He Switched His Phone On. It Was Flooded With Messages

Father describes harrowing moment he learned of deaths of his 2 young children
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 14, 2018 2:10 AM CDT
Father of 2 Slain Kids Testifies at Nanny's Trial
In this March 8, 2013, file photo, Yoselyn Ortega, center, charged with the stabbing deaths of two small children under her care, is escorted to her seat for her first court appearance in New York.   (Susan Watts/The Daily News via AP, File)

The father of two young children who were killed by their nanny has described the harrowing moment he learned of their deaths just after his plane landed and how he said goodbye to them. Kevin Krim told jurors in the trial of Yoselyn Ortega on Tuesday that when he switched off airplane mode on his cellphone at John F. Kennedy International Airport he was flooded with text messages from concerned neighbors and friends, the AP reports. He said he was trying to figure it out and "fumbling around" when a flight attendant asked him to go to the cockpit. "It's the worst thing imaginable. I was hoping it was a nightmare, and it wasn't," said Krim.

Krim said he was taken to a hospital, where he was reunited with his frantic wife, who had found the children's bodies in their blood-spattered Manhattan apartment. Ortega has pleaded not guilty in the fatal stabbings of 2-year-old Leo Krim and 6-year-old Lucia Krim, known as Lulu. Her lawyers don't dispute that she killed the children but say she's too mentally ill to be responsible for what she did. Krim's testimony brought tears to the jurors as he described saying goodbye to his children. "Lulu and Leo were lying on hospital tables, sheets up to their chins. They looked beautiful and strange. They had lost a lot of blood, so they were blue. But they still had this perfect skin, the long eyelashes," Krim said. "I knelt down, and I kissed them, and I said goodbye."

(More child murder stories.)

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