FILE - This Oct. 2, 2008, file photo shows Herbert Rodgers, who police say doused his estranged wife with lye in a 2007 attack, in Orange County District Court in Chelsea, Vt. Rodgers, a Vermont man who in a jealous rage doused his wife with industrial-strength lye and burned her so badly she needed a face transplant, died Monday, Dec. 18, 2017, at a Pennsylvania hospital. (Jennifer Hauck/The Valley News via AP)
December 18, 2017 - 5:15 PM
MONTPELIER, Vt. - A Vermont man who in a jealous rage doused his estranged wife with industrial-strength lye and burned her so badly she needed a face transplant has died at a Pennsylvania hospital.
Sixty-two-year-old Herbert Rodgers had been serving a 30- to 70-year prison sentence in Pennsylvania and died Monday. Vermont officials say it appears Rodgers' death was "related to a medical issue."
Rodgers admitted breaking into Carmen Tarleton's house in 2007 intending to kill a man with whom he believed she was romantically involved. He poured the toxic chemical over her and later said, "I lost it, I just lost it."
The Vermont health services director will conduct a review of Rodgers' death.
Vermont houses some inmates out of state to alleviate overcrowding in its prisons. Rodgers was imprisoned in Michigan but was moved to Pennsylvania in June.
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This story has been corrected to show the man died in a hospital, not in a prison.
News from © The Associated Press, 2017