Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - EARLY BIRD OR FLEEING FELON? GLAM PHD BABYSITTER CHARGED IN INFANTS MURDER, LEAVING 5 AM

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

PhD student Nicole Virzi remains in custody on charges of homicide, aggravated assault, and endangering the welfare of children. While visiting friends in Pittsburgh, Virzi cared for 6-week-old twins to give the mother a break. Both boys ended up in the hospital, and one died. EMTs transported Leon Katz and his father to the hospital shortly before midnight, but Nicole Virzi did not stay long. She was seen returning to her Airbnb just before 1 a.m., struggling to unlock the door. By 5 a.m., Virzi appeared to be preparing to leave town. Security footage captured her making what seemed to be a hasty exit less than five hours later. Although she was booked for two more nights at the apartment, Virzi appeared to be leaving. She was seen on security video leaving the building at 5:45 a.m. She reached for her phone and made a call while standing on the sidewalk. At 5:47 a.m., Leon Katz was pronounced dead. Three minutes later, at 5:50 a.m., police arrived at the Airbnb, and two officers approached Virzi on the sidewalk, quickly placing her in a patrol car. She was then transported to police headquarters, where she agreed to questioning without an attorney present. Joining Nancy Grace today:  Jarrett Ferentino – Pennsylvania Attorney/Homicide Prosecutor; Facebook & Instagram: Jarrett Ferentino; Host: “True Crime Boss” Podcast Dr. Shari Schwartz – Forensic Psychologist (Specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy); Author: “Criminal Behavior” and “Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology;” X: @TrialDoc” Brian Fitzgibbons – VP of Operations for USPA Nationwide Security; Instagram: @uspa_nationwide_security, Kingsman Philanthropic’s 2022 rescue missions of women and children in Ukraine, Iraq War Veteranide_security Dr. Kendall Crowns – Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth) and Lecturer: University of Texas Austin and Texas Christian University Medical School Alexis Tereszchuk - CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Early bird or fleeing felon? The glam PhD babysitter charged in an infant's murder caught leaving her Airbnb around 5 a.m., shrouded in darkness. Why? I'm Nancy Grace.

This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. A Pittsburgh family with newborn twin babies asks a longtime friend to babysit. Matters take a turn for the worse. Well, that's certainly an understatement. One of the infants is dead. The other injured in the groin area with scratches and swelling. So knowing that your good friend's

children are in danger, why would you try to bail out in the dark of the wee hours of the morning. Take a listen. Arriving back at her Airbnb at 1253 a.m., Nicole Berzy is seen on security video less than five hours later as she appears to be making a hasty exit. Even though she was booked for two more nights at the apartment, Berzy appears to be leaving. Berzy is seen on security video leaving the building at 5.45 a.m. She reaches for her phone and makes a phone call and is standing waiting on the sidewalk. At 5.47 a.m., Leon Katz is pronounced dead. At 5.50 a.m., police arrive at the Airbnb and two officers approach Bursey on the sidewalk and quickly take her to the waiting patrol car and transport her to the police headquarters where she agrees to be questioned without an attorney present.

Joining me in All All-Star panel makes sense of what we are hearing and what we are learning. We know that the so-called glam, glamorous PhD student, age 29, who was studying to get her PhD in a derivative of psychology, we know that she also led spin classes at at least one, if not more,

cycle centers. What more do we know? We know her dad is a renowned physician practicing at Mount Sinai in New York City. We know that she has many faces. The glam PhD student, the best friend that travels to visit two infant boys. But why in the world, if this is one of your best friends, would she try to steal away in the dark of the wee morning hours? Let's analyze that timeline again, straight out to a panel of experts. First, I'm going to go to Alexis Torres-Chuck, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter joining us out of LA. Alexis, thank you for being with us. I want to analyze the timeline. Verzi is spotted. Well, let me back it up. She gets back to her Airbnb a few blocks away

from the victim's home. The mom, the dad, the two twin infants. That is around 1 a.m. just before 1 a.m. Then less than five hours later, in the dark of the wee morning hours, she's beating a hasty retreat. 5.45 a.m. At 5.47 a.m., infant child, twin boy, Leon, is pronounced dead. So let me understand this. Tell me if I got the timeline correct, Alexis. So she leaves one of her best friends, Leon's mom, and the dad, the father of the twins, at the hospital.

