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[00:00:00]

Life admin, yep, it even sounds boring, I wonder, goes in the long finger, but when you do get round to it, a good place to start is by reviewing your mortgage. You really never know if there's a better option unless you look into it. That's where the Ulster Bank mortgage team could help. Wherever you bank, get in touch and find out about switching your mortgage to us. Just search Ulster Bank, switch Ulster Bank, help for what matters.

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Overrating the only Ulster Bank card and Dach is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

[00:00:31]

Zordon Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Lying on the floor, face up in the doorway was the defendant reading from a self-inflicted wound to her neck beyond the defendant in the bathtub where the bloody and lifeless bodies.

[00:01:09]

Hello and welcome to Season seven, Episode one sixty seven of Sawan Scale, a show that reveals the worst monsters are real. We're going to get going here in just a second. But before we do, I often forget to tell you to please go to iTunes and leave us a five star review if you can. It really helps us get new listeners. And there's a lot of people out there that have still not heard of certain scale, unfortunately. We'd also like to remind you that the IOC app is available and it's very, very cool.

[00:01:38]

If you're a plus subscriber, head out over to the Apple App Store and download it, check it out. You can login with your existing credentials. If you're not a subscriber yet, you can subscribe right from the app. And once again, our Android app will be coming by the end of this summer. We're busy at work trying to make sure that we get all the bugs out before introducing it. The final blast of PIN and sticker price will be going out this week.

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So look out for those in the mail if you're in the ten dollar level or higher. OK, that's it. Let's get into this horrible, horrible story, one that shows you that monsters really can be anywhere, including our own home. There hasn't been a whole lot to smile about in the last few months, but things are getting better. It won't be long before we're donning some Halloween costumes, preparing a festive meal for Thanksgiving or celebrating the end of the year and the holidays that come with it.

[00:02:48]

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37 year old Kevin Krim is a Harvard grad.

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In 2012, he landed a significant job working for CNBC just two years after moving his family from San Francisco, California, to New York City.

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He was attending a work event on the West Coast and was scheduled to return home on October 25th, 2012, in addition to his role as a digital content executive for CNBC.

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Kevin was a father. He had three children, a six year old daughter, a three year old daughter and a two year old son.

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Home for the crime family was the Upper West Side of New York City in a luxury apartment building called La Rochelle.

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Kevin was relieved to be arriving home and was looking forward to reuniting with his three children and his wife, Marina, as Kevin's flight landed at the JFK Airport.

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His phone began to date alert after a alert. Friends and family were calling and texting him, asking. He didn't know what was going on. Why would people think he wasn't all right? Do they think his plane had gone down?

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He didn't even have a minute to look over and respond to these strange texts when the captain came over the loudspeaker and announced that police officers were going to be removing someone from the plane.

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The flight attendants scurried up the aisle and nudged his arm, asking him to stand up and walk towards the front of the plane. Kevin noticed his phone ringing. He answered it was his brother in law. He was telling him that something had happened to his children.

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A couple of police officers escorted the frazzled Kevin Krim off the aircraft and into their vehicle.

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They silently drove him to St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center. A doctor at the hospital promptly alerted him to the awful truth.

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Two of his children were dead. Why am I glad my dad. I shall be proud and good tell that. Girls and boys not too long ago in my house.

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This is six year old Lulu Crem and her little sister, two year old Nessy, their parents always made an effort to encourage creativity and expression through art.

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In this case, the little girls were reciting a poem on camera for their mother, wearing a caption this video for special occasions.

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I would work with our kids to memorize poems or songs to recite. It was always good bonding for us as we stumbled over the lines of the current verses we were learning. I love to watch their confidence grow when we video them performing their poem, which was always a hit with their grandparents. We would spend the month of December learning traditional Spanish songs to perform on Christmas Eve like Palo Bonito and Dumais LaManno, Paloma. And recently we were covering some of great grandmother Barbados favorites like Looking Forward and the swing from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child Garden of Verses.

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Thirty six year old Marina used to be a kindergarten teacher, but transitioned into life as a stay at home mom. Having three kids and two parents working full time would have been an overwhelming amount of responsibility. Many couples end up spending so much on their child care that it doesn't make practical sense for both parents to work full time. Marina chose to quit her full time job and continue teaching art on the side. She maintained a blog about her family life.

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She posted photos and short blurbs about the children, some of the things you might read in old baby books back before photos and memories were all contained on the Internet. Marina's anecdotes on her blog called Little Miss Lucia detailed things like and the world's easiest child goes to Leo Lieto crem. Yes, the two year old boy. One of the best parts of my day is after I drop both girls off at school and have three precious hours with Little Leo all to myself.

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OK, I'm you're getting cheesy. I adore this boy so much. He's obsessed with collecting acorns he finds on the floor. He loves riding the school bus and he happily plays by himself for long periods of time. Here he is, set up his kitchen in the living room and is making bacon. Not sure where he learned the word bacon.

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The crime family had a hectic schedule with both of the girls involved in activities like dance and swimming lessons.

