Tenia Campbell, accused of smothering her twin daughters and leading police from multiple jurisdictions on a search spanning 40 miles from Medford to Montauk in June 2019, pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of first-degree murder, a class A violent felony.
State Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro is expected to sentence Ms. Campbell, 28, on Jan. 25 to a prison term of 20 years to life.
"This is such a sad and tragic case. Those two little girls looked to this defendant, their mother, for protection and love. Instead, she executed them," District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a release announcing Ms. Campbell's guilty plea. "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."
On June 27, 2019, at about 2:37 p.m., police received a 911 call from Ms. Campbell's mother reporting that her daughter was "driving around in the family van and was threatening to kill her daughters," Jasmin and Jaida, who were two years old. The call lasted about 12 minutes, officials said at the time, with the defendant's mother patching her in while the dispatcher attempted to ascertain her whereabouts.
According to Mr. Tierney, law enforcement "launched a large-scale search" for Ms. Campbell. The Star reported at the time that the search involved not just East Hampton police, but also a Suffolk County aviation unit, state troopers, county park rangers, Southampton Town police, and the Coast Guard.
Just as officials were preparing to issue an Amber Alert, at about 4 p.m. that day, an East Hampton Town officer spotted the Chrysler van on Montauk Highway a few miles west of Montauk Point. By the time the officer was able to approach the vehicle, Ms. Campbell was standing outside it, and the officer observed the two girls strapped in their car seats, not moving.
The Star reported that Ms. Campbell was screaming at responding officers to shoot her.
Ms. Campbell, who worked as a home health aide, also has a son, whose father is not the father of the twins. He was 4 at the time of his sisters’ death and was in his father’s custody while the incident was unfolding.
At the time, Geraldine Hart, then the Suffolk County Police Commissioner, told reporters that the agencies "worked together using all of our resources in hopes of bringing peaceful resolution to the Campbell family. Unfortunately, Jasmin's and Jaida's were lives cut short in the most tragic way imaginable."
Ms. Campbell is being represented by John Halverson, who could not be reached for comment by press time. On Friday, Mr. Halverson said Ms. Campbell "is obviously living and dealing with what she did on a daily basis."
"She felt pleading guilty would bring some closure and she could try to move forward," he said. "She has been getting the mental health help she needed at the jail, and hopefully when she goes upstate, she can try to continue to improve."
Assistant District Attorney Frank Schroeder of the Homicide Bureau is the prosecutor on the case, assisted in the investigation by Detective Ron Tavares of the County Police Homicide Squad.
This story has been updated since it was first published to include comments from Ms. Campbell's attorney.