Nearly 18 years after the horrific murders and sex attacks on Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her young daughters during a home invasion in Connecticut, the killer formerly known as Steven Joseph Hayes now expresses regret and describes living at peace.
The details of the "Cheshire Murders" on July 23, 2007 shocked the country. The court heard how Hayes and his accomplice Joshua Komisarjevsky broke into the home and Jennifer was forced to go to a bank to withdraw $15,000 from her account. Afterwards, Hayes raped her and strangled her to death. Komisarjevsky raped 11 year-old Michaela. The pair took pictures of their attacks, with one photo showing Michaela bound, partly naked and with a pillow case over her face. Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley were tied to their beds as Hayes and his accomplice doused the house in gasoline and set it ablaze — leaving the children to die of smoke inhalation. The only survivor was William Petit Jr., who was tied up and beaten with a baseball bat.
The prosecutor described the attack as "evil" and "shockingly brutal" and they were initially sentenced to death. The sentences were later reduced to life without parole.
Hayes — now Linda Mai Lee after finalizing a name change this month — said her former anger had been fueled by the question of her gender identity. Now, 61, she said she finally felt comfortable living as a woman in the Oregon State Penitentiary. Komisarjevsky is now 44. Newsweek was unable to reach him for comment.
"For the first time in my life I am happy to be alive and do not want to die," Lee told Newsweek via email on Jan. 15, adding she intends to resume hormone replacement therapy shortly.
Transgender rights have been a focus of political debate, particularly over implications for the safety of women. Research from Sweden published in 2011 showed that subjects who had been assigned male at birth but later identified as female had a much higher rate of committing crimes than "female controls" but not "compared to males". According to research by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, transgender people are over four times more likely than others to be victims of violent crime.
The vast majority of inmates in Oregon State Penitentiary are men, but Lee said she is able to wear makeup, eye shadow, foundation, eyeliner and even lipstick on occasion. She also cherishes her jewelry, including rings and necklaces, as well as bras, panties and what she called a "slightly feminized" uniform. That had eliminated her thoughts of suicide. She's now seeking breast augmentation and hair replacement therapy since male pattern baldness drastically enhances her gender dysphoria.
Lee said that she had initially been diagnosed at the age of 16 with the condition - a feeling of distress that can happen when a person's gender identity differs from the sex they are born with. But Lee said she wasn't told of the diagnosis at the time and that "intolerance" simmered inside her for decades. Newsweek was not independently able to verify the statements.
"I hurt, so I hurt others," she said.
Had Lee accepted herself earlier, Hawke-Petit and her daughters may still be alive, she said.
"I think about them every day and regret my part in what happened and all the pain I caused," Lee said. "That is why I want to use my life today to prevent someone else from doing what I did."
Before the attack, the killers had sent text messages to each other.
The court was told that Hayes sent a message saying: "I'm chomping at the bit to get started". Later he had asked "We still on?". "Yes" replied Komisarjevsky. "Soon?" asked Hayes. "I'm putting kid to bed," responded Komisarjevsky, referring to his own young daughter "Hold your horses". Hayes replied "Dude the horses want to get loose". He added "lol".
Lee characterized the actions in the attack as "wrong on every level," the behavior of someone deeply mired in addiction and gender identity issues.
William Petit declined to comment on Lee's transition through a spokesperson when reached by Newsweek.
"I can never expect him to forgive me," Lee said. "I would say I'm sorry and wish I could undo that night.
"Every moment of that night haunts me because that is not who I am as a person... What happened goes against everything I believe and will haunt me forever. What makes it worse is knowing that I would never have been in that situation if I had accepted who I am sooner. I could have prevented years of pain I caused everyone if I had only accepted myself."
Another inmate at SCI Greene, a state prison in Pennsylvania, first noticed Lee's anguish in early 2018, she said. William Scott, also known as Kim, later slipped a memo for a transgender support group into her cell, she recalled.
"I started to cry and said, 'How did you know?'" Lee continued. "I came out to Kim that night in the day room.
"My whole life I hid who I truly was and tried to deny it to myself," she said. "I had so much hate for I was pretending to be, I stayed high and always wanted to die."
Lee returned to her cell and flushed four bags of heroin and fentanyl she intended to use to end her life, saying she would've been dead within days had Kim not confronted her. Newsweek was unable to reach Scott for comment.
In 2019, a year after learning of the diagnosis decades earlier through a 1979 psychiatric evaluation, Lee spoke of her sexual identity during a podcast as she received hormone therapy at SCI Greene. The host, Joe Tomaso, referred to Lee as both Steven and her preferred name, Linda, in subsequent interviews.
"Linda was bestowed upon me by my sister in Pennsylvania," Lee said about Kim and the origin of her new identity. "She literally saved my life and I miss her very much."
Lee's surname pays homage to Roderick Lee, a fellow inmate she considered to be her "husband" while incarcerated at SCI Greene. He was later released from prison in 2022 and died of a heart aneurysm in early 2023, she said.
"I told him I would carry his name and do so to honor him and the love we shared," Lee said.
Lee fears she'll always be an addict, but hasn't used her drug of choice, "rock cocaine," since July 15, 2007—one week before the fateful home invasion.
"I maintain staying clean by taking things one day at a time," she said. "Keeping my time occupied with positive activities ... and keeping drama out of my life as much as possible."
