May 29, 2026
Coney Island Mom, Sentenced For Drowning Deaths Of Her Three Young Children
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RSS Feed It’s a heinous story that shocked the New York community, 34-year-old Erin Merdy drowned her 7, 4 and 3 month old children in the Atlantic Ocean. Merdy left their bodies along the Coney Island shoreline where it took authorities hours to find them. A judge showed leniency to Merdy, going against prosecutors who wanted her sentenced to life without parole. Once you hear how her life turned upside down, from a young woman with hopes of a health care career to a hopeless single mother suffering from postpartum depression, his lesser sentence may be more understandable.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, they're folks. It is Friday, May twenty ninth, and a thirty four year old woman has just been sentenced for killing not one, not two, but three of her own young children. And she did it and one of the most iconic and famous places in all of New York. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ presents Robes a heinous crime that quite frankly, we only see a few of these types of stories in our lifetimes, and the ones we have seen have made international headlines.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, truly.
00:00:42
Speaker 3: The other women who have been convicted of this type of and yes you use the word heinous, heinous crime, have gone down in American history.
00:00:54
Speaker 2: We're talking the likes of.
00:00:56
Speaker 3: Susan Smith Andrea Yates, those two women both convicted of drowning their own children. And that is exactly what thirty four year old Aaron Murdy was convicted of as well, drowning all three of her children. And you mentioned at an iconic landmark here in New York along the shoreline of Coney Island.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: A lot of people know Coney Island, and you know Coney Island, and probably the first thing a lot that will come out of a lot of people's mouths. Is the boardwalk. It was the boardwalk at Coney Island. Well, she did this, and she's accused of no convicted now pled guilty to doing this along those waters robes essentially within sight of the boardwalk. Now, this was not during the time of day where a lot of people out find but robes. What we haven't mentioned yet is the age of these children.
00:01:49
Speaker 3: Yes, her children ages seven. His name was Zachary, her four year old her name was Liliana, and her three month old baby Oliver.
00:02:03
Speaker 1: I actually can't remember robes the ages on the kids. For the For Andrea Yates and she had.
00:02:08
Speaker 2: Five children, it was five.
00:02:10
Speaker 3: They were elementary school agent and they were in the bathtub. Yes, and Susan Smith's children were also elementary school aged. Her older one and then she had an infant as well. Strapped them into their car seats and drove her car and got out just in time into the John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina. It was one of my very first assignments as a young reporter there in South Carolina, and she famously tried to blame it on an unidentified black man.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had the whole country looking for brothers after that. But this is a case in some of the and the details are chilling. You hear about her drowning her kids in the ocean right off the beach of Coney Island. But Robes just the setup that evening and how this went about is that we'll get into and we'll explain. But the reason this story is back in the headlines now this happened in twenty twenty two. She pled guilty, but she was just sentenced here recently this month here in New York and Robes we talk about the tragedy, but there was a There was a tragedy happening long before these kids. These kids died. This is just an awful, awful story. But Gona mention. She was sentenced finally this month.
00:03:26
Speaker 3: Yes, she was sentenced, and this is interesting because she was sentenced and it was put in.
00:03:32
Speaker 2: Quotes over the objection of prosecutors.
00:03:35
Speaker 3: That is, because prosecutors wanted her sentence to life without the possibility of parole. You can understand why a woman this mentally unstable and capable of doing the unthinkable to her own children shouldn't ever be allowed to be out. According to prosecutors, the judge disagreed, so the judge sentenced her to twenty years to life in prison, which means she will be eligible for parole within her lifetime. She's just thirty four years old, and the Brooklyn prosecutors sought the maximum sentence. They did not get what they asked for from the judge.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: I didn't look to see if the judge explained the logic, not that I could see. Who knows and you know what even what law allows. I'm not sure what rules he might have been following and what and what options he had. But robes you hear about. I mean, we know people to kill one person and they get life in pre correct two certainly three.
00:04:38
Speaker 2: For sure and children could kids?
00:04:40
Speaker 1: Now why will does that person have a chance to get out? And maybe when we get into some of the details of her background, maybe the judge took some of that into account.
00:04:48
Speaker 3: Maybe he felt like there was some potential for redemption in this case because a lot of family members have pointed to the fact that she obviously had been mentally suffering, and they really did feel like it could have been The final straw was postpartum depression. She had a three month old infant, she was trying to keep her life together. She was trying to keep her family out of homeless shelter, she was trying to hold down jobs, and she felt overwhelmed by it even before the birth of this new baby. But now another mouth to feed, and the depression and the hormones that follow a lot of times a birth. Possibly we're all contributing factors to what happened on that day on September twelfth, twenty twenty two, just after midnight.
