A nanny suspected of killing two young children she was looking
after and then stabbing herself is in critical condition in a city hospital, as
authorities continue to investigate a situation that is every parent's nightmare.
The horror started for the children's mother,
Marina Krim, when she and a third child returned to their apartment on
Manhattan's Upper West Side Thursday evening. Puzzled by the darkened home, she
returned to the lobby to ask the doorman if the nanny had gone out with
1-year-old Leo, just learning to walk, and 6-year-old Lucia, known as LuLu.
She was told they hadn't left, so she returned
upstairs. A search led to the bathroom, where the children's bodies were in the
bathtub and the nanny lay wounded nearby. It's unclear how many times the
children were stabbed.
"There was some kind of screaming about, 'You
slit her throat!'" said music therapist Rima Starr, who lives on the same
floor as the family, and said she heard screams coming from their apartment at
around 5:30 p.m.
The nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, who was found near a
knife, was hospitalized in critical condition and was in police custody. The
children were pronounced dead at a hospital.
The children's father, CNBC digital media
executive Kevin Krim, who had been away on a business trip, was met by police
at the airport on his return and was given an escort to the hospital where his
loved ones had gathered.
The couple's apartment building sits in one of the
city's most idyllic neighborhoods, a block from Central Park, near the Museum
of Natural History and blocks from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The
neighborhood is home to many affluent families, and seeing children accompanied
by nannies is an everyday part of life there, making the idea of such violence
even more disturbing to residents.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said it's
unclear how long the nanny had worked for the family and the police
investigation was ongoing. No charges had been filed.
Starr, the neighbor, said she believed the nanny
had been hired just recently.
"I met her in the elevator, the day before
yesterday, and was making small talk," she said.
After police arrived, she said, the mother
remained in the building's lobby, screaming hysterically and clutching her
surviving child.
On a webpage devoted to a recent family wedding,
the eldest of the children, Lulu, is described as loving "art projects,
ballet, and all things princess." The youngest, Leo, was said to be just
learning how to walk.
The family had moved to New York from San
Francisco within the last few years. The children's father was named general
manager of CNBC's digital media division in March, after working previously in
digital media at Bloomberg. Their mother had a cooking blog and taught art
classes to young children.
The family lived in a stately, late 19th-century
apartment building where one three-bedroom unit currently available for rent
has an asking price of $10,000 per month. They had a greyhound, retired from
racing, named Babar.
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