The van which Tenia Campbell is believed to have driven after killing her 2-year-old twin daughters, Jasmine and Jaida Campbell (YouTube screengrab/WABC). Inset top: Tenia Campbell (via Office of the Suffolk County District Attorney). Inset bottom: Jasmine and Jaida Campbell (via Facebook).
The woman who smothered her twin 2-year-old daughters to death and left their bodies in a family van before encountering a police officer received a prison sentence of 20 years to life on Monday.
New York resident Tenia Campbell, 28, pleaded guilty on Dec. 13, 2023, in a Suffolk County courtroom to two counts of murder in the first degree for killing Jasmine and Jaida Campbell.
“These two young lives were cut short by the one person who was supposed to love and protect them,” Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said in a statement obtained by Law&Crime. “Although the 20-year sentence here resolves this sad case, it will not bring back these girls.”
Authorities said that the defendant’s mother called 911 on June 27, 2019, at approximately 2:37 p.m. to say Campbell was driving around in the family van and threatening to kill the children.
Campbell had said on the phone that she “was sorry but didn’t want to live anymore” and that she planned to “kill herself and her babies,” CBS News reported.
The outlet 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, described as having a “very long history” of mental illness, had been acting “very irrational and angry” prior to the slayings, the victims’ grandmother reportedly said.
“Law enforcement launched a large-scale search for Campbell and her daughters between the areas of Medford and Montauk,” prosecutors wrote in their press statement. “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.”
The officer found Campbell outside the van. Jasmine and Jaida were dead in their car seats. Their mother later admitted to fatally smothering them.
Matt Naham contributed to this report.
