A woman who was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday for the murder of her husband was found dead in her Connecticut home.
Connecticut State Police responded to Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi’s residence in Burlington shortly after 10:30 a.m. after receiving a report that she could not be reached, according to The Associated Press. Troopers, unable to make contact with anyone inside, entered the home with the help of the fire department.
“An unresponsive individual was located within the residence and was subsequently pronounced deceased at the scene,” state police said in a statement. “Based on initial findings, this incident is being treated as an untimely death investigation.”
Kosuda-Bigazzi, 76, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and larceny charges in March for the 2017 death of her husband, 84-year-old UConn Health pathology professor Pierluigi Bigazzi.
Bigazzi’s body was discovered in the couple’s home on February 5, 2018, after colleagues at the University of Connecticut raised concerns over his absence, which had lasted several months, as reported by CrimeOnline. A medical examiner determined that he died from blunt force trauma to the head in July 2017.
Kosuda-Bigazzi, who was also a scientist at the university, had collaborated with her husband on more than a dozen journal articles.
She was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday afternoon to 13 years in prison, according to the AP. Her attorney, Patrick Tomasiewicz, stated that her death was unexpected.
“We were honored to serve as her legal counsel and did our best to defend her in this complex case over the past six years,” Tomasiewicz said. “She was a very independent woman who always maintained control over her own destiny.”
Before her guilty plea, Kosuda-Bigazzi claimed she had killed her husband in self-defense. The larceny charge stemmed from her depositing his paychecks into their joint account after his death.
Officials have not yet released a cause of death.
