Murder Case Hangs On 26 Questions
UConn Professor’s Wife Wrote List For Attorney; Defense Seeks Dismissal On Privilege Grounds
NEW BRITAIN — Sometime in 2017 Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi, accused of murdering her husband, UConn professor Dr. Pierluigi Bigazzi, prepared 26 questions for an attorney. That list of questions is now at the center of a hearing in which her lawyers are moving that her charges be dropped.
Some of those questions, according to testimony in Superior Court in New Britain Wednesday, may have had to do with estate planning. But the exact questions are not publicly known because they are contained in one of the documents Kosuda-Bigazzi’s lawyers argue were improperly viewed by investigators because they were protected by attorney-client privilege.
In May, a judge removed the New Britain state’s attorney’s office from the case after a prosecutor came forward to say he inadvertently viewed documents seized by state police that may fall under attorney-client privilege. The defense now wants the case dismissed.
The questions were on one of three documents removed by state police detectives from a locked filing cabinet in a second-floor office of the couple’s Burlington home on Feb. 6, after police found the victim’s decomposed body in the basement.
Kosuda-Bigazzi is accused of murdering her husband by hitting him with a hammer and then wrapping his body in plastic and storing it in the basement for several months.
Pierliugi Bigazzi was last seen at the UConn Health Center in July 2017 and was not in regular contact with his supervisors at the hospital. The university had been paying his salary until his body was discovered in February, after UConn officials asked police to check on his wellbeing.
Superior Court Judge Vernon D. Oliver is holding what is known as a Lenarz hearing to determine whether the documents that state police removed should not have been viewed by state investigators.
One of the documents in question — handwritten notes by Kosuda-Bigazzi that could be considered a confession — was included in the arrest warrant used to charge her with murder. The warrant has been made public.
Kosuda-Bigazzi’s lawyers argue her notes are covered by attorney-client privilege and that police should not have taken them. Citing a case, State vs. Lenarz, they argue the murder case against Kosuda-Bigazzi should be dismissed because there is no way she can get a fair trial.
On Wednesday, attorney Mark Dubois, an expert witness for the defense, testified that he believes the documents were covered by attorney-client privilege. Dubois has met with Kosuda-Bigazzi three times since May to go over what was in the documents.
Assistant State’s Attorney Christopher Watson got Dubois to acknowledge that some of the documents in the sealed files were household bills, although Dubois still considered them privileged because they may have had something to do with estate planning.
State police detective Jeremy Combes testified that several detectives were in the second-floor office where the documents in dispute were found and that one of them started reading from it.
“Some type of incident had taken place, some sort of altercation in the kitchen,” Combes said.
Defense attorney Pat Tomasiewicz tried to press Combes as to how many detectives were present, if they talked about the documents and whether anyone talked to an investigator from the New Britain state’s attorney’s office about the contents at the scene.
At one point, Tomasiewicz became frustrated that Combes answered several inquiries by saying he “didn’t recall.”
“Is there something you don’t want to tell me here, trooper?” Tomasiewicz asked. “I am hearing a lot of ‘can’t recalls’.”
In the Lenarz case, police and prosecutors viewed documents related to legal strategy they found on the defendant’s computer that fell under attorney-client privilege. The state Supreme Court eventually overturned the conviction.