New York Post, Sunday, October 25, 2020
nypost.com
Vogue powerhouse Anna
Wintour is finally owning
up to her intolerant past.
The 70-year-old copped to
her wrongdoings in a New
York Times exposé about her
handling of race as the artis-
tic director of Condé Nast.
“I strongly believe that the
most important thing any of
us can do in our work is to
provide opportunities for
those who may not have had
access to them,” Wintour
said. “Undoubtedly, I have
made mistakes along the
way, and if any mistakes were
made at Vogue under my
watch, they are mine to own
and remedy and I am com-
mitted to doing the work.”
But 11 anonymous em-
ployees said the Brit, who
has helmed the fashion
magazine since 1988,
“should no longer be in
charge of Vogue and should
give up her post as Condé
Nast’s editorial leader.”
Wintour allegedly asked
Vogue reporters to not men-
tion cultural appropriation
when reporting on Kendall
Jenner wearing grills to a
party. “I honestly don’t think
that’s a big deal,” she report-
edly wrote in an e-mail.
In another e-mail about a
photo shoot featuring black
women in headscarves, she
allegedly wrote, “Don’t mean
to use an inappropriate
word, but pica ninny came to
mind.” Marisa DellattoWintour
‘racial’
apology
Attorneys representing a
black woman who was shot
and wounded inside a vehi-
cle by a suburban Chicago
police officer who also fa-
tally shot her 19-year-old
boyfriend called the offi-
cer’s firing “a first step in
police accountability” but
said they are pressing ahead
with their own probe of the
shooting. Waukegan Police
Chief Wayne Walles an-
nounced late Friday the fir-
ing of the officer who fa-
tally shot Marcellis Stin-
nette, a black man,
and wounded Tafara Willi-
ams, 20.
No other details, includ-
ing the officer’s name, were
provided. APChi. cop ax
over slaying
By Sara DornIn the year since her daughter
Stephanie was killed, allegedly by
an abusive boyfriend, Sharlene
Parze has been haunted by the
close bond they shared.
“We did everything together,”
said the mom, who sees reminders
of her daughter everywhere.
“Now we just have a hole,” Shar-
lene Parze, 53, said through tears
in an interview from her Freehold,
NJ, home Thursday.
“It’s all you ever think about,
your mind never shuts off — reliv-
ing what she was thinking when it
was happening, trying to see her
face, not being able to hold her,
kiss her or hug her ever again.”
As the first anniversary of the
disappearance and death of the 25-
year-old New Jersey makeup artist
approaches, her parents hold on to
one final hope for securing an-
swers about what happened to
their daughter on Oct. 30, 2019.
Robbed of closure by the suicide
of Parze’s suspected killer, John
Ozbilgen, Parze’s family — and
Monmouth County prosecutors —
are now honing in on what Ozbil-
gen told his parents before dying.
“We want the truth to come out,”
Sharlene Parze said.
Her husband, Ed Parze, 55, added,
“How can they defend their son
when they know he committed this
crime? Man up, do the right thing.”
The Parzes never heard from
their daughter again after she left
their house on Halloween eve, fol-
lowing a night out with her mother
and sisters to visit a psychic.
The family immediately suspected
Stephanie’s on-and-off boyfriend,
Ozbilgen, a 29-year-old stockbroker
who had recently moved from
Staten Island to Freehold Township.
He had been charged with attacking
Stephanie and a second woman be-
tween June and October 2019.
Ozbilgen admitted he spent the
night at Stephanie’s home on Oct.
30, and claimed she was alive
when he left the next morning.
Thousands of volunteers scoured
woodlands from Freehold to Staten
Island searching for Stephanie’s
body. In November, cops arrested
Ozbilgen on child porn charges,
after finding images in his phone.
He hanged himself in his par-
ents’ garage on Nov. 22, without
copping to the murder.
He left behind at least two notes,
which hinted at homicide but
never disclosed the whereabouts
of Stephanie’s body.
“I dug myself in a deep hole.
This is the only choice,” he wrote.
Stephanie’s remains were finally
discovered three months later, in
the weeds just off Route 9 about 10
miles north of Freehold. They were
too decomposed to determine how
she was killed, her parents said.
While the Ozbilgens maintain
their son’s innocence, and theirown, authorities insist he didn’t
take all of his secrets to the grave.
Prosecutors “believe there were
texts between them [Ozbilgen and
his parents] after he killed her.
They believe he confessed to his
parents early on,” said a law-en-
forcement source.
Hakan and Cynthia Ozbilgen are
now the subject of a evidence-tamp-
ering investigation, the source said.
Authorities suspect they deleted
messages exchanged with their son
shortly after Stephanie went miss-
ing, the source said. Authorities also
believe they withheld one of their
son’s suicide notes, according to the
source, and they refuse to turn overtheir cellphone passwords so their
devices can be searched.
Hakan Ozbilgen admitted with-
holding the passwords. He blames
law enforcement for his son’s death.
“The reason why my son took
his life is not because he did some-
thing to this poor girl, it’s because
he was charged with child pornog-
raphy. He couldn’t handle it,” he
seethed in an interview Friday.
The father said his son wasn’t
the raging misogynist he is made
out to be. “My son dated a lot of
girls... There would be a lot more
girls out there saying something
about him,” he argued.
But one ex told the Asbury ParkPress Ozbilgen would choke her
during sex and arguments. Prose-
cutors believe Stephanie may have
died during “rough sex” with Oz-
bilgen, the source said.
“There is an open investigation
into [the Ozbilgens] own actions,
into hindering and obstruction in
the aftermath,” Monmouth County
Assistant Prosecutor Caitlin Si-
dley said last month.
Meanwhile, the Parzes have
started the Stephanie Nicole Parze
Foundation, a nonprofit they hope
to use to help other victims of abuse.
“We just don’t want anyone to
forget her,” Sharlene Parze said.
[email protected]Year of grief for slain woman’s parents
‘We want
truth from
killer’s kin’
loss: “We just have a
hole,” say Sharlene and Ed
Parze (top, at home in
Freehold, NJ) of life without
daughter Stephanie, whose
suspected killer John
Ozbilgen (above) later
committed suicide.J.C.Rice