Connecticut
Connecticut woman found dead hours before sentencing for husband's death
A 76-year-old Connecticut woman was found dead at her home Wednesday, hours before she was to be sentenced for killing her husband and hiding his body for months while continuing to collect his paychecks.
State police said they were investigating the “untimely death” of Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi after being called to her Burlington home for a welfare check shortly after 10:30 a.m. The cause of her death was under investigation, and police and her lawyer did not disclose any further details.
Kosuda-Bigazzi had been scheduled under a plea deal to be sentenced at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Hartford Superior Court to 13 years in prison for the 2017 death of her husband, Dr. Pierluigi Bigazzi, 84.
Her lawyer, Patrick Tomasiewicz, said her death was unexpected.
“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.”
Police said Kosuda-Bigazzi wrote that she and her husband got into a fight after she told him repairs were needed to their home’s backyard deck. She wrote that he came at her with a hammer and she managed to wrestle it away from him during a lengthy struggle, authorities said.
“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.”
State troopers found her husband’s body in their basement in February 2018 during a wellness check requested by UConn Health staff. It was wrapped in plastic and showed an advanced stage of decomposition, authorities said. The medical examiner said he had died from blunt trauma to his head.
Investigators have said they believe Pierluigi Bigazzi died sometime in July 2017 and that his UConn Health paychecks continued to be deposited into the couple’s joint checking account until his body was found.
An internal investigation by UConn resulted in the disciplining of a school medical official who was supposed to monitor Pierluigi Bigazzi’s work but had no contact with him in the months before his body was found.
Connecticut
State police investigating suspicious incident in Burlington
BURLINGTON, Conn. (WFSB) – Connecticut State Police are investigating a suspicious incident at a residence on Case Road in Burlington.
Multiple state troopers and police vehicles were seen at the home conducting an investigation. A viewer reported seeing nine police cars and numerous troopers at the scene.
State police said there is no threat to the public at this time. The investigation is ongoing.
No additional details about the nature of the suspicious incident have been released.
Copyright 2026 WFSB. All rights reserved.
Connecticut
Ecuadorian national with manslaughter conviction sentenced for illegally reentering United States through Connecticut
NEW HAVEN, CT. (WFSB) – An Ecuadorian national with a manslaughter conviction was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison for illegally reentering the United States through Connecticut after being deported.
40-year-old Darwin Francisco Quituizaca-Duchitanga was sentenced and had used the aliases Darwin Duchitanga-Quituizaca and Juan Mendez-Gutierrez.
U.S. Border Patrol first encountered Quituizaca in December 2003, when he used the alias Juan Mendez-Gutierrez and claimed to be a Mexican citizen. He was issued a voluntary return to Mexico.
Connecticut State Police arrested him in March 2018 on charges related to a fatal crash on I-91 in North Haven in March 2017. He was using the alias Darwin Duchitanga-Quituizaca at the time.
ICE arrested him on an administrative warrant in Meriden in August 2018 while he was awaiting trial in his state case. An immigration judge ordered his removal to Ecuador in September 2018, but he was transferred to state custody to face pending charges.
Quituizaca was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in January 2019 and sentenced to 30 months in prison.
After his release, ICE arrested him again on an administrative warrant in Meriden in August 2023. He was removed to Ecuador the next month.
ICE arrested Quituizaca again on a warrant in Meriden on June 28th, 2025, after he illegally reentered the United States. He pleaded guilty to unlawful reentry on July 30th.
He has been detained since his arrest. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigated the case.
The case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat illegal immigration and transnational criminal organizations.
Copyright 2026 WFSB. All rights reserved.
Connecticut
Justice Department sues Connecticut and Arizona as part of effort to get voter data from the states
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Officials in Connecticut and Arizona are defending their decision to refuse a request by the U.S. Justice Department for detailed voter information, after their states became the latest to face federal lawsuits over the issue.
“Pound sand,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes posted on X, saying the release of the voter records would violate state and federal law.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced this week it was suing Connecticut and Arizona for failing to comply with its requests, bringing to 23 the number of states the department has sued to obtain the data. It also has filed suit against the District of Columbia.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the department will “continue filing lawsuits to protect American elections,” saying accurate voter rolls are the ”foundation of election integrity.”
Secretaries of state and state attorneys general who have pushed back against the effort say it violates federal privacy law, which protects the sharing of individual data with the government, and would run afoul of their own state laws that restrict what voter information can be released publicly. Some of the data the Justice Department is seeking includes names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
Other requests included basic questions about the procedures states use to comply with federal voting laws, while some have been more state-specific. They have referenced perceived inconsistencies from a survey from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Most of the lawsuits target states led by Democrats, who have said they have been unable to get a firm answer about why the Justice Department wants the information and how it plans to use it. Last fall, 10 Democratic secretaries of state sent a letter to the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security expressing concern after DHS said it had received voter data and would enter it into a federal program used to verify citizenship status.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, said his state had tried to “work cooperatively” with the Justice Department to understand the basis for its request for voters’ personal information.
“Rather than communicating productively with us, they rushed to sue,” Tong said Tuesday, after the lawsuit was filed.
Connecticut, he said, “takes its obligations under federal laws very seriously.” He pledged to “vigorously defend the state against this meritless and deeply disappointing lawsuit.”
Two Republican state senators in Connecticut said they welcomed the federal lawsuit. They said a recent absentee ballot scandal in the state’s largest city, Bridgeport, had made the state a “national punchline.”
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