Update at 3 p.m.: Antoinette Stephen allegedly told Kashif Parvaiz in a text message: 'You hang in there. Freedom is just around ur corner.'

BOONTON — Kashif Parvaiz has acknowledged a role in the shooting death of his wife, Nazish Noorani, on Tuesday, according to the Morris County Prosecutor's Office.

Antoinette Stephen has been arrested by law enforcement in Boston and charged with murder, said Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi. Both she and Parvaiz have been charged with first-degree murder. Stephen's name appears on the mailbox of a Boston apartment with Parvaiz.

Noorani, whose funeral is this afternoon, was shot four times and killed instantly as she and Parvaiz pushed their 3-year-old son up Cedar Street in a stroller. The couple also has a 5-year-old, who was not present when the shooting took place.

Parvaiz, is in stable condition, according to his father. The boy was unhurt.

Noorani's relatives, gathering at the family home on Church Street ahead of her funeral this afternoon, declined to address this development until they had heard from law enforcement.

"Right now, I don't want to comment," Noorani's sister, Lubnar Choudry, said outside the house.

She said the family's priority was burying her sister.

Since the shooting Tuesday night, relatives of Noorani have been questioning how well they actually knew her husband of six years.

Noorani's sister, Lubnar Choudhry, who hosted the married Muslim couple at her home for Ramadan dinner right before they were shot, said all was not as it seemed in the marriage and that Parvaiz. 26, was "a source of unhappiness" to her sister. Choudhry also discounted part of her brother-in-law's version of what happened Tuesday night.

This morning, Choudhry said she would not comment on the developments.

"We don't know anything yet," she said.

There was growing evidence that the Noorani-Parvaiz marriage was in trouble. They had been living in Boston the past nine months, but it was not clear whether Parvaiz was working there and what he was working at. Harvard University said it had no records to support his claim he was pursuing a Ph.D.

The Star-Ledger also obtained a police report from Boston showing that Parvaiz was arrested six months ago for allegedly assaulting a woman.

The report said that the woman, crying and having difficulty breathing, told police who arrived to Parvaiz’s East Boston apartment on Feb. 25 that Parvaiz slapped and pushed her and wouldn’t allow her to leave after an argument in which he accused her of "being unfaithful to him."

Parvaiz told police he didn’t slap the woman in the face or prevent her from leaving, but said they argued about her infidelity and he "may have accidentally pushed her."

Parvaiz was arraigned on assault and battery charges, but the charges were dropped five weeks later when the 20-year-old New York woman failed to show up for court, according to the Suffolk County, Mass., District Attorney's Office.

The report said that the woman, crying and having difficulty breathing, told police who arrived to Parvaiz’s East Boston apartment on Feb. 25 that Parvaiz slapped and pushed her and wouldn’t allow her to leave after an argument in which he accused her of "being unfaithful to him."

Parvaiz was arraigned on assault and battery charges, but the charges were dropped five weeks later when the 20-year-old New York woman failed to show up for court, according to the Suffolk County, Mass., District Attorney's Office.

Meanwhile, ABC news reported that Noorani sent a text message to a relative a month ago saying: "If you should find me dead someday... It was Kashi. He wants to kill me."

The Morris County Prosecutor's Office didn't respond to the report.



By Mark Di Ionno and Richard Khavkine/The Star-Ledger

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