New York mother sentenced after being convicted of strangling her twin toddlers to death
In a heartbreaking story coming out of Long Island, on January 29, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced that Tenia Campbell, 28, of Medford, New York, was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison after pleading guilty in December 2023 to two counts of Murder in the First Degree, after suffocating her twin two-year-old daughters to death in June 2019.
“These two young lives were cut short by the one person who was supposed to love and protect them,” said District Attorney Tierney. “Although the 20-year sentence here resolves this sad case, it will not bring back these girls.”
According to court documents and the Campbell’s admission during her plea allocution, on June 27, 2019, at approximately 2:37 p.m., Campbell’s mother called 911 to report that Campbell was driving around in the family van and was threatening to kill her daughters, Jaida and Jasmine. Law enforcement launched a large-scale search for Campbell and her daughters between the areas of Medford and Montauk. At approximately 4:00 p.m., an East Hampton Police Officer spotted the van just off Montauk Highway, a few miles west of Montauk Point.
Sadly, when the officer approached, she saw Campbell outside of the van. The officer walked over to the van and saw Campbell’s two-year old twin daughters dead in their car seats. Campbell later admitted to smothering the girls to death.
Campbell’s mother reportedly informed the media that her daughter 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.”
Campbell’s grandmother described Tenia as having a “very long history” of mental illness, and that she had been acting “very irrational and angry” prior to the slayings.
On December 13, 2023, Campbell pleaded guilty before Supreme Court Justice, the Honorable Richard Ambro, to two counts of Murder in the First Degree, a Class A violent felony. On January 29, 2024, Justice Ambro sentenced Campbell to 20 years to life in prison.
For more on this tragic story, see the video accompanying this article.
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(Source and booking photo of Tenia Campbell: Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office)
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today
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