A once-trusted nanny who killed two children in her care while their parents were away was convicted of murder by a jury that did not believe her claims she was too insane at the time of the crime to be held responsible.

Jurors found Yoselyn Ortega knew what she was doing when she killed Lucia Krim, 6, and Leo Krim, 2, in October 2012. Ortega expressed no reaction to the verdict, staring straight ahead as it was read, but later wiped tears from her eyes as she was led from the courtroom.

The children’s father, Kevin Krim, sat in the front row, clasping hands with two alternate jurors who had been dismissed but stayed for the verdict. He hugged them, and they wept together.

The children’s mother, Marina Krim, who had returned home to discover them dead in a blood-soaked bathroom, was not in the courtroom but posted photos of them online after the verdict, writing, “I love you”.

Ortega’s lawyer Valerie Van Leer-Greenberg did not dispute that Ortega killed the children but contended she had an undiagnosed mental illness that worsened in the moments leading up to the attack. She said Ortega snapped and did not know what she was doing when she stabbed the children to death.

Mental illness “does not announce itself like a bad cough or a limp,” Van Leer-Greenberg said during closing arguments. “Sometimes it sneaks up and nestles in before anyone takes notice.”

But prosecutors maintained Ortega, who is from the Dominican Republic, acted out of jealous hatred of the children’s mother.

“She did it intentionally with a full understanding of exactly what it was she was doing every stab, every slash,” assistant district attorney Stuart Silberg said during closing arguments.

The verdict capped an emotional seven-week trial that kept jurors and members of the audience in tears. Jurors heard heart-wrenching testimony from Marina Krim, who spoke of the sickening, desperate moments when she saw her children’s vacant eyes, their small bodies perforated by stab wounds.

Krim had been at a swimming class with her 3-year-old daughter, Nessie. Ortega was to have dropped off Lucia at her dance class, and Krim was to pick her up. But when Krim arrived, Lucia was not there.

Krim frantically tried to reach Ortega, who had worked for the family for more than two years. She spoke of coming home to an eerily quiet apartment, darkened but for the light in the back bathroom, where she found the children and Ortega, who had stabbed herself in a failed suicide attempt.

Krim ran to the landing outside the apartment clutching Nessie and started screaming. “It was a scream you can’t imagine is even inside of you,” she testified. “I just thought: ‘I’m never going to be able to talk to them ever again. They are dead. I just saw my kids dead.’”

Lucia was stabbed more than 30 times, and Leo was stabbed five times.

Ortega, who’s 55, faces life in prison when she’s sentenced next month.



