Brave six-year-old Lucia Krim tried to fight off her crazed nanny as the woman allegedly stabbed her and her brother Leo, 2, repeatedly with two kitchen knives before leaving their small bodies covered in blood in the bathtub for their mother to find.
As shocking new details emerge, neighbours have revealed that Yoselyn Ortega, 50, was visibly unravelling before the heinous slayings in the Upper West Side apartment on Thursday night and appeared to have 'aged seven years in a few months.'
Beautiful Lucia, who had been playing in the elevator moments before the horrifying slaying, suffered defensive wounds as she attempted to fend off the woman who her parents paid to protect her and her siblings.
Mourning: Pictures of the Krim children Lucia and Leo, were posted outside the family's Upper West Side apartment on Friday
Growing memorial: The memorial for the slain Krim children grew steadily on Saturday
She was eventually stabbed multiple times in the stomach and the neck while little Leo suffered two punctures to the neck, a law enforcement source told The New York Post.
'They both suffered. They bled out,' the source said, adding that Ortega used two kitchen knives in the alleged attack. 'The little girl tried to protect herself.'
She was also battling health problems, both mental and physical, and had money issues.
'She lost a lot of weight. She looked very unhealthy. It looked like she was going through some problems,' Diaz told The Post. 'She had aged a lot — like seven years in a few months.'
According to police, Ortega had revealed to people that she was seeing a psychiatrist.
'Killer': Yoselyn Ortega is pictured with Lulu Krim, right, who she allegedly stabbed to death in a bathtub along with the girl's two-year-old brother Leo. Their sister, Nessie, left, was not at the apartment
Family: Lulu is pictured with her father Kevin Krim and mother Marina Krim, who found her children stabbed in the bathtub and their nanny with a slit throat and wrists on the bathroom floor
But the unfathomable attack, which ended with her slashing her own wrists and throat, was still shocking to anyone who knew her.
'She snapped,' the nanny's sister, Celia Ortega, told The Post. 'We don’t understand what happened to her mind.'
Ortega was taken to nearby New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center where she remains.
The Post reported that Marina Krim, the children's now distraught mother, had given the nanny extra hours after she complained she was strapped for cash.
A law enforcement source told the newspaper that the Krims had even introduced her to a family that needed a babysitter but they turned her down because she was 'a little too grumpy.'
Mrs Friedman spotted Marina in the mezzanine of the prewar building with her surviving middle child Nessie, moments after she walked into the bathroom to find her babies fully clothes but drenched in blood in the tub.
Support: Friends and strangers of the Krim family pulled together in their show of support
Loved: Candles were lit and notes left outside the Krim family apartment in New York
Heartbreaking loss: A woman leaves flowers at a memorial outside the Krim family apartment on Saturday
Tears: A man wipes his eyes while reading notes people have left for the Krim family
'She was bent over the child, screaming and holding onto the only live child she still had,' Friedman told The Post. 'They were very deep, dark screams.
Neighbour Rima Starr, 63, added: 'She was screaming things like, "I'll never speak to her again," repeating that over and over again. Then screaming things like, "It's all right, you'll be all right, you'll be all right."'
'Then she would get waves of the reality of what just happened and then she'd go into just plain, bloodcurdling screams, with her arms flailing out to the sides.'
Marina was taken to hospital, where police said she told them, 'What are we going to do now? I'll never go back there again. They can have everything. I don't want anything.'
According to The Post, she and her husband Kevin, 37, are with relatives at a luxury Manhattan hotel.
Flowers: Friends and strangers laid flowers outside the apartment block, sharing in the Krim family's grief
Contrast: Gloves presumably left by forensics are seen by flowers outside the New York apartment
Memorial: The family's apartment turned into a vigil on Friday night for the slain children
The mother of CNBC executive Kevin Krim said on Friday that the young family treated Ortega as they would one of their own.
Mr and Mrs Krim 'bent over backwards' to help their children's nanny, going so far as to purchase plane tickets for her so she could fly back to her native Dominican Republic, Karen Kim said.
The grieving grandmother added that the horrific murders of her grandchildren were taking a heavy toll on her family.
She speculated that Ortega must have 'went insane' to allegedly commit such a heinous crime.
Speaking with the New York Daily News, Karen Krim said that the children's deaths are 'the worst nightmare any parent could ever have'.
Sources told DNAInfo that though Ortega has been taken out of a medically-induced coma, she remains catatonic and will not respond to any questions from doctors or police.
