Nanny who killed kids while parents away convicted of murder

A once-trusted nanny who butchered two children in her care while their parents were away 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 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.

FILE - In this Thursday, March 1, 2018 file image from video, Yoselyn Ortega, a trusted nanny to a well-to-do family, listens to court proceedings during the first day of her trial, in New York. (WYNY-TV/Pool Photo via AP, File)

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 audience but posted photos of them online after the verdict and expressed her undying adoration for them, writing, "I love you."

Ortega's lawyer Valerie Van Leer-Greenberg didn't 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 didn't 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 that Ortega, who's 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 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.

"It was a scream you can't imagine is even inside of you," she testified. "I don't even know where it came from. 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, nicknamed Lulu, was stabbed more than 30 times, and Leo was stabbed five times.

At Ortega's trial, the children's father, who had been on a business trip and received news of their deaths when his plane landed, spoke of walking down a long hallway at the hospital where he saw their bodies.

"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."

Jurors, who deliberated for more than a day, said the trial affected them deeply. One, David Curtis, an actor, said it was difficult for him to set aside thoughts of his own children, now in their 20s.

"It is horrifying to think of being in a position of having to experience or go through the process that the Krims had to go through," said Curtis, who had tears in his eyes.

Kevin Krim said after the verdict he and his wife wanted to thank the judge and the jurors "for their commitment to justice." He stood at a press conference with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, who said, "Marina and Kevin have lived through the worst nightmare any parent could endure."

Ortega, who's 55, faces life in prison when she's sentenced next month. Had she been found not responsible, she would have been committed to a mental institution.

Marina Krim is a stay-at-home mom, and Kevin Krim is a former CNBC executive now at a startup. They use a Facebook page to post updates on how they're doing, writing about the arrival of two new children, Felix, born in 2013, and Linus, born in 2016.

The couple started the Lulu and Leo Fund, which aims to support innovative art programs for children. After the verdict, they posted a collage of images of Lulu and Leo.

On Instagram, Marina Krim posted a photo from atop the Empire State Building.

"You two never made it to the top but I'm up here now for the first time, in peace, on top of the world, remembering another lifetime and thinking of you," she wrote. "NYC, Lulu and Leo loved you and I love you too!"

UTICA, N.Y. (AP) — A New York prison guard who failed to intervene as he watched an inmate being beaten to death should be convicted of manslaughter, a prosecutor told a jury Thursday in the final trial of correctional officers whose pummeling, recorded by body-cameras, provoked outrage.

“For seven minutes — seven gut-churning, nauseating, disgusting minutes — he stood in that room close enough to touch him and he did nothing,” special prosecutor William Fitzpatrick told jurors during closing arguments. The jury began deliberating Thursday afternoon.

Former corrections officer Michael Fisher, 55, is charged with second-degree manslaughter in the death of Robert Brooks, who was beaten by guards upon his arrival at Marcy Correctional Facility on the night of Dec. 9, 2024, his agony recorded silently on the guards' body cameras.

Fisher’s attorney, Scott Iseman, said his client entered the infirmary after the beating began and could not have known the extent of his injuries.

Fisher was among 10 guards indicted in February. Three more agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges in return for cooperating with prosecutors. Of the 10 officers indicted in February, six pleaded guilty to manslaughter or lesser charges. Four rejected plea deals. One was convicted of murder, and two were acquitted in the first trial last fall.

Fisher, standing alone, is the last of the guards to face a jury.

The trial closes a chapter in a high-profile case led to reforms in New York's prisons. But advocates say the prisons remain plagued by understaffing and other problems, especially since a wildcat strike by guards last year.

Officials took action amid outrage over the images of the guards beating the 43-year-old Black man in the prison's infirmary. Officers could be seen striking Brooks in the chest with a shoe, lifting him by the neck and dropping him.

Video shown to the jury during closing arguments Thursday indicates Fisher stood by the doorway and didn't intervene.

“Did Michael Fisher recklessly cause the death of Robert Brooks? Of course he did. Not by himself. He had plenty of other helpers,” said Fitzpatrick, the Onondaga County district attorney.

Iseman asked jurors looking at the footage to consider what Fisher could have known at the time “without the benefit of 2020 hindsight.”

“Michael Fisher did not have a rewind button. He did not have the ability to enhance. He did not have the ability to pause. He did not have the ability to get a different perspective of what was happening in the room,” Iseman said.

Even before Brooks' death, critics claimed the prison system was beset by problems that included brutality, overworked staff and inconsistent services. By the time criminal indictments were unsealed in February, the system was reeling from an illegal three-week wildcat strike by corrections officers who were upset over working conditions. Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed National Guard troops to maintain operations. More than 2,000 guards were fired.

Prison deaths during the strike included Messiah Nantwi on March 1 at Mid-State Correctional Facility, which is across the road from the Marcy prison. 10 other guards were indicted in Nantwi's death in April, including two charged with murder.

There are still about 3,000 National Guard members serving the state prison system, according to state officials.

“The absence of staff in critical positions is affecting literally every aspect of prison operations. And I think the experience for incarcerated people is neglect,” Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, an independent monitoring group, said on the eve of Fisher's trial.

Hochul last month announced a broad reform agreement with lawmakers that includes a requirement that cameras be installed in all facilities and that video recordings related to deaths behind bars be promptly released to state investigators.

The state also lowered the hiring age for correction officers from 21 to 18 years of age.

FILE - This image provided by the New York State Attorney General office shows body camera footage of correction officers beating a handcuffed man, Robert Brooks, at the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County, N.Y., Dec. 9, 2024. (New York State Attorney General office via AP, File)