Jury Mulls Case Of Man Accused Of Setting Up Murder Of Wife In Boonton, N.J.
MORRISTOWN, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Jury deliberations have begun in the train of a man accused of setting up the fatal shooting of his wife in Boonton, New Jersey.
Kashif Parvaiz is accused of scheming with a Massachusetts woman to kill his wife, Nazish Noorani, in August 2011, and make it look like a random attack.
The August 2011 shooting occurred while Parvaiz and his wife -- Nazish Noorani, 27 -- walked with one of their young sons in Boonton.
The panel got the case Wednesday and deliberated for more than two hours without reaching a verdict. Deliberations will resume Thursday morning.
The alleged hit-woman, Antoinette Stephen, already pleaded guilty to murder, conspiracy and weapons charges in the case in May 2013 and agreed to cooperate against Parvaiz. The Billerica resident was having an affair with Parvaiz and has admitted firing the fatal shots.
Weeping, Stephen told jurors she did it because Parvaiz convinced her that Noorani was a bad mother – withholding blood transfusions to their sick son. But prosecutors said it was all a lie.
In being questioned by a prosecutor, Stephen said Parvaiz never told her to stop, and never got in front of his son, at the time of the fatal shooting.
Stephen also admitted to wounding Parvaiz back in 2011, in what she described as a "pre-arranged hit" made to look like a robbery.
But the defense in the case said Stephen has changed her stories several times, and claimed she was trying to get her sentence reduced.
In the initial charges in the case, police said Parvaiz and Stephen teamed up to get Noorani out of the picture and said they found incriminating text messages between the two leading up to the murder.
"You hang in there. Freedom is just around ur (sic) corner," read a text message prosecutors said Parvaiz received from Stephen.
Authorities said Stephen also wounded Parvaiz to make it look a random racial attack. The child was not hurt.
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