Robert Fisher, a man who pleaded guilty to r*pe and m*rder in the 2023 death of 3-year-old Rensselaer girl, died Tuesday at Elmira correctional facility, corrections officials said.
Fisher, 34, who had been in state prison since Sept. 23, was pronounced dead at 1:50 a.m., and is believed to have been taken out by another inmate – sickened by Fisher’s charges.
Media take Out reached out to a spokesman for the prison, who declined to discuss how Fisher died, referring instead to a DOCCS statement that the cause of death would be determined by the Chemung County Medical Examiner’s Office and it was up to that agency to decide whether to reveal it.
Fisher died less than two months after a Rensselaer County judge sentenced him to 20 years to life in prison for the rape and slaying of Josefina Cunningham.
The child’s death July 7, 2023, in her Rensselaer city home traumatized her family, friends, the community of Rensselaerl.
Fisher drugged the child with her mother’s medication, attacked her and tried to cover up what he had done, prosecutors said at his Sept. 10 sentencing. Fisher had befriended the child’s mother and, prosecutors said, the child was left in his care on the day she died.
During the sentencing, Rensselaer County Assistant District Attorney Antonia Edwards said Fisher used Clorox wipes to try to conceal his crimes, scrubbing the child’s face so hard he rubbed off the melanated pigment from her skin.
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