Over nearly seven hours on the morning of July 23, 2007, Dr. William Petit, his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit and their two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, were bound, assaulted and terrorized. Beaten beyond recognition, Dr. Petit escaped, prompting neighbors to call 911. Moments later, the house, along with Jennifer and the girls, was set ablaze by their attackers.
On July 9, 2009, Byrd Billings and his wife Melanie were shot to death in their Pensacola-area home by a group of robbers dressed like ninjas.
Often brutal and needlessly violent, a look at some high-profile home invasions that shocked the public and the communities in which they occurred.
Steven Hayes, convicted of the brutal Petit murders in the now-infamous 2007 Connecticut home invasion, tried to commit suicide for the last time on January 31, 2010, with an overdose of psychiatric medication. He has since informed his psychiatrists that he plans to let Connecticut put him to death when the time comes.
In 1975 Joseph Kalinger, a middle-aged shoe maker began a six-week multi-state spree of murder, robbery and rape, with his son, 13. In home-invasion style attacks the two tortured and sexually abused four families, killing Maria Fasching, his third victim, on January 8, 1975.