A ‘compulsion’ to hurt kids: San Diego woman pleads guilty to killing best friend’s baby – Los Angeles Times

A ‘compulsion’ to hurt kids: San Diego woman pleads guilty to killing best friend’s baby  Los Angeles Times

Within a few short hours, a helpful postpartum visit from her California bestie took a tragic turn: The Pittsburgh mom's new twin boys were both hospitalized — one would not survive — and her friend was the main suspect in the abuse. That friend, Nicole Virzi, of San Diego, pleaded guilty this week in the 2024 death of 6-week-old Leon Katz and the physical abuse of the other twin, according to a statement from the Allegheny County district attorney's office in Pennsylvania. Virzi, now 32, eventually admitted to investigators that she had intentionally harmed the babies, saying that she'd had a "compulsion …. to hurt kids" her entire life, according to transcripts filed in the case.

She said she shook Leon hard and dropped him several times on purpose, including on a tile floor, but she said she "didn't want him to die." After his death, scans found that Leon had "a severe skull fracture to the left side of the head, along with multiple brain bleeds," Virzi's arrest report said. A doctor determined the injuries to both boys were "consistent with having been sustained as a result of child abuse." Virzi faces up to 35 to 80 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of third-degree murder, aggravated assault and two counts of endangering a child's welfare. Virzi,