Nanny who killed kids while parents away convicted of murder

NEW YORK » A once-trusted nanny who butchered two children in her care while their mother was at a sibling’s swimming lesson and their father was on a business trip was convicted of murder by a jury that didn’t believe her claims she was too insane at the time of the crime to be held responsible.

Jurors on Wednesday found that Yoselyn Ortega killed Lucia Krim, 6, and Leo Krim, 2, in October 2012 and knew what she was doing. Ortega expressed no reaction to the verdict, staring straight ahead as it was read, but she 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 after the verdict was read, 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 audience.

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

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

The verdict capped an emotional sevenweek trial that kept jurors and members of the audience in tears.

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 wasn’t there. Krim frantically tried to reach Ortega, who had worked for the family for more than two years.

Krim 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.