00:05:33
Speaker 1: There was something about the idea. So this happens not quite middle of the night, but midnightish, right September, walking along the water with her kids. Now they leave home, So imagine that picture of a young mother, thirty four year old mother with her seven year old, her three year old and a four year old and the three month old she's carrying the baby. You can see this happen, and they think they're going to one of their dad's house, I do believe is the destination she was walking. So this seems like probably a walk they'd had before and done before, and somewhere along the way robes she does this. She does this on the beach and Coney Island with those kids. The fear I don't even know if they had time to have fear. I can't imagine this scenario robes with those kids. But she stops along the way and drowns her three kids.
00:06:29
Speaker 3: Yes, and she's in a bathrobe with bare feet, and she does the unthinkable. They don't know which order, and she leaves their bodies along the shoreline and then makes a two mile walk towards the youngest infant's father's home and somehow along the way calls her family member. She will not answer any questions. She's clearly distraught about where the kids are, how the kids are. Her family members reported her eventually just saying the kids are gone, which then led the youngest child's father and family members to call police. And there was an hour's long frantic search for these babies and no one could find them until about four thirty in the morning.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: They found her. Do they not before or actively?
00:07:20
Speaker 2: They found her, and she did.
00:07:21
Speaker 1: She was a mess.
00:07:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, she didn't tell them what happened. She didn't tell them where her children were. She certainly didn't tell them what she had done. She just kept saying, I'm sorry.
00:07:32
Speaker 1: So they find the kids. Obviously robes she's she's arrested for this. She ends up pleading guilty, but Robes, there's a story that starts coming out about her, and look, there's no official there's nothing official, the prosecutors necessarily said, but Robes, the family tells a story about a woman who was in trouble for a long time, and people saw it, and they noticed it, and they knew it, and even the kids were complaining.
00:08:00
Speaker 3: Yes, even the child, the oldest child, Zachary's dad had actually let Child Protective Services here in New York know that his son was telling him he was hungry, that he had to pee in buckets sometimes, and he was in the middle of a bitter custody battle with his mother, and he said that Zachary told him five months before he died, that mom makes me starve. And so there's a lot of questions about why nothing was done within the Child Protective Services unit, why they didn't do anything to intervene.
00:08:34
Speaker 2: If you have a child, you have coaches.
00:08:36
Speaker 3: He played I'm trying football, yes, and his coaches were saying that he would be starving and they'd be feeding him and he'd be asking for more. So clearly there were plenty of adults in this child's life, who saw him being abused, if he was hungry, if he was complaining about that.
00:08:57
Speaker 1: Hope to some of that we yet sits it's a abusive to a child. But is that because the mom of the parent had intent to do harm or Robes. They sound like they were in an awful financial situation, as she had been for a long time. But you're still making the point. Robes, we talk about find out child predictive services and whatnot. Yes, babe, there was a lot of adults around.
00:09:24
Speaker 2: There were, and that is these kids that.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: Were family and friends. Forget the official government anything. There were people around. I'm not placing blame. It's just another we have this awful tragedy and what happens oftentimes. Wow, this tragedy started years ago.
00:09:37
Speaker 3: And no one helped her, and she was in charge of three beautiful, innocent souls and she was in trouble. And that's when you tell these stories so that people can intervene. People can see signs and people can say, let me help, let me step in. The best thing that could have happened. Now we can look back in hindsight and say, if someone had just taken those kids away from her and given her a second to breathe, to get her life back on trap, maybe things could have taken a much different path.
00:10:09
Speaker 1: We see you use the word hindsight, Rose, but there's no way anybody could ever could you ever imagine now this? But you still knew these kids were in trouble. These kids were in trouble, and it's documented that these kids were in drawing and that this woman was in trouble. So maybe as we sit here, Robe, we're sinking in our seats a little more talking about the judge and didn't give her a life and that or I with three deaths of three babies. Well, Rose, maybe he was doing what we're doing now we're sitting here going she was a victim of something right, not at somebody's hands necessarily, but she was hurting. She was somebody that needed help. Should that play into Robes? I just we talk about it anytime there's a mother involved with the Corey Richards thing, and about it. She didn't kill her kids kill their dad. But I'm saying, anytime this stuff comes up, what was the other guy who stabbed his niece nephew? Canaro? Oh yeah, Paul Canara, I'm I look at that and go that person has some kind of a chemical imbounce you are not cap you cannot do what this woman did, and just dismiss it as she's a monster. Something is seriously wrong with her.