Absolutely. She leaves them there with Leon with horrific head injuries and the other baby Ari had genital swelling and scratches. So instead of going back to the hospital to check on the babies, she tries to leave. She did. Here's the thing. It actually, she is the one that called 911 about the baby, about Leon at 1115 PM. So then the next time you see her is at shortly before 1 AM. So less than two hours, she is already back in her Airbnb. She's not at the hotel with her friends. She has been friends with the mom for, I think almost 10 years, very good friends. They've traveled together. She was here babysitting the children. She was trusted enough by the parents to babysit the baby. And so she's back at the Airbnb. A few hours later, she goes outside. She hesitates outside the front door,

and she takes for about three minutes. She then takes a phone call. At the time that she's on the phone, the baby is reported dead. Three later just three minutes later the police surround her and take her into custody so they must have been absolutely waiting outside waiting to hear watching her worried that she was going to flee knowing that this wasn't her regular home it was an airbnb she lives in san diego california so they were waiting for her for this exact reason. I'm very, very curious about the behavior and joining me is an esteemed forensic psychologist specializing in capital mitigation and victim advocacy at panthermitigation.com, author of Criminal Behavior and author of Where Law and Psychology Intersect. Dr. Sherry Schwartz is with us. Dr. Sherry,

I've got a problem with this. She is the one that calls 911 just a few hours before baby Leon is raised to the hospital. Now this is after baby Ari. She is the one that notices that baby Ari's penis is swollen and red, and there are multiple scratches in his groin area. She says, look at this. And the parents rushed to the hospital with baby Ari. They're in the hospital with baby Ari, and they get a call. Leon is unresponsive.

And the dad says, call 911. And she does. But within hours, she is spotted leaving her Airbnb in about five hours, fully dressed, makeup, hair, everything, getting out of town. What does that mean, if anything? Well, right off the bat, if she's trying to flee, which is what it appears she was trying to do, innocent people don't run away when they know that they're going to need to answer some questions and help further along an investigation. But to me, it's even deeper because this is a clinical psychology PhD student. And during that training, and she's not new in that training. So during that training, we are taught about legal investigations.

We are taught about ethics. We are taught about things that make us know that we don't need to call somebody to figure out if we need to call 911. So this is extra troubling. There's an added layer here. Jarrett Ferentino is joining us. Try a lawyer and co-host of Primetime Crime on YouTube. You can find him at JarrettFerentino.com. Jarrett, in a lot of jurisdictions, judges no longer give a jury instruction to the jury about evidence of flight. That's no longer allowed for the judge to instruct the jury that flight can, doesn't have to be, but can be construed as evidence of guilt when someone tries to flee the scene. However, the prosecution can still argue it. Let me give a good example. Scott Peterson, that's a great example. Remember when Lacey's body had

washed ashore as well as his unborn son, Connors, Scott Peterson dyed his hair, loaded up on Viagra and condoms and a fake ID and tried to skip town. He was caught. He also had a water purifier and camping gear. In my mind, that's evidence of flight equals evidence of guilt. So in this case, how would you differentiate the glam PhD student Verzi with Peterson? So Nancy, consciousness of guilt is admissible in Pennsylvania. What Nicole Verzi would have to do in this case is explain away that conduct. She would say her plans for some reason changed. Anything to rebut the fact that she was trying to hightail it out of town would be something she could rebut the argument that in fact,

she was leaving, she was on her way out of town to avoid responsibility for these charges. Hey, Ferentino, I love what you just said. Her plans changed. When? At 3 a.m.? When did her plans change? But I do want to follow up on something that Jarrett Ferentino says. And look, he's between a rock and a hard spot.

You take your client the way you find them. What do you think you're going to get? A nun, a priest, a virgin, sister Teresa. That's not happening. Okay. Mother Teresa is not going to be your client. You're stuck with Verzi. So you've got to somehow rumple Stillskin. You got to spin that straw, that hay into gold, defense gold. So he just said that she could argue her plans had changed. Alexis Tereschuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. What were her plans? I thought she was going to stay in the Airbnb a few blocks away from where the children were apparently assaulted. What plans changed? Your plan was to be there for multiple days after.

