Erin Merdy, 34, appeared in a Brooklyn courtroom Wednesday to learn her sentence for one of the city’s most wrenching crimes. Judge handed down a term of 20 years to life after Merdy had pleaded guilty earlier this year to three counts of first-degree murder. In September 2022, she walked her three children — Zachary, 7, Liliana, 4, and infant Oliver, just 3 months old — into the cold surf near Coney Island’s boardwalk and held them under until they died.
The case began in the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 12, 2022, when worried relatives called the New York City Police Department, telling officers they feared Merdy intended to harm her children. Officers launched an urgent search that ended with the discovery of the children’s bodies on the beach.
In a statement after the sentencing, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said, “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.” He described the killings as “the most heartbreaking and unthinkable way.”
A message left with Merdy’s attorney was not immediately returned.