00:11:16
Speaker 3: Yes, and to your point, when we come back, we're gonna tell you who Aaron Murdy was before this heinous crime, and maybe you and all of us can have a better understanding of why this judge showed her leniency. Welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ Presents. We are looking at a case that just broke the hearts of New Yorkers here, but certainly anyone who heard the story of thirty four year old Aaron Murdy. A judge this month sentenced her to twenty years to life for drowning her three young children seven, four and three months old in twenty twenty two. And The New York Times did an incredible story into who Aaron Murdy was around the time of these killings. Because it's so unthinkable. You have to say, is she a monster? Who is this woman who is capable of this? And to read where she was a decade ago versus where she is now, childless in a prison cell. And I'm sure feeling I can't even imagine the guilt and the horror she must be feeling. But a decade ago, this was a young woman who was aspiring for a health care career. She was a student at a community college. She was interested in astronomy and urban farming. She took classes at a vocational healthcare school in Manhattan. She had a physical therapy internship. She was building her life. She was working as a retail clerk in some stores, paying the bills and trying to educate herself for a better life.
00:13:02
Speaker 2: But what happened in her personal life.
00:13:04
Speaker 3: She had a they described it a series of ill fated relationships, and she ended up with three children. She wasn't able to complete her studies, and she couldn't pay her bills.
00:13:14
Speaker 1: Ropes. How many of us? How many people? I say, how many of us? But yeah, people end up and you don't have support or help or somewhere you can go, crash at mama's house, or you don't have rope. She didn't have support when she got in trouble. She didn't have it. And a lot of people end up in this position, but don't end up killing their kids and don't end up having babies don't end up all kinds of stuff. Roh, it's but she did. It's awful, It's terrible, awful. But she was ten years ago what we were ten in our when we were twenty three twenty four, hustling trying to figure it out, where are we gonna go? Have all these dreams, aspiring to do this and that, and then life hits you in the head and you make some adjustments. But Rope, she got hit upside the head before she got chance to really get going, to get her career going, to get in a stable place before you introduce a kid or in a bad relationship possibly, which makes everything unstable exactly.
00:14:12
Speaker 3: And then you add postpartum depression to that, and it is a lethal It turned out to be a lethal.
00:14:19
Speaker 2: Powerful combination.
00:14:20
Speaker 3: And they said she had family members and folks who knew her described her as a sweet, reserved, slightly withdrawn mother who was seemingly having more and more mental health problems. We don't take care of our folks in this country who are suffering from mental health problems. And this is exactly what this is the cautionary tale. This is the worst case scenario. But you add mental health issues postpartum depression, a custody battle, unpaid bills, appending eviction. She had already been in homeless shelters and it looked as though she was about to lose her apartment again. According to officials, at the time of these murders, she had owed five five thousand dollars in back rent, and for her, that was a hole she just couldn't dig herself out of. And to think that this, you know, you at late at night, things always seem worse.
00:15:10
Speaker 2: Right in the morning, I don't know.
00:15:11
Speaker 3: I feel like everyone kind of feels like maybe there's renewed hope, or at least you get a new start. It's so sad when you hear about these moments. These types of tragedies happen late at night. You feel like there's no way out. And this all took place just before one am, and she just didn't see a way out and did the unthinkable.
00:15:30
Speaker 1: It was was postpartum a part of the conversation with Susan Smith, and I know Andrea Yates.
00:15:36
Speaker 3: Right with Andrea Yates, Yes, Susan Smith. No, with Susan Smith, I actually know this case pretty well. She was in love with a man who didn't want children. She actually decided, and she, by the way, had a husband who an ex husband, excuse me, who loved those.
00:15:53
Speaker 2: Little boys, who loved those little boys.
00:15:56
Speaker 3: But I can't understand the selfishness of a woman who doesn't want her kids to go with their dad and instead would rather kill them and to be with another man. I mean, obviously there has to be some sort of mental illness that is not what normal people do. But no, I don't believe there was a suggestion of postpartum depression. And maybe at the time that wasn't in the conversation because this was thirty years ago, but Yates, when Yates was.
00:16:19
Speaker 1: Eats, I'm sorry I've thrown out there. I'm trying to think how long ago that was in Texas. That was a hell of us.
