New York nanny convicted in slaughter of siblings

NEW YORK (FOX5NY.COM) - A Manhattan jury has convicted former nanny Yoselyn Ortega of murder for slaughtering two children in her care, Lucia and Leo Krim, in 2012.

The jurors rejected her lawyers' arguments that she was mentally ill and cannot be held responsible for the deaths of the siblings.

During closing arguments, defense attorney Valerie Van Leer-Greenberg said that mental illness "does not announce itself like a bad cough or a limp—sometimes it sneaks up and nestles in before anyone takes notice."

Ortega, 55, stabbed Lucia, 6, more than 30 times and Leo, 2, five times in their Upper West Side home, authorities said. Ortega them stabbed herself in the neck in an apparent suicide attempt, police said.

The DA's team said the nanny knew what she was doing.

"She did it intentionally with a full understanding of exactly what it was she was doing—every stab, every slash," ADA Stuart Silberg said in his closing.

Prosecutors painted her actions as the result of jealous hatred of the children's mother, Marina Krim. Krim testified that she came home to find her lifeless children, with bloodied bodies and vacant eye, lying in a bathtub.

Ortega now faces life in prison.