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Even before the youngest child, Leo, was born, Marina often found herself needing to be in multiple places.

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At one time, back when she was very pregnant with baby Leo, she was approached at a dance recital on the Upper West Side by a woman named Celia.

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Celia saw that Marina was pregnant and expecting a third child. Celia was a nanny for another family on the Upper West Side. Celia told Marina that she had a sister who was great with kids who had worked as a nanny previously and who could definitely help out when Marina has the third child.

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Celia recommended that Marina hire her sister, the defendant, when she had the baby. And Celia made the call to her sister, the defendant, to set up the meeting. Now, at this point, the parents had not had any outside help with the kids. Marina was a stay at home mom, but with a third child on the way. And Lulu. I believe was for essay that's about to turn to, they decided that they were willing to consider an experienced nanny to assist them with the child care needs and logistical problems.

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Because of Celia's glowing recommendation, the crime family decided to seriously consider hiring this middle aged woman, Jocelyn Ortega. Marina asked Jocelyn for some official references who could speak to her experience in child care and Yossele and gave her a letter from a woman named Jacqueline Severino. Severino described the two years Joscelyn had worked for her family caring for her young son, Severino mentioned that Jocelyn Ortega had been recommended to their family by another nanny. The recommendation letter sent Marina and Kevin Krims minds at ease, they desperately needed help, and this woman seemed to check all the boxes.

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They hired her in the spring of 2010. Jocelyn was to work approximately twenty five hours a week at eighteen dollars an hour under the table, meaning paid in cash and probably not reported to the IRS using an inflation calculator. That's about 20 bucks an hour in the present day.

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It's pretty good money for a nanny. It's no secret that the cost of living is high in New York City. And Jocelyn had a child of her own to take care of.

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Jocelyn was born in the Dominican Republic and she left her son souce at the age of four to be raised by Joslin's sister, ultimately until he turns 17. She visited a couple of times a year and tried to help financially by sending her sister money for her son whenever she could. Prior to landing the nanny position with the crime family, Jocelyn bounced back and forth between several factory jobs, living with different family members in the area.

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In 2012, though, just two years after she was hired, Hesus finally moved to the city to live with his mother.

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They found an apartment she sublet in the Bronx from another family who moved out of the area temporarily as she tried to make things work financially. She hoped that Hesus could comfortably finish his last year of high school in the United States and apply to some American colleges. A better life for your immigrant child. Who wouldn't want that, you will hear that almost as soon as his suits arrived. Stress and anxiety began to mount. You will learn that the defendant enrolled his service in private school so that he didn't have to repeat the 11th grade and therefore had to pay private school tuition.

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Private school is not cheap. Even the Krims, who were pretty well off, sent their children to public schools.

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And Marina Krim didn't understand the need to send Hesus to a private Catholic school when Jocelyn was already struggling so much financially, the first check for his susses tuition was over 7000 dollars. For Jocelyn, and I'm sure you can imagine it was difficult to show up to work at the crime family's luxurious Upper West Side apartment every day, knowing that each night she would have to go back to her small apartment in the Bronx, where she'd be reminded of all the things in life that she lacked.

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She was well aware that she was not caring for her son in the same way that the Krim children were cared for. It seems she could have one of two things money to take care of his shoes, her quality time with her shoes.

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But she could not have both. She had to leave her son every day to go take care of children she viewed as privileged.

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And they were in every sense of the word.

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Not only did they have the extra helping hands of a nanny, but their mother was also home with them, taking care of them as well. The Krim children wanted for nothing, according to Hesus Joscelyn son.

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She loved the children. Lucia Crem, the oldest girl, would send drawings and other works of art home with her nanny. It seemed that all three of the Krim kids loved her just as much as she appeared to love them. Jocelyn. However, over the two years she worked for the crime family started to become tired of all the demands Marina Krim was putting on her. It was all just too much. Even though Jocelyn herself had decided to go above and beyond doing little things like wearing a uniform to work.

[00:15:47]

Even though the Krims had never asked her to. She never complained to the crims about anything, though she never asked for a raise or aired any grievances. She did her work silently and adequately for two full years. This was her life.

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She was used to working tirelessly every single day and had been doing it since early childhood, who are mostly her entire life from age seven until age 50. At age seven, she worked hard, along with her siblings and her parents, spoke in public and just graduated from college in 1985.

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New Yorkers just love throwing the word bodega in the conversations whenever they possibly can, don't they? If you speak Spanish, you know, bodega means store, so it's really not that exotic.

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She got the clothing from her relatives, her acquaintances, the well-to-do in New York City and Paris, all of it into the Dominican Republic, into the mountains, into the country areas, the outlying areas with pockets of poverty and distributing the collected clothing and food to those children like meager sheets that, you know, there is the coming her way and have no agenda. Yachtsmen donated to twenty seven noble charities in the United States on a regular basis, supporting unfortunate children, Namfrel and religious charities.

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She writes checks regularly.

