Yoselyn Ortega, Nanny Charged in NYC Stabbing, Resented Employers Say Police

Yoselyn Ortega, the 50-year-old nanny charged with murdering two children she cared for in their Upper West Side apartment last Thursday, told New York detectives that she resented her employers for always telling her what to do, reported the New York Times.

Ortega, who is being treated at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center for allegedly self-inflicted stab wounds to her throat, was interviewed by police Saturday night and subsequently charged with first-degree murder. According to law enforcement officials, she did not confess to the killings but acknowledged being in the bathroom when her employer, Marina Krim, walked in and found her two children in the bathtub with stab wounds.

Ortega reportedly waived her right to have a lawyer present during the police questioning. She told detectives that, “Marina knows what happened,” said a law enforcement official who spoke to the newspaper on the condition of anonymity.

Ortega had been working for the Krims for over two years, since the young family moved to New York from California. Relatives of the Ortega said that she had enjoyed a close relationship with her employers. During a February vacation in the Dominican Republic, the Krims visited Santiago, where Ortega’s sister lives, and spent three days with her relatives.

“We had close moments, of love, like one big happy family,” Ortega’s sister, Mylades, told the Daily News. “Lulu (Lucia) would run around and talk to me in Spanish. She would call me Aunt LeLe: ‘Aunt LeLe, let’s go cut flowers.’ Yoselyn taught Lulu Spanish. Lulu was even teaching her mom Spanish. I carried Leo, that beautiful baby boy, in my arms.”

“Marina loved this city,” said Mylades Ortega. “She said she wanted to buy a house here. I told her, ‘No, no. This is your house.’”

But Ortega seemed unable to reconcile her fond memories of her sister and the Krim family, with the grisly account of events given by the NYPD. Mylades said she had spoken with her nephew, Yoselyn Ortega’s son Jesus, who was in a similar state of denial over the events.

“He told me, ‘She didn’t do this. This is not her,’” said Ortega. “We don’t know what happened ... There was never any indication of anything like this happening. Only her, the children and God know.”

But the police official who spoke to the Times, said that Yoselyn Ortega’s statements to the police betrayed negative emotions towards the Krims. The official said that while the Krims seemed happy overall with their relationship with Ortega, Ortega “had resentment towards the parents” and complained that “they were always telling her what to do.”

According to the police, Ortega began stabbing herself in the neck when Krim arrived at the apartment. The two fatally wounded children, Lucia, 6, and Leo, 2, were taken to St. Luke’s hospital where they were pronounced dead upon arrival.

Ortega was taken to New York-Presbyterian and sedated for several days. Police said that they delayed charging her with the crimes even after she had awoken from a medically induced coma, because she was unable to speak due to being intubated for her neck wounds. The official said that Ortega was not medicated during her questioning, but seemed “spacy.”