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Nearly 18 years after killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two young daughters during a home invasion in Connecticut, the murderer formerly known as Steven Joseph Hayes says she's now at peace — though still haunted by the killings she regrets.
Hayes — now Linda Mai Lee after finalizing a name change this month — and accomplice Joshua Komisarjevsky, now 44, were sentenced to death for the attack, which included sexual assaults of Hawke-Petit and her 11-year-old daughter. The pair, who previously met at a halfway house, doused the family's home with gasoline and set it ablaze. Hayley Petit, 17, and her younger sister, Michaela, died of smoke inhalation, while Hawke-Petit was strangled by Lee after they returned from a bank where she was forced to withdrawal $15,000. Lee and Komisarjevsky's sentences were later reduced to life without parole.
In exclusive comments to Newsweek, Lee, 61, said her former anger had been fueled by the question of her gender identity. Now, she said she finally felt comfortable living as a woman in the Oregon State Penitentiary, where she is serving six life sentences for the killings of Hawke-Petit, 48, Hayley Petit, 17, and 11-year-old Michaela Rose Petit in Cheshire on July 23, 2007.
"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.
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.
"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."
Lee characterized her actions as "wrong on every level," the behavior of someone deeply mired in addiction and gender identity issues. Newsweek was unable to reach Komisarjevsky for comment.
The only survivor of the attack was William Petit Jr., who was bound and beaten with a baseball bat. He 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."
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. 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".
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.
Nearly 18 years after killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two young daughters during a home invasion in Connecticut, the murderer formerly known as Steven Joseph Hayes says she's now at peace — though still haunted by the killings she regrets.
Hayes — now Linda Mai Lee after finalizing a name change this month — and accomplice Joshua Komisarjevsky, now 44, were sentenced to death for the attack, which included sexual assaults of Hawke-Petit and her 11-year-old daughter. The pair, who previously met at a halfway house, doused the family's home with gasoline and set it ablaze. Hayley Petit, 17, and her younger sister, Michaela, died of smoke inhalation, while Hawke-Petit was strangled by Lee after they returned from a bank where she was forced to withdrawal $15,000. Lee and Komisarjevsky's sentences were later reduced to life without parole.
In exclusive comments to Newsweek, Lee, 61, said her former anger had been fueled by the question of her gender identity. Now, she said she finally felt comfortable living as a woman in the Oregon State Penitentiary, where she is serving six life sentences for the killings of Hawke-Petit, 48, Hayley Petit, 17, and 11-year-old Michaela Rose Petit in Cheshire on July 23, 2007.
"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.
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.
"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."
Lee characterized her actions as "wrong on every level," the behavior of someone deeply mired in addiction and gender identity issues. Newsweek was unable to reach Komisarjevsky for comment.
The only survivor of the attack was William Petit Jr., who was bound and beaten with a baseball bat. He 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."
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. 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".
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.
