Lucia and Leo Krim, aged 6 and 2 respectively, were murdered in the late afternoon of October 25, 2012, at the La Rochelle apartment building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City.
On February 22, 2018, twelve jurors were chosen for Ortega's trial, and opening statements began March 1 in Manhattan Supreme Court.
[4][11][12][5] The 36-year-old mother returned to the apartment earlier than scheduled because Ortega had failed to show up at Lulu's ballet lesson where they had agreed to meet.
[6][7][13][5] After Marina Krim discovered what had happened to her children, Yoselyn "Josie" Ortega, their caregiver of two years who was on the floor next to the bathtub, slashed her own wrists and began to violently stab herself in the neck and throat with a kitchen knife.
[4] Kevin Krim, 37 years old at the time, learned of the events that night from police at John F. Kennedy Airport upon returning from a business trip to San Francisco.
[18] Ortega survived her self-inflicted wounds, and was later deemed by two New York State psychiatrists mentally competent to stand trial.
[19] She was incarcerated at a New York City psychiatric hospital without bail while she prepared for her trial with a private attorney contracted by NY State to serve as Ortega's public defender.
[16] On February 22, 2018, 12 jurors were chosen for Ortega's trial as Judge Carro presided, and opening statements were scheduled for March 1 in Manhattan Supreme Court.
It is the first of its kind in the US, making it a crime to knowingly and materially misrepresent the qualifications of a person applying for work as a child caregiver.
[30] Kevin Krim said in the bill signing announcement, "We hired the woman who murdered our children based on a deliberate set of lies.
Thanks to Governor Cuomo's support and the hard work of sponsors Assemblyman Otis, Senator Lanza and their co-sponsor, there is now a strong deterrent to that kind of deception.”[31] French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani wrote a novel inspired by the killing of the Krim children.