Cops: Cold-Case Rapist Is Also Cold-Case Killer

A man with a lengthy criminal history has been charged with the 1973 killing of a woman in Connecticut, a few years after receiving a 25-year sentence in another cold case for kidnapping and sexual assault, police said Thursday. George Legere, 77, who is incarcerated at a maximum-security state prison, was charged with murder Wednesday after confessing to stabbing 21-year-old Janet Couture to death in East Hartford while trying to steal money for drugs, police said in an arrest warrant affidavit. "I went into the apartment looking for money and unfortunately the person woke up and recognized me and that left me no choice to do what I did," Legere told police. "I ended up stabbing her."

• The interview with police came after Legere told a fellow prisoner that he killed Couture and even signed a confession in July that was written by the other inmate and also signed by a correctional officer. Legere told the other inmate not to release the confession until after he died, because he didn't want anyone labeling him a "creep" or a "pervert," the warrant said.
• Police said Legere was an early suspect in Couture's killing, but there was not enough evidence to charge him back in the 1970s. Couture's sister, Shirlene Couture, 76, of Greenville, South Carolina, tells the AP it was a relief to know that an arrest has been made. "I feel bad because my parents died not knowing," she says. "That was my mom's last wish before she died." She says her sister was a good person. "She was very sweet," she says. "Anybody that knew her loved her. She didn't deserve what she got."
• She says her sister and Legere didn't know each other too well, and that Legere hung out with two other men who lived next-door to her sister. Legere told police he had gotten information that Janet Couture had recently gone to an ATM, and he broke into her apartment through a window, the warrant said.

• In 2021, Legere was arrested in connection with a 1984 kidnapping and sexual assault in Avon, Connecticut. A DNA sample Legere provided when he was released from a Massachusetts prison linked him to the case. Police said Legere kidnapped a woman from her apartment complex parking lot, blindfolded her and bound her arms, and drove to another location where he beat and raped her. The victim survived. He was sentenced to 25 years in that case in 2023.
• Legere has a lengthy criminal record dating to the 1960s that includes arrests and convictions in more than 30 criminal cases, including other convictions for sexual assault, kidnapping, and negligent homicide.
• Officer Marc Caruso of the East Hartford Police Department says after Legere's 2021 arrest, investigators looked at other cases involving Legere and found "disturbing similarities" to Couture's murder, the Hartford Courant reports.