Three dead children were found on the beach near the famous Coney Island boardwalk in Brooklyn early Monday morning, and the police believe that their mother may have drowned.

The bodies of a 7-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl, and a 3-month-old boy were found after a search that lasted nearly three hours beginning at 1:40 a.m. when a relative called the police, concerned about the woman’s intention to harm her children.

The mother, identified by family members as 30-year-old Irene Merdi, was found 90 minutes later, barefoot and wet, two miles (3 kilometers) down the boardwalk from the Coney Island section where she lived. Kenneth Corey, chief of the New York Police Department, said: "So far, she has not said anything."

The search for the children intensified after the mother was found alone, with the police sending a helicopter and marine units. The children were found at the water's edge shortly after 4:30 a.m. on a quiet part of the beach about 13 blocks from the playground where the Brooklyn Cyclones Little League baseball team plays. Corey added that efforts to resuscitate the children at a nearby hospital failed.

The relatives identified the children as Zachary, 7 years old, Liliana, 4 years old, and Oliver, 3 months old, with Merdi’s mother, 56-year-old Jacqueline Scott, telling the Daily News that her daughter was a loving mother but had been going through a tough time recently. Scott told the paper, "She may have been suffering from postpartum depression."

Scott added, "I contacted her yesterday and she said she was doing laundry, and I said I wanted to talk to the children. I tried calling her twice afterward and got no answer."

The children's bodies were found three buildings away from Merdi’s residential building, where the police first went when the search began. Corey said the officers searched the beach and wooden boardwalk, patrolled the neighborhood streets, and checked the local hospital looking for the children before finding the mother on the boardwalk. As they continued searching the area, the police found a shoe in the water and bagged it as evidence.

No decision has been made regarding any criminal charges that Merdi may face.