00:16:26
Speaker 3: Five children, five five children that happened in two thousand and one, June twenty two one, and she was talking about hearing voices. She definitely had some psychosis going on in that moment as well. And interestingly, her husband at the time has stood by her lovingly. I mean, they obviously have divorced, but he has actually never harbored any ill will towards her.
00:16:49
Speaker 2: I think he understood something's wrong.
00:16:52
Speaker 3: Fascinatingly like he was able to say, this was not her, this was her mental illness.
00:16:58
Speaker 1: God, And so here we go. Ro We initially started out right twenty years to life. It means she's got a chance to get out. How's its possible once you start talking it out, Roades, It's just it's awful, It's awful, And this is one of those again. I think you said something about it this morning. Give people a break, and you got to pay attention when people are hurting. Just take a moment to listen. When somebody gives an answer to your question, how are you doing?
00:17:28
Speaker 2: And one message, just one, I'm there for you.
00:17:31
Speaker 3: How are you doing? Checking in on someone can actually make someone feel like I can breathe.
00:17:37
Speaker 2: Someone cares about me. I have a safety net.
00:17:39
Speaker 3: Someone will help me if I fall, someone is there to check on me if I can't. Being a mom is so hard. Being a single mom is even harder. And if you have complicated relationships, financial troubles, and now you've got a mental illness or postpartum depression on top of it, it is a recipe for disaster. And I think that's why these as awful as they are, have to be reported, need to be talked about, because it's the only way we can prevent further tragedy.
00:18:07
Speaker 1: This is it's just an awful one, and it's one I think a lot of people wrote out. I don't remember making headlines everywhere at the time.
00:18:14
Speaker 3: We talked about the possibility that this was a black woman, and if you think about Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, they were white women, and maybe that was more shocking to the to the to the world, and that is a horrific thing to even think about. But why haven't we heard more about Aaron Murdy's story? Why hasn't her story been told more?
00:18:38
Speaker 1: You know what I'm thinking about Rosa Parks, And what I'm saying is there were there were other people, other women, other young women who were part of that protest before Rosa Parks, but they didn't have a good enough background. They had a kind of a shady background. So I think one of them was one of the women had been pregnant at a young age, and the determined was made like she's not a good enough when we can hold up because she'll get scrutinized in the background. That thought just came to mind and that this woman, you look at her, and it's easy to dismiss her as a monster. She had kids, she had kids out of wedlock, right, she had financial problems, she had this, she had all this. That was poverty involved in all these things, and it was we can look at her as something else that belongs in a category over there that oh yeah, of course she's a monster. That's that's not even a remarkable story because look at the background of that person. And when you compare that to a married, suburban housewife, sure, I possibly understand. And that's why robes we miss it when it comes to folks of color, oftentimes, the struggle the humanity in and can't relate to her as a human being because that's them, that's them, that's what they do.
00:20:03
Speaker 3: Well.
00:20:04
Speaker 1: She is a woman who was struggling, just like everybody else listening right now has struggled at some point with motherhood, with relationships, with money, and we just we just miss folks like this. Even in tragedy, it wasn't it didn't rise to the level for a lot of people.
00:20:20
Speaker 3: It's just all I can think of Fabe hearing you, I have chills all over because what you're saying is true, and I don't think enough people acknowledge that and face that fact because they don't want to admit to it or even acknowledge it. But this is why slogans like black lives matter matter and people don't get it, and they come back with all lives matter. No, there is a reason why there was a movement. There is a movement called black lives matter, because they haven't and they still don't.
00:20:50
Speaker 1: Oftentimes that's fine, they still use that phrase all lives matter like something. Want to know your point, And I would challenge anybody who is listening right now and thinking that it's always about somebody always has to make it about race. No, just don't for a moment if you have that reaction, I just pray. I'm asking you, really, really, really take a private moment. You don't have to go talk about it, tweet about it, anything, Just take a moment and consider how you view this story. Because you are the problem. We're all a part of this problem, en Robe. So much of it is that we don't admit how we're contributing to the problem.
00:21:29
Speaker 2: Exactly, agreed.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: I just look and I know this case has nothing to do with that movement, and yet hearing you, it brought it right back to that for me, and I hope it did for other people, and we can all assess how we react and how we view things, and it's a lot of it is just how we're conditioned, and we don't even recognize it, and it's it takes a moment to just do some self reflection to acknowledge it and to then learn from it. And hopefully that's what this case can maybe serve as for a lot of folks, for a lot of different reasons, put a tragedy all around that we wanted to put on your radar. We always appreciate you listening to us here on Amy and TJ Presents.
