Connecticut woman found dead before sentencing for husband's murder 'ingested antifreeze' in gruesome suicide

A woman from Connecticut who died hours before she was due to be sentenced for killing her husband had ingested antifreeze, officials claimed.

Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi, 76, is reported to have died by suicide after she was found dead in her home on July 24. At the time state police said that troopers had attended her residence after receiving a report that morning from someone who had tried to contact her and could not.

The Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has now determined her cause of death to be ethylene glycol toxicity. Kosuda-Bigazzi was due to be sentenced after she pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter for the March 2017 death of her husband. The Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice said that 84-year-old Pierluigi Bigazzi - a University of Connecticut Health doctor and professor - was found dead in the basement of their Burlington home.

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Officers discovered his body after responding to a welfare check call from his employer who claimed they had not heard from him in several months. Kosuda-Bigazzi had also pleaded guilty to first-degree larceny as she continued receiving her husband's pay after his death. The prosecution said that investigating officers found that checks from his employer had continued to be paid into their joint account from the time of his death in July 2017 until his body was found in February 2018.

Kosuda-Bigazzi was due to be sentenced under a plea deal which would have seen her serve 13 years in prison. The Associated Press claim that her hearing in court was scheduled for 2 pm on the day her body was found by the troopers. Her attorney, Patrick Tomasiewicz, released a statement following her death last month.

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The statement read: "We were honored to be her legal counsel and did our very best to defend her in a complex case for the past six years. She was a very independent woman who was always in control of her own destiny." Kosuda-Bigazzi had been allowed out of jail while awaiting her sentencing hearing as she had posted more than $1.5 million in bail to obtain temporary release.

The death of Mr Bigazzi was ruled a homicide with the cause of death being blunt injuries to the head according to a report from the medical examiner's office. Court records show that police officers found handwritten documents in their home where Kosuda-Bigazzi claimed that she had killed her husband in self-defense.