Nanny Stabs 2 Kids & Murders Them in Bathtub. Mom Discovers Their Bodies
Just how much pain can the human spirit endure, and what does it take to recover from the worst sorts of tragedies?
That question may sound academic, but for Marina and Kevin Krim, it became horribly practical on Oct. 15, 2012.
Mother-of-three Marina had just picked up her middle daughter, 3-year-old Nessie, from swimming practice, unaware that what awaited her back at her Manhattan apartment was a scene straight from a horror movie.
Arriving home, she found 6-year-old Lulu and 20-month-old Leo dead.
They hadn’t died peacefully, either. Marina discovered the children’s bloody bodies in a bathtub, their small frames marred by stab wounds.
The alleged murderer, the Krim’s nanny Yoselyn Ortega, was also wounded. She had stabbed herself in the neck after killing Lulu and Leo.
“I was sitting in the hospital, Nessie clinging to my chest,” Marina later said, “and I was asking over and over to anybody who would listen, ‘What am I supposed to do tomorrow? How do I do this? What do we do?’”
Kevin expressed similar thoughts in his own writing: “When you wake up the first morning to a new and terrible world, what do you do? I didn’t feel like I’d ever want to do anything ever again.
“But then little Nessie, our surviving child who was not yet four years old, looked at me and said, ‘Daddy, I’m hungry.’ And I knew I had to take care of her and Marina.”
What choice does someone have in such a horrible situation? For Kevin, it helped to stay focused on external goals, immerse himself in books, and start the Lulu & Leo Fund to aid less fortunate children.
Marina found comfort in those little snippets of life that called to mind old memories of Lulu and Leo, things such as a snatch of brightly colored street art or the introductory jingle from a familiar children’s cartoon. They also welcomed two more children to the world.
But the family’s final act of closure may come soon. After all these years, jury selection for the trial of Ortega finally began this month.
The Krims, though, plan to find their solace through philanthropy and their three young children.
“With each new baby, we feel a special and closer connection to Lulu and Leo, who are a constant presence in their siblings’ looks, gestures and voices,” they said.
This family has pulled through the impossible, finding ways to heal but not forget: to continue on and create new memories while still honoring the two little ones who never got to grow up.
We hope for the sake of this family, Lulu, and Leo, that justice is dealt in this particular case.
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