A Pennsylvania mother wept in court as her “former best friend” admitted to killing her newborn son and injuring his twin in a last-minute plea agreement.
Nicole Virzi, 32, pleaded guilty Wednesday to third-degree criminal homicide in the death of six-and-a-half-week-old Leon Katz and to injuring his twin brother, Ari, while babysitting the boys at their Pittsburgh home in June 2024.
The twins’ mother, Savannah Roberts, delivered an emotional victim-impact statement as Virzi—once her closest friend and maid of honor—admitted responsibility for harming her children.
“I’m a twin, my husband is a twin, and it was always our dream to have twins. We thought our dream had come true,” she said.
“[This has] eradicated my sense of safety across every domain of my life. I will never fully understand the torture and murder that Nicole inflicted on my twins.”
Virzi’s prominent New York City cardiologist father, Dr Peter J Viriz, and her mother, Jennifer Graham, were also in court as Roberts described the devastating impact of her son’s death.
“My own self-confidence is completely shattered. Nicole’s actions have completely changed me as a person,” Roberts said.
“I’ve learned that the bogeyman is real and monsters really do live under the bed.”
Nicole Virzi, 32, pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal homicide in the 2024 killing of her friend’s infant
She killed six-and-a-half-week-old Leon Katz (pictured) while babysitting him at his family’s Pittsburgh home in June 2024
A Pittsburgh police officer outside the courtroom told the Daily Mail he was among the first officers to arrive at Roberts and Katz’s home. He said he was disappointed by the plea agreement.
“To go from murder-one to this? It’s pretty amazing,” he said. “We know she did it. She confessed to it.”
The district attorney, however, said the family had specifically requested the plea deal to spare them the trauma of a full trial.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Virzi, but a third-degree criminal homicide conviction in Pennsylvania carries a maximum sentence of 40 years.
The Daily Mail recently saw the grieving parents in Pittsburgh with their now two-year-old son, Ari, as Virzi continued through the legal process.
Virzi was only weeks from earning her PhD in clinical psychology at UC San Diego when police footage captured her confessing to the crime.
She told investigators that she repeatedly dropped Leon on the head until she “heard some kind of crack,” saying she was angry about having to babysit.
“Something just came over me I couldn’t control,” Virzi said during the police interview.
“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.”
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The boys’ mother, Savannah Roberts (pictured), confronted her “former best friend” and former maid of honor
Her lawyers argued she was coerced into making the ‘involuntary’ confession during a 13-hour interrogation, but a judge ruled the prosecutors may use it as evidence during her trial.
Virzi and Roberts met while working as research coordinators in Drexel University’s graduate psychology department in Philadelphia.
She then visited her new mom friend for a weeklong trip in June 2024, when things took a grim turn.
On June 15, 2024, Virzi claimed to have spotted a bloody injury on Ari’s groin area, and she was tasked with watching Leon while the parents took him to the hospital.
She told cops that she had gone into the kitchen to get the baby a bottle when she suddenly heard screaming.
When she returned, she said the baby had fallen out of his bouncer chair. She then called 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.
Prosecutors said she was responsible for inflicting a fracture to Leon’s skull and several bleeds on the brain picked up by a CT scan. She also injured Leon’s twin brother Ari
Prosecutors had called for Virzi to face the death penalty, but in Pennsylvania a third-degree criminal homicide conviction carries a maximum sentence of 40 years
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.’