World

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

In this video image taken from Eyewitness News 7online.com, an adult victim is removed from a residence in New York City's Upper West Side, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012.  (AP Photo/WABC-TV, Eyewitness News, 7online.com) 

A mother returned home to her luxury apartment building in New York City to find two of her small children stabbed to death in a bathtub and their nanny, with self-inflicted stab wounds, lying near them, police said.

The nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, was found near a knife. She was hospitalized in critical condition Thursday and was in police custody, and authorities said she is suspected of killing the children, who were pronounced dead at a hospital.

The couple's apartment building sits in one of the city's most idyllic neighbourhoods, a block from Central Park. The neighbourhood is home to many affluent families, and seeing children accompanied by nannies is an everyday part of life.

Music therapist Rima Starr, who lives on the same floor as the Krim family, said she heard screams coming from the family's apartment at around 5:30 p.m.

"There was some kind of screaming about, 'You slit her throat!'" she said. "It was horrible."

The children's mother, Marina Krim, had entered the dark apartment with her 3-year-old and initially thought her other two children were out with the 50-year-old nanny, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. She went downstairs and asked the doorman at her building whether he'd seen them leave.

When he said no, she went back upstairs and discovered her 2-year-old son, Leo, and her 6-year-old daughter, Lucia, known as LuLu, in the bathroom, Kelly said. It's unclear how many times the children were stabbed.

The nanny was found on the bathroom floor with stab wounds to her neck, and a kitchen knife was close by, police said. There was no water in the bathtub, they said.