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She said her hopes and prayers to save the suffering of the last time she worked tirelessly and multiple jobs at a time to support her one child patients. Preus his entire life from age to age 17 in order to ensure his religious education is still his goodness welfare.

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In late 2012, knowing that Jocelyn was becoming increasingly stressed over his sister's presence in the states and the financial strain that came along with them. Marino offered Jocelin more ways to make money. She offered additional hours for Yossele, suggesting that she could do some cleaning around the house and allowed his shoes to dog sit for them as well. Marina also passed along Joslin's information to friends and acquaintances looking for a nanny and babysitting services. For some reason, Jocelyn saw this as insulting.

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She felt like she was already doing so much for them and didn't understand how Marina could ask her to add even more to her workload.

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But she didn't say anything, nothing at all.

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Marina's offers of assistance enraged the defendants and that although the defendant maintained a professional and personal demeanor when dealing directly with Marina internally, she seemed she seized at the very idea that Marina would think that she could do additional work, seethed at the idea that Marina would even consider.

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Asking her to do additional work while the defendant's feelings of inadequacy about what she could and could not provide for her son increased, and as the defendant's feelings of anxiety and stress increased, so did her resentment toward Marina.

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The resentment continued to fester. Day after day, it became an angry pustule on the verge of bursting at any moment.

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On October 25th, 2012, Kevin Kern was on a business trip, returning that night from San Francisco. That afternoon, Marina Grand plan to take their middle daughter Messe to swim class and then to pick up Lulu, who was then six from dance because Lulus School ended at three 15. Her dance class started at three forty five. That's swim class was at four. Mirena couldn't be in all those places at once. So the defendant was expected to ask to pick up Lulu from school, take her to dance class and then go home while we napped.

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Marina would take Nancy. This one class, one swim class was over. Marina and Nancy would go to dance class to pick up Lulu, and the three of them would return home.

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This is the way that everything had worked with the crimes and the defendant for the two years you been working with them.

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Wow, the responsibility of scheduling out various activities for children is beyond me. Can you imagine running multiple kids back and forth to different activities that begin and end in overlapping times, all the while trying to navigate New York City traffic? Yeah, me neither. I'll let somebody else do that. The doorman at the Krims apartment building saw families of all sizes coming and going from Larochelle every single day, they got to know the families they knew who was married to whom and which children belong to which people.

[00:21:32]

On the afternoon of October 25th, 2012, the doorman on duty at La Rochelle recounted to authorities that Jocelyn Ortega, a woman he recognized as the nanny for the crime family, arrived at the building with Lulu and Leo Krim. Jocelyn was supposed to have picked up six year old Lulu up from school and taken her to dance class. But that's not what she did. Jocelyn, with the children in tow, asked the doorman, quote. Is the mom home, he told her that Marina had left and Yossele and proceeded to take the kids up to the apartment.

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When little Nessie's swim class ended, Marina picked her up and the two went on their way to pick up Lulu from dance.

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But when Marina arrived at the dance class on West Sixty Seventh Straight, she learned that Lulu had never made it to dance class, and she feared that something was terribly wrong. The ladies and gentlemen, what Marina considered might have gone wrong did not even approach what had actually happened.

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It was just about five p.m. when Marina learned that Lulu never made it to dance class in the two years that the defendant had been working with the crime family. She had never not been where she was supposed to be. She was reliable. And it's why the phrase worked with her for two years and trusted her with their children.

[00:22:59]

Miranda began texting the defendant. Where are you? Where's Lulu? Don't stop. Jocelyn never responded.

[00:23:09]

She did not answer the calls. She did not reply to the text messages. Marina scooped Nessy up and made her way to the apartment building as quickly as she could. It was about five twenty by the time she reached the building. Marina ran with Nessy up to their unit and opened the door slowly. It was eerily quiet and none of the lights were on. The kids were nowhere to be found, and neither was Jocelyn Ortega. When Marina looked around as she first entered the apartment, she noticed Leo stroller sitting idly in the main room empty.

[00:23:53]

She saw Lulu's ballet bag on the floor. Marina continued texting Jocelyn from inside the apartment. Those texts also went unanswered.

[00:24:04]

So Marina went out of the apartment, down to the landing and yelled to the doorman on duty, Have you seen my children? Have you seen the defendant and the doorman on duty who started his shift at 4:00 in the afternoon, said he had not.

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So Marina went back into the dark apartment, holding his hand and went through the entire apartment, quiet and dark, holding up his hand, calling out for Lulu, calling out for Leo. So she got back from the back of the apartment.

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The bathroom door was closed with just a thin strip of light escaping from the bottom edge of the door. The apartment was dark. The bathroom was not. Someone was inside still holding his hand.

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Marina open that bathroom door and what she saw was inconceivable.

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Unthinkable. Marina Krim opened the bathroom door and saw the bloodied, lifeless bodies of her six year old daughter, two year old son stacked in the bathtub, their eyes open, covered in blood, staring at the seams straight out of a horror movie.

