MIAMI — A man convicted of murder for leaving a 5-year-old girl to be eaten alive by alligators in the Everglades was sentenced to death Monday.
A defense attorney said Harrel Franklin Braddy, 58, who already served time in prison for attempted murder, had befriended Shandelle Maycock and her daughter, Quatisha, through his involvement in church outreach programs.
Maycock testified that Braddy showed up at her house in 1998 and grew enraged when she asked him to leave.
Prosecutors said Braddy drove the girl’s mother to a remote sugarcane field, choked her to unconsciousness and left her to die. Maycock woke up and managed to flag down help.
Braddy drove the girl to a section of Interstate 75 in the Everglades known as Alligator Alley and dropped Quatisha in the water beside the road, prosecutors said. 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.
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