By Anthony G. Attrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Over the past two decades, there has been a rise in women convicted of — and in many cases accepting responsibility for — high-profile murders.
The crimes run the gamut from depraved indifference — think tourist-killer Antoinette Pelzer — to the desperate, like Melissa Drexler, who was convicted of manslaughter for killing her baby at her prom.
“You see women getting more and more involved in violent crime, including homicide. There is no question about it,” said Robert Bianchi, who prosecuted murder cases in Morris and Hudson counties over a 28-year period.
Bianchi, who is writing a book about high-profile murders in New Jersey, said he is shocked at the apparent lack of motive in some of today’s murders.
“In the past, women killed over money, a paramour – things you could wrap your arms around,” he said. “It’s gotten senseless.”
Bianchi believes violence in movies, television and on the Internet has helped to normalize murder as an option in today’s society. “In general," he said, "we are becoming a more violent society.”
Here are some of the most notorious slayings committed by women in New Jersey.
File photo, N.J. Department of Corrections
Melanie McGuire
What she did: Known as "the suitcase killer," Melanie McGuire drugged, shot, then dismembered her 39-year-old husband Bill in April 2004 in their Woodbridge home. McGuire stuffed her husband's remains in three matching suitcases and dumped them in the Cheseapeake Bay. The suitcases were recovered during three days in May 2004.
Why: Prosecutors would later say the motive was so McGuire could be with her lover, a doctor who worked with her at a fertility clinic in Morristown.
Sentence: McGuire was sentenced to life in prison and must serve more than 63 years before she is eligible for parole.
Michelle Lodzinski
What she did: Timothy Wiltsey was 5-years-old and in kindergarten when he disappeared in May 1991. Lodzinski, a 23-year-old single mother,told police the boy vanished when she turned her back to buy a soda at a carnival in John F. Kennedy Memorial Park in Sayreville. Prosecutors say Lodzinski killed the boy and left his body by the side of the river. His body was found 11 months later, dumped in Edison.
Why: Prosecutors speculated that Lodzinski killed the boy because she didn't want to take care of him.
Sentence: Lodzinski, 49, was arrested 25 years after Timothy's death, tried and convicted, although there was no physical evidence that tied her to the child's death. She was sentenced in january to 30 years with no possibility of parole. She has appealed the verdict.
File photo, N.J. Department of Corrections
Brenda Wiley
What she did: In taped interviews, Wiley, then just 15 years old, described killing her brother and mother in 1990 in their Delaware Township home. She told officials she hit her brother Kevin, 14, over the head with a glass soda bottle, then stabbed him in the neck with a kitchen knife before placing his body in a sleeping bag and covering his head with a trash bag. Then, she hit her mother Bonnie, 40, over the head with an iron bar and stabbed her repeatedly. Afterward, she cleaned up the blood with a towel and took a shower.
Why she did it: Wiley told police she killed her mother because she "wouldn't let me do anything anymore." She killed her brother because he "made fun of me again, as usual." She wanted to kill her father, but he was at work, she told police.
Sentence: She is serving life sentences and is eligible for parole in 2022.
Antoinette Pelzer
What she did:As Ontario tourists Po Lin Wan, 80, and Alice Mei See Leung, 47, walked down an Atlantic City street on May 21, 2012, they were approached by a Antoinette Pelzer, a homeless woman from Philadelphia. Pelzer first attempted to rob the woman, but then stabbed both repeatedly with a 13-inch knife.
Why she did it:Pelzer said she was suffering from mental illness.
Sentence:Pelzer pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and was sentenced to 80 years in prison.
File photo, N.J. Department of Corrections
Nicole Guyette
What she did:Sujeiti Ocasio, 18, was hosting a graduation party on June 27, 2008 when Nicole Guyette — who was not invited — brought a gun to her neighbor's party. The gun fired, killing Ocasio and injuring another girl.
Why she did it:Guyette said she brought the gun because she became angry when she heard one of the girls had called her a prostitute. But she said she didn't plan to kill her, instead, Guyette said the gun went off accidentally.
Sentence: Guyette was convicted of aggravated manslaughter and will be eligible for parole on March 29, 2021.
File photo
Dr. Idella Kathleen Hagen
What she did: A Harvard-educated medical doctor, Idella Kathleen Hagen smothered her elderly parents in August 2000 as they slept in their Chatham home.
