A South Florida man convicted of murdering a five-year-old girl after leaving her to be eaten alive by alligators in the Florida Everglades nearly three decades ago is once again facing a possible death sentence.
In 2007, Harrel Braddy, now 76, was found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and other charges in the November 1998 killing of Quantisha Maycock.
“She was five years old. She was smart. She was loving. She was sweet like candy,” State Attorney Abbe Rifkin told jurors Tuesday as Braddy’s resentencing trial began.
On Tuesday, Quantisha’s mother, Shandelle Maycock, came face to face with Braddy in court. She testified that Braddy and his wife befriended her through a church group in the late 1990s.
“I am here if you need me. I am here. Just like that, I am here,” Shandelle recalled Braddy telling her when their acquaintanceship began.
Shandelle testified that Braddy offered her rides to work and gave her money.
But one night, she told jurors, she asked him to leave her apartment because she had company coming over. She said Braddy became enraged.
“You what?!” Shandelle recalled Braddy yelling.
Prosecutors say Braddy then threw her to the ground, got on top of her, straddled her with his hands, and choked her.
“You used me,” Shandelle testified Braddy said during the attack.
According to prosecutors, Braddy then forced the mother and child into a car and drove them into the Everglades.
Shandelle was dumped first where she said she passed out after being severely beaten but later regained consciousness and was able to find her way to safety.
Quantisha did not survive.
The child’s mutilated body was later found near a canal. Prosecutors say she suffered severe injuries consistent with an alligator attack.
“Deep into her skull, teeth marks, where an alligator tried to bite her head,” Rifkin said while describing the injuries to jurors.
Following his 2007 trial, Braddy was sentenced to death, but that sentence was reversed in 2017, after the U.S. Supreme Court found Florida’s death-penalty law unconstitutional. Consequently, the Florida Supreme court ordered for several defendant’s death sentences to be vacated and granted them new penalty phase trials.
In this resentencing phase Braddy could once again face the death penalty under Florida’s 2023 law that allows a death sentence to be recommended with an 8-4 jury vote. Judges have the ultimate say.
Braddy is a convicted felon and had been sentenced to 30 years behind bars but was released within about 18 months prior to killing Quantisha in 1998.
