Second man sentenced to death in US family slaying

A second man was sentenced to death Friday in the shocking home invasion slayings of a doctor's family in the northeastern US state of Connecticut.

A jury in New Haven, Connecticut, reached the decision after five days of deliberations, the state prosecutor's office said.

Joshua Komisarjevsky, 31, had been found guilty in October on all 17 charges including murder, kidnapping and sexual assault, in the savage 2007 attack against the defenseless family of Dr William Petit.

His accomplice in the massacre was convicted last year and also sentenced to death. Following the convictions, juries then had to decide between sentences of death or life in prison.

The two murderers were on parole for burglary when they broke into the Petit home in the tranquil and affluent New Haven suburb of Cheshire in July 2007.

William Petit, a well-known local doctor, was beaten with a baseball bat and tied up, while his wife Jennifer Hawke-Petit was dragged off to a bank to withdraw ê15,000.

Hayes raped Hawke-Petit and Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted 11-year-old daughter Michaela.

Hayes then strangled Hawke-Petit before Michaela and her 17-year-old sister Hayley were tied to their beds, doused in petrol and left to burn to death as the intruders set the house on fire and fled the scene.

Mr Petit, the sole survivor, escaped to a neighbor's house while still tied up.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Connecticut has carried out only one execution since the re-establishment of capital punishment in the United States in 1976.

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