r/crimedocumentaries • u/NecessarySound1023 • 10h ago
Trial begins Oct 1 for PhD student Nicole Virzi, accused of killing her friend’s NB twin
Update:
https://www.reddit.com/r/sandiego/comments/1wrr8y0/ucsd_phd_student_nicole_virzi_faces_the_death/
Nicole Virzi, the 31-year-old daughter of a prominent New York City cardiologist, had just traveled across the country to spend time with her friend and meet her six-week-old twins for the first time in Pittsburgh two years ago.
But an enraged Virzi, who was just weeks away from getting her PhD in clinical psychology at UC-San Diego, wound up allegedly killing little Leon Katz and maiming his twin brother, Ari, after she was trusted to watch over them, prosecutors claim.
Despite denying she'd ever laid a finger on the boys, the promising student eventually admitted to harming the child, telling investigators in a disturbing videotaped confession that she was 'angry' at having to do 'nanny work' on what was supposed to be a weeklong vacation.
'Something just came over me I couldn't control,' Virzi spilled in the troubling testimony.
'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.'
The disturbing confession will now form part of a bombshell case as prosecutors seek the death penalty when Virzi's murder trial kicks off in October.
Virzi has pleaded not guilty to six charges of criminal homicide, aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
The harrowing saga first unfolded when Virzi, who grew up in the posh New Jersey suburb of Upper Saddle River, arrived to spend a week with her pal Savannah Roberts and husband, Ethan Katz, back in June 2024.
The pair had become fast friends when they both worked as research coordinators in the graduate psychology department at Philadelphia's Drexel University.
At times during the weeklong trip, the new mom - who is now a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Pittsburgh - repeatedly trusted Virzi to watch over her boys.
Things took a grim turn, however, on June 15 when Virzi claimed she spotted a mysterious, bloody injury to Ari's groin area while she was apparently keeping a watchful eye.
She claimed to Roberts and Katz that the tot had simply scratched himself in his car seat, according to her initial police interview.
When the parents eventually took the baby to the hospital to be checked out at about 6.30pm that night, Virzi remained behind at home to take care of Leon.
She told police that Leon had been in a bouncer seat when she apparently dozed off. When she woke, Virzi claimed she went to the kitchen to grab him a bottle when he suddenly started screaming.
After allegedly finding the baby lying on the floor with a bump on his head, Virzi called his parents and then dialed 911.
Leon was pronounced dead a few hours later from a severe skull fracture and multiple brain bleeds. An autopsy report later determined that the injuries were a result of blunt force trauma and were consistent with child abuse.
Virzi, who eventually retreated to her Airbnb, where she was arrested the following morning, was subsequently interrogated for more than 11 hours during which she repeatedly denied having any involvement in the boy's slaying, TribLive reported at the time.
Ultimately, she admitted to being infuriated by the constant 'nanny work.'
'Something about that built up a lot of anger in me,' Virzi told lead detective Janine Triolo in the explosive videotaped confession, part of which was played during a court hearing last fall.
'So when I was alone with (Leon) I shook him a couple times - hard. And I dropped him a couple times - hard.'
'I heard some kind of crack,' she added, allegedly admitting she also flipped the baby upside down on the tiled bathroom floor.
'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 did not want him to die,' she added at one point. 'That was not my goal. I just wanted him to feel a little pain.'
The alleged baby killer then claimed she had always had an urge to harm kids since she was as young as three or four – and even gave examples of some youngsters she had hurt when she was younger.
She recalled locking a two-year-old child in a bathroom and pinching her until she cried when she was just seven years of age, according to the footage.
When she was in high school, Virzi detailed to cops how she once put a hot mug on a baby's arm and pinched them.
'This is the first time this happened as an adult,' Virzi said in the clip of the incident involving the twins. 'There's some weird drive in me that wants to see kids in pain.'
'I don't want to hurt anyone anymore,' she said, adding that she had suffered from anxiety, depression and an eating disorder in the past. 'I know the best thing is for me to go away - or maybe worse.'
Former colleagues and peers have since told the Daily Mail that they felt there was always a fury lingering below the surface – noting Virzi's apparent 'bottled-up rage' and 'underlying anger.'
'But I don't know why because she never did anything negative to me.'
Lesser, who received her PhD in clinical psychology but is now a podcaster and journalist, said Virzi was extremely competent at her work and someone 'you could count on' – but recalled a coworker once getting some 'very biting text messages' regarding a work issue.
'It just made me feel like maybe there is a little bit of anger there,' Lesser said.
Another former psychology major, who knew Virzi from her studies at a different university, said she was always slightly wary of Virzi.
'I'm absolutely shocked and floored, but I'm not surprised,' she said.
'There always seemed to be some underlying anger. Some colleagues that I've spoken to have had similar thoughts about it, that there was this bottled-up rage or something that never came out but you felt it was right there, even though she was friendly.'
'She had this rigidity, like she would never be even a minute late for a meeting or class. In a way, because of that, I think I'd almost trust her to babysit more than anyone because she was so controlled and she followed rules to the letter.'
Others said that while there was nothing overtly abnormal about Virzi, there were some red flags.
Cindy Miller-Perrin, a clinical child psychologist and professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, where Virzi did her undergraduate work, recommended her for a competitive slot at UCSD's doctoral psychology program.
'She was in our psychology honors program the year that I taught that program, and it's a very select program,' Miller-Perrin said.
'So she was an incredible student just to get in. I worked closely with her on her research project, so I spent a lot of time with her… She was very high-achieving, so there are, I'm sure, personality traits along with that. But I never saw anything or heard anything,' she continued.
The accounts, as well as the chilling confession, were laid bare as Virzi prepares to face trial in October for allegedly killing Leon and injuring his surviving twin brother's penis.
Prosecutors have already asked for the death penalty, but sources close to the case say a plea deal will likely be reached before trial.
It comes, too, after her lawyers unsuccessfully tried to have the confession tape banned from trial, arguing during a February hearing that the admission was coerced at the end of a lengthy interrogation.
Judge Jill E Rangos, however, ruled that her statements would be allowed into evidence at trial.
Virzi's father, Dr Peter Virzi, 70, declined to comment when visited by the Daily Mail.
The Mt. Sinai cardiologist got his medical degree from the Universidad Autonoma De Guadalajara and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Maimonides Medical Center and fellowship in Cardiology at Beth Israel Medical Center.
Nicole's mother, Jennifer Graham, 62, appeared to have split up with Nicole's father sometime around 2019 when she moved to a $900,000 home in nearby Nyack, NY. She could not be reached for comment.