00:22:07
Speaker 2: You can also check out our feed.
00:22:10
Speaker 3: Similarly named Amy and TJ, where we cover just about everything in addition to crime. But we do appreciate you listening to us. I may be Roebuck alongside TJ.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Holmes. We will talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, they're folks. It is Friday, May twenty ninth, and a thirty four year old woman has just been sentenced for killing not one, not two, but three of her own young children. And she did it and one of the most iconic and famous places in all of New York. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ presents Robes a heinous crime that quite frankly, we only see a few of these types of stories in our lifetimes, and the ones we have seen have made international headlines.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, truly.
00:00:42
Speaker 3: The other women who have been convicted of this type of and yes you use the word heinous, heinous crime, have gone down in American history.
00:00:54
Speaker 2: We're talking the likes of.
00:00:56
Speaker 3: Susan Smith Andrea Yates, those two women both convicted of drowning their own children. And that is exactly what thirty four year old Aaron Murdy was convicted of as well, drowning all three of her children. And you mentioned at an iconic landmark here in New York along the shoreline of Coney Island.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: A lot of people know Coney Island, and you know Coney Island, and probably the first thing a lot that will come out of a lot of people's mouths. Is the boardwalk. It was the boardwalk at Coney Island. Well, she did this, and she's accused of no convicted now pled guilty to doing this along those waters robes essentially within sight of the boardwalk. Now, this was not during the time of day where a lot of people out find but robes. What we haven't mentioned yet is the age of these children.
00:01:49
Speaker 3: Yes, her children ages seven. His name was Zachary, her four year old her name was Liliana, and her three month old baby Oliver.
00:02:03
Speaker 1: I actually can't remember robes the ages on the kids. For the For Andrea Yates and she had.
00:02:08
Speaker 2: Five children, it was five.
00:02:10
Speaker 3: They were elementary school agent and they were in the bathtub. Yes, and Susan Smith's children were also elementary school aged. Her older one and then she had an infant as well. Strapped them into their car seats and drove her car and got out just in time into the John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina. It was one of my very first assignments as a young reporter there in South Carolina, and she famously tried to blame it on an unidentified black man.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had the whole country looking for brothers after that. But this is a case in some of the and the details are chilling. You hear about her drowning her kids in the ocean right off the beach of Coney Island. But Robes just the setup that evening and how this went about is that we'll get into and we'll explain. But the reason this story is back in the headlines now this happened in twenty twenty two. She pled guilty, but she was just sentenced here recently this month here in New York and Robes we talk about the tragedy, but there was a There was a tragedy happening long before these kids. These kids died. This is just an awful, awful story. But Gona mention. She was sentenced finally this month.
00:03:26
Speaker 3: Yes, she was sentenced, and this is interesting because she was sentenced and it was put in.
00:03:32
Speaker 2: Quotes over the objection of prosecutors.
00:03:35
Speaker 3: That is, because prosecutors wanted her sentence to life without the possibility of parole. You can understand why a woman this mentally unstable and capable of doing the unthinkable to her own children shouldn't ever be allowed to be out. According to prosecutors, the judge disagreed, so the judge sentenced her to twenty years to life in prison, which means she will be eligible for parole within her lifetime. She's just thirty four years old, and the Brooklyn prosecutors sought the maximum sentence. They did not get what they asked for from the judge.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: I didn't look to see if the judge explained the logic, not that I could see. Who knows and you know what even what law allows. I'm not sure what rules he might have been following and what and what options he had. But robes you hear about. I mean, we know people to kill one person and they get life in pre correct two certainly three.
00:04:38
Speaker 2: For sure and children could kids?
00:04:40
Speaker 1: Now why will does that person have a chance to get out? And maybe when we get into some of the details of her background, maybe the judge took some of that into account.
00:04:48
Speaker 3: Maybe he felt like there was some potential for redemption in this case because a lot of family members have pointed to the fact that she obviously had been mentally suffering, and they really did feel like it could have been The final straw was postpartum depression. She had a three month old infant, she was trying to keep her life together. She was trying to keep her family out of homeless shelter, she was trying to hold down jobs, and she felt overwhelmed by it even before the birth of this new baby. But now another mouth to feed, and the depression and the hormones that follow a lot of times a birth. Possibly we're all contributing factors to what happened on that day on September twelfth, twenty twenty two, just after midnight.
