A Brooklyn woman has been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for drowning her three young children in the ocean near Coney Island’s famed boardwalk.
Erin Merdy, 34, pleaded guilty earlier this year to first-degree murder charges in the 2022 killing of her 7-year-old son Zachary, her 4-year-old daughter Liliana and her 3-month-old son Oliver.
“No sentence can fully measure the loss of a seven-year-old, a four-year-old and a three-month-old baby, or the grief their loved ones will carry forever,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement. He added that the children’s lives were taken “in the most heartbreaking and unthinkable way.”
A message left with Merdy’s lawyer was not returned.
The frantic search for the three children began in the early hours of September 12, 2022, after New York City police received a call from Merdy's relatives, concerned that she intended to harm her kids.
