Jurors in Nanny Trial Prepare to Hear Emotional Case

NEW YORK — Three are parents. Three have relatives who struggle with a mental illness. Five live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

They are among 12 jurors and six alternates ready to hear the case of a nanny accused of stabbing to death two young children in her care in an affluent part of the neighborhood six years ago.

The trial of the nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, who is mounting an insanity defense, was scheduled to begin Thursday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan with opening statements from prosecutors and defense lawyers. But it is the expected testimony of Marina Krim — who arrived home with her third child to find her two other children bloodied and dead in a bathtub and their nanny slicing her own neck — that will undoubtedly sear the minds of everyone in the room. Jurors may also have to contend with gruesome crime scene photos.

“If you don’t get emotional during this trial then maybe you need to check your pulse,” Justice Gregory Carro said in response to one prospective juror’s question about her ability to be impartial given the emotional nature of the case. He said he did not expect jurors to be robots.

Lawyers and Carro spent three days questioning potential jurors before making their final selection Friday. The questioning laid bare how close to home the case is for many New Yorkers, especially those whose children are in the care of nannies, as well as those who have relatives who are mentally ill. At least 1 in 5 adult New Yorkers is likely to experience a mental health disorder in any given year, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

One juror, a native of New Mexico living in the financial district and a former elementary schoolteacher, expressed reservation about being empaneled. Her aunt has schizophrenia and her family had to care for her daughter, the juror said. She said her sister also has a mental illness and that “the system has failed her.”

“I don’t know if I could put that aside,” she said. “I’m very torn by that.” She later said she could judge the case fairly.

Another juror, an Upper West Sider originally from Kansas and the daughter of a doctor who served as an expert in criminal trials, is a physical therapist who works with patients with psychiatric issues. She also spent a summer caring for her sister’s children. When she learned she had been selected as a juror she became upset and told Carro that she felt stressed by the process. She later apologized and said she had “some anxiety over being chosen” but could keep an open mind.

A third juror, a native New Yorker from East Harlem, said his sister struggled with depression as a teenager and noted: “I like to weigh the facts and hear people out.”

A fourth juror, also from the Upper West Side, said he had read news accounts about the killings but could be fair.

The 12 jurors and six alternates also include a bank supervisor from Washington Heights studying criminal justice, a Michigan native raising two young children in Hudson Heights, a transit operator, a senior property manager from Harlem, a window treatment and upholstery designer originally from Mississippi, a lawyer living on the Upper West Side and an actor who is also a taxi driver. At least 13 are black, Hispanic or Asian. Ortega is a naturalized U.S. citizen from the Dominican Republic.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Ortega, 55, killed Lucia Krim, 6, and Leo Krim, 2, because she was angry with the Krims for asking her to work too hard. Defense lawyers will ask the jury to find Ortega not guilty by reason of insanity, meaning that she did not understand the consequences of her actions when she killed the children she cared for during two years. The start of the trial was delayed for years while Ortega’s lawyers built a case for the insanity defense. It is expected to last at least three months. “She did have a choice,” a visibly flustered potential juror said after a prosecutor explained that Ortega pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. “Her job is to be a nanny, to take care of children, correct? Not to hurt the kids.”

“I am not going to sit here and listen to —” the potential juror said before pausing. “I just can’t. I could not sleep last night.”

Carro immediately interrupted her: “You’ve said enough,” he said firmly. “Thank you.”

The woman was later excused.

“There will probably be emotional testimony and evidence,” Carro said at one point. “You can’t let that affect your fact finding.”

Ortega is charged with two counts of murder in the first degree and two counts of murder in the second degree. If found guilty, she will face life in prison. If the jury determines she is not guilty by reason of insanity, she will face time in a mental hospital.

The trial will put the Krims face-to-face with Ortega, the nanny they once regarded as family. Essays written by the Krims last year on Option B — a website about grief and healing launched by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook — provided a glimpse into how the parents confronted unimaginable loss.

“There were terrifying flashbacks, police inquiries and psychiatrist appointments,” Marina Krim wrote, referring to the weeks after the killings. “There was media attention, an apartment we could never return to, and a memorial service. All of this coupled with the overwhelming grief that always ended in the questions ‘How did this happen? Why did this happen?'”

Krim said she found comfort in discovering reminders of her children all around her, like the street art on a construction site, a stencil of a boy holding a sign with colorful hearts. She connected the image to Leo.

“I felt that maybe the universe was trying to tell me something, that it was helping me to realize that there was a beautiful ‘new’ relationship waiting to be developed with Lulu and Leo,” she wrote.

The Krims have since had two more children and created a nonprofit in their slain children’s name. In his essay, Kevin Krim said he found solace in reading, particularly the works of a Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.

“The night of their deaths had been a nightmare, the kind you want desperately to wake up from, but it keeps hitting you that you can’t and you never will,” Kevin Krim wrote.

The next morning, he said, he felt as if he did not “want to do anything ever again.” But his surviving daughter, Nessie, 3 looked at him and said, “Daddy, I’m hungry,” he recounted. “And I knew I had to take care of her and Marina.”