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Marina, seeing her children like that was bad enough, but three year old Nessy had to see her brother and sister, too. She was standing right there, and even though she was young, she knew exactly what was happening. She knew her siblings were dead in between her and her dead babies.

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Was the defendant the person responsible for this atrocity standing holding one of the knives that she had used to kill those babies?

[00:25:53]

Joscelyn, a woman the crime family had trusted for two years to take care of their three children, had betrayed everyone. She planned this. She wanted to hurt Marina Krim. That same evening, the night of the murders, Joscelyn sister returned to the apartment they shared and couldn't find her. She called her phone over and over again, just like Marina Krim had, and got no answer. She found an envelope Jocelyn had left for her. It had insurance information, bank information, cash and other legal documents.

[00:26:32]

She also included what the prosecution later called a suicide note. The note alluded to her plans to take dangerous and irrational actions. The most painful image for anyone who's heard the details of this case has to be the image of Leo and Lulu coming into their apartment after and picked up Lulu from school. Lulu was expecting to grab her ballet bag and head off to dance class, but instead her nanny grabbed a kitchen knife, took both she and her brother into the bathroom and began attacking them.

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Marina was filled with rage at the sight of her bathroom, the white tile stained with numerous splashes and smears of blood and her children discarded in the bathtub. As soon as Marina opened the door to the bathroom, she saw what had happened.

[00:27:33]

Jocelyn grabbed the knife she had used to butcher the Krim children and attempted to take her own life by slicing into her neck.

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Upon seeing her massacred children and knowing immediately that they were dead.

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We're going to grab Nasti and ran out of the apartment, she collapsed on the landing, sobbing uncontrollably and crying incomprehensibly that her children were dead, hearing Marina's screams, the Dauman, this movie called Nine one one, you will learn that the super of the building, Mr. Michael Minahan, while Mr. Libby was making the call, nine one one, Mr. Minihan went to the apartment to try to understand what had happened.

[00:28:25]

And when he opened that bathroom door, he understood. He understood that what he had seen was pure evil and not knowing what else to do in that situation. And ran to the front door of the apartment, held it shut with both hands using his foot against the wall as leverage to keep inside what he had just seen.

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Jocelyn was sprawled out on the floor of the bathroom, bleeding from her neck wound while the super of the building held his foot against the door. She was in no condition to try to escape, but he wanted to make sure there was no possible way she could hurt anyone else. Officers responded to the 911 call and bolted up to the apartment. It was still dark inside and they had their guns drawn as they made their way through the unit back to the bathroom at the rear, they encountered the man holding the bathroom door shut and relieved him of his task.

[00:29:25]

Everyone was in shock as they entered the cold tiled crime scene, lying on the floor, face up in the doorway was the defendant. Reeling from a self-inflicted wound to her neck. Beyond the defendant in the bathtub or the bloody and lifeless bodies of Lucy and little Brown, despite the fact that everything in that bathroom indicated that Lulu and Leo were dead, the officers did what they were trained to do and they attempted to revive them.

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They tried to save them. But neither Lulu nor Leo had a pulse. And Leo's body was already called Emergency Services Unit. Detectives and emergency medical personnel responded. Shortly thereafter, you will hear them describe the horrors of what they observed in that bathroom, the blood all over the bathroom, one of the bloodiest scenes they had ever responded to, the bloody and lifeless bodies of the children in the bathtub.

[00:30:27]

Jocelyn had slashed the large kitchen knife across two year old Leo's tiny neck. It went so deep that the blade hit his spine. Leo's sister Lulu had 22 stab wounds to her neck. She had other lacerations in her arms and deeper wounds on both sides of her torso.

[00:30:51]

Later on in the trial, medical examiners noted that her injuries indicated that she fought valiantly for her life. She tried to run away.

[00:31:03]

The forensic evidence will prove to you that although Leo, two years old, was too small to struggle, Lulu was six years old and she fought back. She knew what was happening. She understood what the defendant was doing and she fought to live. The defendant was bigger and stronger, and the defendant repaid Lulus resistance with almost 30 different stab wounds to her body and her neck.

[00:31:29]

Lulu also sustained cuts and abrasions to her hands and arms that you will learn are consistent with her defending herself.

[00:31:37]

Evidence of her fight to lose both Lulu and Leo suffered such severe and deep wounds that the first emergency officers on scene thought that they may have been decapitated.

[00:31:50]

Both children died of exsanguination, which is a fancy medical term. Describing an extreme loss of blood. The word brings forth images of animals hanging upside down to drain after being hunted and killed. This process is not quick. When it's done sloppily, it could have taken several minutes for both of the children to expire due to their blood loss when they finally did die and Jocelyn's job was complete. After 90 minutes alone with the children, she stacked them in the tub and waited.

[00:32:29]

She waited for Marina, their mother, to enter the bathroom and see everything that she had done. She wanted to see that reaction, and she also wanted to make a spectacle of her suicide, hoping to make Marina feel guilty. She wanted to evoke some sort of emotion.

[00:32:54]

The goal of this entire horrific event was ultimately to victimize Marina Krim and to ruin her life and the of the person responsible for what they were seeing.

