An Upper West Side nanny stabbed a 2-year-old boy and 6-year-old girl to death inside their apartment Thursday afternoon before cutting her own throat, police said.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the mother of the children returned to her West 75th Street home after a swimming lesson with a third child, a 3-year-old girl.
The apartment was dark when the mother and daughter entered, and the mother went to look for her two other children, said Kelly.
"She goes downstairs to the lobby, assuming the nanny may have gone out with the children," Kelly told reporters in a briefing Thursday night. "She asks the doorman if in fact they have gone out, and he says 'No.' She goes back up, the apartment is dark, and she goes into the bathroom."
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That's where she discovered her two children stabbed in the bathtub, Kelly said.
The nanny was on the floor of the bathroom with self-inflicted stab wounds to her throat. A kitchen knife was nearby.
Neighbors said they heard the mother's screams from her apartment as she called 911. After police arrived, a neighbor said the mother remained in the building's lobby, screaming hysterically and clutching her surviving child.
The 50-year-old nanny is in custody. She's hospitalized in critical condition.
Traffic around Columbus Avenue and 75th Street was heavily backed up as police and EMS responded to the initial call at about 5:30 p.m.