Exactly. She had at least two more nights on the Airbnb reservation. She was going to stay with her friend, hang out with the babies. She had emailed the owner of the Airbnb and said, you know, I'm going to be here. Just so excited to stay in your lovely place. Nothing about, oh, I'm only staying one night after I was in the hospital with my friend's baby. She had definitely not planned to leave the Airbnb early. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So taking a look at this timeline to Brian Fitzgibbons, Director Operations, USPA Nationwide Security, leading a team of investigators. You can find him at

uspasecurity.com. Brian Fitzgibbons, what do you make of it? Listen, you look at the timeline when when she makes that call to 911 at 1115. All right. She she already knows what's occurred inside of that house and what's happened with that baby. All right. At this time, a horrific thing has already happened. Police have now by the time she's absconding in the early morning over that six hour span, right, police have had a chance to process that crime scene. That's why they were waiting outside the Airbnb when she was trying to make her escape. So let's backtrack it to her coming home from the hospital, leaving her friend, the mom and the dad at the hospital with baby Leon, hoping he survives. Listen. EMTs transport Leon Katz to the hospital shortly before midnight, and his father, Ethan Katz, and Nicole Versi drive to the hospital separately. Savannah Roberts is still at the

hospital with Leon's twin brother, Ari, who is being treated for mysterious injuries to his groin area. Nicole Versi doesn't stay at the hospital long. She's seen arriving back at her Airbnb shortly before 1 a.m., appearing nervous as she struggles to unlock the door. Grim-faced with her cell phone in one hand, she enters the door code to enter the apartment building. Versi has to enter the code a couple of times before getting the number right and entering the building. I don't know what I could read into that or translate out of that.

Let me go to you, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, joining us. Of course, she's upset. It's late at night. She comes home. She can't quite get back into the door. She struggles with it. That means nothing to me because it's not her home code. It's the code from the Airbnb. So she's trying to remember that. I can't really glean anything from that. However, leaving in the cloak of darkness the next morning at 5 a.m. to leave town, that tells me a lot. And I'm wondering, jump in to Alexis Treschuk if you know, is she leaving by car or has she called for an Uber or a Lyft? And what was her destination? That's what I'm getting at.

Do we know where she was headed, such as the airport? Dr. Sherry Schwartz, I can't really read anything into her entry into the Airbnb the night before. No. However, it is troubling because this is such a good friend to her that this friend, she traveled across the country to help this friend take care of the babies. I read that it was the young couples, the parents wedding anniversary. It was also father's day or around father's day, I believe. So why aren't you at your friend's side? Why aren't you at the hospital to console your friend and be there for your friend? And again, not to beat the drum, this is a clinical psychology PhD student whose training would prepare her to be there and hold space for somebody in a traumatic situation. And I understand that

she may also have been experiencing anxiety in the sense of trauma herself, but she was with these babies and the one who noticed their injuries. And with the one child, the deceased child, she was with him when he sustained life taking injuries. So that part is troubling to me. In last hours, we learned that the so-called glam glamorous PhD student Nicole Verzi tries to leave her Airbnb in the cloak of darkness at around five o'clock in the morning. What, if anything, does that mean? That will be up to a jury, whether that can be construed as flight or evidence of guilt. But we do know she was a no-show at her arraignment. First of all, let me go straight out to Jarrett Fiorentino,

explain in a nutshell, what is an arraignment? Basically, Nancy, in Pennsylvania, you're read your charges and you at that point enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. Typically, defendants appear for that, but if they don't appear or waive that process, a plea of not guilty is entered on their behalf. Automatically entered by the judge. Straight out to Alexis Tereschuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Alexis, what happened? Because the state goes to great pains to ensure a criminal defendant has transportation, timely transportation to get to an arraignment. It's an important part of the

justice system. It's guaranteed in our constitution that within X hours of you being charged, you will be brought before a judge. It could be a magistrate. It could be a felony court trial judge. And you will be formally read the charges against you. And at that time, if the state's witnesses are known, those witnesses are given to you. And you have a chance to state in court guilty or not guilty. Why was she a no-show?

