A Connecticut widow who murdered her husband has been found dead while awaiting sentencing for manslaughter in the brutal killing of her physician husband.
Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi, 76, admitted to killing her wife Dr. Pierluigi Bigazzi, 84, had been beaten to death in 2017.
She then wrapped his body in a blanket and left it in the basement of their Burlington home, while continuing to collect his salary from his job at UConn Health.
Kosuda-Bigazzi was facing up to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter and first-degree robbery.
But it was a shocking development when the elderly woman was found dead just hours before she was due to receive her sentence on Wednesday.
Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi, who murdered her husband, was found dead while awaiting sentencing for manslaughter
Her attorney, Patrick Tomasiewicz, said her death was unexpected and did not provide a cause of death.
“We felt honored to be her legal advisor and have done our utmost to defend her in a complex case over the past six years,” he said in a statement.
‘She was a very independent woman who was always in control of her own destiny.’
The coroner has not yet released an exact cause of death.
However, a neighbor interviewed by the outlet said that Kosuda-Bigazzi had committed suicide.
“We wanted her to be punished if she really did this, which she admitted to,” the neighbor said. VOS61 as she expressed her shock at the news.
‘When I walked downstairs to get the mail, she turned around and went back to the house […] there was no interaction afterwards.’
Kosuda-Bigazzi, 76, admitted to stabbing her husband Dr. Pierluigi Bigazzi, 84, to death in 2017
She was found dead Wednesday in their former shared home in Burlington, Connecticut, hours before she was to be sentenced
Kosuda-Bigazzi was arrested in February 2018 in connection with the death of her husband, a professor of laboratory science and pathology at UConn Health. Pictured: Police at her Burlington home
Kosuda-Bigazzi was arrested in February 2018 in connection with the death of her husband, a professor of laboratory science and pathology at UConn Health.
His body was found in the basement after police came for a welfare check. Bigazzi died sometime in July 2017 from blunt force trauma to the head, the coroner said.
Investigators said his wife continued to collect his paycheck until her arrest and the filing of a murder charge. In writings found in her home, Kosuda-Bigazzi said she killed her husband with a hammer in self-defense, state police said.
Kosuda-Bigazzi wrote that she and her husband got into an argument after she told him repairs needed to be made to the patio behind their home.
She wrote that he came at her with a hammer and that she managed to grab the hammer from him after a prolonged struggle, authorities said.
“I struck him by swinging the hammer in either direction, and then he was silent — for a few seconds, and then he stopped breathing,” she wrote, according to researchers.
Investigators said Kosuda-Bigazzi wrapped his body in a blanket and left it in the basement of their home (pictured) before continuing to collect his paycheck until her arrest in February 2018.
The coroner has not yet released an exact cause of death, but at least one neighbor has said it was suicide
“I just wanted to slow him down. I sat on the floor by the kitchen cabinets across from the stove—next to him, for a long time.”
She was released after posting bail of more than $1.5 million.
An internal investigation by UConn resulted in disciplinary action against a school doctor who was supposed to oversee Bigazzi’s work but had not been in contact with him in the months before his body was found.
According to local residents, Kosuda-Bigazzi was portrayed as the leader in the relationship.
“She seemed to be the dominant one,” the neighbor said. “He was a quieter, smaller Italian man. She was opinionated.”
Others said fearful families had left the area after learning the killer had been released on bail.