A South Florida courtroom closed the book on a decades-old crime this week, as a jury handed down a life sentence to a Florida man convicted of abducting a young child and leaving her in the wilderness of the Florida Everglades.
According to People, 76-year-old Harrel Braddy will spend the remainder of his life in prison for the 1998 kidnapping and killing of 5-year-old Quatisha "Candy" Maycock.
Prosecutors said the attack began after he targeted the girl’s mother, Shandelle Maycock, whom he knew through church.
According to court records and testimony, Braddy entered their home late at night and forced both mother and daughter into his vehicle. At one point during the drive, prosecutors said he locked Shandelle inside the trunk.
She later told jurors she was pulled out, beaten, and choked until she lost consciousness, then abandoned in an isolated area.
Her daughter never made it home.
Two days later, the child’s body was discovered off a stretch of highway known locally as “Alligator Alley,” deep in the Everglades, which is rife with alligators and other natural predators.
Medical evidence presented at trial described bite injuries and skull punctures that a former examiner testified were “consistent with an alligator biting the top of her head.”
Braddy was originally convicted in 2007 and sentenced to death. That penalty was later thrown out after changes in Florida law required unanimous jury decisions for capital punishment. The case returned to court for a new sentencing hearing.
This time, jurors opted against execution and chose life imprisonment.
During the resentencing, Shandelle addressed the court and relived the night her daughter disappeared. Local outlets reported that Braddy stared at her while she spoke.
Defense attorneys portrayed him as a longtime church member and father who had experienced family losses, but the jury ultimately rejected arguments for leniency.