Nanny found guilty of stabbing 2 children to death in New York apartment
A New York City nanny has been found guilty of the murders of two young children who were stabbed to death in their idyllic Upper West Side apartment.
Yoselyn Ortega had worked for Marina and Kevin Krim for two years when she killed 6-year-old Lulu Krim and 2-year-old Leo Krim on Oct. 25, 2012.
She was found guilty on two counts each of first-degree murder and second-degree murder.
She had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
"It was not a decision we reached lightly or easily," one juror, David Curtis, told reporters, as he was overcome with emotion. "There was some raised voices and a lot of tears. But I think we all feel good that we addressed all of these issues and fairly weighed everything that was presented to us."
Kevin Krim declined to speak at a news conference, but Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. turned to Kevin Krim and said, "Our hearts go out to you today as it has every day of the last five years. As a father of two myself, I cannot imagine the pain you have felt and continue to feel."
Vance said he hopes the verdict will give the family an opportunity to heal.
The day of the crime, Marina Krim came home after taking her then-3-year-old daughter, Nessie, to a swim class and opened her bathroom door to find "the bloodied, lifeless bodies of her 6-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son ... their eyes open, covered in blood," Assistant District Attorney Courtney Groves said in opening statements last month.
Ortega, who was standing in the bathroom, then stabbed herself in the neck, according to Groves.
Marina Krim grabbed Nessie and ran out of the apartment and the doorman called 911, prosecutors said. Marina Krim, who testified for the prosecution, said that moment she was screaming uncontrollably and saying, "I just saw my kids dead."
"I was destroyed," Marina Krim said on the stand. "She killed my best friends."
Ortega's defense attorney Valerie Van Leer-Greenberg had argued that her client was mentally ill and was "suffering from severe psychosis" and "dissociation" at the time of the killings.
Ortega is set to be sentenced May 14.
