In a chilling case that has haunted Florida for decades, a man who abducted a young girl and left her to die in the jaws of alligators is now facing the ultimate legal consequence: the death penalty. Harrel Braddy, now 76, orchestrated this nightmarish crime back in November 1998, following a chance encounter with his victims at a church.

Braddy’s victims were Shandelle Maycock and her five-year-old daughter, Quatisha. After luring them in, he drove Shandelle to an isolated sugar field where he brutally strangled her until she lost consciousness, leaving her for dead. Miraculously, Shandelle regained consciousness, managing to escape and flag down a passing driver for help.

However, in a horrifying twist, Braddy abandoned little Quatisha near a notoriously dangerous stretch of the Everglades, aptly dubbed Alligator Alley. His fear that the child might reveal his identity prompted this cruel decision.

Tragically, Quatisha’s body was found two days later in a canal, evidence suggesting she had fallen victim to an alligator attack. The heinous nature of the crime has not faded with time, and justice has finally caught up with Braddy, as the courts move towards sentencing him to death.

The child was discovered dead two days later in a canal, allegedly after being attacked by alligators.

She was alive when alligators bit her on the head and stomach, a medical examiner said. 

Braddy had already been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 2007 after a jury trial.

However, he is now back in court after changes to Florida’s death penalty laws reopened his sentencing – raising the possibility that he could still avoid execution.

Quatisha Maycock, five, died in November 1998 after being kidnapped by Harrel Braddy in Florida

Braddy, 76, is back in court and again faces the death penalty for the five-year-old girl’s death. Jury selection began Monday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court

This week, jury selection began in his resentencing trial.

The killer could once again face the death penalty under Florida’s 2023 law that allows a death sentence to be imposed with an 8-4 jury vote.

Prosecutors said that he targeted Shandelle after she had repeatedly rejected his romantic advances.

According to investigators, Braddy attacked Quatisha. Shandelle survived the attack, but Quatisha did not.

Braddy told detectives that he had left the child near a section of Interstate 75 in Broward County, best known as Alligator Alley.

He claimed to have left Quatisha alive on the side of the road at a bridge crossing over a canal.

Braddy explained that he had done this because he was worried that Quatisha would tell people what he had done to her mother. 

In 2007, Braddy was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death following a jury trial

He also admitted that he ‘knew’ Quatisha ‘would probably die’, according to court filings.

Quatisha’s body was discovered two days later in a canal by two fishermen.

An autopsy determined that her left arm, which was missing when her body was found, had been bitten off by an alligator postmortem.

The court also heard that Quatisha had suffered alligator bites to her chest and head while still alive, although she was likely unconscious.

The young girl’s body had injuries to her lips, consistent with fish feeding on her corpse, as well as other gator bites.

Quatisha also sustained ‘brush burns’ while she was alive, which would be consistent with falling out of a car and sliding on the road.

It was concluded that she died due to blunt force trauma to the left side of her head.

An autopsy said that Quatisha’s left arm, missing when her body was discovered, had been severed by an alligator after her death

Braddy left the young girl alive near a a section of the Everglades known as Alligator Alley, afraid that she would be able to identify him

In his sentencing order, then-Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Leonard E. Glick described the killing as adults having betrayed their most basic responsibilities.

‘Adults are supposed to protect children from monsters,’ Glick said. ‘They are not supposed to be the monsters themselves.’

Braddy is now back in court after changes to Florida’s death penalty laws reopened his sentencing.

Jury selection began Monday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, according to the Miami Herald.

In 2016, the state’s death-penalty process was disrupted after the US Supreme Court ruled that Florida’s sentencing system violated the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury.

That was because it allowed judges, rather than juries, to decide whether a defendant should be sentenced to death.

In response, state lawmakers enacted a rewritten statute allowing death sentences to go through as long as it was recommended by 10 out of 12 jurors. 

However, the Florida Supreme Court struck down the revision, saying that juries must be unanimous before a death sentence can actually be imposed.

In turn, that ruling opened the door for Braddy to return to court for a resentencing.