A Long Island mother who drove around with her dead twin daughters in their car seats for hours before being arrested near Montauk Point in 2019 has pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, as per Law and Crime on Thursday, December 14, 2023.
Tenia Campbell, 28, of Medford, admitted that she manually asphyxiated her 2-year-old daughters, Jaida and Jasmine, on June 27, 2019, after telling her mother on the phone that she “was sorry but didn’t want to live anymore” and that she planned to “kill herself and her babies,” according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office
Campbell’s mother called 911 around 2:37 p.m. that day and reported her daughter’s threats, triggering a massive search by multiple law enforcement agencies.
Campbell was found outside of her family van near Montauk Point around 4 p.m., but the twin girls were already dead in their car seats inside the vehicle, prosecutors said.
Campbell “later admitted” that she smothered the twins to death, the DA’s office said.
Campbell “later admitted” that she smothered the twins to death, the DA’s office said.
CBS News reported, citing Campbell’s mother, that the defendant said “I killed them with my bare hands” and that she was driving to Montauk Point so she could “find the ocean and walk into it so she could be with her babies in heaven.”
The suspect, who also has a young son, was described by her mother as having a “very long history” of mental illness and being “very irrational and angry” prior to the killings, the news outlet reported.
Suffolk County DA Raymond Tierney said that Campbell “executed” Jaida and Jasmine, who looked to their mother for “protection and love.”
“This is such a sad and tragic case,” Tierney said in a statement. “Those two little girls looked to this defendant, their mother, for protection and love. Instead, she executed them.
“The defendant has one thing those twin girls will never have again: life. But now, this defendant will get to live out the majority of her life behind bars.”
Campbell faces 20 years to life in prison when she is sentenced on Jan. 25, 2024, by Suffolk County Court Judge John Collins.
The case shocked and saddened the community, especially those who knew the family.
Campbell’s neighbors said they often saw her playing with her children outside their home, and that she seemed like a loving mother.
Moreover, Campbell’s mother, who has custody of her son, also expressed her grief and disbelief over the murders.
She said she tried to help her daughter, who had been struggling with depression and anxiety for years, and that she never thought she would harm her children.