Am I correct in saying she was a no-show? A hundred percent, she was a no-show. She sent her lawyer. Her lawyer appeared on her behalf. She did not show up. She did not face the judge, and she did not appear in court. This would have been the first time that she would have been seen since being arrested for the felony

against this six-week-old baby. But she did not. She chose not to appear. And then he entered the not guilty plea. Well, she was given a not guilty plea on her behalf in the court, but she is still in jail. So what does it mean if anything, of course, if this ever comes to a jury trial, which I do believe it will, they'll never know she was a no-show in court. Why did she hide out? Why does she not want to come in and state not guilty? I coined a phrase, it's called a statement plea, where you try to make a statement with the few words you're given, be it guilty or not guilty, in court, in public.

Perfect example, O.J. Simpson. Matter of People v. Orenthal, James Simpson. How do you plead to counts one and two? Absolutely 100% not guilty. That's from our friends at CBS. Those words will ring in my head forever. Absolutely 100% not guilty. That's from our friends at CBS. Those words will ring in my head forever. Absolutely 100% not guilty. I wonder how many times my old co-anchor, Johnny Cochran, practiced that with Simpson

before he could deliver it in that manner in open court, knowing that it was going to be televised, knowing that the world would see it. Absolutely 100% not guilty. So why did Verzi pull a no show? Then, of course, there's let me think, Scott Peterson. Listen. Is that correct, Mr. Peterson? You're pleading not guilty of two charges of murder, plus denying the special allegations?

Absolutely. That's correct, Your Honor. I've been sent. That's my friends at Court TV. And can I tell you, Mark Garagos, say what you might about Garagos. He is a wizard at defending criminals.

I guarantee you, he had Scott Peterson decked out, looking his best, at ease in court, insisting, I am innocent. Hey, I want to see that one more time. Scott Peterson saying, I am innocent. Is that correct, Mr. Peterson? You're pleading not guilty of two charges of murder, plus denying these special allegations?

Absolutely. That's correct, Your Honor. I'm innocent. Oh, yeah. Gary goes, please, do you have to give him cues in open court? That's where our friends at Court TV say,

absolutely, say absolutely. Okay, so that wasn't rehearsed. You know what? I love looking at defendants when they say absolutely, 100%, not guilty. I just like to look at them while they're lying speaking of lying can we watch oj simpson just one more time just just to say we did matter of people versus orinthal james simpson how do you plead to counts one and two absolutely

yeah that down from our friends at cbs absolutely 100% not guilty. And then I guess you could take the Koberger approach. Okay. And we all know while we're hearing them say, absolutely 100%, I swear to the Lord in heaven, not guilty that they're guilty. Okay. so I look at them and they seem so believable. Okay, what stunt did Koberger pull? Ms. Taylor, is Mr. Koberger prepared to plead to these charges? You are, we will be standing silent. Okay, because Mr. Koberger is standing silent, I'm going to enter not guilty pleas on each charge. That's one, two, three, four, and five. That's my friends at East Idaho News.

Hey, let me go to you, Jarrett Farentino. Do you see that the defendants are totally rehearsed? They know exactly what to do and not do when they are asked, when the judge pops the question in court, how do you plea? Koeberger was as calm as a pickle in court and knew that his lawyer, Ann Taylor, was going to jump up and say he's going to stand silent. And there's a trial strategy to standing silent. But what do you think about the rehearsals? Well, I think clearly those individuals were rehearsed. They had prepared statements to just kind of slip in there when the judge asked them for their position. But it's worth noting, Nancy, Kohlberger, Simpson and Scott Peterson all had video cameras in the courtroom.

So the game start then. They're laying the foundation to get this defense out. In Pennsylvania, where this case hails from, there are no cameras in the courtroom. So there's no cameras to play to. If she skips arraignment, she simply gets a not guilty plea at this point. I guess you've heard of court reporters, reporters secret proceedings like you hear about in other countries, you know, like China or Russia, where everything's done behind closed doors. Not here as much as we can. I guarantee you reporters would have been there to write down everything she said, she did, what she was wearing, her demeanor, whether she stuttered, whether she paused, you name it.

Now, here is a strategic approach, and that would be Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin, the judge just threw out the charges against him. So in that case, Alexis Tereschuk, refresh my recollection, didn't he send in his lawyers to plead not guilty and he did not go to court? Correct. He did not appear in court. Famous Alec Baldwin, you know, super recognizable movie star, has insisted that he, well, he even said, I think I didn't pull the trigger, but he has insisted that he was not at fault for the gun that fired in his hand that killed Helena. And, but he didn't appear in court that first time. So why didn't Verzi at least show up to court and let her lawyer do the talking like Koberger? to plead to these charges? You are, you will be standing silent.

