Monday, October 24th 2011, 9:48 AM
Connecticut State Police
A report in the New Haven Register said that
convicted killer Steven Hayes wrote a letter claiming to have killed 17
people across the northeastern U.S.
"Yes, I've killed before," death row inmate Steven Hayes allegedly crowed in a prison letter addressed to a recipient in Wilson, N.C. who was identified only as "Lynn," The New Haven Register reported.
"I have 17 kills throughout the Northeast United States. Perfect victims and well executed, controlled endeavors."
Hayes also claims to have kept the sneakers of his victims as trophies - behavior that would be typical of a serial killer.
Hayes was convicted last year of murdering Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17, during a robbery of their Cheshire, Conn., home in 2007.
The letter is one of three or four the remorseless madman has penned from his inside his cell, the Register reported.
The newspaper obtained a copy of the letter after prison officials confiscated the writings and turned them over to prosecutors in the trial of Hayes' accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, earlier this month.
The letters have not been released to the public.
State's Attorney Michael Dearington and the FBI would not say whether Hayes' claims are being investigated, the Associated Press reported.
In the rambling, 17-page, handwritten missive, Hayes goes into gruesome detail about tying up and torturing two of his past victims, women he claims to have picked up while riding around in his car.
The druggie and career burglar also claims to have collected his victims' sneakers as twisted murder mementos.
"Each trophy was one-of-a-kind and completely specific to each victim," he boasts.
Hayes' sick shoe fetish was revealed during his trial last year. Elsewhere in the letter, he slams Komisarjevsky as an unworthy partner in crime whom he planned to whack had they gotten away with the Petit murders.
"I've searched my whole life for someone who could embrace and had the capacity for evil as I possess," Hayes wrote. "I thought I finally found it in Josh."
"But events show Josh, while (he) had the proper evil intent, lacked in the most serious aspects, commitment and control."
Komisarjevsky was convicted for his role in the killings on Oct. 13. He faces the death penalty when the sentencing phase of his trial begins on Tuesday.
His defense lawyers claimed the letters proved Hayes was the instigator in the triple homicide, and moved for a mistrial. But Judge Jon C. Blue rejected the request, saying the letters were vague and unreliable.
