NEW YORK – Brooklyn mother accused of killing her three young children, drowning them in the waters off Coney Island with depraved disregard for their well-being, was sent back to custody after a brief bedside summons Friday at the hospital where was in custody of deaths earlier this week.
Erin Merdy responded in a low voice when asked questions like “Can you hear me?” as she sat on her hospital bed during the approximately five-minute hearing. The judge also ordered pre-trial detention, medical treatment and a psychological examination for the 30-year-old woman.
Prosecutors say witnesses told police that he admitted injuring his children: 3-month-old Oliver Bondarev, 4-year-old Lilana Merdy and 7-year-old Zachary Merdy. Erin Merdy faces up to three life sentences if convicted of the charges. Her attorney was in hospital on Friday and it was not possible to contact him directly for comment early Friday.
Friday’s indictment comes less than 48 hours after the city medical examiner alleged that all three children had drowned and ruled that all three cases were homicides. They lived in the same house on Neptune Avenue, where officers who answered a 911 call from a concerned relative went early Monday as the tragedy began to unfold on a massive scale.
This was just the first stop on what would be an exhaustive search for hours to find the children. It was 1:40
No one answered the door when officers knocked, but it was open, authorities said. Police found a man in the building who identified himself as the father of one of the three children. He expressed the same concerns as the 911 caller, NYPD officials said, telling police that he believed the mother and children were on the Coney Island waterfront.
A full-scale search was initiated, with officers patrolling the waterfront, beach, streets and local hospitals.
Police found the mother on the Riegelmann Boardwalk near Brighton 6th Street about 90 minutes later. Police said she was soaking wet and barefoot and looked shocked when they found her. The woman had some family members with her, but not the three children, police said, adding that she did not communicate with the police.
At this point, the search became even more desperate, with the intervention of aeronautical and port units and the addition of reinforcements to search the coast. The children were found unconscious by the sea on 35th Street around 4:45 am, about three hours after the initial call to the emergency health services. Efforts were made to save lives, but the children died at Coney Island Hospital.
A security supervisor at the mother’s building said the family moved less than a year ago. New York Police Department chief Kenneth Corey said her mother had not previously been reported to authorities for abusing or neglecting her children.
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