New York — A brooklyn woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison wednesday for Her three young children drowned In the ocean near the famous boardwalk on Coney Island.
Erin Murdy, 34, pleaded guilty earlier this year to first-degree murder charges in the 2022 slayings of her 7-year-old son, Zachary, her 4-year-old daughter, Liliana, and her 3-month-old son, Oliver.
“No sentence can fully measure the loss of a seven-year-old, a four-year-old and a three-month-old infant, or the grief their loved ones will carry forever,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement. He added that the children’s lives were lost in a “tragic and unimaginable way.”
A message left with Merdi’s lawyer was not returned.
The frantic search for the three children began in the early hours of September 12, 2022, after New York City police received a phone call from Merde’s relatives, concerned that she intended to harm her children.
Officers first found the mother, barefoot and soaking wet, about 2 miles (3 kilometers) down the boardwalk from her part of Coney Island. She repeatedly said that the children were gone and that she was sorry, according to prosecutors.
Hours later, the children’s bodies were recovered from Atlantic Beach, steps from the boardwalk and about a dozen blocks from the field where the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball team plays.
The city medical examiner’s office ruled their deaths as homicides by drowning.
The evidence against Merde included a video showing her walking toward the ocean with the children just before 1 a.m., according to the criminal complaint.
At the time, her relatives said she may have been suffering from postpartum depression.