A jury has convicted an Upper West Side nanny who fatally stabbed two children in her care in one of the city's most heinous crimes in recent memory. Yoselyn Ortega learned her fate Wednesday after a two-month trial that featured heart-wrenching testimony from the parents of little Lulu, 6, and Leo Krim, 2. Ortega, 55, will now spend the rest of her life behind bars for the double slaying in October 2012. Tears streamed down the face of father Kevin Krim when the verdict was announced after just a day of deliberations. Ortega, who was convicted on four counts of murder, sat stone-faced and motionless. She wiped away a tear as she was led out of the courtroom wearing a pink long-sleeve shirt and handcuffs. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance spoke directly to Kevin Krim at a news conference following the verdict.
“No parent should ever have to experience the loss of a child, especially at the hands of someone that they trust,” Vance told the grim-faced father. “But please know, I and everyone at the Manhattan DA’s office, support you. We stand with you and your family. And we feel for you.” The killer nanny brought the Krim kids to their W. 75th St. apartment — instead of to Lulu’s dance class — and butchered them with kitchen knives in the bathroom of the home. Then she placed the mortally wounded children in the bathtub. Mom Marina Krim walked in on the nightmarish scene just as Ortega began slicing her own wrists and plunging a knife into her throat.
“She did it intentionally with a full understanding of exactly what it was she was doing,” Assistant District Attorney Stuart Silberg said in his summation Monday.“Every stab, every slash — each one had a purpose and that purpose was to end the lives of those children,” Silberg added.Prosecutors argued the murders were carried out by a spiteful woman whose rage over her own failures grew increasingly intense in the weeks and days before the tragedy.The government said Ortega hated the kids' mother and saw in her the woman she couldn’t be. Ortega failed to raise her own son, pawning him off on a sister in the Dominican Republic when he was 4.But the defense team argued Ortega wasn’t legally responsible for the killings because she was in a “psychotic” and “dissociative” state when she led the Krim kids into the bathroom.
“The reason for the defendant's actions lay within her delusional mind,” Ortega’s attorney Valerie Van Leer-Greenberg said in her summations Monday.The troubled woman had told a psychiatrist hired by her defense that she was following the commands of the devil.But Ortega later undermined her insanity defense, denying hearing any instructions from Satan in video interviews shown to the jury.Earlier in the Manhattan Supreme Court trial, Marina Krim shocked the courtroom when she raged at Ortega after leaving the witness stand.“You’re evil and you like this!” Krim screamed as Ortega sat impassively just 10 feet away. “You’re getting pleasure! Get me out of here. Please, get me out of here. Get me out!”
Her husband brought the courtroom to tears when he described in wrenching detail viewing the bodies of his slain children.“They still had this perfect skin and these long eyelashes,” Kevin Krim said.“They had like sandy brown hair … You could see they tried really hard to wash all the blood out but there was still kind of an auburn tint to it that I remember to this day.”“I got down to my knees,” Krim added. “I said, ‘I’m sorry.’ I said ‘I love you,’ and I kissed them and I said goodbye.”Opening statements in the case began March 1. Jury deliberations kicked off late Tuesday morning. Kaynak:Nydailynews