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

[AnyNameIWish]

This excerpt is mind blowing.
She has had such issues since decades ago... you can't tell me there weren't warning signs. All ignored because she was a Nice Smart Young Lady of Privilege who couldn't possibly do any harm.


"The detective read Virzi her Miranda warnings one more time before the woman began again.

As she described her compulsion to hurt children, Virzi said she’d felt that way since she was 3 or 4 years old.

“I don’t know why. I don’t know where it comes from,” she said. “Because I don’t feel that way about animals.”

Virzi said she had a long history of depression, anxiety and previously treated for an eating disorder.

When she was around 7 years old, Virzi said she locked a 2-year-old in a bathroom and pinched her until she cried. And when she was 12 at a church camp, she said she dropped a toddler on a couch a couple of times.

Then, in high school, Virzi told detectives she babysat just one time. She said she put a hot mug on the baby’s arm and pinched the child.

“This is the first time this happened as an adult,” Virzi said. “There’s some weird drive in me that wants to see kids in pain.”

 

[AnyNameIWish]

This is the 46 page Omnibus Motion related to this case.
I'm still reading thru it but it details her response and actions right after baby L was deceased and baby A had injuries.

Adobe Acrobat

acrobat.adobe.com

 

[LifeIsAMystery]

Horrifying and sadly not surprising. Sadists are out there. RIP to little Leon.

 

[seasideForest]

OMG This is worse than I could have imagined.

If you know you have a dangerous compulsion, you need to stay away from it! You don't pretend to be best friends with someone with twin babies and then go and visit!

How did nobody (parents, teachers, neighbours) get an inkling of this while she was growing up?? Turning blind eye?

RIP little Leon.

 

[Curious Me]

I did not see this coming, and apparently the twin's parents did not see the danger lurking in the trusted friend, who by the way, studied in the same field as the twin's mother. The average person does not find pleasure in hurting others so it's hard to grasp the extent of a sadistic compulsion to hurt little babies. I suspect it ties somehow to jealousy maybe of the mother's happiness as well. The twin's mother had no clue apparently of NV's sadistic compulsions.

How would the average person know when she kept the incidences of hurting very young children under the radar? Said she had a problem with lying also. She knew how to be deceptive. She said this was the first instance acting on her compulsion and it showing up since her adulthood, not that I believe that totally. Apparently, she picked non-vocal super young victims and kept the abuse undetected not leaving much bruise evidence.

I do think she must've purposely left the genital injuries to the one twin, pointing them out, so she could then offer to watch the other twin by sending the parents off to the hospital. They still had no inkling how the genital injuries occurred. ​

PhD student accused of murdering close friend’s newborn baby, abusing tot’s twin is daughter of prominent NYC cardiologist

The friend said she did not know Virzi to be violent but said she said she "had some interpersonal issues. I would say she was a little rigid. She was nice. But very driven and motivated."

www.yahoo.com

"The couple left Leon in Virzi’s care while rushing Ari to the hospital with a mysterious injury to his genitals, which Virzi had alerted them to, authorities said."

MOO-- Why did no one suspect? Seems it'd depend on if any of her family even knew of about those instances where she hurt children in her own younger years. The average acquaintance would see her as highly academic, driven by her studies. Yikes, can you imagine if she became a child therapist? ​

 

[Tricia]

This excerpt is mind blowing.
She has had such issues since decades ago... you can't tell me there weren't warning signs. All ignored because she was a Nice Smart Young Lady of Privilege who couldn't possibly do any harm.


"The detective read Virzi her Miranda warnings one more time before the woman began again.

As she described her compulsion to hurt children, Virzi said she’d felt that way since she was 3 or 4 years old.

“I don’t know why. I don’t know where it comes from,” she said. “Because I don’t feel that way about animals.”

Virzi said she had a long history of depression, anxiety and previously treated for an eating disorder.

When she was around 7 years old, Virzi said she locked a 2-year-old in a bathroom and pinched her until she cried. And when she was 12 at a church camp, she said she dropped a toddler on a couch a couple of times.

Then, in high school, Virzi told detectives she babysat just one time. She said she put a hot mug on the baby’s arm and pinched the child.

“This is the first time this happened as an adult,” Virzi said. “There’s some weird drive in me that wants to see kids in pain.”

Hi, AnyNameIWish. Is this from the court documents?
Thanks
Tricia

 

[dmac55]

Hi, AnyNameIWish. Is this from the court documents?
Thanks
Tricia

“This is the 46 page Omnibus Motion related to this case.”

Post in thread 'PA - infant Leon Katz murdered, twin injured, allegedly by babysitter, Pittsburgh- June 24, 2024 #2' PA - infant Leon Katz murdered, twin injured, allegedly by babysitter, Pittsburgh- June 24, 2024 #2

 

[abyquinn]

TribLive

In a confession, Nicole Virzi admits to fatally injuring her best friend's baby during a police interrogation. Full details of the case here.

www.facebook.com

Notice of Privacy

Notice of Privacy

From the Trib link:

She said the abuse started a few minutes after her friends left and “it lasted all the way up to when I called 911.”
“I did not want him to die,” she said. “That was not my goal. I just wanted him to feel a little pain.”

