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The New York City mother who came home to find her two young children allegedly
stabbed to death by a trusted nanny, then watched helplessly as the woman knifed her-
self in the throat and slit her wrists, police said today.
At a press conference today, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the nanny Yoselyn
Ortega, 50, remains on a breathing tube after being rushed to a hospital Thursday
evening, and has yet to be interviewed by cops or formally charged. Kelly, and neigh-
bors who knew the woman for years, said Ortega had no known history of mental ill-
ness. “I’m in shock. It’s out of this world. There was nothing to make me think she
would do this. Nothing,” said Marcelina Lovera, a neighbor who lived in the same Har-
lem apartment building where Ortega and her son resided. The nanny, a naturalized
U.S. citizen who was born in the Dominican Republic, worked for the Krim family for
two years and had been referred to them by another family, the police commissioner
said. Ortega lives with her son and her sister. They are cooperating with police, Kelly
said. Outside the luxury building where the victims’ lived, neighbors have created a
makeshift memorial, laying flowers and leaving condolence messages for the dis-
traught mother, Marina Krim and her husband Kevin Krim.
“We are weeping with you,” read one note left outside the La Rochelle apartment
building on Manhattan’s affluent Upper West Side. Marina Krim came home
Thursday evening around 5:30 p.m., after taking her 3-year-old to a swim class
at the YMCA. She arrived home to a dark and quiet apartment and initially
thought the nanny had taken the children out. Upon entering a bathroom, Mar-
ina discovered Ortega and her two other children Lucia, 6, and 2-year-old Leo
dead in a bathtub filled with blood, authorities said. It was at that moment that
Ortega is believed to have slashed herself, Kelly said. Ortega is in critical but sta-
ble condition and has no criminal record, police said. A preliminary police invest-
igation had not yet yielded a possible motive for the deaths. The children’s father,
a CNBC executive, was on a business trip in San Francisco at the time of the mur-
ders. He flew home Thursday night and police picked him up at the airport and
rushed him to his family, authorities said. A neighbor who lives on the same floor
in the building at 57 W. 75th St. near Columbus Avenue told the AP that she heard
screams around 5:30 p.m. “There was some kind of screaming about, ‘You slit
her throat!’ It was horrible,” said the neighbor, Rima Starr, a music therapist.
After police arrived, she told AP, the mother remained in the building’s lobby,
screaming hysterically and clutching her surviving child. “[The mother was]
crying out ‘What am I going to do with the rest of my life? My life is ruined. I
have no children, I have no children,’” neighbor Herbert Klein said. Klein said
he had met the nanny in the apartment building: “Once, I had the opportunity
to say good morning cheerfully, and got no reply.” On a webpage devoted to a
recent family wedding, the couple’s daughter, nicknamed Lulu, was described
as loving “art projects, ballet and all things princess.” Her younger brother
was said to be just learning how to walk. Neighbors described the Krims as a
vibrant, happy family. “Young family. Busy family. Parties all the time and they
have friends coming over,” Klein said. “A member of the CNBC family has suff-
ered an unimaginable loss. The sadness that we all feel for Kevin, Marina and
their family is without measure. Our thoughts, prayers and unwavering sup-
port are with them all, Comcast and NBC Universal said in a statement Friday
morning.
