Florida Murderer Who Left Five-Year-Old Girl to Be Eaten by Alligators Faces Death Penalty Again

The Florida man who abandoned a five-year-old girl to be eaten alive by alligators in November of 1998 may again face a death sentence.

Seventy-six-year-old Harrel Braddy was sentenced in 2007 to death after being found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and other charges, NBC Miami reported Wednesday.

The young victim in the case was identified as Quantisha Maycock, and her mother, Shandelle Maycock, was also a victim Braddy had befriended before the killing.

Prior to the child’s death, Braddy became enraged after Maycock asked him to leave when he showed up at their home. He drove the woman to a sugarcane field where he choked her until she went unconscious, then drove the child to an area known as Alligator Alley.

According to the Visit Everglades City website, Alligator Alley is between Naples and Fort Lauderdale and is known to be full of the reptiles.

During the initial trial, Maycock testified she woke up at one point after being choked and put inside the man’s car. She then grabbed her child and jumped out as it was moving, according to a 2007 NBC News report.

“Braddy stopped, choked the woman again and put her in the trunk, she testified. Maycock never saw her daughter again,” the outlet said.

The article also noted that before he targeted the mother and her child, he had been released from prison for good behavior after serving 13 years of a 30-year sentence for attempted murder.

Per the NBC Miami report, Braddy left the mother and took her child to the alligator-infested area, dropping her in the water where alligators bit her. Officials said they found her body two days later. She was missing an arm, and her skull had been crushed.

Braddy’s initial death sentence in the case was reversed in 2017. However, jury selection began this week for his resentencing trial. Under the state’s 2023 law, he may now face the death penalty which allows that sentence with an eight to four jury vote.

The NBC Miami article said, “Braddy had also been sentenced to three consecutive life terms for kidnapping and burglary with an assault charges, and also received 30 years in prison for the attempted murder of Shandelle Maycock, 15 years for child neglect causing great bodily harm and five years for attempted escape.”

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Florida performed 19 executions in 2025.

One of those was 60-year-old Edward Zakrzewski, who brutally murdered his family in 1994 after his wife sought a divorce, per Breitbart News.

“He attacked his wife with a crowbar, strangled her with a rope, then killed his children, whose ages were seven and five, with a machete. He then hit his wife with the machete when he thought she had survived his initial attack,” the outlet said.

In regard to the death penalty, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has said he wants to bring closure to families of victims.

He stated, “There are some crimes that are just so horrific, the only appropriate punishment is the death penalty.”

Authorities are now seeking the death penalty for a man accused of stabbing a woman to death outside a Dollar General store in Fruitland, Florida, the outlet reported December 27.