Because Mr. Koberger is standing silent, I'm going to enter not guilty pleas on each charge. Counts one, two, three, four, and five. As parents of newborn Savannah and Ethan wait in the ER with the baby Ari, they receive an even more worrying call. Baby Leon has fallen and is unresponsive. Okay, what do we know about the movements of everyone the night baby Leon gets such extreme injuries to the head that he dies. Listen. Calling 911 around 1115 p.m., Nicole Verzi tells the dispatcher that Leon has fallen from a bassinet and bumped his head and is becoming unresponsive. When police arrive, Verzi tells police she falls asleep with the baby in his bouncer seat.

When she wakes up, she goes to get a bottle from the kitchen for the baby. While she is out of the room, she hears Leon screaming and finds him on the floor with a bump on his head. She tells police he fell out of his bouncer seat. Let me just analyze that. We all know, straight out to you, Brian Fitzgibbons, Director, USPA, Nationwide Security. We know that she tells police at one point he fell out of a bouncy seat. Later, she says out of a bassinet. Those two are very different pieces of baby furniture. A bassinet is higher up off the ground. That there is a bouncy seat. But what about this fact, Brian Fitzgibbons? She says she falls asleep. She wakes up. The baby is in the bouncy seat.

She leaves the baby in the bouncy seat, which is supposed to be seat buckled, to go get the bottle. And it's then she hears Leon scream, finds him on the floor with a bump on his head. She says he fell out of his bouncer seat. Hmm. Now you have interesting information about the height of the bouncer seat. And I want to talk to you about the timing. And even on that bouncer seat, you see a spot for the baby to put its legs through, which is like a really soft type of a cotton slide in for the baby so it doesn't fall out. Okay. What are your thoughts on the bouncy seat injury?

First of all, Nancy, we have to understand police have already reported that the tallest height on this bouncy seat that the baby could have fallen from is 18 inches. So Nicole, her defense is going to have to explain how a baby falls 18 inches to its death. Are you on a first name basis with Verzi now? Sorry about that. You called her Nicole. Are you expecting to like go over for dinner after the acquittal? I forgot the last name. Sorry about that, Nancy. Versi. State versus Versi. Go ahead. Say whatever you want. But to Alexis Tereschuk, let me talk to you about the timing. He's right. Investigators measured it as 18 inches. I can see Dr. Kendall Crowns is just recoiling right now that a baby would eject itself from an 18-inch bouncy seat and die. But that said,

the timing, the timing. She sees the baby in the bouncy seat. She goes to the kitchen. She hears a scream. So the timing. So am I supposed to believe that in those 45 seconds, the baby kills itself? Well, Andy, she did say he fell out of a bassinet first and then changed her story to the bouncy seat. So bassinet, as you showed the picture there, they have sides on them and a six week old baby cannot fall out of that bassinet. He can't stand up. He can't move. He can't grab the side. He can't fall out of that bassinet unless it was a swinging one and it flipped over, which I don't think the timing, the timing, the time. And Jarrett Fiorentino, help me out. Help me out.

Forty five seconds. How in that timing, in that short time, does the baby kill itself? That's quite the coincidence, Jarrett Fiorentino. And I guess even you taking the side of Nicole Ver, will admit there is no coincidence in criminal law. In the 45 seconds it takes her to walk to the kitchen, the baby kills itself? That's an extremely narrow window for an opportunity like something of this nature to happen. I mean, the charge is non-accidental. So there are injuries that have been observed that have allowed the examiners to conclude this was not an accident. There are injuries that are not consistent with a fall.

That's exactly what brought about these charges. So that version and that timeline doesn't make sense when compared to the injuries. Okay, listen to this. Rushed to the hospital, doctors discover Leon Katz has a severe skull fracture to the left side of his head and multiple brain bleeds. The injury suffered by the six-week-old baby proved fatal and he's pronounced dead the next morning at Children's Hospital. Police say Versi has no plausible explanation for the severity of Leon's injuries. Examining the bouncer seat, detectives report that it's about 18 inches from the tallest point of the seat to the floor. OK, this is what matters.

