PhD Student Faces Death Penalty for Alleged Infant Murder

Alleged Killing of Newborn Baby

A PhD stu­dent charged with the hor­rif­ic mur­der of her friend’s new­born baby could face the death penal­ty if con­vict­ed, accord­ing to Penn­syl­va­nia prosecutors.

Charges and Aggravating Factors

The Alleghe­ny Dis­trict Attor­ney’s Office announced their inten­tion to seek cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment against Nicole Virzi, who is accused of bru­tal­ly smash­ing the skull of 6‑week-old Leon Katz while babysit­ting the infant in the fam­i­ly’s Pitts­burgh-area home.

Pros­e­cu­tors cit­ed sev­er­al aggra­vat­ing fac­tors for the rare deci­sion, includ­ing alleged­ly com­mit­ting the homi­cide through torture.

Alleged Injuries and Medical Findings

Virzi claimed that Leon fell from his bounc­er chair while she was briefly away, but med­ical experts found the injuries “con­sis­tent with child abuse, as these are inflict­ed injuries that are not nat­ur­al and not acci­den­tal.” The coun­ty’s med­ical exam­in­er deter­mined the cause of death to be blunt force trau­ma to the head.

Background and Legal Proceedings

Virzi, a for­mer clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy stu­dent at UC San Diego’s Joint Doc­tor­al Pro­gram, was described as a “trust­ed fam­i­ly friend” in a fundrais­ing page cre­at­ed after the tragedy. Virzi did not appear dur­ing her for­mal arraign­ment and waived a pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing last month.