00:05:33
Speaker 1: There was something about the idea. So this happens not quite middle of the night, but midnightish, right September, walking along the water with her kids. Now they leave home, So imagine that picture of a young mother, thirty four year old mother with her seven year old, her three year old and a four year old and the three month old she's carrying the baby. You can see this happen, and they think they're going to one of their dad's house, I do believe is the destination she was walking. So this seems like probably a walk they'd had before and done before, and somewhere along the way robes she does this. She does this on the beach and Coney Island with those kids. The fear I don't even know if they had time to have fear. I can't imagine this scenario robes with those kids. But she stops along the way and drowns her three kids.
00:06:29
Speaker 3: Yes, and she's in a bathrobe with bare feet, and she does the unthinkable. They don't know which order, and she leaves their bodies along the shoreline and then makes a two mile walk towards the youngest infant's father's home and somehow along the way calls her family member. She will not answer any questions. She's clearly distraught about where the kids are, how the kids are. Her family members reported her eventually just saying the kids are gone, which then led the youngest child's father and family members to call police. And there was an hour's long frantic search for these babies and no one could find them until about four thirty in the morning.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: They found her. Do they not before or actively?
00:07:20
Speaker 2: They found her, and she did.
00:07:21
Speaker 1: She was a mess.
00:07:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, she didn't tell them what happened. She didn't tell them where her children were. She certainly didn't tell them what she had done. She just kept saying, I'm sorry.
00:07:32
Speaker 1: So they find the kids. Obviously robes she's she's arrested for this. She ends up pleading guilty, but Robes, there's a story that starts coming out about her, and look, there's no official there's nothing official, the prosecutors necessarily said, but Robes, the family tells a story about a woman who was in trouble for a long time, and people saw it, and they noticed it, and they knew it, and even the kids were complaining.
00:08:00
Speaker 3: Yes, even the child, the oldest child, Zachary's dad had actually let Child Protective Services here in New York know that his son was telling him he was hungry, that he had to pee in buckets sometimes, and he was in the middle of a bitter custody battle with his mother, and he said that Zachary told him five months before he died, that mom makes me starve. And so there's a lot of questions about why nothing was done within the Child Protective Services unit, why they didn't do anything to intervene.
00:08:34
Speaker 2: If you have a child, you have coaches.
00:08:36
Speaker 3: He played I'm trying football, yes, and his coaches were saying that he would be starving and they'd be feeding him and he'd be asking for more. So clearly there were plenty of adults in this child's life, who saw him being abused, if he was hungry, if he was complaining about that.
00:08:57
Speaker 1: Hope to some of that we yet sits it's a abusive to a child. But is that because the mom of the parent had intent to do harm or Robes. They sound like they were in an awful financial situation, as she had been for a long time. But you're still making the point. Robes, we talk about find out child predictive services and whatnot. Yes, babe, there was a lot of adults around.
00:09:24
Speaker 2: There were, and that is these kids that.
00:09:26
Speaker 1: Were family and friends. Forget the official government anything. There were people around. I'm not placing blame. It's just another we have this awful tragedy and what happens oftentimes. Wow, this tragedy started years ago.
00:09:37
Speaker 3: And no one helped her, and she was in charge of three beautiful, innocent souls and she was in trouble. And that's when you tell these stories so that people can intervene. People can see signs and people can say, let me help, let me step in. The best thing that could have happened. Now we can look back in hindsight and say, if someone had just taken those kids away from her and given her a second to breathe, to get her life back on trap, maybe things could have taken a much different path.
00:10:09
Speaker 1: We see you use the word hindsight, Rose, but there's no way anybody could ever could you ever imagine now this? But you still knew these kids were in trouble. These kids were in trouble, and it's documented that these kids were in drawing and that this woman was in trouble. So maybe as we sit here, Robe, we're sinking in our seats a little more talking about the judge and didn't give her a life and that or I with three deaths of three babies. Well, Rose, maybe he was doing what we're doing now we're sitting here going she was a victim of something right, not at somebody's hands necessarily, but she was hurting. She was somebody that needed help. Should that play into Robes? I just we talk about it anytime there's a mother involved with the Corey Richards thing, and about it. She didn't kill her kids kill their dad. But I'm saying, anytime this stuff comes up, what was the other guy who stabbed his niece nephew? Canaro? Oh yeah, Paul Canara, I'm I look at that and go that person has some kind of a chemical imbounce you are not cap you cannot do what this woman did, and just dismiss it as she's a monster. Something is seriously wrong with her.