What the medical examiner says. I can argue, hey, she's leaving. She's fleeing in the middle of the night. This, that, the timing, the coincidence. It's all about the C.O-D cause of death. Nobody can tell it like Kendall Crowns, excuse me, Dr. Kendall Crowns, chief medical examiner, Tarrant County, that's Fort Worth. He cringes every time I say this, but never a lack of business at the Fort Worth morgue. Esteemed lecturer at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU, literally thousands of autopsies under his belt.

Dr. Kendall Crowns, what do you think? So the description of the injuries of fracture of the skull, brain bleed is not from an 18-inch fall. Especially with these bouncy seats, if they're not buckled in and they usually kind of roll out of them, they're not even falling 18 inches at that point. The type of force that would be necessary to fracture the skull like that, the bouncy seat would have been had to have put on the second story of a building and the child rolled off and fell to the ground that way. So to me, that sounds more like the child was had their head slammed against a solid surface. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Investigators asked Nicole Versi about the injuries to Ari Katz, and she immediately points out that she was the one who spotted the injuries to Ari and alerted the parents. Versi says the

infant scratches his own face as he's flailing about when he's being put in his car seat. Investigators are also made aware Leon was alert, conscious, and not injured when he is left with Versi watching over him while the parents leave the home to take Ari to the hospital for his mysterious genital injuries to be examined. Versi tells officers she had fallen asleep with Leon in his bouncy seat, and when she woke up, she went to the kitchen to get him a bottle. Versi claims while in the kitchen, she hears a thump and Leon crying, and she finds him laying on the floor with a horrible bump on the left side of his head. She calls the parents, who tell her to call 911, and that's what she does. Okay, already this case is generating a lot of controversy.

I want you to hear what I read someone had written last night. I'm sorry, this is an absurd story. The fact that people assume she's a baby murderer is effing terrifying. Nothing suggests this was not an accident. They go on to say newborns are so effing fragile. They break ribs when they're born. They come out not yet completed gestating. That's why they have a gigantic hole in their skull, the soft spot. It goes on to say one hard fall. The baby's dead. And that's what happened here. Doctors claim every bruise on a baby means abuse. It's almost always wrong.

They write. Please stop believing these absurd headlines. People who kill babies have histories of problems, countless arrests, violent histories, drug addictions, alcohol problems. None describe Nicole Verzi. Okay. Can I go to Dr. Kendall Crowns? That's just so much. I'm just a trial lawyer. You're the medical examiner. So babies just die all the time when they fall? I didn't know that. Neither did I, because if babies died all the time when they fall, I'd have a lot more business, which I don't have. So that's a very inaccurate description. Also, the falling. We get a lot of child abuse cases where the child fell from something, and it's usually because that's how they're covering

the damage to the head that was caused. Then you can add on there that ribs are broken. Okay, occasionally ribs are broken during the birth process, but not to the extent that you see damage from child abuse. The head not being fully formed, well, that's so your brain can expand. And that actually means your skull is more pliable. As you get older, it becomes more hardened or more bony. So it won't fracture as much. So again, all those statements are completely inaccurate. And finally, the, you know, child abusers are bad people. It's usually a parent or a boyfriend that has just a bad moment, can't handle the child and loses it. It's not that they have a history. It's often it's just that one moment and they lose control and they kill the kid. Well, the writer is

suggesting that you have to have a history of abuse or criminal convictions in order to kill a baby. That's simply not true. And I'm trying to think back and practically every child murder case I had, the perp did not have a criminal history. Let's see. There's so many different directions to go. What about Benson Gardner? Heather Gardner drops off her two month old baby and an older son with the babysitter, Marissa Tietzer. When the mom returns to pick her children up, the baby is already in his car seat. He's already got his winter parka on and his hat is pulled down over his eyes

and the sitter says, hey, he's asleep. It's only after they get to the laundromat when Heather takes the baby out of the car seat and realizes he's perfectly stiff. His legs are bent in the shape of the car seat. Her sister calls 911 and mom begins CPR, but it's too late. The baby's already dead. By the time rescue workers arrive, they declare the baby dead at the laundromat.

