drove Jennifer to a bank, where she withdrew $15,000 under the threat of her family being harmed. While they were out, Komisarjevsky raped 11-year-old Michaela and took photographs of her on his phone. As Hayes and Jennifer left the bank, a teller called 911 to report that Jennifer was withdrawing money under duress and that her family were being kept hostage. The bank manager can be heard on the call saying, “We have a lady who is in our bank right now who says that her husband and children are being held at their house…”

Police took steps to intercept the vehicle Hayes used to drive Jennifer to and from a local bank, but didn’t stop it. Hayes and Jennifer returned to the house, and at some point soon after she was raped and murdered. The way Komisarjevsky describes it in his taped confession is utterly horrifying.

As the two men debate what to do, Dr. Petit started to regain consciences, and managed to escape. Somehow, he crawled, then rolled to a neighbor’s house. Doctors later said Petit had lost as much as seven pints of blood; when his neighbor first saw him, he didn’t even recognize him because he was so bloody. He then runs into  police who had apparently been staged outside the home for a while, looking like awkward and incompetent Barney Fife characters; they took no action to save the family whatsoever. The police were negligent in their duties plain and simple.

Just shy of 10am Hayes and Komisarjevsky burst out of home and tried to get away in the Petits’ SUV, but rammed a police vehicle and were quickly apprehended. The Petit house, meanwhile, burned and when firefighters finally made it inside—there was nobody left alive. Michaela had died of smoke inhalation in her bed, and Haley died at the top of the staircase after managing to get free of the pantyhose the thugs had used to tire her to her bed.

A timeline of events presented as evidence during one of the trials showed that 33 minutes elapsed from the bank employee’s call alerting police to a possible hostage situation, to the confirmation by police that at least one person at the Petit home was in physical distress. There’s an old saying, “When seconds count, police are only minutes away.” In this case, they completely abandoned the family.

First Strike believes in empowering families to protect themselves. And we’ve developed comprehensive training programs designed to teach men and women how to do just that.

They Knew Their Attacker

Tony, 31, and Katherine Butterfield, 30, were good, God-fearing people. Described as generous, kind, and loving parents, family, and friends. That ended on April 20, 2020 right in the middle of the Covid Pandemic, when Albert Enoch Johnson decided to break into the Butterfield’s family home.

Prosecutors say Johnson was armed with a handgun and wearing a mask when he kicked in their back door around 1am. Surveillance video shows Johnson found the couple upstairs in their bed, and demanded they give him money. He got $20 cash and a couple mobile phones.

As Johnson fled, he realized he had forgot his car keys and returned to the Butterfield home to find Tony standing in the door way. Johnson had forgot to put his mask back on, and Tony recognized him because Johnson had applied to work for the Butterfield’s landscaping business. When Johnson tried to reenter the home, Tony fought back and Johnson was stabbed several times with a kitchen knife. Later, when Johnson was interrogated, he said he shot Tony because the stabbing hurt. Then, he shot Katherine because he thought he heard a neighbor coming.

Tony died of a single gunshot to the head. Katherine died of a single gunshot to the chest.

The couple left behind three children, all under 4 years old.  Their young children were found upstairs, unharmed.

One Captured, One Dead

Criminals will take any opportunity they can to take advantage of others. On April 9, 2020 a couple of bad guys decided they’d wear masks, gloves, and hit a house in Arlington Heights, IL they believed had money stashed away in boxes.

Two due met at their job as car salesman. The older statesmen said he had saw about $200,000 in cash in boxes about a decade ago, and thought the money could still be there. But they picked the wrong house. Despite a big American flag hanging outside, which is always a good indicator that the home owner is probably a Second Amendment supporter, they decided to take the risk and commit a daylight home invasion

Larry D. Brodacz, 58 and Bradley J. Finnan, 38, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, planned to force their way into the residence and rob the homeowners at gunpoint. They can be seen on the home owner’s Ring doorbell camera walking calmly up to the house in surgical masks, wearing rubber gloves. The home owner thought they were his landscapers, so he opened up and was attacked. Once the pair gained entry, the male homeowner fought with Finnan and chased him out of the house. After re-entering his house, the homeowner retrieved a handgun from a safe and confronted Brodacz, who was pointing his own firearm at the homeowner’s family. After a brief struggle, Brodacz was shot in the abdomen and the homeowner fled the house with his family to await the police.

Brodacz bled out before SWAT entered the home. Finnan was captured later, and charged with the murder of his accomplice.

The homeowner exercised his right to self defense, and was not charged.

There’s a lot that can be learned from this case, which is one of the things First Strike does in our programs. We break down cases for you so you can better learn how criminals things, and take proactive actions to make yourself, your family, and your home a harder target.