(Adds reaction, details)
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Oct 13 (Reuters) - A jury on Thursday found a Connecticut man guilty of murdering a mother and her two daughters during a 2007 home invasion in which family members were molested, tied up and their house set ablaze.
Joshua Komisarjevsky could be sentenced to death for the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17, whose bodies were found in the family's Cheshire, Connecticut home.
A jury in New Haven Superior Court took less than two days before finding him guilty on 17 charges that included murder, arson, kidnapping and sexual assault.
Komisarjevsky's accomplice, Steven Hayes, was found guilty of similar charges last year and sentenced to death.
Prosecutors said Komisarjevsky and Hayes broke into the Petit home early on July 23, 2007 after spotting Hawke-Petit and her youngest daughter in a grocery store and following them home.
Later that morning, Hawke-Petit was forced to drive to a bank, where she told a teller her family was being held hostage and she needed ${esc.dollar}15,000 to pay the captors.
A bank manager called police but when authorities arrived at the Petit home, it was engulfed in flames.
Authorities discovered the body of Hawke-Petit, who had been raped and strangled, and the bodies of her daughters, who died of smoke inhalation, in the house. The younger girl had been sexually assaulted.
Hawke-Petit's husband, William Petit, was badly beaten and bound in the attack but managed to escape as the house was set ablaze.
He said he felt relieved at the verdicts but said Komisarjevsky's trial had been more difficult for him due to the detailed accounts of the sexual assault on his younger daughter.
"This case was harder because so much of it centered on Michaela," he said. "This crime was about sexual predation against women."
Komisarjevsky, who had admitted leaving the two girls tied to their beds in the burning house, showed no emotion as the verdicts were read.
His sentencing was set for Oct. 24.
Connecticut has only executed one person, in 2005, since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. (Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Jerry Norton)
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