The source added that there is no probable medical cause keeping Ortega from speaking, as the kitchen knife she used to slit her own throat missed the major veins and arteries in her neck.
Discovery: Marina Krim holds onto her daughter, three-year-old Nessie, after finding her two other children, two-year-old Leo and six-year-old Lulu, stabbed to death allegedly by their nanny
Found: The nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, is taken out on a stretcher covered in blood. She is in critical condition
In addition, toxicology tests performed on Ortega came back negative.
It was revealed on Friday that Mrs Krim returned to her luxury Manhattan apartment on Thursday evening to find her two children stabbed to death, and then watched as the crazed woman slit her own throat.
Mrs Krim let out a 'primal scream' after discovering her son and daughter, Leo and Lulu, in a pool of blood in a bathtub, each with multiple stab wounds, according to neighbour's recounts.
Mrs Friedman, who lives in the same block as the tragic family, revealed how she was the last person to see the two children alive.
She said she saw the youngsters and Ortega as they took the elevator together. Just half an hour later, she heard the blood-curdling screams.
Mrs Krim, whose husband is the senior vice president and general manager of CNBC Digital, returned home after Ortega failed to meet her and Nessie after the girl's swimming lesson.
Pain: Mrs Krim is seen screaming as she is transported in an ambulance to hospital
Heartbreaking: She breaks down as she is taken to hospital, where she had to be sedated
'She got a call from the nanny saying she'd picked them up from school and she was taking them straight home,' an employee at the Upper West Side swim and dance facility told The Post.
'[Marina] didn't seem nervous at all; she waved to me.'
But when she arrived home at around 5.30pm and she found the three-bedroom, $10,000-a-month prewar apartment at West 75th Street dark, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
She returned to the lobby to ask the doorman if he had seen the children and, when he said they had not left, she returned to the home and looked through each room.
She finally switched on the bathroom lights and discovered the horrifying scene.
There she found Ortega on the floor with a slit throat and with her wrists cut and bleeding, the New York Post reported. Police said a kitchen knife was nearby.
Mrs Krim also found her two children in the bathtub with stab wounds covering their bodies, and then tried to stop the nanny's neck from bleeding with a towel, according to the Post.
Neighbours said she then ran outside the apartment and collapsed by its front door, letting out blood-curdling screams and repeating that over and over again to young Nessie 'it's all right, you'll be all right, you'll be alright.'
Happier times: Marina and Kevin Krim, pictured at a 2009 event at Tavern on the Green in Central Park
Loss: Lulu and Leo, pictured, each had multiple stab wounds and were pronounced dead in hospital
Tragedy: Six-year-old Lulu, top, and her baby brother Leo, right, were found dead in the bathtub after they had been stabbed by their nanny. They are pictured with sister Nessie, 3, who was not hurt
One neighbour revealed the superintendent of the apartment block went into the apartment and questioned Ortega, demanding: 'So you cut her throat? So you stabbed her in the neck?'
His wife then came out to assist and told horrified neighbours who had heard the screams: 'Two babies, in the bath, nanny' and made a cutting sign across her throat.
Mrs Friedman added: 'At that point I knew the nanny had something to do with it'.
Neighbours dialed 911 and, although Lulu and Leo reportedly appeared to be breathing when medics arrived, they were pronounced dead when they got to the hospital.
Ortega was unresponsive but was taken to New York-Cornell Hospital in a critical but stable condition. She was in a stable condition on Friday morning and police sources say she may have also taken pills.
Mrs Krim and Nessie, who did not witnessed the grisly scene, were also taken to hospital for treatment, and Mrs Krim was sedated.
A neighbour told the Wall Street Journal the woman had left the building 'inconsolable, hysterical, frantic'.
Help: Mrs Krim and Nessie are covered by a blanket as they leave the apartment block on Thursday night
Support: Her husband, Kevin Krim, later joined her at the hospital after he returned from a business trip
Scene: Crime scene unit officials enter the luxury apartment building where the stabbings took place
The children's father, Kevin Krim, had been on a business trip and was met by police at the airport when he returned to New York. Officers recounted the horror to him and he was escorted to the hospital.
Mr and Mrs Krim remained at St. Luke's hospital on Thursday night with Mrs Krim's sister. Police said the shocked mother was unable to communicate.
On Friday, neighbour Mrs Friedman said the nanny had looked 'cold' just half an hour before the murders.
She said that she was in the elevator with Ortega, who had a 'poker face' and appeared unemotional despite Lulu and Leo playing around.
'I was playing with the children in the elevator,' Mrs Friedman said. 'The girl looked so delightful. I asked her if she was going on a play date or something and she said she was going home.
