Killer: Ex-lover said his wife, a bad mother, had to die

A Best Buy clerk from Massachusetts told a jury Tuesday that she murdered her lover's wife in Boonton in 2011 because he convinced her the woman was greedy and was blocking blood transfusions their son vitally needed for his sickle cell anemia.

"Did you agree with Mr. Parvaiz that you would shoot and kill Nazish Noorani?" Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Troiano asked Antionette Stephen, 30, of Billerica, Mass.

"Yes, I did," stated the woman, who is the prosecutor's office chief witness against accused killer Kashif Parvaiz, now 29.

"I was going to be the shooter," Stephen said later in her testimony. "I was supposed to shoot her and then shoot him to make it look like a robbery gone bad. I had multiple weapons so it looked like more than one robber."

In calm detail, Stephen told a Morris County jury that before she killed Noorani and shot Parvaiz in a pre-arranged pact on Aug. 16, 2011, he had proposed other ways of murdering Noorani, including cutting the brake line to her car, having her disappear during a trip to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia and arranging for a rear-end collision during which he would snap his wife's neck.

Wearing a white blouse and black pants, her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, Stephen testified for two hours Tuesday about her relationship with Parvaiz, her routine of paying rent on his apartment and loaning him money for purported blood transfusions for his son Riyaan, who was five when his 27-year-old mother was shot to death with three bullets on Cedar Street in Boonton on Aug. 16, 2011.

Authorities said the tale of Riyaan having sickle cell anemia was a lie by Parvaiz.

Parvaiz and Stephen were both arrested and charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and other crimes within a few days of the 11:15 p.m. killing.

In May 2013, Stephen agreed to cooperate with the state and pleaded guilty to murder in exchange for a recommended sentence -- still to be imposed -- of 30 years in prison with 30 years of parole ineligibility.

Stephen, speaking in a calm but low voice, told jurors she met Parvaiz in January 2010 in Boston at Boston Architectural College where they both were studying architecture. She said she paid tuition by working jobs at Best Buy and at a Kohl's store.

She said they first were friends and then became intimate. She said Parvaiz told her he was divorced from Nazish Noorani under Islamic law and claimed that their second son, Shayaan, was born of an extramarital affair his wife had.

The victim, who never was divorced from Parvaiz, was living with their children at his parent's home in Brooklyn. Stephen said she met Noorani and the children several times when they visited Boston but that Parvaiz frequently told her stories that portrayed Noorani as materialistic and an irresponsible mother. He claimed that a custody order allowed him only supervised visits with his boys and that he had to travel from Boston to New York several times a month to bring his son to the hospital because Noorani refused.

"He told me he was having trouble paying for the blood transfusions for Riyaan because she (Noorani) was intent on getting more child support money from him," Stephen testified. She said Parvaiz confided that his wife was not his intellectual match and that he disliked her from the start of their marriage.

"He said it was a marriage forced on him, an arranged marriage," Stephen testified.

Parvaiz, his wife and children were in Boonton on Aug. 16, 2011, to break the fast of the Muslim holiday Ramadan with relatives, including Noorani's father, sister and brother. Noorani was killed with three shots; Parvaiz received four non-life-threatening bullet wounds. Their son Shayaan, then 2, was in a stroller and was not injured.

Stephen said that Parvaiz also wanted her to try to kill Noorani in a drive-by shooting in Brooklyn but then settled on Boonton as a better, quieter venue, she said.

She said that Parvaiz was intent on seeing his wife dead because the purported blood transfusions were draining him financially, even with about $12,000 Stephen said she gave him. He claimed his wife refused to sign documents so that Medicaid could pay for the treatments.

"He said Riyaan's condition was getting worse. He was running out of money," Stephen said. "She (Noorani) was in charge of the kids and he worried for Riyaan's life."

She said that when she agreed to the murder plan, Parvaiz drew her a map of Boonton and instructed her on clothing she needed to disguise herself. He also acquired the firearms -- 9mm and 38-caliber handguns, she said.

Before Stephen's testimony, Assistant Prosecutor Erin Callahan had called Matthew Medeiros, the general manager of American Firearms Academy in the Boston area. Medeiros testified that Parvaiz and Stephen rented and practiced with firearms at the range on five occasions between Jan. 11 and Aug. 1, 2011.

Stephen never lost her composure while testifying but at times her voice grew heavy. She said that per her plan with Parvaiz, she checked into a Days Inn in Parsippany on Aug. 15, 2011, and then communicated with Parvaiz through texts, phone calls and on a website.

She said that Parvaiz managed to meet her for a few minutes in Boonton late on Aug. 15, 2011,where he gave her "final instructions." She said he then said he was going to walk on the street with his wife and children at the time of the planned shooting.

"I was not confident of taking the shots, specifically with Riyaan there. But he said it needed to be done," she testified.

She said she was parked on the street and Parvaiz made a final call to her that he was leaving his sister-in-law's house. Stephen said she left her car and hid in darkness by a garage on Cedar Street. She said she moved to the middle of the street when she saw Parvaiz pushing the stroller and his wife a few steps behind him.

"I shot her. As soon as I did he moved in front of me and said 'Shoot." Stephen held up her hand to the jury, indicating that Parvaiz wanted her to shoot him in the palm. She said she remembered to switch guns, in keeping with their plan of multiple attackers.

"I had to put more bullets in him to make it seem he was the main target," Stephen said.

Defense lawyers are expected to cross examine Stephen on Wednesday.

Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@njpressmedia.com