A PhD student, once considered glamorous, is now facing the death penalty for the alleged murder of her best friend’s newborn. She has confessed to repeatedly dropping the infant on his head until she heard a crack, driven by anger over having to babysit, as revealed in a chilling report by the Daily Mail.
Nicole Virzi, 31, who is the daughter of a well-known cardiologist in New York City, had traveled to Pittsburgh two years ago to visit her friend and meet her six-week-old twins for the first time.
Prosecutors allege that Virzi, who was nearing the end of her PhD program in clinical psychology at UC-San Diego, became so enraged that she ended up allegedly killing the infant Leon Katz and injuring his twin brother, Ari, after being entrusted with their care.
Despite initially denying any involvement, Virzi eventually confessed to harming the child. In a disturbing videotaped confession, she admitted her frustration at being asked to do ‘nanny work’ during what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation.
“Something just overwhelmed me that I couldn’t control,” she confessed in a chilling admission.
Virzi further revealed, “From a very young age, I’ve had an inexplicable urge, almost like an uncontrollable compulsion, to hurt children.”
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.
Nicole Virzi, the 31-year-old daughter of a prominent New York City cardiologist, could face the death penalty if convicted of murdering her best friend’s newborn in 2024
An enraged Virzi is accused of killing little Leon Katz and maiming his twin brother in Pittsburgh in June 2024
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.
Savannah Roberts and her husband Ethan Katz had welcomed their twin boys, Leon and Ari, just six weeks before the tragedy unfolded
Virzi has pleaded not guilty to six charges of criminal homicide, aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child
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.’
Prosecutors have already asked for the death penalty for Virzi but sources close to the case say a plea deal will likely be reached before trial
The Airbnb the PhD student stayed in while visiting her friends in Pittsburgh
‘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.’
‘I do think there I did always have an instinct of… maybe I need to mind my p’s and q’s around her a little bit, like I don’t want to get on her bad side,’ Elin Lantz Lesser, who was a grad student at Drexel when both Virzi and Roberts were there, said.
‘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.
The alleged baby killer was arrested the following morning after returning to her nearby Airbnb (above)
She stepped outside and made a phone call before police swooped in and took her into custody a few days later. She was taken to police headquarters for questioning, where she agreed to speak without a lawyer present
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.
‘It’s so tragic for everyone involved.’
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.
Dr Peter Virzi, father of accused baby killer Nicole Virzi, at the door of his New Jersey home
The home of Dr Virzi, who refused to comment about his daughter, in Upper Saddle River, NJ
The home of Jennifer Graham, Nicole Virzi’s mother in Nyack, NY
‘This is a very, very serious case,’ one of Virzi’s two criminal defense attorneys, Bill Difenderfer, told the Daily Mail.
‘She’s still in jail. She still has the support of her family. Negotiations are ongoing.’
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.
Meanwhile, Savannah Roberts and her husband have declined to comment since the tragedy unfolded.
Roberts’s mother, Shelly Roberts, told the Daily Mail that her daughter was ‘a rock star, an incredible human being’ – despite the tragedy.
She has continued her studies and research at the University of Pittsburgh and has earned prestigious awards since the loss of her son.
Virzi’s father declined to comment when visited by the Daily Mail. Her mother couldn’t be reached.
