Building super testifies nanny accused of murdering young children on Upper West Side had 'eyes of the devil'
UPPER WEST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) -- Dramatic testimony resumed Monday in the trial of the former nanny accused of murdering the two young children in her care.
Yoselyn Ortega, 55, is charged with stabbing 6-year-old Lulu and 2-year-old Leo Krim to death in their Upper West Side apartment in 2012.
The building superintendent where the children lived testified and described seeing the bloody scene for the first time.
At one point he testified that after seeing the children dead in the bathroom, he spotted Ortega with a self inflicted stab wound and "the eyes of the devil" staring at him when he opened the door.
Then the first officers to the scene took the stand. Detective Bradley Gore testified that the super said to him as he entered the apartment: "whatever is in there is evil."
Detective Soeren Lygum also responded to the scene and remembered trying to provide medical aid to the young children despite their not having a pulse.
"We believe you have to try everything that's humanly possible," said Det. Lygum, who rode with paramedics to the hospital.
Paramedics responding to the crime scene also took the stand Monday.
"It was probably the most horrendous scene I have ever seen in my 27-year career," said Kevin Orr.
Jurors became visibly upset, fighting back tears and covering their faces when the prosecution presented into evidence photos of the scene including the children's lifeless bodies in the tub.
"The tub was practically filled with blood," Ore remembered.
Orr's partner, Eugene Nicholas, added, "That's the worst crime scene I have ever seen other than 9/11."
He remembered seeing a responding officer so overcome by the reality of the murder, he stopped what he was doing and began praying for the children.
Friday, the children's mother Marina Krim finished two days of gut-wrenching testimony.
Marina Krim again lashed out at the accused killer of her two children, shouting, "You're evil, you're evil - please get me out of here!" as she left the courtroom in a fit of anger and grief.
Defense attorneys are using an insanity defense, but prosecutors have suggested Ortega, who was working as the children's' caregiver at the time, committed the heinous act because she was jealous of Krim and angry over job issues.
Friday's jurors heard from the doorman and security guard who were working at the family's apartment building the day of the murders.
The guard, Thomas Brown said he remembers Ortega, who had never spoken to him before, asking him if Krim was upstairs before taking the kids to the apartment, and killing them in the bathroom.
Krim was with her third child, Nessie, at the time at a nearby dance studio to pick up Lulu. She frantically ran home when the young girl was not there.
Jurors also heard the frantic 911 call doorman Glen Loby made to police. Krim's frantic screams were heard in the background, moments after she found the two bodies, and watched as Ortega then stabbed herself in the neck as well.
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