GUILTY NY - Marissa Pagli, 18, found strangled, Purchase, 22 Feb 2010

Police Say Mother Strangled NY College Student
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:28 p.m. ET

HARRISON, N.Y. (AP) -- A student found slain on a college campus in suburban New York was strangled by her mother, who then tried to kill herself, police said Wednesday.

Stacey Pagli, 37, was arrested at White Plains Hospital Center on Wednesday morning and charged with murder in the death of her 18-year-old daughter, Marissa Pagli, a freshman at Manhattanville College in Purchase, said Harrison police Capt. Anthony Marraccini.

He said the mother left a note at the scene, but he declined to describe the contents. He also said that Pagli has spoken to investigators, but he would not say whether she confessed.

Later Wednesday, a frail-looking Pagli shuffled into Town Court for her arraignment, with her hands cuffed to a belt around her waist, her ankles shackled together and her hair covering her face.

Westchester County prosecutor Tim Ward asked Justice Marc Lust to order a suicide watch for Pagli because ''she definitely has attempted to kill herself.'' Lust agreed and sent her to the county jail without bail.

Pagli's attorney, Lynette Spaulding, did not enter a plea.

Marissa Pagli's body was found by her father, a maintenance supervisor at the college, in the family's apartment in staff housing on Monday. Stacey Pagli was found unconscious at the scene and was hospitalized. Police would not comment on her injuries, but at her arraignment she was wearing a bandage on her left wrist.

Marissa Pagli had grown up on campus and enrolled last year at the school, about 27 miles northeast of Manhattan.

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