"Racial Bias Attack" Revealed As Hoax

MORRISTOWN, N.J. -- A Pakistani-American man whose wife was gunned down while they and their son strolled a quiet suburban street plotted the killing with another woman and told police his family had been attacked by a group of men who called them terrorists, authorities said Friday.

Kashif Parvaiz, 26, suffered non-life-threatening wounds in the shooting in Boonton, N.J., that killed his 27-year-old wife, Nazish Noorani. They were walking with their 3-year-old son to a relative's house when shots rang out Tuesday night. The boy was unharmed.

Parvaiz and 26-year-old Antoinette Stephen, of Billerica, Mass., both face charges of murder, conspiracy and weapons offenses. He also faces child-endangerment charges.

According to Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi, Parvaiz' initial accounts of the attack were inconsistent and immediately raised suspicions.

Parvaiz had told investigators the couple was attacked by a different combination of black and white males who shouted ethnic slurs at the Pakistani couple, authorities said. In his initial story, the group shouted something about the family being "terrorists," authorities said.

Bianchi said investigators were deeply concerned when Parvaiz suggested it was a bias crime, but within hours "it was obvious to investigators that this was sadly the alleged handy work of the victim's husband who allegedly did the unthinkable and plotted to murder his wife." See Chick's WHO CARES?