[00:33:08]

Why on the floor, bleeding from a self-inflicted wound, but breathing steadily and not in any immediate danger.

[00:33:16]

And so the EMT used an emergency services detectives, like the first responding officers on the scene, ignoring the hopelessness of the situation, immediately responded to the children and attempted lifesaving measures. The children were taken out of the bathtub one at a time and placed on one adult sized backboard where CPR and chest compressions were attempted.

[00:33:42]

But as you know, those chest compressions and CPR did not do anything as anyone who saw the children knew immediately there was no way to save them.

[00:33:54]

The devastation that the defendant had inflicted on their little bodies was too much.

[00:33:58]

They had lost too much blood when the defendant slit their throats and severed their jugular vein.

[00:34:04]

Kevin Krim at the time was landing in JFK and was escorted off the plane. He was driven to St. Luke's Hospital, where everyone already knew the children could not be saved. They were pronounced dead upon arrival and the news was relayed to Kevin when he arrived and reunited with Marina and their only surviving child, Nesse. Jocelyn Ortega was rushed out of the apartment building and into an ambulance so that her life could be saved and she could face the justice system.

[00:34:38]

Suicide would have been too easy for her. It would have been the escape that she wanted. She would have succeeded in ruining the Krim family's lives and she wouldn't have to deal with her own painful life anymore. Unfortunately for her, Jocelyn survived because of the publicity. She was admitted to the hospital under a different name. Jocelyn had sliced so deeply into her own neck with the knife that she broke two bones and severely damaged her vocal cords. She was intubated and completely incapacitated in the hospital, unable to speak.

[00:35:20]

An officer was on duty guarding her room and she finally awoke after a few days. Almost as soon as she awoke, she began complaining, she begged hospital staff to put her out of her misery. She went on and on about Marina Krim and the horrors of working for the crime family. She stated verbatim, I had to do everything and take care of the kids.

[00:35:46]

I worked as a babysitter only, and she wanted me to do everything she wanted five hours of cleaning every week. I told her I do not want to clean because of soap. You don't understand what they put me through. Jocelyn pointed to her pinky finger where she had sustained a chemical burn in the past from a cleaning product. Let's revisit the reality of the situation, Marina Krim was trying her best to find ways for Jocelyn to make extra money.

[00:36:18]

The apartment Jocelyn and her son Hesus were subletting in the Bronx was no longer an option.

[00:36:25]

Just a short time before the murders occurred, the original tenants of the apartment returned and forced Jocelyn out. She and her son had to move back into a crowded apartment with family sleeping head to toe together on beds like sardines. That's life in New York City if you're poor.

[00:36:45]

Marina was well aware of this and she just wanted to help. He wasn't making demands of yourself. She was simply finding extra work for her to do to make extra money. Jocelyn was only working 25 hours a week watching the kids. After all, her own child was nearly an adult, and plenty of mothers work full time jobs. Nothing that the Krims offered you, Oslin or requested of her was unreasonable. But N.V. is unreasonable.

[00:37:18]

It's also one of the seven deadly sins in the hospital. Between her complaints, Yossele and used a chart with investigators pointing to either yes or no.

[00:37:28]

To answer their questions, she admitted that she had indeed killed the children, and she stated that she used at least two knives during her 90 minutes alone with them.

[00:37:41]

Neighbors remember hearing Marina's screams that night.

[00:37:46]

She's crying out. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? My life is ruined. I have no children. I have no children.

[00:37:55]

It's a tragedy. And I feel so terrible for this family. Horrible.

[00:38:01]

But the strangest part of this case and the reason a law was passed due to this crime specifically is that Jocelyn Ortega was not qualified to be taking care of these children.

[00:38:15]

She had never in her life worked as a nanny. Kevin and Marina Krim. Or lied to, so misled into believing that the defendant had, in fact, worked as a nanny before the Krenz interviewed her and mid to late spring of 2010, they were in contact with a reference that was provided by the defendant, not learn until their children had been murdered by the defendant.

[00:38:41]

That this reference was a family member, a relative of the defendants who had no children and whom the defendant had never worked for as a nanny, that the defendant had never worked as a nanny before.

[00:38:54]

Jacqueline Severino, she was the main reason her relative, Jocelyn, had been able to get the nanny job in the first place.

[00:39:03]

She went on and on about the two years Jocelyn had worked as a nanny caring for her children. When Jacqueline, in truth, had no children, she never had at any point had any children ever.

[00:39:19]

The prosecution in this case would soon discover that this crime had a foundation, the foundation allowed for the crime to occur.

[00:39:29]

The foundation was Jocelyn's family. They acted as a safety net. They bolstered her, lied for her and facilitated the placement of this evil woman into the lives of an innocent family. Joslin's family would later back up the defense's claim that she was indeed severely mentally ill. Even if they believed her mental illness to be true, they still lied in order to help her land a job working with children. Jocelyn Ortega was charged with two counts of first degree murder and two counts of second degree murder for the killings of Lulu and Leo Krim in this case had a hell of a long journey through the justice system based on the knowledge we have about Jocelin statements immediately after waking up in the hospital, it's safe to assume she did not want this process to be easy for the crime family.

