Judge rules prosecution of Burlington woman accused of killing her husband, a UConn medical school professor, can proceed

Linda L. Kosuda-Bigazzi, 71, accused of murder in the death of her husband, Dr. Pierluigi Bigazzi, is pictured at her arraignment in February 2018 in Superior Court in Bristol. At left is attorney Patrick Tomasiewicz and at right is attorney Brian Karpe.

A New Britain Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the state’s murder case against Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi of Burlington, who is accused of bludgeoning her elderly husband to death with a hammer two summers ago, can continue.

Defense attorneys argued that state police improperly seized and reviewed documents covered by attorney-client privilege during a search of her home and therefore irreparably violated Kosuda-Bigazzi’s Constitutional rights. They asked that the murder case against her be dismissed. The documents, the lawyers argued, were found in a locked filing cabinet in a second-floor office in folders labeled “criminal defense attorney” and “incident 2017.”


Prosecutors agreed the documents in the file labeled “criminal defense attorney” were covered by attorney-client privilege, but that other documents were not. They further argued that there were remedies short of dismissal of the case to ensure Kosuda-Bigazzi receives a fair trial.

Judge Vernon D. Oliver conducted a series of “Lenarz” hearings and heard testimony from state troopers, state police detectives, New Britain State’s Attorney Brian Preleski, defense attorney Brian Karpe and an expert on attorney-client privilege hired by the defense. In a 53-page decision released Friday, he rejected the defense request that he dismiss the murder case, but agreed that some protected documents were seized and reviewed by state police and prosecutors.

Any potential impact of that intrusion into the attorney-client privilege can be mitigated by moving the prosecution out of the New Britain Judicial District, Oliver found. He also ordered that the state police Western District Major Crime Squad no longer investigate the case.

“The court’s remedy is designed to result in an investigation and prosecution conducted by persons and agencies with no knowledge of the privileged communications,” Oliver wrote in his ruling.

The case is expected to be transferred to the Hartford Judicial District. Kosuda-Bigazzi is due back in Superior Court in New Britain on Aug. 30.

Kosuda-Bigazzi, 71, was charged Feb. 9, 2018 with murder and tampering with physical evidence in connection with the death of her husband, Dr. Pierluigi Bigazzi, 84, a physician and professor at the UConn School of Medicine in Farmington. She has been free on $1.5 million bail since her arrest.

Days earlier, on Feb. 5, 2018, UConn, Burlington and state police went to Kosuda-Bigazzi’s Smith Lane home to check on the well-being of her husband. Officials at the medical school said they had not heard from Bigazzi in months and were trying to reach him.

Once inside the house, police found Bigazzi’s body in the basement, wrapped in plastic trash bags and duct tape. Police also noted “insect activity” in the house.

The prosecution of Kosuda-Bigazzi has been stalled as Oliver conducted his lengthy “Lenarz” inquiry.

In State vs. Lenarz, Patrick Lenarz, a former karate instructor from Simsbury, was convicted in March 2007 of risk of injury to a minor after police said he improperly touched a minor. Lawyer Kevin Ferry of New Britain argued that Lenarz’s constitutional rights were violated after police and prosecutors read documents protected by attorney-client privilege that were on Lenarz’s computer.

In a 4-2 decision, the state Supreme Court found the “defendant was presumptively prejudiced by the prosecutor’s intrusion into the privileged communications taken from the defendant’s computer because the privileged materials contained a highly specific and detailed trial strategy.”

The justices said that any remedy other than dismissing the charges would be “a miscarriage of justice.” Lenarz was released from prison in November 2010, three years into his four-year sentence.

A key factor in the Kosuda-Bigazzi case that distinguished it from the Lenarz case, Oliver found, was that New Britain prosecutors reviewing the seized documents quickly discovered the potential breach of the attorney-client privilege and immediately notified the defense team and Judge Joan K. Alexander, the presiding judge in New Britain, who ordered the Lenarz review.

Oliver found that the papers in the file labeled “criminal defense attorney” were protected. He found documents in the file labeled “incident 2017,” were not. In that file state police found a description of the killing, allegedly written by Kosuda-Bigazzi. In that narrative, she claimed she struck her husband with a hammer in self defense.


State police determined that Bigazzi had been dead for months and suspected he was killed as early as the previous June. UConn, however, continued to pay Bigazzi his $200,000 annual salary, although medical school leadership had no contact with him over those months.

Administrators at the medical school prompted the well-being check of Bigazzi that led to the discovery of his body. His annual review was approaching and UConn administrators were trying to reach him. When they were unable to do so, UConn police were dispatched to the home Bigazzi and his wife shared.

David Owens can be reached at dowens@courant.com.