SMYRNA, Del. (CBS) — Tom Capano, a once wealthy and politically connected attorney serving life in prison for killing a mistress in 1996, was found dead today in his prison cell.

There was no immediate word on a cause of death, but officials say no foul play is suspected.

The Capano murder case became the stuff of made-for-TV movies, but it was real-life horror for the family of the 30-year-old woman whose body has never been found.

Ann Marie Fahey became involved with Capano in 1994, when she was a secretary to Delaware’s governor, Tom Carper.  Two years later she wanted out of the relationship, but Capano, the deputy state attorney general, decided she couldn’t live without him — shooting her and dumping her body in a cooler off the New Jersey shore.

“He was a presence that attempted to control the courtroom,” recalls Bill Lee, the judge in the case.  “He manipulated everybody in the courtroom, including his own lawyers, to his detriment.”

Originally sentenced to death, the sentence was overturned, and Capano breathed his last in solitary confinement, at the age of 61.

“To me, the worst sentence for him always was life in prison,” says Judge Lee.  “He led a privileged life and he certainly died in a situation that none of us would want to be in.”

Reported by Ian Bush, KYW Newsradio 1060