SUFFIELD, Conn — The man who was accused last week in a 1973 murder in East Hartford has died in prison, according to the Connecticut Department of Correction.

MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution staff members found George Legere, 77, unresponsive inside his cell at 11 p.m. on Friday. Facility medical staff attempted life-saving measures before an ambulance brought him to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is working to determine Legere's cause of death.

Connecticut State Police and the state Department of Correction are investigating.

In September, Legere was charged in the brutal murder of 21-year-old Janet Couture in October 1973.

Couture was found stabbed to death in her Cannon Road home in East Hartford on Oct. 13,

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