Brooklyn mother sentenced to 20 years to life in children’s drowning deaths

Erin Merdy will spend 20 years to life in prison for drowning her three children in the ocean near Coney Island’s boardwalk, ending a case that has haunted Brooklyn since the 2022 killings. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun imposed the sentence on May 20, 2026, after Merdy, 34, pleaded guilty in March to three counts of first-degree murder.

The victims were Zachary Merdy, 7; Liliana Stephens Merdy, 4; and Oliver Bondarev, 3 months old. Prosecutors said Merdy took them to the beach near West 35th Street in Coney Island at about 12:37 a.m. on Sept. 12, 2022, and drowned them in the ocean. Video evidence showed her walking toward the water with the children shortly before 1 a.m., prosecutors said.

The case unfolded over several frantic hours. Relatives called 911 after Merdy contacted family members upset and would not say where the children were, raising fears that she intended to harm them. Police later found her about two miles away in Brighton Beach around 1:25 a.m., wet and barefoot. The children’s bodies were recovered on the shoreline near West 35th Street at about 4:30 a.m. and were pronounced dead at Coney Island Hospital. The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner ruled the deaths homicides by drowning.

The sentencing has drawn attention not only because of the violence, but because of what it suggests about the limits of intervention once warning signs become acute. Relatives had said Merdy may have been going through postpartum depression, and investigators raised questions about mental-health factors in the period before the deaths. The episode has also highlighted how quickly a family crisis can turn irreversible, even when concern is strong enough to trigger a police response.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said prosecutors sought the strongest possible accountability and that no sentence could fully measure the loss. He described the children’s deaths as “in the most heartbreaking and unthinkable way.” Prosecutors had sought the harshest punishment available, but Chun imposed the plea deal’s term anyway.

For Brooklyn, the case leaves behind a public beach turned crime scene, three children lost, and a hard reminder that the systems meant to catch a family in distress can fail long before the final act becomes visible.