Coney Island mother sentenced for drowning her 3 young children in the ocean
Erin Merdy, 34, will serve 20 years to life behind bars for killing three-month-old Oliver Bondarev, Liliana Stephens Merdy, 4, and Zachary Merdy, 7, on Sept. 12, 2022.
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Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez says a Coney Island mother was sentenced Wednesday for drowning her three young children in the ocean near their home.
Erin Merdy, 34, will serve 20 years to life behind bars for killing 3-month-old Oliver Bondarev, 4-year-old Liliana Stephens Merdy and 7-year-old Zachary Merdy on Sept. 12, 2022.
Erin Merdy was arraigned from her hospital bed days after the incident and indicted the following month.
She pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder on March 4, 2026.
Prosecutors say Erin Merdy took the children to the Coney Island beach near West 35th Street at around 12:30 a.m. They say that after drowning all three children, Erin Merdy started walking toward her son Oliver's father's apartment.
She called family members, upset, but would not answer questions about where her children were, according to court documents.
Oliver's father and other relatives started looking for Erin Merdy and called 911, initiating a search by police.
Officers found Oliver, Liliana and Zachary unresponsive and wet on the shoreline four hours later. They were pronounced dead at Coney Island Hospital.
Merdy's family located her, barefoot, in Brighton Beach. She told them the children were gone and that she was sorry.
"Zachary, Liliana and Oliver were innocent children whose lives were taken in the most heartbreaking and unthinkable way." said Gonzalez. "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. 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."
In the days after the children's deaths, friends and family left balloons, flowers and candles at the boardwalk to remember them.
News 12 attended the funeral for 4-year-old Liliana Merdy a week after the deaths.
