Prosecutors have stated that they want to pursue the death penalty for a Ph.D. student who is accused of killing her friend’s newborn and assaulting the child’s twin brother while watching them in Pennsylvania.
If found guilty, the punishment could be lethal.
On June 16, while the baby’s parents, Ethan Katz and his wife Savannah Roberts, were taking their twin brother Ari to the hospital, Nicole Virzi, 30, is accused of killing and manslaughtering six-week-old Leon Katz. She was also charged with aggravated assault and child endangerment.
Ari suffered abuse, Virzi was later accused of.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stated that the Alleghany District Attorney’s Office declared in court on Friday that it planned to request Virzi’s execution.
According to the outlet, prosecutors announced their intention to seek the death penalty, citing many alleged abuses by Virzi that led to the baby’s demise, including claims that she tortured him to death.
Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, has declared that he will not issue any execution warrants while he is in office. According to Virzi, Leon fell out of his bouncer chair when she briefly left him by himself so she could go get a bottle.
Nevertheless, according to a criminal complaint, doctors determined that the injuries received by both twins were “consistent with having been sustained as a result of child abuse, as these are inflicted injuries that are not natural and not accidental,” WTAE reported.
It was determined that Leon was killed.
Leon’s cause of death was determined by the medical examiner to be blunt force trauma to the head. The boy had multiple brain bleeds and a significant skull fracture to his left side of the head, according to a head CT scan.
After the baby passed away, a GoFundMe campaign was created to assist the family; it called Virzi a “trusted family friend.”
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Virzi, a California native and UC San Diego clinical psychology student with a focus on the behavioral effects of depression, was visiting an Airbnb in the Pittsburgh region when the youngster passed away.
David Shrager, her attorney, stated that his client upholds her innocence. She entered a not guilty plea.
She is supported by “a loving and supportive family,” has no criminal past, and is a “close family friend of the deceased child’s parents and has a long relationship with them,” according to information Shrager previously provided.
