The New York Police Department (NYPD) on Wednesday arrested and charged a mother accused of drowning her three young children on Coney Island.
Erin Merdy, 30, is charged with second-degree murder, three counts of depraved indifference to human life and three counts of murder in connection to the deaths of 7-year-old Zachary Merdy, 4-year-old Liliana Stepehn and 3-month-old baby girl Oliver Bodnarev, according to CNN. The medical examiner’s office ruled the children’s deaths to be a homicide Tuesday.
Merdy told investigators she had been “dreaming of walking the kids in the water,” CNN reported.
NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey announced at a Monday press conference that authorities received a call from a concerned relative at around 1:40 a.m., who believed Merdy may have harmed her children, according to CNN. The father of one of the children met with authorities and expressed similar concerns. (RELATED: 3 Children Die After Being Found Unconscious At Coney Island)
Watch live as NYPD officials provide an update on an investigation in Brooklyn in the confines of the @nypd60pct. https://t.co/7pt7Br2gTH
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) September 12, 2022
Police found Merdy at Brighton 6th Street unaccompanied by the children, Corey said. Authorities discovered the children’s remains at 4:42 a.m. at the water’s edge on West 35th Street. Inspector James King, the 60th Precinct’s commanding officer, said the mother was soaking wet and unresponsive to the officers. They took Merdy to the station house during the preliminary parts of the investigation.
Police attempted to conduct life saving measures on the children and rushed them to Coney Island Hospital, where they were pronounced dead, he said in the press conference.
The 7-year-old loved football, superheroes and the character Sonic the Hedgehog, and the 4-year-old loved to play with dolls, his father, Derrick, told CNN. The mother reportedly pulled Zachary out of football in March.
“You could see that there was a lot going on,” Allen McFarland, a youth football coach, told the outlet. “[Merdy] would say, ‘No, I know he likes it and we’re going to try to come back, but the schedule has just been busy. It seemed like she was juggling a lot.”