[00:40:50]

Jocelyn pleaded not guilty and took the case to trial. Her public defenders had to work to defend the indefensible. It was not a whodunit crime. The evidence overwhelmingly pointed towards the nanny as the killer. That was irrefutable. In fact, Jocelyn herself admitted she had killed the children. You may be asking why she pleaded not guilty. This was yet another attempt for her to place the blame on something other than herself. Jocelyn was hoping to receive a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

[00:41:30]

This plea dragged the case out for more than five years. Hi, everyone. We're here to give you an update and to ask for your help. After five long years, the criminal trial in our case is getting started. And over the next few months, the story of Lulu and Leo and our whole family will be painfully in the news again. This trial will be very hard for us and for a lot of you. We feel like this community, all of you have been with us all along through this whole experience.

[00:42:03]

Even if you never met Leo, you feel like you know them, you love them, and you're inspired by them like we are. So a lot of people have been asking us how they can help, how they can support us during this really horrible time. And we thought about it and we realized that we're going to handle this the way we've handled everything. We're going to focus on the positive and the goodness that's come out of all of this during the time between the murders and the trial.

[00:42:36]

Governor Cuomo, who we all know by now, signed a law called Lulu and Leo's law. This crime was high profile in New York and made every family who utilized child care services fearful of what could happen to their own children. The unthinkable had happened to this normal, nice, affluent family from the Upper West Side. So it could happen to anyone.

[00:43:02]

Right. Lulu and Leo's law makes it illegal for a person to intentionally put false information about themselves or someone else when they're applying for jobs as caregivers. This includes someone else misrepresenting the applicant, as Jacqueline Severino did for Jocelyn Ortega.

[00:43:24]

The governor stated, quote, No parent should have to fear harm to their children by the very people entrusted to protect them. As the father of three daughters, I cannot imagine the horror and the heartbreak experienced by the crime family. And while nothing can erase that, I'm proud to sign this law that will help protect New York children and provide some peace of mind to their parents and loved ones.

[00:43:49]

You'd think, though, that putting false information on a job application would have been illegal to begin with. As the nanny murder trial began in twenty eighteen, there were endless news media outlets in attendance every single day of testimony that was heinous. The stance the defense took in this case, Jocelyn Ortega was essentially trying to claim that the devil made her do it. Her family once again stood behind her in solidarity. They testified on her behalf and tried to convince the jury that she is and was mentally ill.

[00:44:28]

But there had been no mention of mental illness by anyone until months after the murders.

[00:44:37]

The defense will focus on the role that untreated mental illness played in the alleged killing of the two children, Leo and Lulu. The evidence will show that what was, in fact, the condition of my client's mind at the time he allegedly committed the charge tracks the evidence, will show her mind's reactions to various stimuli during the 50 years of her existence until October twenty five 12. His honor will instruct you to use your common sense when evaluating the adduced evidence.

[00:45:12]

You will know which is mind when you see it. You listen to the medical experts, their definitions, their explanations, their explanations of my client's conditions, their reading of my client's medical records, what they what they say. See if it makes sense to each of you. When an expert tells you my client is a malingerer, see if you Ortega provided an exaggerated version of her symptoms to try to explain away why she allegedly acted in the manner towards a malingerer, someone who exaggerates her fake illness to get out of doing something or in this case, to shift the blame onto someone or something other than herself.

[00:46:03]

That's what Jocelyn Ortega is, a malingerer, she can determine whether in the weeks and months leading up to October 25th, 12, my client is not sleeping, was not eating, was losing weight. See whether Mr. Ortega was constantly crying, suffering from visual hallucinations, causing her to see shadows suffering from delusions, causing her to feel as though the devil penetrating her body and trying to separate her from her family, what she's suffering, episodes of dissociation, what she hearing commands to herself and hurt others.

[00:46:42]

Was she internally preoccupied? Was she acting strangely? What she preoccupy to a fanatical proportion with religion and prayer.

[00:46:54]

Friends and family testified that Joscelyn first began suffering from mental health issues at the age of 16 after her sister died.

[00:47:04]

Jocelyn's mother was said to have taken her to get prescription antidepressants, and they seemed to work. This is an example of situational depression. It would be surprising if she hadn't gone through a bout of depression after the death of her sister. Teenage years are already stressful enough. And losing a sibling so young is certainly not a normal trigger for situational depression. It was only several months after she murdered Lulu and Leo Krim that Jocelyn complained to a psychiatrist that she was seeing and hearing things.

[00:47:44]

It's pretty clear she was trying to build a foundation for an insanity plea. She claimed that all kinds of voices told her to do things.

[00:47:54]

It's weird, though, that if you're suffering from this extreme of a stage of mental illness, you'd be able to finish college and hold so many different jobs in the United States as Jocelyn did. During trial, Jocelyn Sisters sat in the stand and told the jury about Joslin's complaints of a black man trying to drive a wedge between two families.

