Mr and Mrs Krim ‘bent over backwards’ to help Ortega, 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, six-year-old Lucia and two-year-old Leo last night, are 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.
Ortega remains at nearby New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Sources told DNAInfo that though she 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.
In addition, toxicology tests performed on Ortega came back negative.
It was revealed earlier today that Mrs Krim returned to her luxury Manhattan apartment 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 neighbor's recounts
Today Charlotte 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.
'The mother was bent over her child on the floor, screaming and holding on to to the only live child,' a neighbour, Charlotte Friedman, recounted. 'They were primal screams, they were not human. They were very deep, dark 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.
She entered the three-bedroom, $10,000-a-month prewar apartment at West 75th Street but found it 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.
Rima Starr, 63, said: 'I heard blood curdling screams and I went down to the lobby and there was the mother screaming blood, hunched over the three year old and swaying with the three year old.
'At time she was screaming things like: 'I'll never speak to her again', repeating that over and over again, then 'it's all right, you'll be all right, you'll be alright' to the child.
'Then she would get waves of the reality of what just happened an then she'd go into just plain bloodcurdling screams with her arms flailing out to the sides.'
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 on arrival at 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 had 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'.
Her husband, 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 last night with Mrs Krim's sister. Police said the shocked mother was unable to communicate.
On Friday, neighbour Charlotte Friedman said she believes she was the last one to see the children alive and that 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,' 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.
'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 a note had been left.
Source: UKDaily Mail
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