Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi: Woman Convicted of Murdering Her Doctor Husband Found Dead Hours Before Sentencing

The 76-year-old woman who murdered her doctor husband and hid his body for seven months while collecting his paychecks was found dead on Wednesday. 

This discovery came just hours before she was set to be sentenced for the crime.

Police said they found Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi's body after responding to a welfare check call at her Burlington home shortly after 10:30 a.m.

The convicted killer was scheduled to appear in Hartford Superior Court at 2 p.m. for her formal sentencing. 

She was set to receive a 13-year prison term for the 2017 death of her 84-year-old husband, Dr. Pierluigi Bigazzi.

Her lawyer, Patrick Tomasiewicz, said her death was "unexpected," but he suggested that Kosuda-Bigazzi might have played a role in it.

“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,” he said in a statement.

She was a very independent woman who was always in control of her own destiny.”

The timing of Kosuda-Bigazzi's death and the cause remain under investigation. 

However, troopers have characterized the incident as an untimely death investigation.

In March, she pleaded guilty to manslaughter and larceny related to the killing of her husband.

He was a UConn Health professor of laboratory science and pathology.

Kosuda-Bigazzi, who was also a scientist and worked with her husband, was arrested after his body was discovered in February 2018. 

She had been allowed to stay at home while wearing a monitoring ankle bracelet and posting a $1.5 million bond.

In writings found in their home, Kosuda-Bigazzi confessed to killing her husband with a hammer in July 2017. 

But she claimed she did it in self-defense.

According to the writings, she claimed her husband attacked her with a hammer during an argument about needing some repairs in their backyard.

Kosuda-Bigazzi says she fought him back, got a hold of the hammer, and then used it to strike him on the head.

“I hit him just swinging the hammer in any direction + then he was quiet — for a few seconds + then he stopped breathing,” she wrote, according to investigators.

“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.”

Kosuda-Bigazzi wrapped her husband’s body in plastic and stashed it in the basement of their home.

The body was discovered seven months later during a wellness check ordered by his UConn Health colleagues.

The doctor had not been seen since the summer, but his checks were deposited into the couple’s joint account until his body was found, investigators said.

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