The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office will seek the death penalty against a California woman accused of killing her friend’s newborn son, marking a rare occasion in which the DA’s office has sought capital punishment against a woman.
Nicole Elizabeth Virzi, 30, is charged with homicide in the June 15 death of 6-week-old Leon Katz.
The San Diego woman was babysitting Leon while his parents took the newborn’s twin brother to the hospital for injuries police allege Ms. Virzi caused. She faces multiple counts of aggravated assault and child endangerment.
Ms. Virzi waived her preliminary hearing last month, and she was formally arraigned on the charges against her Friday. She was not in court for the arraignment. Several supporters of the Katz family were present.
The DA’s office this week filed notice that prosecutors will seek the death penalty. To do so, the office must cite so-called aggravating factors — circumstances that make the crime severe or heinous enough to warrant capital punishment.
Pennsylvania law includes 18 aggravating factors that prosecutors can cite in their pursuit of the death penalty. They range from the victim being a law enforcement officer or a judge to the crime involving kidnapping or torture.
In the case of Ms. Virzi, the DA’s office cited four: the defendant committed the killing while in the perpetration of a felony; the offense was committed by means of torture; the victim was under 12 years old; and the defendant has a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence.
Although Ms. Virzi does not have a criminal history, if a jury finds her guilty of the charges against her in this case, those convictions will count as a criminal history for the purpose of sentencing.
Ms. Virzi’s attorney, David Shrager, said last month that his client is a longtime friend of the infants’ parents and she was “absolutely devastated” by Leon’s death.
“If there was something that she would want to convey, it would just be the absolutely horrible pain that she’s feeling,” Mr. Shrager said after Ms. Virzi waived her July 24 preliminary hearing. “These were her close friends.”
There are currently no women on death row in Pennsylvania.
In 2016, the DA sought the death penalty against a McKeesport woman who police say recorded video images as she smothered her 1-year-old son and sent them to the boy's father.
Christian Clark, 21, was spared the death penalty after she agreed to a plea deal and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2019.
In 2014, the state Supreme Court ordered Michelle Tharp, sentenced to death in Washington County in 2000, receive a new sentencing hearing. That case remains pending, court records show. In 2016, a Clinton County judge resentenced Shonda Walter to life in prison based on “totally incompetent counsel,” according to the Associated Press.
According to the criminal complaint filed June 16, Ms. Virzi was watching over the infant at the family’s Walnut Street apartment in Shadyside, though Ms. Virzi herself had been staying at an Airbnb about a mile away in Bloomfield. The San Diego Tribune reported she is a doctoral candidate at San Diego State University and UC San Diego.
Ms. Virzi called 911 around 11:15 p.m. June 15 to report that Leon had fallen from a bassinet, bumped his head, and was becoming unresponsive. Leon was taken to Children’s Hospital and pronounced dead the next morning. The medical examiner’s office said the child had suffered a severe skull fracture and multiple brain bleeds, according to the complaint.
Police said Ms. Virzi had no “plausible explanation” for the severity of Leon’s injuries. She told them he’d been acting normally and was sitting in his bouncer seat when she fell asleep for a time, according to the complaint. She awoke and went to the kitchen to get a bottle, she said, when she heard the baby screaming.
She said she found Leon lying on his left side on the floor with a large bump on his head. Detectives wrote in the complaint that it is about 18 inches from the tallest point of the bouncer seat to the floor.
Doctors told investigators the injured twin, Ari, had small scratches on both sides of his face, two bruises below his belly button and swelling, bruising, redness and scratches to his genitals, according to the complaint. Medical professionals said the injuries to both boys were unnatural and indicative of abuse.
Ms. Virzi told police she was the one who spotted the injuries to the other twin and alerted the parents. She said infant scratched his own face when he flailed as she was putting him in his car seat, according to the complaint. She was the only one watching over Leon once his parents left to take his brother to the hospital.
Pennsylvania has executed only three people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978 and none since 1999. Former Gov. Tom Wolf in 2015 declared a moratorium on executions, and Gov. Josh Shapiro has pledged not to sign any death warrants during his tenure. Capital crimes continue to be prosecuted and death sentences issued.
Since the 1900s, the state has only ever executed two women: Irene Schroeder in 1931 and Corrine Sykes in 1946, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-partisan nonprofit that collects data on capital punishment in the United States.
There are around 100 inmates on Pennsylvania’s death row, six of whom were prosecuted and sentenced in Allegheny County.
First Published: August 23, 2024, 8:18 p.m.
Updated: August 24, 2024, 2:41 p.m.