OMG. She tortured that baby for hours! She was angry with the parents for “using her as a nanny” when she only wanted to visit with her best friend! I’m just gobsmacked. She is not a child, she is an educated, privileged adult who knew she had issues! So instead of making excuses not to go, she went and spent several days with them, as her anger and frustration grew to the point she hurt both babies!

She confessed, Virzi said, because she thought her best friend ought to know the truth about what happened to her baby.

Then she wanted to hurt her friend again! As if she could cause them more pain then she had already done! Hurry up and get this woman to trial so she can be placed in prison until she dies!

 

[Kemug]

She is an intelligent woman. Did she never consider voluntarily admitting herself to a mental institution? Confessing her feelings to her family and asking for help? It doesn't sound like she tried very hard to resist her compulsions. They were just something that sometimes "happened to her"! We never know who walks among us.

 

[Curious Me]

All MOO here. Most curious about what happened when she was a very, very young age, and if something changed perhaps within the family unit. A split? Did a sibling or step sibling get born causing jealousy? Even at age 7 yrs. old she was aware of this compulsion.

She must've been in contact with her friend who just had twins. She might've seen photos of the infants, seen photos of the happy parents. Felt things, been aware the Red Flags. She must've felt something rearing it's ugly head, her compulsion nagging at her to fly out to go see that happy family. She apparently had managed to control her ugly compulsion until she must've been overwhelmed with the pressing demand to go see them.

Oh, so glad she now finally made the decision she doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore. I just got to express that it's amazing how disconnected she is from all her psychology studies. It's common for people in the psych field to go through psych counseling themselves. Was she too busy becoming a paper writing expert?

She says she only wanted to make the baby feel a little pain? If she had managed to leave no marks... Was she going to fly out of town and leave those parents unknowingly with a child with slight brain injuries or shaken baby syndrome? She just wanted the baby to feel a little pain so she dropped him on the floor hard & shook him hard.. ​

Notice of Privacy

“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.”
....

“This is the first time this happened as an adult,” Virzi said. “There’s some weird drive in me that wants to see kids in pain.”
....

Causing pain, Virzi said, made her feel “satisfied.”
....

“So when I was alone with (Leon) I shook him a couple times — hard. And I dropped him a couple times — hard.”

 

[AnyNameIWish]

Hi, AnyNameIWish. Is this from the court documents?
Thanks
Tricia

It's from the triblive.com article... and from the court docs which show the defense is ramping up to block use of everything Nicole said after she was picked up from the apartment.

It is playing like the Stephan Sterns defence, that everything she said is from the fruit of the poisonous tree.... she was tired, only had 3 hours sleep, was handcuffed to the interrogation room... it seems she was mirandized but continued to speak after the fact.

She was detained long enough for her parents to drive from New Jersey to Pittsburgh, according to the documents.

The lack of actual public news coverage on the case of Nicole Virzi is SHOCKING. Reminds me of Nadya Cole.

 

[Lucy6226]

Any thoughts that this was a terrible accident or neglect that she'd tried to cover up has gone out the window. Very very dangerous individual. Thank goodness she has been caught now, sadly at the expense of a baby's life.

 

[sunspun]

She gave this confession to police before she had even spent any time at all yet in the actual jail, right? I assume she was not able to leave by then, but she had only been held in the interrogation room, as far as I could tell.

They did say she wasn't handcuffed -- at first. But as soon as she asked for a lawyer, they handcuffed her, which I thought was strange.

She's been in jail now for quite a long time. I wonder if she'd do the same again, confess it all, if she'd already seen and felt what it's like to be locked up for a significant amount of time...

Seems like she really wanted to get this off her chest, to tell someone of her strange compulsion. I wonder how she thought they would punish her for this.

 

[jenn83]

This is the 46 page Omnibus Motion related to this case.
I'm still reading thru it but it details her response and actions right after baby L was deceased and baby A had injuries.

Adobe Acrobat

acrobat.adobe.com

omg, I bet her lawyers get her statement thrown out and the jury will never hear it.

 

[seasideForest]

She is an intelligent woman. Did she never consider voluntarily admitting herself to a mental institution? Confessing her feelings to her family and asking for help? It doesn't sound like she tried very hard to resist her compulsions. They were just something that sometimes "happened to her"! We never know who walks among us.

You need more than intelligence to voluntarily seek help in a mental institution. You need courage and you need to see a 'need' for it, e.g. you want to change something about yourself or situation, either for yourself or for your family or even for society. If you enjoy your compulsion in such a big way that it overrides any possible benefit to exploring and reducing the compulsion, then why seek help? Rhetorical question.

So I wonder more about 'just plain evil'. However that evolved, whether innate or...

 

[AnyNameIWish]

omg, I bet her lawyers get her statement thrown out and the jury will never hear it.

That's EXACTLY what I am worried about. These are high priced lawyers... they know what they're doing. It would be important to understand how she kept talking. Did she invoke her right to an attorney and kept talking anwyay????
Or did she mention that she probably should have one, but kept talking anyway?
There's a distinction there.

