Upper West Side 'Killer Nanny' Gets Life In Prison, DA Says

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A nanny convicted of killing two Upper West Side children in her care will spend the rest of her life in prison, prosecutors said Monday.

Yoselyn Ortega, 56, was sentenced to serve life in prison Monday for the 2012 murders of 2-year-old Leo Krim and 6-year-old Lucia Krim, the Manhattan District Attorney's office announced. Ortega was convicted of two counts of first- and second-degree murder in April.

"Five years ago Yoselyn Ortega stole Leo and Lulu Krim from their parents, their siblings, and our Manhattan community. Leo and Lulu will never live the lives that laid ahead of them, and now their remorseless killer will live the rest of her life in prison," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., said in a statement.

The conviction came after a trial where defense attorneys argued Ortega suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness but prosecutors said she killed the children out of jealousy for their mother, Marina Krim.

Krim found her children's bodies when she returned to her Upper West Side apartment on Oct. 25, 2012, with her 3-year-old daughter Nessie, she said during her testimony.

The Upper West Side mom had gone to pick up Lucia, who went by Lulu, from a dance class, but the little girl wasn't there. Krim walked into her home to find her children stabbed to death in a bathtub, with Ortega lying unconscious next to them in the bathroom, she later testified.

"It was a scream you can't imagine is even inside of you," Krim said, according to the AP. "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.'"

Ortega stabbed herself, apparently trying to kill herself, after attacking the two children but survived her injuries, prosecutors said. Ortega's lawyers argued that the 55-year-old had no memory of killing the children, and that she had an undiagnosed mental illness.

The grizzly murders and subsequent effort for justice were covered heavily by both the New York City tabloids — who dubbed Ortega the "Killer Nanny" — and the national news media.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images. Image caption: Angel Colone prays in front of the building where two children were stabbed to death allegedly by their nanny in a family's Upper West Side apartment on October 26, 2012 in New York City.