Police: 3 Children Found Dead on NYC’s Coney Island Beach, Mother Questioned

Police work along a stretch of beach at Coney Island which is now a crime scene after a mo
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Ethan Letkeman

Three young children were found dead on Coney Island Beach Monday morning, and police have brought the mother in for questioning.

The children are a three-month-old girl, a four-year-old girl, and a seven-year-old boy. All three are believed to have died in an apparent drowning.

The mother, 30, has been brought to the police station for questioning but is not in custody.

At a press conference regarding the tragic deaths, NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey told reporters that at approximately 1:40 a.m., officers responded to an apartment on Neptune Avenue after receiving a 911 call from a concerned family member saying someone else in the family may have harmed the three young children:

The person who placed the call was in a different location.

When officers arrived, they were met by a man who claimed to be the father of one of the children. He told officers he also believed the children were in danger and added that they were on the boardwalk at Coney Island in Brooklyn.

Police started searching for the woman and her children along the boardwalk, the beach, streets nearby, and the hospital. They also searched the house they were initially called to on Neptune Avenue.

After about 90 minutes of searching, police received another 911 call directing them to Bright 6th Street and Riegelmann Boardwalk. Upon arrival, they found a soaking wet 30-year-old woman, who is believed to be the mother of the three children.

She was accompanied by other family members, but the three children were not with her.

Police are unsure if she was wet from either the rain or the ocean.

As the search intensified involving aviation and harbor patrols, at approximately 4:42 a.m., officers found the three children along the shoreline on West 35th street, about two miles away from where they found the mother.

Officers attempted life-saving measures on the children, and they were rushed to Coney Island Hospital but later pronounced dead.

Corey told reporters there is no indication of prior abuse in the household.

The investigation is ongoing, and no charges have been announced yet.

You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.

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