A Brooklyn woman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for drowning her three young children in the Atlantic Ocean near the Coney Island boardwalk in 2022.
The 34-year-old entered a guilty plea earlier this year on first-degree murder charges for the killings of Zachary, 7, Liliana, 4, and Oliver, who was just 3 months old, The Associated Press reported.
"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, according to the AP. He added that the children's lives were taken "in the most heartbreaking and unthinkable way."
A message left with Merdy's attorney was not returned, the AP reported.
On the night of Sept. 12, 2022, a call came in to police from family members who feared Merdy was going to hurt her children. When officers tracked her down, she was standing on the boardwalk roughly 2 miles from her Coney Island home, drenched and without shoes. Prosecutors say she kept telling them the children were gone and apologizing, according to the AP.
