PA - Infant Leon Katz murdered, twin injured, allegedly by babysitter, Pittsburgh - June 24, 2024 #2

[submarine7]

I've been watching for movement in this case but it's been slow. I was shocked when I literally stumbled on an odd man out article detailing her confession. No other news outlets were reporting on it and I wasn't certain it was legitimate, but we now know it is. Just her to share my thoughts on this case. JMO

I won't speculate on what she may have done to Ari, but I have no doubt she inflicted injury to his genital/groin region. Whether or not that injury was planned to provide ample time to murder Leon, I don't know. Everything about this woman is chilling and she was in a position to seek out help. I really wonder who else she's harmed. She's well aware she has impulse control issues and that her victim of choice are the vulnerable but she pretended instead.

By her own admission, she killed Leon, her close friend's six week old baby. Purposefully. An absolutely defenseless baby who wasn't even old or strong enough to fall from his chair as she described. Her description of what he suffered is one of the most horrific things I've ever read. Likewise hearing her thought process proves she was intellectually aware but could not stop herself. The betrayal to her close friends adds another layer of punishments. This family was building and she was destroying.

What I find so frightening is how well she's managed to conceal her self from the world. I've read comments and opinions from people who knew her and nobody has said she's sadistic or selfish, but they've lauded her with praise. It makes me wonder how well people knew her?

Her confession demonstrates a total lack of emotional maturity, empathy, or humanity. It's reasonable to assume NV planned her visit based on her needs and her friends were pressured into accommodating her as best the could. I'm shocked that a woman her age wouldn't understand the concept of "bad time" or realize her friends were busy trying to manage newborn twins and soak in the love as a family. Common sense also seems to be missing in her.

When you factor in her admission she was angry because they were too busy and she felt used when asked to help out with the twins, you get a very ugly image of a willfully childish woman. She gives me the creeps and she's as dangerous as any serial killer in my mind. From any perspective, I think it apparent NV is dangerous. It's alarming that she was on track to diagnose others.


The ruling on her confession is wonderful news. She may have been tired and uncomfortable during her interrogation but she was the architect of that reality. Until that point, I suspect her privileged upbringing and education placed her above reproach. Clearly, LE knew she she harmed the babies and I suspect that shocked and insulted her. She was trapped so she confessed but she also tried to set up a situation where she's also the victim. I hope her punished fits the crime and she spends her life in prison. She gives off psychopath vibes and I'm very curious to know details about her mental health history.


The link is unrelated to the case but it pertains to another San Diego area woman who habitually harmed babies. It's hard to believe these people exist.

Judge sends serial baby scratcher to timeout

The Southern California real estate agent who admitted to pinching and scratching babies to the point of bleeding in 2009 is sentenced to up to two years in prison.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[NorthernThinkerDownSouth]

@NorthernThinkerDownSouth

May I say that I ADORE members like you, who do not get offended when someone disagrees, and who then reply with such depth of thought.

It’s a good point about premature Jewish baby boys possibly having late circumcisions due to their frailty.

I confess I don’t know the answer offhand. We have had only girls in our family for 80 years until my grandson was born, and my daughter had him circumcised in the hospital instead of by a rabbi on the 8th day.

I respect everything you say, but in the end I believe NV’s confession to be the absolute truth. It would be too coincidental to have two newborns who were fine and then suddenly have one injured and one dead, once the parents are out. And at six weeks those babies do not yet have the capability of hoisting themselves anywhere with enough force to fall out of a baby seat.

JMO

That is such a kind thing to say, genuinely thank you. And what a lovely detail about your grandson! it actually helps answer the question in a roundabout way, because it suggests that even in jewish families today the hospital circumcision rather than the traditional bris on the eighth day isnt unheard of. So we still dont know for certain when Ari and Leon would have been circumcised, which I think just reinforces the broader point we need the actual medical detail before drawing firm conclusions about anything in this case.

And I really dotake your point about the coincidence argument . Two babies, parents leave, one injured one dead. I understand why that looks damning and I wont pretend it doesnt. That is genuinely the hardest part of the innocent hypothesis to get around. but accidents can still happen and lightening can still strike twice.

On the baby seat point youre probably right that a six week old cant hoist themselves out of anything. My theory was never that Leon climbed out, more that he was left unsecured in a bouncer and it tipped or he slipped sideways. Those things do happen, and at six weeks a baby doesnt have to do anything at all for a fall to occur just be placed somewhere unstable by someone who wasnt thinking clearly. But again, thats speculation and I hold it loosely.

Ive been following the shaken baby controversy for a long time and I think it genuinely matters here. The Louise Woodward case is the one that really opened my eyes to all of this and the parallels to Nicoles situation are hard to ignore for me. Young woman, alone with an infant, child dies, last person present is immediately assumed responsible, medical experts line up to say the injuries can only mean abuse. Sound familiar? What haunts me about Woodward is what happened afterwards. Dr Patrick Barnes was a key prosecution witness at her trial. Years later he said (and I'm paraphrasing) that he believed his involvement had helped produce a misdiagnosis, and that there had been a revolution in understanding of infant head injuries that changed everything he thought he knew at the time. He said there are medical conditions that can affect a babys brain and look exactly like what they used to attribute to shaken baby syndrome. That is a prosecution expert essentially saying the framework he used to convict someone was flawed.

