Convicted Cheshire Killer Says He’s Transgender: Report

CHESHIRE, CT — Convicted Cheshire killer Steven Hayes told a podcast host in a recent interview that he is transgender and is undergoing hormone therapy in prison, according to the New Haven Register.

Hayes, who is serving six life sentences in a Pennsylvania prison, was convicted along with Joshua Komisarjevsky for the 2007 home invasion killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters — Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17, in Cheshire.

In the interview with West Haven’s Joe Tomaso, host of the podcast “15 Minutes With…” and founder of CT News Alert, Hayes apologized for the murders, which he said was a robbery that went wrong and ruined everybody’s lives, according to the Register.

Hayes and Komisarjevsky were both sentenced to death for the murders. State lawmakers got rid of the death penalty in 2012, but made it so that inmates already on death row would be executed. The provision was added after the trials of Hayes and Komisarjevsky, but the state Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the death penalty violates the state’s constitution and barred all executions with no exceptions.

Hayes and Komisarjevsky were re-sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without the chance for parole and were transferred out of Connecticut to a maximum-security facility in Pennsylvania. Komisarjevsky is currently seeking a new trial.

Hayes, who previously sued the state Department of Correction on claims that his rights were being violated because he wasn’t being given a kosher diet to conform to his religious beliefs, said he will not seek any more appeals.

Read more at the New Haven Register here.