New York nanny accused of killing 2 children reportedly admits to hurting them

Oct. 27: Photographs of the two children allegedly stabbed by their nanny are displayed alongside balloons and stuffed animals at a memorial outside the apartment building were they lived in New York. (AP)

The New York nanny accused of stabbing to death two children in her care admitted to hurting the youngsters but did not confess to killing them, sources told the New York Daily News.

Yoselyn Ortega, 50, was charged Saturday with two counts of murder in the stabbing deaths of 6-year-old Lucia "Lulu" Krim and her 2-year-old brother, Leo.

Authorities say Ortega used a kitchen knife to kill Lucia and Leo inside their apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side on Oct. 25. The children's mother, Marina Krim, returned home to find the children lying in the bathtub with multiple stab wounds. Ortega, who was on the bathroom floor with slashed wrists, plunged the knife into her own throat as the mother entered the room, according to police.

The children were rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital, where they were declared dead on arrival. Ortega was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where she remains hospitalized under police guard.

Authorities charged her in her hospital bed Saturday night with two counts each of first- and second-degree murder.

Ortega told investigators that Lucia fought back when she attacked her inside the apartment, police sources told the Daily News. The woman said that the 2-year-old boy was sleeping when the assault began, according to the sources.

Ortega reportedly told authorities that she had financial problems and was trying to earn more money. She appeared enraged over being asked by the Krims to do housework for extra crash, law enforcement sources told the New York Post.

"She said something like, 'I'm paid to watch the children, not clean up and do housework,'" a source told the Post last week.

Marina Krim, 36, had taken her 3-year-old daughter Nessie to a swimming lesson, but returned to her West 75th Street building after Ortega failed to show up with the two other children. New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Krim found the apartment dark and walked down to the lobby to ask the doorman if he had seen Ortega and the children. When told they had not left the building, Krim went back up to the apartment and searched each room.

When the mother entered the bathroom, she found her children, fully clothed, lying in a bloody bathtub with multiple stab wounds. Ortega, on the floor with slashed wrists, cut her own throat as Krim walked into the room. The mother began screaming, prompting neighbors to call 911. She then clutched her daughter Nessie, who reportedly did not witness the scene in the bathroom.

"She was bent over the child, screaming and holding onto the only live child she still had," the family's neighbor, Charlotte Friedman, told the Post. "They were very deep, dark screams."

Krim's husband, Kevin, a CNBC executive, was returning from a business trip in San Francisco at the time of the killings. He was met by police at the airport and taken to the hospital to be with his wife. The two are reportedly now in seclusion with their surviving daughter, Nessie. Originally from the West Coast, the Krims moved from San Francisco to New York a few years ago.