Defense Claims UWS Nanny Accused Of Murdering Kids Unfit To Stand Trial
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - A competency hearing was held Monday for the Upper West Side nanny accused of murdering two of the young children in her care last fall.
As WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported, in the months since nanny Yoselyn Ortega killed Lucia and Leo Krim and then tried to kill herself, she has recovered physically.
But psychiatrist Karen Rosenbaum testified that Ortega, 50, still doesn't know why she is handcuffed to her hospital bed or why police officers are outside the room.
Defense Claims UWS Nanny Accused Of Murdering Kids Unfit To Stand Trial
"She hears people coming into her room at night," Rosenbaum testified.
She added that Ortega complains that they say things that frighten her, like, "we're going to kill a lot of people."
The psychiatrist testified Ortega has a history of depression, anxiety and failing to tell a doctor who treated her in the past about the voices because she didn't want people to think she was crazy.
Ortega was initially found mentally fit to stand trial, but that finding has been challenged by the defense.
The defense claim is that Ortega does not understand the charges against her and has no recollection of what happened.
Ortega has been charged with two counts each of first-degree and second-degree murder for fatally stabbing 2-year-old Leo and 6-year-old Lucia with a kitchen knife on Oct. 25.
She also suffered a slash wound to her throat in an apparent suicide attempt, police said.
Marina Krim found her two children dead in a bathtub when she returned home to the family's luxury apartment building at 75th and Columbus Avenue. Each had been stabbed multiple times with a kitchen knife, police said.
The Krims other child Nessie, 3, was with Marina at the time of the stabbings and was unharmed.
Ortega reportedly told detectives she resented the way the Krim family treated her, though she did not admit to the killings when she was questioned about the killings last year.
Last month, the Krims announced they were expecting a baby boy later this year.
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