00:11:16
Speaker 3: Yes, and to your point, when we come back, we're gonna tell you who Aaron Murdy was before this heinous crime, and maybe you and all of us can have a better understanding of why this judge showed her leniency. Welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ Presents. We are looking at a case that just broke the hearts of New Yorkers here, but certainly anyone who heard the story of thirty four year old Aaron Murdy. A judge this month sentenced her to twenty years to life for drowning her three young children seven, four and three months old in twenty twenty two. And The New York Times did an incredible story into who Aaron Murdy was around the time of these killings. Because it's so unthinkable. You have to say, is she a monster? Who is this woman who is capable of this? And to read where she was a decade ago versus where she is now, childless in a prison cell. And I'm sure feeling I can't even imagine the guilt and the horror she must be feeling. But a decade ago, this was a young woman who was aspiring for a health care career. She was a student at a community college. She was interested in astronomy and urban farming. She took classes at a vocational healthcare school in Manhattan. She had a physical therapy internship. She was building her life. She was working as a retail clerk in some stores, paying the bills and trying to educate herself for a better life.
00:13:02
Speaker 2: But what happened in her personal life.
00:13:04
Speaker 3: She had a they described it a series of ill fated relationships, and she ended up with three children. She wasn't able to complete her studies, and she couldn't pay her bills.
00:13:14
Speaker 1: Ropes. How many of us? How many people? I say, how many of us? But yeah, people end up and you don't have support or help or somewhere you can go, crash at mama's house, or you don't have rope. She didn't have support when she got in trouble. She didn't have it. And a lot of people end up in this position, but don't end up killing their kids and don't end up having babies don't end up all kinds of stuff. Roh, it's but she did. It's awful, It's terrible, awful. But she was ten years ago what we were ten in our when we were twenty three twenty four, hustling trying to figure it out, where are we gonna go? Have all these dreams, aspiring to do this and that, and then life hits you in the head and you make some adjustments. But Rope, she got hit upside the head before she got chance to really get going, to get her career going, to get in a stable place before you introduce a kid or in a bad relationship possibly, which makes everything unstable exactly.
00:14:12
Speaker 3: And then you add postpartum depression to that, and it is a lethal It turned out to be a lethal.
00:14:19
Speaker 2: Powerful combination.
00:14:20
Speaker 3: And they said she had family members and folks who knew her described her as a sweet, reserved, slightly withdrawn mother who was seemingly having more and more mental health problems. We don't take care of our folks in this country who are suffering from mental health problems. And this is exactly what this is the cautionary tale. This is the worst case scenario. But you add mental health issues postpartum depression, a custody battle, unpaid bills, appending eviction. She had already been in homeless shelters and it looked as though she was about to lose her apartment again. According to officials, at the time of these murders, she had owed five five thousand dollars in back rent, and for her, that was a hole she just couldn't dig herself out of. And to think that this, you know, you at late at night, things always seem worse.
00:15:10
Speaker 2: Right in the morning, I don't know.
00:15:11
Speaker 3: I feel like everyone kind of feels like maybe there's renewed hope, or at least you get a new start. It's so sad when you hear about these moments. These types of tragedies happen late at night. You feel like there's no way out. And this all took place just before one am, and she just didn't see a way out and did the unthinkable.
00:15:30
Speaker 1: It was was postpartum a part of the conversation with Susan Smith, and I know Andrea Yates.
00:15:36
Speaker 3: Right with Andrea Yates, Yes, Susan Smith. No, with Susan Smith, I actually know this case pretty well. She was in love with a man who didn't want children. She actually decided, and she, by the way, had a husband who an ex husband, excuse me, who loved those.
00:15:53
Speaker 2: Little boys, who loved those little boys.
00:15:56
Speaker 3: But I can't understand the selfishness of a woman who doesn't want her kids to go with their dad and instead would rather kill them and to be with another man. I mean, obviously there has to be some sort of mental illness that is not what normal people do. But no, I don't believe there was a suggestion of postpartum depression. And maybe at the time that wasn't in the conversation because this was thirty years ago, but Yates, when Yates was.
00:16:19
Speaker 1: Eats, I'm sorry I've thrown out there. I'm trying to think how long ago that was in Texas. That was a hell of us.
00:16:26
Speaker 3: Five children, five five children that happened in two thousand and one, June twenty two one, and she was talking about hearing voices. She definitely had some psychosis going on in that moment as well. And interestingly, her husband at the time has stood by her lovingly. I mean, they obviously have divorced, but he has actually never harbored any ill will towards her.
00:16:49
Speaker 2: I think he understood something's wrong.
