NEWTOWN, Conn. – A former Connecticut death row inmate convicted of fatally stabbing a pregnant woman over a drug debt has collapsed in prison and died.
The Correction Department says 57-year-old Robert Courchesne (KOHR’-chayne) was walking inside the Garner Correctional Center at about 10:35 a.m. Monday when he collapsed.
He was taken to Danbury Hospital and pronounced dead about an hour later.
Courchesne was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to death for killing Demetris Rodgers in Waterbury in 1998.
Rodgers was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and the baby didn’t survive. The death sentence was applied under a provision that allowed for capital punishment in cases where there were two or more victims.
The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned Courchesne’s death penalty in 2010, finding the state hadn’t proved the baby had been born alive.
Connecticut murder convict Robert Courchesne, who had a death sentence overturned by the , collapsed in prison yesterday. He died in hospital an hour later.
File photo of Newton, Connecticut. Courchesne was imprisoned at the town's prison.
Courchesne, now 57, stabbed heavily pregnant Demetris Rodgers to death in 1998. In 2004 he was convicted of her murder and that of her unborn baby, delivered minutes after the murder by . Baby Antonia Rodgers spent over a month on life support before death was confirmed. Using legislation that provided the death penalty to multiple murderers the court sentenced Courchesne to death.

Courchesne reached the Connecticut Supreme Court in 2010 and had the Antonia murder conviction overturned. The court ruled it was not proved the baby was alive at the time of the cesarean delivery. The death penalty was substituted with a 60-year sentence which prosecutors accepted instead of opting for a retrial.

Yesterday's death at  is being probed by police and prison officials, but is not considered suspicious. Courchesne collapsed while walking in the ,  at around 10:35 a.m. .

Connecticut abolished the death penalty in 2012, but those already on death row remained sentenced to die.

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