| Murder figure tried hanging Connecticut Post Newspaper November 12, 2008 By- Daniel Tepfer - Reporter Bridgeport - A woman, sentenced last year to 13 years in prison for her role in the execution-style murder of a Canadian man visiting the city, apparently tried to commit suicide by hanging herself in her prison cell this week. Louisa Bermudez, 36, was being treated Wednesday at the Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London. Hospital authorities would not disclose her condition. State Department of Correction spokesman Andrius Banevicius confirmed that a female inmate at York Correctional Institution in Niantic hanged herself by a bedsheet in her cell recently, but he said he would not disclose her name. He said she fastened one end of the sheet around her neck and the other end to an upper bunk. Banevicius said the inmate was found by prison employees, who immediately initiated life-saving procedures. He said the inmate was then taken to the hospital. Police sources confirmed the inmate is Bermudez and the Correction Dwepartment's Web site states that Bermudez is in the hospital. Bermudez had initially been charged with conspiracy to commit murder for joining with Miquel Zapata and Orema Taft in the Sept. 28, 2001, fatal shooting of 24-year-old Zoltan Kiss of Toronto, Canada. However, in a plea bargain reached on the verge of the trial's's start, Bermudez agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges of conspiracy to possess narcotics and hindering prosecution. Superior Court Judge George Thim sentenced her to 20 years in prison, suspended after she serves 13 years, followed by five years of probation. The sentence is to run concurrently to an 18-year term she is serving for robbery. Kiss was visiting his girlfriend in Bridgeport and had gone out to buy some Ecstasy, police said. He was later found slumped in his girlfriend's car on Pembroke Street with 25 bullets in his body. The crime remained unsolved five years as Kiss's mother, Eva, worked tirelessly to help find her son's killer. On each anniversary of her son's death, Eva Kiss would come to Bridgeport and put up posters and knock on doors in the East Side neighborhood where he was killed, trying to persuade witnesses to come forward. She was joined in her quest by Police Detective Heitor Texeira of the then-newly formed Cold Case Unit. They eventually persuaded several people to come forward. Despite death threats from Zapata, the witnesses testified Zapata and Taft, along with Bermudez, decided to rob Kiss after they saw that he was wearing an expensive watch and gold chain. |
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