Here is an excerpt, there’s much more detail in the article.
As Detective Janine Triolo settled in across the table from Virzi, the 29-year-old from San Diego said, “Um, I’m going to tell you the truth. The biggest part of that truth is that I did not want him to die.”
With a tone that fluctuated from somber to panicked to matter-of-fact, Virzi continued: “From a very, very young age, I don’t know what it is, but I always had this urge — almost like a compulsion I can’t control — to hurt kids.”
Leon, she said, fell victim to it. Virzi had traveled to Pittsburgh that week to visit her best friend, who had just had twins.
While she thought she’d get to spend time with her friend, Virzi told detectives, “I kind of grew angry because I was being put to nanny work.
“Something about that built up a lot of anger in me.”
“So when I was alone with (Leon) I shook him a couple times — hard. And I dropped him a couple times — hard.”
Virzi said she also flipped the infant upside down on the bathroom tile floor. “I heard some kind of crack.”
“Something just came over me I couldn’t control,” Virzi said. “I’m telling you this because I can’t keep lying about it.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone any more,” Virzi said. “I know the best thing is for me to go away — or maybe worse.”
The Allegheny County District Attorney’s office is seeking
the death penalty.
On Friday, during a hearing on a defense motion to suppress her statement to police, prosecutors played lengthy portions of Virzi’s video-recorded interrogation.
Virzi’s lawyers, Tina Miller and William Difenderfer, argued Virzi’s confession was coerced following a 13-hour illegal detention “during which investigators utilized nearly every trick in the book to manipulate Ms. Virzi into making a statement.”