Tenia Campbell, of Medford, gets 20 years to life for killing her twin daughters
A Medford mother said “people make mistakes” as she was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for smothering her twin 2-year-old girls in June 2019 before driving their bodies to a Suffolk County park in Montauk, where she was met by police officers who had searched for her while hoping to prevent the tragedy.
Tenia Campbell, 29, who pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder before State Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro in Riverhead last month, said she’s “not an angry person.” Her conduct following her arrest came into question Monday, as she was also sentenced on additional charges of attempted assault for punching correction officers at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead.
Campbell said she sometimes “lashes out” when she isn’t treated properly.
“People make mistakes,” said Campbell, who did not mention her children and showed no emotion during the proceeding. “I made the biggest one I’m ever gonna make in my lifetime.”
WHAT TO KNOW
- A Medford mother said “people make mistakes” as she was sentenced Monday to 20 years to life in prison for smothering her twin 2-year-old girls in June 2019.
- Tenia Campbell, 29, pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in Riverhead last month.
- Prosecutors previously said autopsies of Jasmine and Jaida Campbell showed the twins died of “manual asphyxia” when their mother covered their mouths and noses.
Ambro told Campbell, as he sentenced her to the agreed-upon term, that it was “more than a mistake,” and rather “a profoundly bad thing to do.”
“I have no idea if you’ve even internalized this,” the judge said.
No one gave a victim impact statement during the sentencing. A family member yelled out, “We love you, Tenia,” as Campbell was escorted out of the courtroom.
Assistant District Attorney Frank Schroeder, a veteran homicide prosecutor, said ordinarily it would be the mother who would speak at sentencing when a child is killed, making the case “even more tragic.” Schroeder told the judge the question he’s most often asked about the case, which received significant media attention at the time, is “how did she kill her children?”
“The only answer that I can come up with is ‘One at a time,’ ” Schroeder said. “That's what makes this so horrible.”
Defense attorney John Halverson said the case is “certainly a tragedy.”
“There’s no sentence you can give that she hasn’t sentenced herself to,” Halverson told Ambro.
The judge added two additional 1-year sentences for the attempted assault convictions that will run concurrently to the murder sentence.
Campbell was found with the dead toddlers on June 27, 2019, at the entrance to Third House Nature Center in Montauk. The discovery ended a desperate 90-minute search by state police, county park police, Suffolk police, Southampton Town police and, ultimately, the East Hampton police, who found her. The search had started when a woman called 911 and said her daughter was suicidal and intended to kill the twins.
Prosecutors previously said autopsies of Jasmine and Jaida Campbell showed the twins died of “manual asphyxia” when their mother covered their mouths and noses.
Schroeder said the scene moved veteran police officers to tears.
Campbell made admissions to police that she killed the girls with her “bare hands,” prosecutors said at the time.
Halverson indicated from the start in 2019 that he would rely on his client’s history of mental illness for the defense. A mental health evaluation prepared by a doctor for the district attorney found her competent to stand trial.
Campbell’s mother, Vanessa McQueen, of Mastic Beach, told police on the day of her arrest that her daughter, a home health care aide, had a history of bipolar disorder and depression, and that she had been acting irrationally in the days leading up to the killings. In a statement included in court records, McQueen said her daughter called her to tell her it was “too late” and that she was driving to find the ocean to “walk into it and drown so she could be with her babies in heaven.”
Photos on Campbell’s Facebook page showed her daughters celebrating their first birthday in April 2018, dressed in matching pink and purple tutus and sucking on lollipops, Newsday reported in 2019.
In that post, Campbell writes that her children “have managed to stress me out to maximum capacity and still make me extremely happy. Such a blessing and a headache it is to have twins. I love you girls till the death of me.”
Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.
