Tenia Campbell, Medford, Long Island woman sentenced to 20 years to life prison for smothering twin daughters, Jasmine and Jaida Campbell to death. History of prior mental illness.
A Long Island woman who admitted to smothering her two daughters to death in 2019 was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
Tenia Campbell, 28, of Medford, pleaded guilty in December to first degree murder of her 2-year-old twin daughters, Jasmine and Jaida Campbell. The bodies of the two toddler girls were found in their car seats near a county park.
‘These two young lives were cut short by the one person who was supposed to love and protect them,’ Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said in a statement on Monday.
Mom admits smothering girls with her bare hands
Adding, ‘Although the 20-year sentence here resolves this sad case, it will not bring back these girls.’
Police were alerted to the twin sibling’s bodies when the Medford woman’s mother called police just after 2:30 p.m. on June 27, 2019, saying that her daughter was driving around in the family’s van and had threatened to kill herself and her toddlers.
At one point, Campbell told her mother that she was driving around, trying to ‘find the ocean and walk into it so she could be with her babies in heaven.’
The daughter was in turn placed on a three way 911 call, which lasted nearly 12 minutes, leading investigators on a desperate search for the trio in the areas of Medford and Montauk.
Less than 90 minutes later, an East Hampton police officer using spotted the minivan just off Montauk Highway, west of Montauk Point, pulled over on the side of a park entrance road. Campbell was outside the van. As the officer neared the vehicle, he observed the twins deceased in their car seats.
Asphyxiation was listed as the girls’ cause of death. Campbell later admitted to smothering the girls ‘with her bare hands.’
Plagued with ongoing mental illness
During the phone call to her mother, Campbell had said that she ‘was sorry but didn’t want to live anymore’ and that she planned to ‘kill herself and her babies.’
A 4-year-old son was also located at another location in safe condition.
The whereabouts of the twin girl’s father was not immediately clear.
During her defense, Campbell’s legal team cited the mother’s extensive history of mental disorder, bipolar, depression and anxiety, with the woman’s grandmother saying she had been acting ‘very irrational and angry’ prior to the slayings.
Campbell prior to her arrest had no record of domestic violence or Child Protective Services involvement.
