Alleged crossbow wife-killer: 'I thought she was Satan'

Shortly after he allegedly killed his new wife with a crossbow in June at their Northeast Philadelphia home, Paul Kuzan told a homicide detective that he had done it for the Lord.

"My judgment was cloudy," Kuzan said in a confession recorded by police about seven hours after the slaying. "I thought she was Satan. I took her life. I guess I am a cold-blooded murderer, but I would not turn my back on the Lord.

"I thought she was the devil. I'm dead serious. When I walked outside, I thought the apocalypse was about to start."

In his rambling confession, Kuzan, 41, claimed to have an IQ of 187 and said he was shrinking in height.

The recorded confession was shown at Kuzan's preliminary hearing Tuesday in Municipal Court, where he was bound over for trial on a murder charge in connection with the death of Pamela Nightlinger, 42.

According to police, around 9:20 p.m. June 26, Kuzan shot Nightlinger - whom he had married nine days earlier - once in the chest with a high-velocity crossbow in their home on the 3100 block of Willits Road.

After she was shot, Nightlinger stumbled to her next-door neighbor's house, where she collapsed. Kuzan briefly appeared naked in the doorway of his home, according to neighbors, before retreating. He was still naked when he was taken into custody, police said.

At a hearing in August, Kuzan was found not competent to stand trial, according to court records. But that determination had been reversed by Tuesday, according to statements in court.

"He's actually pretty competent. He just needed some medication to get him there," Assistant Public Defender Wendy Ramos told District Judge Karen Y. Simmons before the hearing.

The only witness called at the hearing was Homicide Detective William Sierra, who confirmed that he had elicited Kuzan's confession.

Assistant District Attorney Alisa Shver then played the 30-minute confession for the courtroom while Kuzan, in a white button-down shirt and khaki pants, sat quietly next to Ramos and Assistant Public Defender Mythri Jayaraman at the defense table.

No friends or relatives of Kuzan's attended Tuesday's hearing, and he rarely looked up from the table to watch the video.

The recording began with Kuzan, dressed only in shorts, asleep and snoring on a table in a homicide interrogation room about seven hours after Nightlinger's death.

When Sierra and a detective entered the room, Kuzan asked for a shirt because a woman was present. He was given a white, long-sleeve jumpsuit, which he zipped in the front.

Kuzan began by saying that he had not slept in more than a month and that he had nothing to hide.

"I've lost everything but my freedom," Kuzan said, "and now that's gone, too."

Kuzan claimed that "the love of my life," Nightlinger, had tried to give him a pill that night.

"I'm not taking no more medications. It's making me crazy," Kuzan told Sierra. "I'm perfectly centered."

Kuzan said that after Nightlinger tried to give him the pill, he retrieved his crossbow - which he claimed she had bought for him at what is now Philadelphia Mills Mall - and sat in bed with the weapon for a while before allegedly shooting her with it in the living room.

At various points in the interview, Kuzan talked about the Book of Job, a mosque across the street that made him uneasy, how he recently contracted food poisoning, and how people in his life were "dying of cancer."

When Sierra asked Kuzan the color of his eyes, Kuzan stared at the detective, bug-eyed, and said, "Green."

"The eyes don't lie. They're the window to the soul, and when I looked at her, it was not her," Kuzan said of his wife.

When Sierra asked Kuzan his nickname, Kuzan replied, "Ku-Ku-Kuchoo."

Kuzan said he was a follower of Jesus but did not attend church. He asked for only two things during his interview: water and a cigarette.

"That's my only vice," Kuzan told Sierra.

In her cross-examination of Sierra, Jayaraman said that Kuzan was at a hospital the morning before his wife's alleged murder, although she did not detail why.

During his confession, Kuzan also told Sierra that he had been at the hospital that day, but did not say why.

Jayaraman questioned why Kuzan's possible "mental health issues" didn't stop police from questioning him following Nightlinger's slaying. She also asked the detective if he was aware that Kuzan had swallowed all his jewelry at some point and had to be taken to a hospital. The public defender declined to confirm whether Kuzan had swallowed jewelry before or after his arrest.

At several points during his confession, Kuzan said that he did not think the woman he was with that night was really Nightlinger.

"She had changed, man," Kuzan said.

"You don't think you changed?" Sierra asked him.

"Everybody changes, man," Kuzan said.

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