A woman accused of strangling her daughter on a college campus apartment in Purchase, N.Y., told police she did it because the daughter was "disrespectful all the time," according to court papers made public Thursday.
Police accounts filed with a murder indictment quote Stacey Pagli, 37, as saying that Marissa Pagli, 18, had "pushed my last button." Police say Pagli admitted to killing her daughter and also tried to kill herself because she said they were "too much baggage" for her husband.
Stacey Pagli is accused of strangling her daughter Feb. 22 in the family's staff apartment at Manhattanville College. Marissa was a freshman at the school. Her father, John Pagli, was a maintenance supervisor. He found his wife unconscious and his daughter dead.
According to the police account:
When police asked what prompted Marissa to be disrespectful, her mother said, "I asked her where she was going." She said she told her daughter, "Don't ever speak to me like that. This will be the last time you speak to me like that."
She said she choked Marissa with her hands and knew she had killed her.
Pagli expressed regret, saying, "I wish I could take it back, but I can't. I can't make it better, she's not here anymore."
She also said she killed her daughter and tried to kill herself because they were "too much baggage" for her husband. "Me and Marissa, we ruined his life," the mother is quoted as saying, without elaborating.
The documents are police accounts of recorded interviews at White Plains Hospital and police headquarters.
Pagli's lawyer, Allan Focarile, would not comment on the indictment or the police accounts.
Pagli tried to commit suicide by cutting her left wrist and hanging herself on a doorknob, the Westchester district attorney's office said. Her arraignment is pending.