It's curious to me, her specific field of study. A LOT of her papers as a PhD student are based on connections between obesity/metabolic syndrome/ and anxiety/stress. She allegedly admitted to a past eating disorder and she has worked as a soulcycle coach in San Diego (very fit and thin.) I wouldn't be surprised if in her case, focusing on exercise and staying fit were part of how she controlled her straying thoughts? MOO.

Below is cut paste from her academic CV listing the papers she's published in academia..

Mediating role of experiential avoidance in the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and eating disorder psychopathology: A clinical replication HM Espel-Huynh, AF Muratore, N Virzi, G Brooks, LJ Zandberg Eating Behaviors 34, 101308, 2019

Obesity, chronic stress, and stress reduction D Goens, NE Virzi, SE Jung, TR Rutledge, A Zarrinpar Gastroenterology Clinics of North America 52 (2), 347-362, 2023

Examining the association between objective physical activity and momentary pain: a systematic review of studies using ambulatory assessment M Tynan, N Virzi, JS Wooldridge, JL Morse, MS Herbert The Journal of Pain 25 (4), 862-874, 2024

Depression symptom patterns as predictors of metabolic syndrome and cardiac events in symptomatic women with suspected myocardial ischemia: the women's ischemia syndrome … NE Virzi, DS Krantz, VA Bittner, CNB Merz, SE Reis, EM Handberg, ... Heart and mind 6 (4), 254-261, 2022

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[steeltowngirl]

Even if the defense is now successful at having the jailhouse statements tossed, I don’t see how she overcomes the evidence that the infants were purposely harmed. Leon died from blunt force head trauma while alone with Virzi. It was not an accident.

JMO

 

[Gemmie]

Even if the defense is now successful at having the jailhouse statements tossed, I don’t see how she overcomes the evidence that the infants were purposely harmed. Leon died from blunt force head trauma while alone with Virzi. It was not an accident.

JMO

Not only that but AK had an injury to his genitals. NZ sent a pic of it to the parents. So to me, if the parents knew they hadn't injured AK's genitals, and IF NZ was the only other person around him (I do know know that as fact, I'm saying IF she was the only other person around him. Only they know how many people were alone with the twins)... then everything points to NZ being the abuser, IMO, and it wasn't accidental. All JMO!

The [parents] had gone to a Pittsburgh hospital seeking treatment for AK, one of their six-week-old twin sons, who had a bloody and mysterious injury to his genitals.

A woman allegedly killed her friend’s newborn twin and abused the other. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty

For Ethan Katz and Savannah Roberts, the evening of June 15 was already stressful. They had gone to a Pittsburgh hospital seeking treatment for Ari, one of their six-week-old twin sons, who had a mysterious injury. Then they got an emergency call that turned their world upside down.

www.aol.com

 

[Kemug]

Just one chilling answer.

 

[NorthernThinkerDownSouth]

I want to share a perspective that I don’t think has been fully discussed here yet. After reading both the TribLive article and the full Omnibus Motion, I’m honestly not convinced that the statements attributed to Nicole should be taken at face value. At the very least, I think this interrogation has a lot of the same features that have shown up again and again in well-documented false confession cases. A few things that really stood out to me:

1. The interrogation was extremely long

We’re not talking about a 1–2 hour interview. According to the motion, she was in police custody for around 13 hours. Almost all proven false confessions come after long, drawn-out interrogations, especially when the person is exhausted, scared, or mentally vulnerable. After 6 hours, reliability drops off a cliff. At 13 hours? It’s a huge red flag.

2. She invoked her rights, and questioning continued

This is important. The motion says she asked to stop and asked for a lawyer. That alone can taint everything that comes afterward. When someone is deprived of their rights and still questioned, the odds of a reliable, voluntary confession go down dramatically.

3. The “we have cameras” claim looks like a bluff

The article treats this as if police had damning surveillance. But according to the motion, the “cameras” were baby monitors. Police are allowed to lie during interrogations, and they often do. False confession cases are full of “we have evidence you don’t know about” tactics.

4. The emotional collapse matters

The motion describes crying, distress, isolation, cold temperatures, long gaps with no human contact, panic, etc. This is the textbook psychological environment where false confessions happen. Most people imagine they’d be strong under pressure. But every major false confession case involves someone who thought the same — until they broke down.

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.

6. The “childhood harming kids” narrative is a big red flag

A lot of people took this part of the article very literally. But dramatic, emotional “origin story” admissions often show up in false confessions because the person is:

• overwhelmed
• trying to give interrogators something
• accepting suggested narratives
• losing their grip under fatigue

These kinds of statements almost never emerge in the first hour. They emerge at hour 10, 11, 12 — just like here.

7. The Brooke Skylar Richardson comparison is key

That was a case I followed closely, and it has some striking similarities:

• young woman
• vulnerable mental state
• long interrogation
• misleading claims by investigators
• statements that snowballed into a so-called “confession”
• a public convinced she was a monster
• later evidence showing the confession was wrong

The public narrative was completely different from what experts later agreed on. Her supposed “confession” didn’t hold up in court at all. I’m not saying this case is identical — but the parallels are hard to ignore.

8. Confessions alone are not reliable evidence

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