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| © Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News Yoselyn Ortega is charged with murdering Marina Krim's two children, Lucia, 6 and Leo, 2, six years ago. |
BY SHAYNA JACOBS, New York Daily News
Her part is done, but it will never be over.
An alternate juror released Tuesday from the trial of the Upper West Side nanny who savagely killed two small kids in 2012 said she was deeply affected by the horrible case.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be the same,” said Chloe Beck, 31, who was sprung from service after more than six weeks of heart-wrenching testimony.
“I would leave and go cry in the bathroom,” she added, referring to the worst moments in a trial filled with graphic images and bone-chilling testimony.
Deliberations in the first-degree murder proceeding against nightmare nanny Yoselyn Ortega began just after 11 a.m. Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Beck, who as an alternate does not get to deliberate, said she would ultimately have convicted Ortega because “the way (the defense) explained her mental health issues” did not warrant a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Ortega concedes killing little Lulu and Leo Krim, 6 and 2, in their family’s W. 75th St. apartment on Oct. 25, 2012, but her defense has been that she was too mentally ill at the time of the brutal knifings to be held legally accountable.
Prosecutors say she may have been overcome by depression and anxiety over her personal failures, but that she was in full control of her mind and murdered the Krim kids to spite their doting mother Marina Krim, who she viewed as a woman who had it all.
Beck was brought to tears as she recalled the hardest moments of the trial for reporters outside the courthouse.
She said it was especially heartbreaking to watch the Krim parents give their testimony.
Marina Krim described in gut-wrenching detail how she discovered her children’s bodies in the bathtub and witnessed Ortega stabbing herself in the throat alongside her dead kids.
“No one deserves that. I think they’re the strongest people ever,” said Beck, who works as a residence hall director at NYU. “It’s visible that they are not the same, and I pray for them.”
Even when she saw father Kevin in the courtroom as a spectator as recently as Monday, she could tell “the anger and hurt and the frustration that they feel.”
The graphic photos were also painful and unforgettable.
“For me, one of the hardest pictures was seeing a toothbrush covered in blood — there was a child’s toothbrush.”
Beck no longer takes baths, which she used to do relax, and she is startled when she looks at knives, she said.
“I feel as though they should have therapists on call for jurors because we have to go home and not talk about this ... I’m just like, what am I supposed to do with everything that I just saw, just heard? And I don’t have an answer. I don’t know.”
Fellow alternate Brittany Yee, 27, also was affected by the tragic case.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,” said the medical industry professional from Chinatown.
Yee also said she would convict Ortega if given the chance.
“I think she should be held responsible,” she said. “I think she had the capacity to understand her conduct and the consequences of her conduct.”
Beck and Yee, who became friends during the trial, embraced before going back into the courthouse to wait for a potential verdict.
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