00:16:52
Speaker 3: Fascinatingly like he was able to say, this was not her, this was her mental illness.
00:16:58
Speaker 1: God, And so here we go. Ro We initially started out right twenty years to life. It means she's got a chance to get out. How's its possible once you start talking it out, Roades, It's just it's awful, It's awful, And this is one of those again. I think you said something about it this morning. Give people a break, and you got to pay attention when people are hurting. Just take a moment to listen. When somebody gives an answer to your question, how are you doing?
00:17:28
Speaker 2: And one message, just one, I'm there for you.
00:17:31
Speaker 3: How are you doing? Checking in on someone can actually make someone feel like I can breathe.
00:17:37
Speaker 2: Someone cares about me. I have a safety net.
00:17:39
Speaker 3: Someone will help me if I fall, someone is there to check on me if I can't. Being a mom is so hard. Being a single mom is even harder. And if you have complicated relationships, financial troubles, and now you've got a mental illness or postpartum depression on top of it, it is a recipe for disaster. And I think that's why these as awful as they are, have to be reported, need to be talked about, because it's the only way we can prevent further tragedy.
00:18:07
Speaker 1: This is it's just an awful one, and it's one I think a lot of people wrote out. I don't remember making headlines everywhere at the time.
00:18:14
Speaker 3: We talked about the possibility that this was a black woman, and if you think about Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, they were white women, and maybe that was more shocking to the to the to the world, and that is a horrific thing to even think about. But why haven't we heard more about Aaron Murdy's story? Why hasn't her story been told more?
00:18:38
Speaker 1: You know what I'm thinking about Rosa Parks, And what I'm saying is there were there were other people, other women, other young women who were part of that protest before Rosa Parks, but they didn't have a good enough background. They had a kind of a shady background. So I think one of them was one of the women had been pregnant at a young age, and the determined was made like she's not a good enough when we can hold up because she'll get scrutinized in the background. That thought just came to mind and that this woman, you look at her, and it's easy to dismiss her as a monster. She had kids, she had kids out of wedlock, right, she had financial problems, she had this, she had all this. That was poverty involved in all these things, and it was we can look at her as something else that belongs in a category over there that oh yeah, of course she's a monster. That's that's not even a remarkable story because look at the background of that person. And when you compare that to a married, suburban housewife, sure, I possibly understand. And that's why robes we miss it when it comes to folks of color, oftentimes, the struggle the humanity in and can't relate to her as a human being because that's them, that's them, that's what they do.
00:20:03
Speaker 3: Well.
00:20:04
Speaker 1: She is a woman who was struggling, just like everybody else listening right now has struggled at some point with motherhood, with relationships, with money, and we just we just miss folks like this. Even in tragedy, it wasn't it didn't rise to the level for a lot of people.
00:20:20
Speaker 3: It's just all I can think of Fabe hearing you, I have chills all over because what you're saying is true, and I don't think enough people acknowledge that and face that fact because they don't want to admit to it or even acknowledge it. But this is why slogans like black lives matter matter and people don't get it, and they come back with all lives matter. No, there is a reason why there was a movement. There is a movement called black lives matter, because they haven't and they still don't.
00:20:50
Speaker 1: Oftentimes that's fine, they still use that phrase all lives matter like something. Want to know your point, And I would challenge anybody who is listening right now and thinking that it's always about somebody always has to make it about race. No, just don't for a moment if you have that reaction, I just pray. I'm asking you, really, really, really take a private moment. You don't have to go talk about it, tweet about it, anything, Just take a moment and consider how you view this story. Because you are the problem. We're all a part of this problem, en Robe. So much of it is that we don't admit how we're contributing to the problem.
00:21:29
Speaker 2: Exactly, agreed.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: I just look and I know this case has nothing to do with that movement, and yet hearing you, it brought it right back to that for me, and I hope it did for other people, and we can all assess how we react and how we view things, and it's a lot of it is just how we're conditioned, and we don't even recognize it, and it's it takes a moment to just do some self reflection to acknowledge it and to then learn from it. And hopefully that's what this case can maybe serve as for a lot of folks, for a lot of different reasons, put a tragedy all around that we wanted to put on your radar. We always appreciate you listening to us here on Amy and TJ Presents.
00:22:07
Speaker 2: You can also check out our feed.
00:22:10
Speaker 3: Similarly named Amy and TJ, where we cover just about everything in addition to crime. But we do appreciate you listening to us. I may be Roebuck alongside TJ.
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Holmes. We will talk to you soon.