A 76-year-old Connecticut woman committed suicide by drinking antifreeze hours before she was set to be sentenced for killing her husband, authorities said Monday, ABC News reported.

Connecticut State Police found the woman, Linda Bigazzi, “deceased” at her residence July 24, a press release reads. Police were dispatched to her house after receiving reports that an individual was unable to contact Bigazzi. (RELATED: ‘Tesla Of Euthanasia’: Assisted Suicide Device Set To Be Used For First Time)

The Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner declared that the cause of Bigazzi’s death was ethylene glycol toxicity, ABC News reported. Bigazzi pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in March in the 2017 death of her 84-year-old husband, a professor and University of Connecticut Health doctor, the outlet reported, citing the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice. Police found the body of the professor in the basement of his home during a welfare check in February 2018, the outlet noted, citing prosecutors.

A Connecticut woman was found dead hours before she was set to be sentenced for killing her husband. The woman died by suicide after ingesting antifreeze, officials said. https://t.co/4kNRx7pblv pic.twitter.com/fhgpY4suVz

— ABC News (@ABC) August 13, 2024

Bigazzi claimed in writings found at her house that she killed her husband in self defense, The Associated Press (AP) reported. She wrote that her husband came at her with a hammer that she managed to get control of and lethally used it against him, the outlet reported.

“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,” Bigazzi reportedly wrote.

Prosecutors based their case on a state medical examiner’s report that the professor was killed from blunt force trauma to the head, the CT Insider noted. The manslaughter conviction meant that she caused her husband’s death while intending to inflict serious injury, the outlet reported.

Prosecutors also accused Bigazzi of depositing her husband’s paychecks into a joint bank account “from the time of his death” until the time police discovered her husband’s body, a press release from the Connecticut State Division of Criminal Justice read. Bigazzi pleaded guilty to committing “Larceny in the First Degree,” the press release said.

Bigazzi was later set to be sentenced to 13 years in prison, The AP reported.

“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,” Patrick Tomasiewicz, Bigazzi’s lawyer, said in a statement. “She was a very independent woman who was always in control of her own destiny.”