NEW YORK _ An anguished mom, testifying against the nanny accused of fatally stabbing her two kids, recalled Friday how the woman shot her looks of "pure evil" before the killings.
"She had that smug look on her face like she has right now ... a smug, disgusting look," witness Marina Krim said on cross-examination by defendant Yoselyn Ortega's lawyer in Manhattan Supreme Court.
"It's disgusting," the mother continued. "I remember that look. I remember that look from the last month" before the double murder inside her family's New York apartment on Oct. 25, 2012.
Ortega is charged with repeatedly stabbing and slashing Krim's children Lulu and Leo, 6 and 2, in a deranged, jealous effort to spite her.
"She was just looking at me with this glare on her face that was just pure evil," recounted Krim, who initially thought the nanny was "maybe just spacing out."
Prosecutors recounted how she sliced their throats and left them to bleed out in the bathtub while Krim and their 3-year-old sister Nessie were at a swim lesson.
Krim glared at Ortega from the witness stand, while the nanny showed no emotion and avoided her former employer's gaze. Ortega occasionally shook her head in disagreement to parts of the witness's testimony.
Defense attorney Valerie Van Leer-Greenberg is using an insanity defense and will ask the jury to find Ortega not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect.
Her questioning suggested that Ortega had a psychiatric breakdown prior to the murders.
But prosecutors say Ortega built up such deep resentment against Krim that she sought the ultimate revenge by taking her children's lives.
Ortega faces life in prison if convicted on the top murder counts. If she's found not responsible, she'll likely spend the rest of her life in a psychiatric facility.
