Mother who drowned her 3 kids at Coney Island sentenced to 20 years to life

A New York woman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for killing her three young children in the ocean near Coney Island’s boardwalk.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced that Erin Merdy, 34, has been sentenced by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun for drowning her children – who were three months old, four years old, and seven years old – in the ocean near their home in Coney Island in a press release from the office of the District Attorney of Kings County.

“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,” Gonzalez said.

“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.”

Merdy pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder on March 4, 2026.

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Gonzalez said the frantic search for the three children began in the early hours of Sept. 12, 2022, at approximately 12:37 a.m. local time, after New York City police received a call from Merdy’s relatives, concerned that she intended to harm her kids.

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Officers first found the mother, barefoot and soaking wet, three kilometres down the boardwalk from the section of Coney Island where she lived at approximately 1:25 a.m. local time. She repeatedly said that the children were gone and that she was sorry, according to prosecutors.

Hours later, the bodies of the children were recovered from the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean, steps from the boardwalk. They were pronounced dead at Coney Island Hospital.

The city medical examiner’s office ruled their deaths homicides by drowning.

Merdy was taken to the 60th Precinct for questioning and then brought to a Brooklyn hospital for psychiatric evaluation, authorities said at the time.

By October 2022, Merdy had been indicted on first-degree murder and related charges for the drowning her three children.

“These innocent young children had their entire lives ahead of them when their own mother allegedly drowned and left them on a Coney Island beach. This is a shocking and unspeakable crime, and with this prosecution, we will seek justice,” Gonzalez said at the time.

She was arraigned on an indictment in which she is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and nine counts of second-degree murder.

—with files from The Associated Press