Merdy, 34, was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison in Brooklyn on Wednesday after entering a guilty plea earlier this year to first-degree murder charges in the 2022 deaths of her three children near the Coney Island boardwalk, prosecutors said. Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said no sentence could “fully measure the loss” of a 7-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and a 3-month-old baby, and he called their deaths “in the most heartbreaking and unthinkable way.”
Court filings tied the case to the aftermath of an early-morning call to New York City police on Sept. 12, 2022, when relatives alerted authorities that Merdy might be trying to harm her children. Officers launched a frantic search for Zachary, Liliana and Oliver, beginning in the hours after the call, near the Coney Island area.
Prosecutors said police first located Merdy barefoot and soaking wet about 2 miles down the boardwalk from the section of Coney Island where she lived. According to prosecutors, she repeatedly told officers that the children were gone and that she was sorry.
Hours later, officials recovered the bodies of the three children from the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean, near the boardwalk and about a dozen blocks from the stadium where the Brooklyn Cyclones play. The city medical examiner’s office ruled the deaths homicides by drowning.
Prosecutors said evidence against Merdy included video that showed her walking toward the ocean with the children shortly before 1 a.m., according to the criminal complaint. Earlier this year, Merdy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder charges for the killings of her son Zachary, her daughter Liliana and her infant son Oliver, according to prosecutors.
A message left for Merdy’s attorney was not returned, the report said.