​Critics torch Newsweek over 'puff piece' on transvestite who raped and murdered mother, killed little girls

In July 2007, Steven Joseph Hayes and his accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, broke into the home of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut. After the duo savagely beat and restrained the father, William Petit, Hayes forced Jennifer Hawke-Petit to take $15,000 out of her bank account, then brutally raped and murdered the mother of two.

After Hayes' accomplice similarly tortured and raped 11-year-old Michaela Petit, the duo tied the little girl and her 17-year-old sister, Hayley, to their beds, then set the house on fire.

Newsweek published a puff piece by its chief investigative reporter, Joshua Rhett Miller, on Friday that not only painted the murderous rapist in a sympathetic light but presented the transvestite with his preferred pronouns and narrative framing.

Critics incensed by Newsweek's apparent attempt at reputational rehab for Hayes — who previously bragged in a series of letters that he allegedly murdered 17 girls and women and made a snuff film documenting one of the slayings — concluded that Americans "don't hate the media enough."

The subject of Miller's piece originally was sentenced to receive the death penalty for his gruesome crimes. Hayes — who now calls himself Linda Mai Lee — reportedly smiled in the courtroom during his sentencing.

ABC News reported at the time of the unanimous jury verdict condemning Hayes to death that William Petit, the only survivor of the home invasion, expressed satisfaction that justice was being served, telling reporters, "We all know that God will be the final arbiter, and I think the defendant faces far more serious punishments from the Lord than he can ever face from mankind."

The bereaved father was, however, subsequently denied the justice he desired when Connecticut abolished the death penalty in 2012. Hayes' sentence was commuted such that he is now serving a life sentence without the hope of parole but with the guarantee of sex-change procedures.

After first demanding kosher meals, having supposedly self-converted into an Orthodox Jew, Hayes began masquerading as a woman, enjoying virtually every possible accommodation from the Oregon State Penitentiary, where he is now reportedly seeking breast implants and hormone replacement therapy.

Newsweek ran with Hayes' narrative that he has long suffered confusion over his sex and that he internalized the "intolerance of others." Newsweek's Miller also incorporated Hayes' insinuation that had he accepted his autogynephilia earlier, his victims might still be alive.

"I hurt, so I hurt others," the murderous rapist told the liberal publication.

'Everyone involved in the writing of this piece should be fired.'

In addition to humanizing the murderous rapist and detailing his supposed difficulties with drugs, his in-prison romance, and his daily routine, Miller made sure both to portray transvestites in general as a victimized group, claiming they are disproportionately likely to fall prey to violent crime, and to again paint Hayes in a sympathetic light with regard to his lawsuit, Hayes v. Houser.

The murderous rapist, now part of an LGBT group, filed a lawsuit in 2022 against several prison employees and officials at State Correctional Institution, Benner Township, for supposedly violating his right during his imprisonment there to "be free of cruel and unusual punishment." The supposed cruelty the murderous rapist suffered consisted of officials allegedly preventing him from ordering eye shadow and a cup-style bra and having him use the facility barber whenever he wanted to remove his chest, facial, and pubic hair.

Despite the apparent attempt to frame Hayes as a reformed man coming to grips with his imagined identity, Miller included an apparent threat from the murderous rapist. Hayes said with regard to his lawsuit, "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."

Laura Powell, a civil rights attorney in the San Francisco Bay area who founded Californians for Good Governance, blasted the Newsweek article, tweeting, "Newsweek now publishes a puff piece on how he is now happy and at peace since he came to terms with his gender confusion. They claim his 'former anger' had been fueled by this distress. Now he is seeking treatments to feminize his appearance. (Undoubtedly funded by taxpayers.) You don't hate the media enough."

Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck similarly noted, "People really don't hate the media enough."

"Everyone involved in the writing of this piece should be fired and bullied out of journalism forever," wrote Bill D'Agostino, a senior research analyst for the Media Research Center.

Helen Joyce, the author of "Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality" wrote, "He raped an 11 year old and her mother, and murdered both, as well as the 11 year old's sister. And we're supposed to pity him because his crimes were supposedly because of his confusion about his gender identity? And to give a toss that he's 'happy to be alive?'"

"He murdered a mother and her two daughters and raped two of them before doing so. But now he's kind of sorry for what he did, but he’s also at peace with it," wrote T. Becket Adams, program director at the National Journalism Center. "The feel-good story of the year."

"Ted Bundy has rebranded as Buffalo Bill, and that's a beautiful thing," added Adams.

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