NEW YORK — The New York City Administration of Children’s Services botched its handling of the troubled Brooklyn mom accused of drowning her three children, failing to conduct a mental health evaluation of the woman just two months ago, a source told the New York Daily News on Wednesday.
“She fell through the cracks,” the source said of 30-year-old Erin Merdy, who was charged with murder Wednesday in the horrific deaths of her 7-year-old son, 4-year-old daughter and 3-month-old son on Coney Island Beach in Brooklyn. The source is familiar with Merdy’s dealings with ACS.
ACS opened a 2020 investigation after Merdy’s oldest child stopped showing up for school and she remained under the agency’s watch until this past July, according to the source.
“Her baby was born in May and she was discharged from (ACS) services on July 15,” the source said. “Someone in the Family Services Unit discharged her when they shouldn’t have. At the very least, a psych exam should have been done — and that wasn’t done.”
The call about the school absences came from one of the mother’s boyfriends, with the NYPD investigating before turning the case over to ACA, a high-ranking police source told the Daily News. There were never any allegations made that Merdy was violent or abusive to the kids, the source added.
An ACS spokesman, in a statement, said the agency’s “top priority is protecting the safety and well-being of all children in New York City. We are investigating this tragedy with the NYPD.”
Merdy, after voluntarily checking into a hospital with postpartum depression following the birth of her third child, was released and ACS ended its probe without conducting a mental health examination of the mom, the source said.
An NYPD police source and Merdy’s mother have both indicated that Merdy was dealing with depression in the time after her son Oliver was born this past May.
The children were drowned this past Monday and Merdy remained hospitalized for a psych exam Wednesday.
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