[00:48:17]

The women weren't talking about skin color. A cultural expert was called to testify, and he claimed that in the Dominican Republic, the color black can represent the devil. Jocelyn Sisters remembered that she had been complaining about this black figure while she sat with them at church just a few months before the murders and said he was following her and wouldn't leave her alone. Despite Joslin's friends and family making all of these claims after the fact. Mind you, none of them sought help for her.

[00:48:53]

She allegedly griped about shadows following her and voices in her head, telling her to do things.

[00:48:59]

Her sister stating that she didn't even sound like herself, that it was like she was talking to a demon and yet they did nothing to help her. Nothing. Jocelyn herself did seek the counsel of a psychologist, but she did it just three days before slaughtering the children, the ones she was paid to take care of. His name was Dr. Caffrey, located in the Upper West Side of the city. This man specializes in forensic psychology and the psychology of criminal behavior.

[00:49:44]

A lot of good that degree did. Jocelyn had gone to see him on her own accord. His prognosis for Jocelyn Ortega after just one visit was good. There was no follow up appointment.

[00:49:58]

She paid two hundred dollars in cash for the visit and left. Now, I'm not trying to blame the psychologist, but if psychology can't even predict a gruesome murder of children three days from now, then what's the point other than naming things after the fact? We also know that patients often lie to their therapists, which can impede the journey towards good mental health. We don't know exactly what Joslyn talked about during this visit, but is it possible that she planned her crimes so meticulously that she made sure to visit a mental health professional to bolster a future insanity plea just in case she didn't get away with it?

[00:50:41]

It's certainly not out of the question. There are several elements to this crime that suggest Jocelyn knew exactly what she was doing, that she was of sane mind when she committed these horrible murders.

[00:50:57]

The jury agreed with the prosecution when they found her guilty and they weren't buying her insanity defense either.

[00:51:05]

The evidence will show that the defendant waited until Marina Krim opened that bathroom door before she tried to kill herself and avoid responsibility for the murders that she just committed.

[00:51:15]

The evidence will establish that on October 27, 2012, when the defendant woke up in the hospital at the first opportunity to speak of the unspeakable, the defendant complained about and blames Marina Kremp.

[00:51:30]

The evidence will show that in the days, weeks, months and years after the murders, during interviews with psychologists and psychiatrists, the defendant continued to complain about Marina and blame Marina Krim for the problems in the defendant's own life.

[00:51:48]

Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence may suggest to you that the defendant's resentment and rage toward Marina Krim had reached a boiling point by October twenty fifth, 2012, and that that rage and resentment was the motivation behind the murderous rampage that the defendant went on that day.

[00:52:07]

As you know, the defendant in this case has entered a plea of not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect.

[00:52:15]

But ladies and gentlemen, the defendant will not meet that burden. She will not meet that burden, because what the evidence in this case is going to prove to you is that the defendant acted intentionally and deliberately when she killed Lulu and that she understood what she was doing and that she knew that what she was doing was wrong. Nobody could imagine the horror, devastation, her actions that the friends of the family says nobody saw signs of a serious mental illness because there was no serious mental illness.

[00:52:55]

That's what the jury says injected a defense that's a that a sentence, that's the way she was sentenced. Jocelyn Ortega will spend the rest of her life in prison with no possibility of parole. After her own sentencing, Jocelyn finally spoke to the court. What she said is nearly impossible to hear as she was being spoken over by an interpreter. But there's a lot to unpack. I'm very sorry for everything that happened, but I hope that no one goes through what I have gone through.

[00:53:37]

So many people wished me all the worst. My life is in the hands of God. I ask for a great deal of forgiveness from God, from Marina, from Kevin. I wish my family I told my family I did not feel well.

[00:53:53]

Jocelyn went on to babble about a disagreement she had with Marina in the past while caring for the kids, totally shifting the purpose of her speech from an attempted apology to a ridiculous set of excuses yet again. I just love when a judge speaks to a defendant at a sentencing hearing and this particular judge had a lot to say, there's no doubt your country will play a significant role.

[00:54:25]

But as I say, I'm treated not impose New York City services for anyone suffering that needs to seek treatment. But if you fail your family in their responsibility, your responsibility to seek treatment for your mother and your attorney, just not on medication abuse, whatever movie you have, you don't want to be. Yeah, that's not what you told probation on probation that you don't really see you. You are very sad that you suffer from depression and you suffer from major depression, anxiety disorders.

[00:55:20]

That's pretty clear. And normally someone who suffers mental illness commits a crime if they're responsible for intentional crime. You're wrong. You knew the nature and consequences of your act. But that's the only some mitigation you've seen all these years. Treatment for mental illness nullifies that medication.

[00:55:52]

The fact she will never have an opportunity to hurt another child again doesn't make up for the loss of Lulu and Leo Krim. Kevin and Marino both spoke at Joslin's sentencing hearing and the pain in their voices is tangible.

