Mom suspected of drowning kids may have had postpartum depression

The Brooklyn mom suspected of drowning her three young children may have been suffering from postpartum depression, law-enforcement sources said Tuesday, as the father of one of the kids revealed the horrific conditions the child endured under her care. 

Derrick Merdy, the father of little Zachary Merdy, 7, and mom Erin Merdy’s ex-husband, said his son was often dirty and hungry when he picked him up for visits and told his dad how he was forced to urinate and defecate in a bowl while living in homeless shelters with his mother. 

“She makes me starve,” the child told his dad, according to an interview the father gave to The New York Times. 

“I didn’t do nothing bad; she makes me starve,” the child said in a video recorded by the father, who captured the clip as part of his bid to get sole custody of the kid and report the mom to child protective services. 

Derrick, who law-enforcement sources say is an air traffic controller in Virginia, told the outlet he first met Erin on Facebook, married her in 2014 before the two broke up shortly after Zachary was born in 2015. 

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The heartbroken dad called Erin an unreliable mother who frequently didn’t show up for custody exchanges and when she did, Zachary was unclean and didn’t have enough clothes for his visit. The child told his dad he wasn’t getting enough food to eat and while living with his mom in homeless shelters, had to use the bathroom in a bowl. 

Derrick said he’d been working to get sole custody of Zachary and reported the mother to child protective services to no avail. He didn’t specify which specific agency the reports were made to. 

“It didn’t matter how much I called child protective services… They would tell me, ‘Oh, you don’t have any real evidence.’ But they didn’t do a real investigation,” he told the outlet.

“I was trying to get my son. Now that’s not going to happen,” he continued as he broke down into sobs. 

Law-enforcement sources confirmed at least two reports for neglect were made against the mom to the city Administration for Children’s Services for not sending the kids to school but the disposition of the allegations are unclear.

A spokesperson for the ACS said they are investigating the tragedy with the NYPD. 

The agency noted they are prohibited from sharing information on a family’s history with ACS but all child abuse allegations they receive are investigated. 

Erin Merdy, who confessed to relatives that she drowned her three kids, Zachary Merdy, Lillyana Stephen, 4, and 3-month-old Oliver Bondarev, also suffered from bipolar schizophrenia, her boyfriend told police, according to law-enforcement sources. 

Cops are seeking to determine if her mental issues, especially postpartum psychosis, brought on by postpartum depression, were a factor in the kids’ tragic deaths early Monday on Coney Island beach, the sources said. 

The mom is currently facing eviction from her Neptune Avenue apartment, according to court records, and previously lived with her mother on Voorhies Avenue, neighbors told The Post. 

“There was always screaming, yelling, always boyfriends coming, always fighting,” a neighbor, who declined to share their name, said of the grandmother’s home. 

“They were slamming the doors. The boyfriends, they were pushing them out of the apartment and they were knocking into my door. 

“All the time the kids were crying and screaming.”

Just after midnight Monday, Merdy was captured on surveillance footage walking near her apartment with her three children in tow and then entering the boardwalk area of the beach around 12:50 a.m., sources said. In the video, Merdy is shown holding baby Oliver while Zachary and Lillyana walk beside her.

About 45 minutes later, Merdy is caught on surveillance footage again near West 8th Street and Riegalman Boardwalk West, but this time, her kids aren’t with her, the sources said. 

Around this time, Merdy’s sister called 911 and said she’d received texts and a phone call from the mom that left her concerned for her niece and nephews’ safety. 

Cops headed over to her apartment to conduct a wellness check, but the apartment door was unlocked and no one was home, police said. 

Just after 3 a.m., Merdy’s boyfriend and the father of baby Oliver called 911 and told police he was concerned about how she acted earlier at his apartment and said she appeared dazed and delirious. He too said he was concerned that Merdy had harmed the kids and that he believed they were on Coney Island beach. 

Soon after, cops located Merdy, her boyfriend, and her sister near Brighton 6th Street and found the mom barefoot, soaking wet and in a bathrobe, appearing disoriented and unable to answer questions. 

Her children were nowhere to be found, leading the NYPD’s harbor and aviation units to conduct a frantic search for the missing kids across the beach. 

Around 4:40 a.m., cops made the heartbreaking discovery of their bodies in the sand on the shoreline near West 35th Street, about two miles from where the mom was found and just three blocks from their home on Neptune Avenue. 

They were transported to Coney Island Hospital but could not be saved. 

The kids appeared to have drowned when cops found them, but their exact cause and manner of death have yet to be determined. 

Merdy was transported late Monday morning to NYU Langone hospital in Brooklyn for a psychiatric evaluation and remained there Tuesday. She has yet to be charged in connection with the horror, but if she is, she could face a bedside arraignment.

Additional reporting by Amanda Woods and Georgett Roberts