Evidently Harrel Braddy wasn’t reformed by his 13 year sentence for attempted murder, judging from the fact that, after being released early for good behavior, he kidnapped a woman and her child and deliberately left the little girl to be eaten by alligators.
Braddy had befriended Shandelle Maycock and her daughter Quatisha. Maycock testified that Braddy went to her home in November 1998 and grew enraged when she asked him to leave.
He choked Maycock until she was unconscious and then forced her and Quatisha into his car, the woman testified. At one point, Maycock gained consciousness, grabbed the child and jumped out of the moving vehicle.
Braddy stopped, choked the woman again and put her in the trunk, she testified. Maycock never saw her daughter again. Prosecutors said Braddy then drove to a section of Interstate 75 in the Everglades known as Alligator Alley and dropped Quatisha in the water beside the road.
She was alive when alligators bit her on the head and stomach, a medical examiner said.
Authorities found the girl’s body two days later, her left arm missing and her skull crushed, prosecutors said. Maycock woke up bleeding and disoriented in a cane field miles from her Miami-Dade County home.
Braddy now faces the death penalty. Hopefully justice will be served in this case, as it surely will if only the misguided snobs in the anti-death penalty clique will leave well enough alone. But when has that ever happened?
Regardless of what may come next in this killer’s case, my congratulations go out to the judge and jury in this case for having the courage to make a difficult decision in this case. Thank you.
All politics, ideologies, and hurt feelings aside, shouldn’t the protection of the public be the second most important consideration in a murder case, coming just behind a correct determination of guilt?
As the Texas Rainmaker says, there’s no doubt the death penalty deters repeat offenders.
Naci Mocan, the author of the study Jason quotes, says this:
“There is no question about it. The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.”
…
A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides.
“The results are robust, they don’t really go away,” he said. “I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) — what am I going to do, hide them?”
Dr. Mocan, you are a good man. Too many others with your beliefs would not hesitate to do just that.