Erin Merdy Sentenced To 20 Years To Life For Drowning Her 3 Kids
‘Nothing Can Bring These Children Back’ — Brooklyn Mom Gets 20 Years To Life In Prison For Drowning Her 3 Kids Under Age 7 In Ocean
Relatives suggested Erin Merdy, may have been suffering from postpartum depression when she drowned her three children, just 7 years old, 4 years old, and 3 months old, near their Coney Island home in 2022.
Source: Photo courtesy of the New York Post / Erin Merdy
Erin Merdy, the Brooklyn mother convicted of drowning her three young children in the ocean near their Coney Island home in 2022, has been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, according to a press release from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. The victims were just 7 years old, 4 years old, and 3 months old.
On May 20, Merdy, 34, was sentenced by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun to 20 years to life in prison, despite prosecutors seeking a harsher sentence. She pleaded guilty on March 4, 2026, to three counts of first-degree murder.
According to investigators, on Sept. 12, 2022, at approximately 12:37 a.m., Merdy took her children, Zachary Merdy, 7, Liliana Stephens Merdy, 4, and Oliver Bondarev, 3 months, to the beach near West 35th Street in Coney Island, where she drowned them in the ocean.
Roughly an hour later, at about 1:25 a.m., authorities said Merdy left the beach alone and walked more than two miles toward the Brighton Beach apartment of Oliver’s father. During that time, she made distressed phone calls to relatives. When family members asked where the children were, she refused to answer, prompting relatives and the baby’s father to search for her and contact 911.
Police launched a search and, at approximately 4:30 a.m., discovered the children unresponsive and soaked along the shoreline near West 35th Street. They were later pronounced dead at Coney Island Hospital. According to investigators, when relatives eventually located Merdy in Brighton Beach, she was wet, barefoot, and repeatedly stated that the children were gone and that she was sorry.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the case was deeply tragic, but noted that prosecutors hoped the sentencing would provide some measure of closure for the family.
“Zachary, Liliana and Oliver were innocent children whose lives were taken in the most heartbreaking and unthinkable way. 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. We sought the strongest possible accountability in this devastating case, and while nothing can bring these children back, this sentence ensures the defendant will be held responsible for taking their lives,” Gonzalez said in a statement included in Tuesday’s press release.
Family members believe Erin Merdy was suffering from postpartum depression when she carried out the drownings.
At the time of the killings, relatives suggested Merdy may have been suffering from postpartum depression, according to the Associated Press. Court documents filed by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and obtained by The Morning Call stated that the day after the drownings, Merdy told an officer at NYU Langone Hospital that she had experienced disturbing dreams about her children being overtaken by water.
“The waves, the waves,” the mother told a police officer while receiving treatment in the emergency room, according to the document.
“I keep having bad dreams that I was holding my baby and the baby was crying. I was in the water and my boy was crying and trying to help. I couldn’t save him. I know I was wet and I was trying to kill myself. I am having a bad dream,” Merdy allegedly said.
