Killer who left girl to be mauled by alligators gets life, not death
The man who dumped a 5-year-old girl in the Everglades — leaving her to be eaten by alligators — had his life spared by a jury Friday afternoon in a Miami-Dade courtroom.
Harrel Braddy, 76, sat quietly when the verdict was read, briefly putting down his head before looking up at the ceiling. His eyes appeared to water. Braddy hugged his attorneys as the jury walked out of the courtroom.
The girl’s mother, who testified about the horrific details of Braddy’s attack, was not in the courtroom.
The jury deliberated for more than three hours. Jurors were tasked with deciding whether Braddy would spend the rest of his life in prison or be executed for the murder of Quatisha Maycock, 5.
Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez formally sentenced Braddy after the verdict was read.
“The jurors in the resentencing of Harrel Braddy worked hard to find a proper sense of justice for the 1998 murder of 5-year-old Quatisha Maycock,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. “No one can adequately describe the pain that Quatisha’s mother, Shandelle Maycock, had to go through reliving the details of her daughter’s murder.”
READ MORE: He left a little girl to die by gators in the Everglades. Jury to decide his fate
Braddy kidnapped Quatisha and her mother Shandelle Maycock — an acquaintance Braddy met in a church group — from their home on the night of Nov. 7, 1998. Braddy beat Maycock, choked her, put her in the trunk of his car and dumped her on a deserted stretch of U.S. 27 near the Broward-Palm Beach county line, prosecutor Abbe Rifkin said. Maycock survived — although Braddy didn’t count on her living through the repeated attacks.
READ MORE: ‘My whole reason for living’: Mother of girl mauled by gators recounts her sorrow
Braddy’s motive, Rifkin said, was that he was spurned by Maycock, who had repeatedly rejected his advances. Fearing Quatisha could identify him, Braddy dumped the child — alive — on the side of Alligator Alley. Quatisha’s ravaged body was found in a canal days later by fishermen.
Braddy was on Florida’s Death Row from 2007 to 2017, until he was granted a new sentencing trial due to constitutional issues surrounding the state’s death penalty.
During closing arguments on Thursday, Rifkin urged jurors to send Braddy to the execution chamber because the killer, she said, didn’t demonstrate any decency when he left Quatisha, alone, to die that night in the dark swamp.
READ MORE: Mother of girl left to be killed by alligators testifies about horrors they saw
Rifkin also pointed to Maycock’s gut-wrenching testimony, during which she recounted her fear during Braddy’s rampage. Maycock, 49, broke down on the stand as she detailed the gruesome events leading up to — and following — Quatisha’s murder.
Quatisha, Rifkin said, suffered in her final moments. She was conscious and aware of what was happening when she ended up in the alligator-infested canal.
READ MORE: Girl left for dead in Everglades was alive when gators attacked: medical examiner
The girl, who was missing her left arm and had bite marks on her head and stomach, was still dressed in her Polly Pocket pajamas when she was found in the water.
“This is the fate he... chose for a child whose only crime was having witnessed what he had done,” Rifkin said. “Torture, fear, dread and a lifetime of pain for the loved ones she left behind.”
Defense attorney Khurrum Wahid on Thursday pleaded with jurors to choose life. He told jurors to look at the “full picture” of Braddy’s life — beyond Quatisha’s murder and a crime spree he embarked on in 1984.
Braddy’s criminal history included convictions for robbery, kidnapping and attempting to kill a corrections officer by choking him. In September 1984, Braddy escaped from custody three times, overpowering a Miami-Dade corrections officer and four Broward sheriff’s deputies, according to the Miami Herald archives.
The convicted killer, the defense said, was known by family, neighbors and fellow churchgoers as a generous family man and has been a “model prisoner” in his decades of incarceration. The attorneys also pointed to Braddy’s health issues, including throat cancer and brain and nerve damage.
Braddy’s execution, the defense said, would devastate his family and loved ones. Braddy has been married to Cyteria Braddy, with whom he had five children, since the 1970s. The couple remains married, despite Braddy’s decades of incarceration.
“A life that still punishes Harrel Braddy for taking away the promise that was once Quatisha Maycock,” Wahid said. “A life behind bars, a life that will be very tough on a ...man with a failing body.”
This story was originally published January 30, 2026 at 3:15 PM.
