NYC mother charged with drowning her 3 kids in Coney Island described the deaths as a ‘bad dream’
The mentally ill Brooklyn mother accused of drowning her three children in the Atlantic Ocean off Coney Island told police she was only trying to hurt herself, and remembered the vivid details of her kids’ deaths as a bad dream, court filings reveal.
A day after the unfathomable Sept. 12 triple homicide, Erin Merdy, 30, told an officer at NYU Langone Hospital that she had a nightmare about her children being overwhelmed by water.
“The waves, the waves,” she told a police officer while she was treated in the emergency room, according to a document filed by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
“I keep having bad dreams that I was holding my baby and the baby as crying. I was in the water and my boy was crying and trying to help. I couldn’t save him. I know I was wet and I was trying to kill myself. I am having a bad dream,” Merdy allegedly said.
The document became public Thursday, after Merdy appeared in Brooklyn Supreme Court for the first time to plead not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges.
Merdy, who was dressed in an orange city Department of Correction jumpsuit and jacket, stood silently with her hands cuffed behind her back as she appeared before Judge Danny Chun Thursday.
She was arrested in the early morning hours of Sept. 12 after family members called 911 to report their concerns over her three missing children — 3-month-old Oliver, Liliana, 4, and 7-year-old Zachary.
In a videotaped statement at the 60th Precinct stationhouse on Sept. 14, she said she got a call from Oliver’s father and argued with him about custody issues, then went to the boardwalk to “hurt herself,” the court filing details.
“She went with three kids and remembers waking up in the hospital. She had a dream Liliana was in the water and Zachary went to help her. (She) went to the water but could not help them. She had Oliver with her. The children were all in the water. Waves were too big and she could not help him,” the legal papers read.
In her dream, Merdy said she remembered calling her sister and telling her “the kids are gone,” then recalled laying on a bench, wet and cold, surrounded by family members.
Merdy also identified Liliana’s Crocs’ shoe, and acknowledged writing a letter to Oliver, court documents state.
Merdy drowned the children in the waters near W. 35th St. in Coney Island, and started walking, alone, toward Oliver’s father’s apartment in Brighton Beach, about two miles away, prosecutors allege.
She called her family members upset, and when she wouldn’t answer questions about where the children were, relatives went looking for her and called 911.
Merdy turned up alone, barefoot and wet, wrapped in a bathrobe on the boardwalk in neighboring Brighton Beach. After a massive search, authorities found the children near the shoreline. All three were pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
A half dozen of Merdy’s family members watched from the court gallery. They declined to comment after the proceeding, as did her lawyer.
Merdy has a history of mental health problems dating to 2019, and admitted herself to the hospital with post-partum depression following the birth of Oliver in May, authorities said.
Her stunned family members have described her as a loving mother who was sick.
“I don’t care what no one says, what she did was monstrous, but she herself is not a monster,” Liliana’s father, Shamir Small, said after his young daughter’s funeral.
Merdy is being held without bail.