Why she did it: Hagen said she heard a commanding voice instructing her to kill her parents
Sentence: In 2002, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and held in a psychiatric hospital for six years. In 2008, a three-doctor psychiatric panel recommended she be released to live in a home she bought in Monmouth Beach.
Robert Sciarrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Antionette Stephen
What she did:Kashif Parvaiz and his wife, Nazish Noorani, walked down a quiet Boonton street during Ramadan, pushing their 2-year-old son in a stroller. In the middle of their stroll, a car pulled up and Antionette Stephens fatally shot Noorani and injured Parvaiz.
Why did she do it:Stephen became romantically involved with Kashif Parvaiz and believed him when he told her that his wife wouldn't take his child to get treatment for sickle cell anemia, and that he feared his child would die from the disease. She used two different weapons, as instructed by Parvaiz. One injured Parvaiz, so he wouldn't be implicated in the shooting, the other killed Noorani.
Sentence:Antionette Stephen, right, is led into Superior Court where she was sentenced to 30 years in prison, the minimum for a murder charge. She must serve the full term and after she is released she will likely be deported to India. Parvaiz was sentenced to life in prison plus 10 years.
Melissa Drexler
What she did:Nicknamed "The Prom Mom," by the media, Melissa Drexler of Lacey Township gave birth in June 1997 in a bathroom stall during her high school senior prom. Drexler put the newborn in the trash before returning to the prom, where she ate a salad and danced. A medical examiner concluded the baby had been strangled, but a separate autopsy was inconclusive.
Why she did it: Drexler, who had kept the pregnancy a secret from everyone, suffered from developmental problems and was in denial, and didn't believe the baby was hers, her attorney said.
Sentence: Drexler pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison and paroled after serving three years.
Tianle LI
What she did:On Jan. 14, 2011 — the day Xiaoye Wang and Tianle Li were to finalize their divorce — Wang checked into University Medical Center in Princeton complaining of abdominal pain. He died 12 days later, after doctors found lethal amounts of the heavy metal thallium in his system. Li, a Monroe resident, was convicted of murder and of hindering her own apprehension. Prosecutors said she sat at her husband's bedside as his condition deteriorated and knew there was an antidote for the poison.
Why she did it:At her sentencing, Li denied she ever poisoned her husband. Prosecutors said she did it because he wanted a divorce.
Sentence: Li is serving a life sentence with no eligibility for parole until Oct. 27, 2074.
N.J. Department of Corrections, file photo
Tina Lunney
What she did:On July 22, 2009, the day 81-year-old Marie Zoppi was killed, her daughter Tina Lunney called in late to work, telling a co-working her mother was " acting weird, like depressed." Lunney was later charged with strangling her mother with a necktie, then staging their Fairfield home, which she shared with her mother, husband and children, to look like her mother committed suicide.
Why she did it: Prosecutors said Lunney stole her mother's credit cards and used them to pay bills and for a vacation to North Carolina's Outer Banks.
Sentence: Lunney is serving 40 years in state prison. She will be eligible for parole in July 2043, when she will be 75 years old.
File photo
Nadiyah Venable
What she did:When ShaRon Moens, 29, decided to reunite with the father of her children, Nadiyah Venable was outraged. On May 15, 2010, the 20-year-old Venable threw acid in the face of Moens, then stabbed her repeatedly in her Newark home as the victim's young sons looked on.
Why did she do it: Venable, who was six months pregnant, had learned that her former boyfriend had decided to reunite with Moens.
Sentence: Venable was sentenced to 55 years. She died at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Clinton Township on July 1, 2014.
File photo
Kathleen Dorsett
What she did: A former Neptune schoolteacher, Kathleen Dorsett conspired with family members to murder her husband, Stephen Moore, in the backyard of their Ocean Township home on Aug. 16, 2010. Kathleen lured him to the yard where her father, Thomas Dorsett, bludgeoned him. Then Kathleen and her father put his body in the trunk of a car and Thomas Dorsett set the body on fire in Long Branch.
Why she did it:Prosecutors said Kathleen set the plan in motion because she wanted her husband out of her child's life.
Sentence: Kathleen Dorsett pleaded guilty in 2013 to several charges and is serving 58 years in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 2057, when she is 83. Her father, who was 66 at sentencing, was given 45 years in prison, and her mother, who conspired to kill Stephen Moore's mother, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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