911 tape in '07 CT home invasion released

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Officials have released the surveillance video and 911 tapes during a deadly home invasion in Connecticut in 2007.

They evidence is raising new questions about whether more could have been done to save the Pettit family.

Surveillance photos showed victim Jennifer Hawk Pettit less than an hour before her death. She was seen withdrawing $15,000...and told the bank teller her entire family was being held hostage at home.

She said needed the money for ransom.

At 9:21 a.m., the bank manager made a call to 911.

"We have a lady who is in our bank right now, who says that her husband and children are being held at their house...the people are in a car outside the bank, she's getting 15-thousand dollars to bring out to them, that if the police are told they will kill the children and the husband," the bank manager told the 911 dispatcher.

Prosecutors said Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky were terrorizing the family. They beat Dr. William Pettit with a baseball bat and tied him to a pole in the basement. His two daughters were tied to their beds upstairs.

Investigators said all of them were tortured overnight until the sun came up, and the bank opened up.

"They're tied up, she said. She's taking $15,000 out of her credit line," the bank manager said on the 911 call. "They told her that they wouldn't hurt anybody if she got back there with the money and she believes them."

Officers were sent to the house, but according to police logs, they were told by their captain not to approach the house and to stay back until they could set up a safe perimeter.

Thirty minutes after that first 911 call, there were still no ambulances, no fire trucks, and no emergency teams who could move in.

By that time, Jennifer was already back home with the money, her family and the attackers.

William Pettit said he heard his family being tortured upstairs.

Somehow, tied up and beat up, he managed to escape, going to a neighbor's house for help.

Minutes later, there was a fireball, and prosecutors said the suspects raped and strangled Jennifer Petit and burned the house down.

The mother and her two daughters were all killed.

In court on Wednesday, the judge had to dismiss everyone early. The photo evidence was so disturbing, everyone on the jury was sobbing.

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