'I said, "What did you do," and she said, "Dancing." And that was it - they were only on the second floor so they left.
Scene: The murders occurred at La Rochelle, a luxury prewar building on Manhattan's Upper West Side
Sadness: A mourner places flowers outside the apartment as she breaks down in tears
Sympathy: A touching note left outside the apartment block on West 75th Street on Friday afternoon
'She was smiling, happy, happy happy. The nanny just smiled - and nothing. The nanny was a colder type from most nannies that I have encountered.
'She was poker faced. She wasn't the warmest person. I never saw her as the warmest nanny.'
Ortega's niece, Katherine Garcia, added that her aunt had been 'acting kind of nervous lately' but insisted that she had loved the children.
Friends said she had lost her apartment in the Bronx and was forced to move in her sister in Harlem. Police added that her family said she may have visited a psychologist recently.
Police said there were no immediate explanations for the murders and suicide attempt. Paul J. Browne, from the police department, told the New York Times he did not know whether a note had been left.
The family had moved to New York from San Francisco within the last few years, and Mr Krim was named general manager of CNBC's digital media division in March.
Horror: Marina Krim's screams could be heard through the building after she found her stabbed children, right
Heartbroken: Marina Krim, pictured with Leo, was taken to hospital and had to be sedated
He is a Harvard graduate and has recently worked at Bloomberg and Yahoo, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The children's grandmother, Karen Krim, said that the family hired Ortega a year ago, until which time Mrs Krim had been a stay-at-home mother.
When Leo was born, they searched for a nanny. They even spent nine days with her family in the Dominican Republic, as documented on Mrs Krim's online journal.
'They just bent over backwards being nice to this woman,' Karen Kim told the New York Daily News. 'They were always doing things that were just fabulous for her. I’m just astounded, and I have no idea why something like this would happen.'
She added: 'We’re just having a really, really hard time here. It’s the worst nightmare any parent could ever have.'
Trusted: It is believed the Krims went to Yoselyn Ortega's home, pictured, in the Dominican Republic in February
Adored: Mrs Krim often wrote about Leo's cute habits, like pretending to cook in his make-believe kitchen
Last post: Mrs Krim regularly writes a blog with pictures of the family and wrote this hours before Leo's death
Mrs Krim, who teaches weekly art lessons to children, kept an online journal entitled 'Life with the Krim Kids', which she had last updated just three hours before the murders.
She had written: 'Leo speaks in the most adorable way possible.'
The online journal paints a tender picture of her life with her husband and their beloved children, and gives an insight into the horrendous loss that has befallen the family.
She documents trips to pick apples, visits to pumpkin patches and playdates. Photographs show the children playing happily together around the home and on their first days of school.
'One of the best parts of my day is after I drop both girls off at school and have 3 precious hours with little Lito all to myself,' she wrote. 'Ok, I’m near getting cheesy I adore this boy so much!!!'
Close: Scores of pictures on the online blog show the three children playing happily together at the home
Adventures: The family even went to stay with the nanny's family in the Dominican Republic
Adorable: Lulu is pictured with her younger sister Nessie, who was with her mother at the time of the killings
She added how he loved to play with toy cars and trucks, and would set up his own 'kitchen' in the living room where he would pretend to make bacon.
'Lito, I must say, is a very clever little boy,' she wrote. 'He is super talkative and just has a million thoughts running through his brain and can express himself amazingly well for an almost-2 year old. I'm thinking he could be a Mini-Kevin.'
The family lives in one of the city's most idyllic neighborhoods, just a block from Central Park and a few more from the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
It is home to many affluent families, and seeing children accompanied by nannies is an everyday part of life there, making the idea of such violence even more disturbing to residents.
Mrs Friedman added that the Krims are a quiet, nice friendly family.
Details: New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly recounted the sequence of events in the harrowing incident at a news conference at NYPD Headquarters in New York on Friday morning
She said: 'They were sweet people. They had two large dogs they used to walk, they were greyhounds I think. The children were full of life.'
On Friday morning a steady stream of passers by stopped off at the apartment block to lay flowers, some of whom were in tears.
Among the tributes was a card on some flowers which read: 'Dear Krim Family. We weep with you at your horrible loss. There are no words that can express our sadness. We pray for you and your beautiful children.
'Every mother and father weeps with you and your family during this dark time'.
Police officers could be seen taking bags of evidence out of the building yesterday and at one point removed what appeared to be a piece of wood which was about 12ft long.
