Witness: Suspect tried to use black magic to end wife’s life

Accussed wife-killer Kashif Parvaiz paid at least $4,500 to black magic practitioners he solicited for help in making his spouse disappear, commit suicide or have an “accidental death,” according to trial testimony in Morristown Thursday.

“Do you have any prayers that would make my wife, Nazish Noorani, commit suicide?” Parvaiz allegedly emailed in July 2009 to one company that advertised itself as a black magic practitioner.

Shortly before resting the state’s murder case Thursday against Parvaiz, Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Troiano called office Detective Supervisor Christopher Vanadia, a specialist in forensic computer examination, to testify about multiple incriminating emails he found on a laptop computer owned by Parvaiz.

Parvaiz’s murder trial opened Feb. 4, with the now-29-year-old father of two boys accused of arranging for his lover -- admitted shooter Antionette Stephen, 30, of Billerica, Mass. -- to gun down his wife and wound him to make the crime appear to be a random robbery or bias attack because they are Muslims.

Noorani, 27, was shot three times on Cedar Street in Boonton on Aug. 16, 2011, as she and Parvaiz, pushing their 2-year-old son in a stroller, walked from Noorani’s sister’s house on Williams Street to her father’s home.

Noorani was living in Brooklyn with her husband’s parents at the time while Parvaiz lived in Boston, where he purported to be trying to get his doctoral degree in architecture at Harvard University, though the university has no record of him.

Vanadia told a Morris County jury that through his examination of a laptop computer owned by Parvais, he was able to recover emails that the suspect sent between May 26, 2009 and in June of 2010 to web sites advertising “extreme black magic” and “ancient black magic.”

Parvaiz in several emails communicated directly with a proprietor of one of the sites.

“I am married and have two kids,” Parvaiz wrote in one email, explaining that he was unhappy. “I want her to get out of my life and let me have the kids.”

He asked for a list of services and fees.

Some emails included his wife’s name, and his children’s birthdates, and he forwarded a photograph of him and his spouse to one practitioner.

In another retrieved communication, Parvaiz wrote in July of 2009 that he was in Karachi, Pakistan, and asked: “Do you have any prayers that would make my wife, Nazish Noorani, commit suicide?“

He wrote one practitioner that he wanted his wife to leave him because he had met another woman he cared for.

“I am very attractive to this girl and I would like to marry her in the future when I get rid of my wife,” he wrote. In another email, sent in June 2009, he wrote: “I would like my wife to move on or disappear.”

As he allegedly shopped around in the black magic market, he wrote one practitioner in May 2010 that he wanted to get rid of his wife through “accidental death or something.”

Vanadia did not testify to any responses that Parvaiz received but Parvaiz’s emails indicated that he was forwarding money and asking for “guarantees.”

The emails, read aloud to jurors by Vanadia, also showed that Parvaiz was contacting several black magic practitioners and in June 2010 he pestered one Largo, Fla. company in particular for results.

“It has been a little over three weeks and no results,” Parvaiz wrote, according to testimony. “A few weeks later he wrote the same person: “So far nothing has happened to Naz. I have just given you $4,500. He questioned: “Am I being scammed here or am I going to see results?”

While allegedly looking to witchcraft to end his marriage, Parvaiz also was nurturing a growing relationship with Antionette Stephen, who already testified that Parvaiz convinced her that his wife was apathetic to their children and needed to die. Stephen has pleaded guilty to murdering Noorani but said the plan was developed by Parvaiz and she carried it out.

On Thursday, Troiano, the assistant prosecutor, also called Stephen’s sister, Sandra Stephen of Massachusetts, as a witness.

Sandra Stephen said she believed that Parvaiz was divorced and just a friend to her sister.

She said that she and Parvaiz had Facebook chats and while she was on vacation in Pakistan in April 2011, Parvaiz wrote to her via Facebook and asked if she could find “a substance” that would “stop someone’s heart and be untraceable.”

Authorities were able to retrieve the 16-minute-long Facebook chat exchange between Parvaiz and Sandra Stephen from April 2, 2011. Stephen responded to him: “You will never forgive yourself. Don’t think like that.”

“Come on, you know so many people in India. No one can hook you up?” Parvaiz wrote, adding: “I’m tired of all the (B.S.) in my life. I’ve been fighting so long and it’s not fair....”

Defense lawyer John Bruno cross-examined Sandra Stephen, suggesting she would “do anything” to protect her sister Antionette, and that the request for an undetectable “substance” was a joke by Parvaiz. Bruno got Sandra Stephen to admit that she would have called police if she seriously believed Parvaiz wanted her to obtain poison so he could kill his wife.

“If you thought he was serious, you could have prevented all this?” Bruno asked.

Stephen replied yes.

According to Antionette Stephen, the shooter, and another girlfriend Parvaiz had while married, he told both women that one of his sons, Riyann Hassan, was seriously ill with sickle cell anemia and needed blood transfusions but Noorani refused to take him to the hospital.

Troiano called the boy’s pediatrician, Dr. Muhammed Tariq, who practices in Brooklyn.

Tariq said that Riyann, who was five when his mother was slain, doesn’t have sickle cell anemia or any form of cancer. According to Antionette Stephen’s testimony, she believed Parvaiz when he said his son was ill and she gave him as much as $12,000 to help with medical treatments for the boy.

The trial is slated to continue Monday with the defense presentation before Superior Court Judge Robert Gilson. Closing trial arguments and deliberations also are expected to occur next week.

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