N.J. husband suspected in wife's shooting

BOONTON, N.J. -- A man whose wife was fatally shot while they walked along a quiet New Jersey street plotted the killing with another woman but 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 that killed his wife, Nazish Noorani, 27. The Pakistani-American couple were walking with their 3-year-old son, who was in a stroller, to a relative's house in Boonton when shots rang out Tuesday night. The boy was unharmed.

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

Stephen and Parvaiz exchanged text messages in the days leading up to the shooting, according to an arrest affidavit released by the Morris County prosecutor's office.

"You hang in there. Freedom is just around ur corner," read one text sent from a phone listed to Stephen's father to Parvaiz, according to the affidavit.

Parvaiz, who has been in the hospital, was arrested several days ago, authorities said. He was being held on $1 million bail. Authorities said they did not know whether he had a lawyer.

Stephen was arrested Thursday night in Massachusetts. She was arraigned Friday on a fugitive-from-justice charge and was being held without bail at a women's prison in Framingham, Mass. Meghan Spring, the attorney who represented her at arraignment, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Parvaiz, his wife and their son were walking from Noorani's sister's house to her father's house a few blocks away when the shooting occurred.

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

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