A graduate student accused of killing a friend's newborn baby and injuring his infant twin brother faces the death penalty if convicted of the gruesome crime, according to the Pennsylvania State Attorney General's Office.
The Alleghany County District Attorney's Office announced in court Friday that it will seek the death penalty against Nicole Virzi, who is accused of bashing the skull of 6-week-old Leon Katz in June while she was babysitting the little boy at the family's home near Pittsburgh.
Virzi, 30, was looking after the baby after Leon's parents, Ethan Katz and his wife Savannah Roberts, took his twin brother Ari to the hospital for injuries that the California woman was later said to have also caused.
Prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty in the June 15 murder case, citing several aggravating circumstances for the unusual move, including allegations that the killing was committed through torture, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
Virzi claimed Leon fell out of his baby bouncer as she walked away, but doctors concluded the injuries were “consistent with child abuse as they were inflicted injuries and were neither natural nor accidental in origin,” WTAE previously reported, citing court and police records.
The county medical examiner concluded that Leon's cause of death was blunt trauma to the head. A CT scan of the head showed that Leon had suffered a severe skull fracture on the left side of his head, as well as multiple brain hemorrhages.
She is accused of manslaughter, grievous bodily harm and endangering a child.
Virzi, who reportedly studied clinical psychology at UC San Diego's Joint Doctoral Program, was described as a “trusted family friend” on a fundraising page set up shortly after his death.
Although Virzi is from California, she was living in an Airbnb in the Pittsburgh area at the time of the murder.
Virzi's attorney, David Shrager, said last month that his client was devastated by Leon's death but maintained her innocence.
“If there was anything she wanted to express, it would be the absolutely terrible pain she was feeling,” Shrager told the newspaper. “These were her close friends.”
There are currently no women on death row in Pennsylvania, and Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro has vowed not to sign a single death sentence during his term in office.
Virzi did not appear for her formal arraignment on Friday and waived a preliminary hearing last month, the Post-Gazette reported.