In that case, like in the current case of the so-called glam PhD student, the babysitter was known to mommy. And of course, we have and did not have a criminal history. My point. What about Fallon Fidley? They were horrific. The child had injuries all over her body that were definitely not consistent with just hitting her head on a slide at the playground. They found contusions all over her body, tears to to some of her internal organs, which were definitely inconsistent with hitting your head on a slide as well. So just horrific, horrific injuries. When we were at the hospital, you know, the doctor had mentioned that he had never seen a child with injuries this severe actually recover. So hearing that was really a heavy blow, but we were all optimistic.

I think it was around 1.15, 1.20 in the morning that we got the hard news. Dr. Kendall Crowns is just over and over and over. A child, an infant, or a tot dies of extreme head injuries that just can't happen from an 18- inch fall. You just don't fall and die. Everybody on earth would be dead because we all fall at some point or another. You don't just die when you fall. Correct. I mean, especially children, because they, their heads aren't completely ossified or they're not completely formed bony bone wise. So they do have some bendability to them. And also they're not at an adult height there. If they fall from a standing height, they're two foot, three foot, it isn't going to cause a fracture. When you see fractures like this, especially in a six week old, it's someone pounding their head on something. It just

can't happen from a fall. And also, you have to think about how would they get bruises. They're not even crawling around. They're not really even standing yet. So, any bruises that you're seeing on a six-week-old is more than likely inflicted trauma. In the case of Nicole Verzi, the district attorney's office is providing four reasons for seeking the death penalty. One is that the defendant committed the killing while in perpetration of a felony. The second is the offense was committed by means of torture. The third reason given for seeking the death penalty is the defendant has a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence to a person. And the fourth reason is the child was under 12 years of age.

Nicole Verzi does not have any criminal history. That particular aggravating circumstance only comes into play once a guilty verdict is handed down and the death penalty is being sought. But I want to address Alexis Tereschuk, that the prosecution says one reason they would seek the death penalty in this case is because of torture. Explain. They feel like it wasn't that the baby fell out of the bassinet or the bouncy seat, that he was repeatedly injured, repeatedly hit or repeatedly slammed against something. And this was torturing. He is six weeks old, tiniest little thing. Like those little boys are so small and he was tortured. They believe that his injuries were so severe and so dramatic that they are considering this torture.

It's really hard to reconcile what we know about this so-called glamorous PhD student studying psychology and the fact that torture is alleged by the prosecution. Let's get it from the horse's mouth. My name is Nicole Verzi, and I'm the first author on the article titled Depression Symptom Patterns as Predictors of Metabolic Syndrome and Cardiac Events. Again, it reminds me of Scott Peterson. Oh, by the way, that's my friends at Heart and Mind Journal. And that's Nicole Verzi speaking about her Ph.D. project.

Again, I use Peterson because it's very hard to look at him and reconcile. Not in that picture exactly. But in court, it's hard to reconcile him in court at the time of the trial with what he was facing in his charges of murdering Lacey and the baby. So what does it mean? Is the eye tricking the mind or vice versa? Can we believe what we see? Or on the other hand, and let me throw this to Dr. Sherry Schwartz joining us. I was reading all the online comments, quite controversial, where another observer states, after reading about Nicole Verzi's Ph.D. aspirations, like Koberger, is she living out some other trauma or some fantasy that she was developing as she wrote her psychology Ph.D.? Is it far-fetched? Is it real? Those are the same questions we're trying to answer in Coburger. Well, the American Psychological Association did a study back in

around 2012 that showed that psychology PhD students tend to have a high level of mental health symptoms like anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns. To me, that's a major concern when you're educating people to go into a field to work with vulnerable people. We require police officers to pass a psych evaluation. Why wouldn't we require clinical psychology students to pass the same psych evaluation? Whether or not she wanted to research her friend's trauma, I saw that comment online. That's hard to say. That would be really diabolical. Dr. Kendall Crown said something earlier about the fact that it seems like maybe she just lost it, the baby was crying, you know, something like that. That would show poor emotion regulation, her inability to

control her emotions in an appropriate manner, which is in and of itself a mental health concern. So any number of things could have been behind why this baby was abused. We wait as justice unfolds. And today, our prayers and our thoughts go to those whose lives were forever changed, September 11, 2001. And we remember the heroes who ran up the stairs to save others instead of down the stairs to breathe in the fresh air. Those who were killed in the Twin Towers. We will never forget law enforcement officers, over 60 and over 300 firefighters and paramedics and 2,000 plus

civilians who died. Our American heroes. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.