And thats really my spidey sense with this case. The foundation of the prosecution against Nicole isnt eyewitness testimony, isnt forensic evidence in the traditional sense, its the opinion of a child abuse specialist operating within a framework thats been repeatedly shown to be vulnerable to tunnel vision and black box thinking, especially in the highly emotive context of a childs death. These experts arent bad people, I dont think that at all. But the literature is full of cases where the rush to identify abuse, combined with the assumption that the last adult present must be responsible, led to catastrophically wrong conclusions. Woodward. Brumfield. Adrian Thomas. The pattern is there.

On the confession — we'll have to agree to disagree and I genuinely respect that you read it as the truth. Personally I've come to a point where I generally only trust confessions when they are signed and negotiated in the presence of a lawyer. The cases ive followed over the years have just taught me that lesson over and over again. And the cruel irony is that its often innocent people who feel they dont need a lawyer because they havent done anything wrong so they talk, and talking is what destroys them. Nicole is a textbook example of that imo. NEVER EVER talk to the police without a lawyer present, especially if you are innocent.

Really do appreciate you engaging with this so thoughtfully. Its one reason i really like Websleuths!

Have a wonderful day

 

[momsof3]

@NorthernThinkerDownSouth

May I say that I ADORE members like you, who do not get offended when someone disagrees, and who then reply with such depth of thought.

It’s a good point about premature Jewish baby boys possibly having late circumcisions due to their frailty.

I confess I don’t know the answer offhand. We have had only girls in our family for 80 years until my grandson was born, and my daughter had him circumcised in the hospital instead of by a rabbi on the 8th day.

I respect everything you say, but in the end I believe NV’s confession to be the absolute truth. It would be too coincidental to have two newborns who were fine and then suddenly have one injured and one dead, once the parents are out. And at six weeks those babies do not yet have the capability of hoisting themselves anywhere with enough force to fall out of a baby seat.

JMO

I completely agree! I come here because I don’t want to exist in an echo chamber! And I love thoughtful discourse and thinking outside the box!

 

[Curious Me]

snipped section to reply ... On the confession — we'll have to agree to disagree and I genuinely respect that you read it as the truth. Personally I've come to a point where I generally only trust confessions when they are signed and negotiated in the presence of a lawyer. The cases ive followed over the years have just taught me that lesson over and over again. And the cruel irony is that its often innocent people who feel they dont need a lawyer because they havent done anything wrong so they talk, and talking is what destroys them. Nicole is a textbook example of that imo. NEVER EVER talk to the police without a lawyer present, especially if you are innocent.​

It sounds like you have followed quite a few cases involving babies, and cases where there's been doubtful confessions. I do appreciate your reminders that in some cases the doubtful confessions have been obtained under duress.

I want to keep an open mind because there are plenty of wrongful convictions. The thing is I have the hardest time figuring out how a person would confess to doing such outrageous acts they haven't even done. I admit I then took her confession as probably fact. Wow, NV confessed to even a history of abusing defenseless children. Would you or I make up and confess to cruel actions?

Well, just saw this 48 Hours Show, and I saw the defendant confess similar to NV's confession. I realize why you have doubts about confessions obtained without a lawyer present, obtaining by an exhausting interrogations to obtain a confession almost at all costs by LE.

Are you familiar with this particular case? She was so tired she confessed thinking she was going to be allowed to go home. So, yes, thank you. We do need to keep an open mind. Allowing her confession in, does make a big difference in trial.

“Unraveling the Case Against Melissa Calusinski”: 48 Hours Reports January 18 2025 - 48 Hours Tonight

This Saturday, 48 Hours revisits the case of Melissa Calusinski in the episode titled “Unraveling the Case Against Melissa Calusinski.” Airing at 10/9c on

48hourstonight.com

You can watch the full episode of "Unraveling the Case Against Melissa Calusinski" on youtube​

 

[Curious Me]

Are you familiar with this particular case?

@NorthernThinkerDownSouth, yes, you mentioned that case several times. Expressing appreciation to you for reminding us to stay open minded to other ways we must look at this case.

5. The most extreme statements came only at the end. This is almost exactly the pattern seen in cases like:

• Melissa Calusinski
• Brendan Dassey
• the Central Park 5

The early hours involve denials or confusion. The dramatic, self-incriminating material shows up after exhaustion, fear, and hopelessness take over. This is not my opinion — this is a documented pattern in forensic psychology.

That was hard for me to understand, the bogus confessions. You have supported your thoughts with examples. I now understand it is a reality that under pressure it is possible for some innocent people being interrogated to confess to bogus crimes. ​

People forget that about 20–25% of exonerations involve false confessions. And many of those confessions were as detailed and emotional as this one sounds. Human beings can be pushed into saying things that don’t reflect reality — it’s uncomfortable to accept, but it’s true

That's been the hardest part for me to understand. It seems impossible that someone would confess to details that didn't happen and admit to things that they never did. However, it's true that human beings do break, and cave in to say anything to make it stop. I can see that. Don't understand why NV confessed to all she did when she had an attorney available, and family that would stand by her.

How much of what she said was bogus, it doesn't explain why there's still very suspicious injuries and one death, that calls for Justice, needs to be explained. If her confession is left out there's still many questions and medical evidence to be looked at. The suspicions are still there-- NV came to town at such a wrong time to be a visitor. Did she really feel put upon for any little care she might have provided, certainly not as a nanny. Then, too, it was very soon after there was one twin needing to go to ER, and one twin deceased. ​