The Connecticut Department of Correction is investigating the untimely death of an inmate at the Garner Correctional Center in Newtown, CT.
At approximately 10:35 a.m. Monday, February 2, 2015, inmate Courchesne, Robert collapsed while walking inside the facility. Correctional and medical staff immediately initiated emergency and life saving measures. The inmate was transported via ambulance to Danbury Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:23 a.m.
Courchesne, 57, was convicted in 2004 and originally sentenced to death for the murder of an 8 and ½ month pregnant woman in 1998. Courchesne stabbed the pregnant woman in a Waterbury bank parking lot over a $400 drug debt. The baby was delivered prematurely and died 42 days later.
In 2010, the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Courchesne, saying the death penalty was improperly applied. Courchesne was spared the death penalty when then State’s Attorney John Connelly declined to continue his pursuit of the death penalty against him. Although Courchesne was taken off death row, he was serving 60 years for Murder.
Even though no foul play is suspected, the Department of Correction and the Connecticut State Police are conducting an investigating of the incident.
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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