Woman pleads guilty to murdering best friend’s 6-week-old son, said she had compulsion to harm kids

A woman driven by a compulsion to harm children admitted in a Pittsburgh court that she murdered her best friend’s infant son in a plea agreement that is likely to keep her in prison for life.

Nicole Virzi, 32, had been charged with capital murder with the possibility of the death penalty before she opted to plead guilty Wednesday to third-degree murder and other charges.

She was sentenced to 35 to 80 years behind bars.

“Although this office was committed to pursuing this case to trial and its ultimate conclusion, after continued and on-going consultation with the family and considering the best interest of the community and its protection we agreed to offer the above plea and sentence,” the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Virzi, a University of California San Diego doctoral student, was a close friend of the victim’s mother, Savannah Roberts. She had been visiting Pittsburgh and helping babysit Roberts’ newborn twins, Leon and Ari Katz, in 2024.

In June 2024, the twins’ parents, Roberts and Ethan Katz, took Ari to the hospital after they discovered wounds on his body. Virzi offered to look after Leon while they were away.

Late that night, Virzi called police and claimed 6-week-old Leon had fallen from a baby bouncer. He was rushed to a nearby children’s hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Investigators quickly determined that the severity of the injuries to Leon could not have been caused by a fall from such a short height, and they took Virzi into custody.

Leon’s death was eventually ruled a homicide caused by “blunt force trauma to the head,” and “the manner of death was ruled homicide,” Pittsburgh police said in a criminal complaint. It was also determined that the injuries to Ari that caused the family to leave Leon in Virzi’s care were caused by Virzi herself.

Virzi told investigators that she “always had a compulsion she could not control to harm kids,” prosecutors have said in court.

“This was a horrific case in which Virzi used her trusted relationship with the Roberts/Katz family to place herself in a situation where she could commit her horrendous acts,” prosecutors said.

The twins’ mother, Roberts, said the tragedy has forever shaken her trust in humanity.

“Nicole’s actions have fundamentally changed me as a person and I feel unrecognizable from the Savannah I used to be. I could’ve never imagined that a person, let alone my best friend, was capable of the cruelty or violence Nicole displayed,” Roberts wrote in a letter to Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos.

“One of the most enduring impacts of Nicole’s crimes is that my own self-confidence is forever shattered and I’ll never forgive myself for failing to protect my babies from this monster,” she wrote.

An attorney for Virzi could not immediately be reached for comment.

Virzi will have to serve the full length of the minimum sentence of 35 years before she’s eligible for parole, according to Phil DiLucente, a local criminal law attorney and legal analyst for NBC affiliate WPXI.

It’s highly unlikely a parole board would ever allow her to walk out of prison, DiLucente said.

“It’s just a bizarre case from a lot of different viewpoints that someone would fly in from across the country to see her best friend and then to do such a horrendous premeditated act,” DiLucente told NBC News on Thursday. “She just doesn’t apply to any of the things that would be [considered a] mitigating [factor in granting parole].”

Both of Leon’s parents are twins, and it was always the couple’s dream to also have twins, Roberts said.

The mom worries that she’ll never be able to let their surviving twin son, Ari, out of her sight.

“It took nearly a year for me to use the bathroom, shower or brush my teeth by myself after learning Nicole hurled Leon to the ground on our old bathroom floor, fracturing his skull and ending his life,” Roberts wrote.

“Whenever I entered the bathroom, Ethan had to stand outside the door to talk to me the entire time, preferably holding Ari where I could see him so I could be sure he was okay,” she said.

“I’ve still never been able to leave Ari alone with a friend and I don’t know if I ever will,” she wrote to the judge.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com