Capital Punishment in Connecticut - Death Row - Crimes

Crimes

• Lazale Delane Ashby — Ashby was condemned to death on March 28, 2008. On December 2, 2002, Ashby raped and murdered his neighbor, 21-year-old Elizabeth Garcia, in her Hartford apartment, and was subsequently convicted of the crimes.

• Robert Breton, Sr. — Breton was sentenced to death on October 27, 1989. On December 13, 1987, Berton murdered his wife JoAnn (38) and their son, Robert Breton, Jr. (16), by beating and stabbing them to death. He was convicted of one capital felony and two counts of murder.

• Jessie Campbell III — Campbell was condemned to death on August 16, 2007, for the murders of LaTaysha Logan (20) and Desiree Privette (18), and also convicted of the attempted murder of Privette's aunt, Carolyn Privette, in an August 26, 2000 shooting spree.

• Sedrick "Ricky" Cobb — Cobb was sentenced to death on August 13, 1991. The former deliveryman from Naugatuck was convicted of the rape and murder of 23-year-old Julia Ashe of Watertown, whom he kidnapped from a Waterbury department store parking lot on December 16, 1989.

• Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky – Hayes was condemned to death on December 2, 2010, and Komisarjevsky was condemned on January 27, 2012, for the same crimes. Hayes was found guilty on 16 out of 17 counts related to the home invasion murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, age 48, and her daughters Hayley Petit, 17, and Michaela Petit, 11. William Petit, husband / father of the deceased, survived the attack, and Komisarjevsky was convicted on all 17 counts related to the same set of crimes. Each sentence includes six consecutive death sentences, one for each capital felony conviction, plus an additional 106 years for the remaining charges.

• Russell Peeler, Jr. — Peeler, a drug dealer, was condemned to death on December 10, 2007; he was convicted on October 15, 2007 of ordering his younger brother Adrian Peeler to kill Karen Clarke and her eight-year-old son, Leroy "B.J." Brown, Jr., in their Bridgeport duplex on January 8, 1999. The boy was expected to be the key witness against Peeler in the upcoming trial for the May 29, 1998 fatal shooting of Clarke's boyfriend, Rudolf Snead, Jr., who was a former drug associate of Peeler's. Leroy Brown had also been witness to an earlier drive-by shooting attack on Snead by Peeler prior to the murder. Peeler was subsequently convicted of Snead's murder. Peeler claims to have no involvement in any of the murders.

• Richard Reynolds — Reynolds, a Brooklyn, New York, crack dealer, was condemned to death on April 13, 1995. Reynolds murdered Officer Walter T. Williams (34) of the Waterbury Police Department on December 18, 1992; while being searched by Williams, Reynolds bumped against him to determine if the officer was wearing a bulletproof vest. Reynolds then shot Williams point-blank in the head with a handgun.

• Todd Rizzo — Rizzo was condemned to death on March 29, 1999 for the September 30, 1997 murder of 13-year-old Stanley Edwards of Waterbury. Rizzo killed the boy by bludgeoning him at least 13 times with a three-pound sledgehammer in his backyard after telling the youth that they would be hunting snakes.

• Daniel Webb — Webb was condemned to death on September 12, 1991; he was convicted of kidnapping, rape and murder for the August 24, 1989 slaying in Hartford of Diane Gellenbeck, a 37-year-old Connecticut National Bank vice president. Prior to this, Webb already had an extensive criminal record including a 1983 robbery conviction, a 1984 rape and kidnapping conviction, and an arrest in 1987 for rape. While out on bail after the 1987 arrest, he raped and murdered Gellenbeck.