A New York City jury convicted a former nanny of murder, concluding she understood her actions when she fatally stabbed her two young charges with a kitchen knife in 2012, the Wall Street Journal reports. Yoselyn Ortega, 55, was found guilty of killing 6-year-old Lucia “Lulu” Krim and her 2-year-old brother, Leo. Ortega could face life in prison when Justice Gregory Carro sentences her on May 14. The Krim tragedy is “the worst nightmare any parents could ever endure,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. For two years, Ortega had worked without incident for the Krim family, who lived in a luxury apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
On Oct. 25, 2012, Marina Krim came home to find her children’s bloodied bodies in the bathtub with the nanny making an apparent suicide attempt by slashing her throat. Juror David Curtis said jurors ultimately agreed the defense hadn’t proved that Ortega didn’t understand her actions. The six-week trial was unusual because Ortega’s guilt rested not on whether she killed the children but on her mental state. The former nanny pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, meaning she admitted killing the children but wasn’t in her right mind. The insanity defense is rarely used and even more rarely succeeds. In New York state, out of about 5,000 murder cases resolved from 2007 to 2016, six defendants were found not guilty by reason of insanity, says the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.