[00:56:08]

As he grows up, she'll be asking Caminada unanswerable questions about life that most parents avoid talking about with their kids. But we'll try to answer questions with sensitivity the best we can. I have no doubt that she will now be herself through this complicated life with her, Mrs. Nesse knows from experience that life is not fair, but she is inspired by Lulia every day and wherever the stars, they are inspired by her. The defense set out to destroy everything I've created and build and inspire happy writing family that she has.

[00:56:58]

What actually happens is the defendant destroyed her own family. She destroyed her right and her family was of course, she destroyed any sense of peace there. Have we seen the true colors of her and her family members because of this? There's a terrible pattern of terrible tragedy. And lying the people is a way of life for this family.

[00:57:27]

Kevin Krim rehashed points he made at the Children's Memorial Services, focusing much of his impact statement on remembrance of the kids. Now, he and Marina continued rebuilding their family after the deaths of Lulu and Leo going on to have two more little boys. They can never replace the two tiny individuals that they lost.

[00:57:51]

We are distraught because not are these beautiful and innocent souls who are only with us for six and two years respectively, that we are certainly distraught over how they died, over the terrible violence, the lack of any sense of it all. We miss them so much and I already miss the little things the most. We miss Leo about this trip with a hockey mom or dad and always a big hug. We miss watching the kid got her own clothes and helping her with a button or a skirt.

[00:58:30]

We miss holding their hands as we walk down the sidewalk. We miss attempting to argue them out in Mr. Sotnikov and losing most of the time. We miss talking, taking the loss through the ramble at Central Park that became create a corner of these collecting expeditions. We miss hearing them call out my name and run to me when I got home from work. We miss fielding their soft skin and our Felix and joined Jointing Cramer in the years since they and their seven cousins got robbed like he did by the defendant.

[00:59:05]

They hear about Lukumi all the time, but they don't get to meet them. We have a ritual at home. A little parachute with a gift attached appears each morning on one of the kids for this. The pair of shoes from the they are dropped from the stars. When Felix is on his fourth birthday this past fall, he asked us in his earnest way when he could go out to the stars to meet them. He says he's a thoughtful and sweet guy and he'll be heartbroken as he grows up and learns the whole story.

[00:59:43]

And yes, I am trying to break your heart.

[00:59:45]

Despite the Krims anger and despair over the loss of their children, they managed to turn the whole tragedy into something good. Not only did they get a law passed and Lulu and Leo's names, they've also created an entire nonprofit organization that grew from the seeds of sadness following their children's deaths.

[01:00:06]

When you hear about this on the news or we come up in conversation, we want you to tell people about the Luling LEO Fund and the Chew's Creativity Initiative and the 10 principles of creativity. This is the legacy of Lewine Leo and this is what matters.

[01:00:26]

So this is how you can help us.

[01:00:31]

So, Nancy, Felix and Linus are here to tell you what the little you'll find and choose creativity are all about. Literally, a fund is a nonprofit that supplies food and education, is inspired by my sister and Mia.

[01:00:45]

They love being creative to use creativity is our flagship initiative that empowers kids and adults through a curriculum to engage with the ten principles of creativity, to build resilience, creative confidence and social emotional skills.

[01:01:03]

The ten principles of creativity come from some of the fundamental ideas that Kevin and Marina Krim had chosen to instill in their children. They've created a curriculum called Choose Creativity. Educators can choose to implement in their own educational programs. Out of all the numerous episodes about the murders of children that we've covered, this family has been unwavering in their effort to make sure their children's memories will not be forgotten and remain alive and well in the minds of the entire Krim family.

[01:01:40]

Jocelyn Ortega did what she did in an attempt to bring Marina Krim down because she was jealous of her and intimidated by the couple's success. What Joslyn did, she did out of envy, but she didn't realize one thing. You simply cannot destroy those with enough ambition to pull themselves out of their own despair and use it to construct a better life and a better world. Remember that. All of you. That does it for another episode of Sword and Scale, thank you for joining us.

[01:02:53]

Until next time. Stay safe. My name is George and I live in Canada, and I listen to your podcast every single day while I work, I listen in about eight hours of it every single day. And I am going through all your podcasts in order again. And I'm on Episode 65 when I was listening to gosh, I think her name was Amy.

[01:03:41]

And I realized the amount of similarities that my life and Amy's when I have had, I really I kind of kundan to gaslighting and stop listening to that. And, you know, I really appreciate your podcast. It's made me feel heard and understood and accepted in certain parts, which is sort of weird to say, because this is a true crime podcast, murder podcast. And a lot of the stuff you talk about is really fucked up. But I really resonate and see myself in a lot of your podcasts and your articles.

[01:04:18]

So I just wanted to say thank you so much and I'm actually going to donate to the show for the first time. I'm actually in a position where I can afford to and I'm really excited about it just because I hear you every single episode asking for donations and everything like that, I'm so bad that I can't contribute to it. So I just want to say thank you for all your hard work and keep going strong.