Lee said she works a full-time job for Oregon Correctional Enterprises, earning about $280 per month. She declined to provide additional specifics, citing confidential clients in some instances, but uses her salary to buy food, clothing, makeup, personal items and gender dysphoria treatments.
Lee's typical day at Oregon State Penitentiary starts at 5 a.m., followed by breakfast and a shower. She starts work at 7 a.m., breaks for lunch at 11:30 a.m. and then returns at 12:15 p.m. before wrapping up her day at 3:15 p.m. Dinner is served at 5 p.m., with television time to follow, she said.
"That is a normal weekday," Lee said, adding that she's also a member of Equality-8, a club for LGBTQ inmates.
Lee praised prison staff in Oregon, characterizing her treatment as "amazing by comparison" to Pennsylvania, where an ongoing civil rights lawsuit filed in late 2022 alleges she was denied treatment for male pattern baldness and face/body hair removal.
The filing, Hayes v. Houser, which identifies Lee as "Ms. S. Hayes," claims medical staff at SCI Greene confirmed in March 2018 that she suffered from severe gender dysphoria, as well as anxiety, depression, suicide ideation and several past suicide attempts. She began hormone replacement therapy in March 2018.
While incarcerated at SCI Greene, Lee was allowed to dress as a woman with a tailored uniform, bows on her shirt or scarves worn around her waist, but she was denied treatment for male pattern baldness and electrolysis.
Hayes was later transferred in January 2021 to SCI Benner Township, a prison in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, where she was allowed to "continue to present as a female," as well as to wear a cap to conceal her baldness, her lawsuit says.
Prison staff never challenged Hayes on her gender expression at Benner until she tried to buy eye shadow and a brow pencil so she could stop using art supplies as makeup, it says. That prompted a Prison Rape Elimination Act compliance manager to deny the request, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Hayes also sought to purchase "cup style bras" instead of the sports bras available at the prison's commissary since the binding undergarment isn't suitable for breast development, but the request was denied by facility manager Morris Houser, the filing claims.
In August 2022, Hayes was transferred again to another Pennsylvania prison, SCI-Albion, where she was allowed to present as a female for three weeks before trouble began, according to the lawsuit, which seeks $150,000 in damages.
"As of the date of this filing, most of her gender expressing property has been taken as contraband, and the rest will be taken on sight," the lawsuit claims.
Maria Bivens, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Lee said she was transferred from Pennsylvania to Oregon in March 2023 due to the Hayes v. Houser lawsuit. She's acting as her own attorney and hopes to settle the case within months.
"If they choose to go to trial, I will take their head off by keeping my promise and putting every trans-female in PA on the stand to share the abuse they suffer in that system," she said.
Court records show Steven J. Hayes filed a name and sex change petition in Marion County Circuit Court, but the request was denied in February 2024.
"It's not in the public's interest for petitioner's name to be changed," the judgment read. "While petitioner is not yet on post-prison supervision, he will be upon his release from prison. Given the nature of petitioner's convictions, it is in the public's interest to be able to identify petitioner by his name at the time of conviction during any term of post-prison supervision."
Undeterred, Hayes filed another name and sex change petition in Multnomah County, which was approved by Circuit Court Judge Morgan Wren Long on October 11.
"The petitioner, Ms. S. Hayes, is a transgender female prisoner diagnosed with severe gender dysphoria," a letter accompanying the request read. "[Hayes] is an interstate compact prisoner serving her 6 life without parole sentences in the [Oregon Department of Corrections] with no release date ever ... the requested name/sex change is to treat severe gender dysphoria, and will have no impact in the public interest."
In 2016, a judge in Connecticut resentenced Lee, then known as Hayes, to six terms of life without parole plus 106 years. She has a maximum of a 999-year sentence, plus 99 months and 999 days, according to the Connecticut Department of Corrections' website, which identifies her as Hayes.
She reported far better conditions at Oregon State Penitentiary, which houses roughly 1,700 male inmates, compared to about 10 who self-identify as transgender and nonbinary.
The Oregon Department of Corrections provides all "medically necessary treatment" that meets constitutional requirements for incarcerated patients diagnosed with gender dysphoria," its 2024 policy said, adding that patients should have access to counseling whether or not they are interested or eligible for hormone therapy.
Treatment for gender dysphoria may also include gender-affirming surgery, although Lee said she's not currently considering surgical options.
Amber Campbell, an Oregon Department of Corrections spokeswoman, said the agency does not maintain information regarding the average annual health care cost per adult in custody. Lee, who said she works in part to finance treatment for gender dysphoria treatments, said the state had not paid for any gender-affirming treatments thus far.
Campbell said she was also unable to provide details of the circumstances that led to Lee's transfer to Oregon, but for Lee, it has made all the difference.
"In PA I always felt at risk/threatened from staff solely due to being trans and expressing who I am. That is not the case here for me as well as my sisters. While there is still some small hurdles to overcome, there is definitely light at the end," she said.
Updated on 02/03/2025 at 1:10 p.m. ET with important additional details of the 2007 attack and the ensuing trial
About the writer
Joshua Rhett Miller is a Newsweek chief investigative reporter based in New York. His areas of focus include U.S. politics, ... Read more