Resentencing Trial Begins for Felon Who Kidnapped Girl, 5, and Left Her to Be Eaten Alive by Alligators in Fla. Everglades By Chris Spargo 92

A Florida man convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 5-year-old girl by leaving her in the Everglades to be eaten alive by alligators is back on trial.

Quatisha “Candy” Maycock was sleeping in her bed on Nov. 6, 1998, when Harrel Braddy came in and grabbed her — then forced her into his car while still in her pajamas.

Prior to abducting the girl from her bed, Braddy, now 76, had been severely beating Candy’s mother Shandelle Maycock, 22, and choked her to the point of unconsciousness multiple times, according to a brief filed in Florida Supreme Court and obtained by PEOPLE.

Shandelle was forced into the car as well, and once Braddy began to drive away from her apartment, she pulled Candy into the backseat and informed her daughter that they would be jumping out of the moving vehicle, the brief states.

Braddy had been released from prison one year prior to this incident after serving just 12 years of a 30-year sentence on charges including attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping and burglary, according to records from the Florida Department of Corrections.

Braddy — who Shandelle would later tell detectives had been helping the single mom after she met him and his wife through a church group — instructed her not to try and exit the vehicle, per the brief. Braddy allegedly increased his speed when she opened the car door, throwing both her and Candy from the vehicle.

As the two lay injured on the road, Braddy stopped the car and came back to collect the pair, informing  Shandelle that he would drive them back home, the brief states.

He then put Candy inside the car but threw her mother in the trunk, where she remained for the next 45 minutes as Braddy drove. When the car stopped and the trunk was opened, Shandelle said that she found herself on an isolated dirt road.

Braddy then pulled her from the trunk and beat her, saying that he should kill her, before choking her to the point of unconsciousness, according to the brief.

When she awoke the next morning, she flagged down a car and immediately reported Braddy to police, but there was no sign of her daughter.

On Nov. 9, a man fishing in the section of the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alley” came across the body of a young girl.

Per the brief, the girl was missing an arm and covered in bite marks from alligators and fish.

That girl was eventually identified as Candy, who had been thrown onto the rocks in a nearby canal and left to be eaten alive by alligators.

Braddy was sentenced to death by a jury in Miami-Dade County following a criminal trial in 2007,  but that sentence was reversed following a 2017 Supreme Court ruling that determined Florida’s death-penalty law to be unconstitutional.

That law has since been amended, and Braddy is one of several death row inmates who were granted new penalty phase trials as a result of this ruling.

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He returned to court for his resentencing this week, and could find himself back on death row depending on the outcome of the trial.

That will require at least eight members of the 12 person jury to recommend Braddy be sentenced to death under the recently amended death penalty law. The decision will ultimately be left for the judge overseeing the proceedings who will make the final ruling in the case at the end of the trial.

That trial got underway on Tuesday, Jan. 20, with prosecutors detailing the horrific injuries suffered by the young victim, the Miami Herald reported.

“Deep into her skull, teeth marks, where an alligator tried to bite her head,” State Attorney Abbe Rifkin told jurors in his opening statement.

He later said of the victim : “She was 5 years old. She was smart. She was loving. She was sweet like candy.”

Shandelle was also in court and came face-to-face with the man who killed her daughter.

Prosecutors said that Braddy did not expect Shandelle to survive, and left her daughter to die in the Everglades wearing nothing but her Polly Pocket pajamas because he was afraid she would identify him.

“Quatisha is dead because Harrel Braddy killed her,” Rifkin said. “Shandelle Maycock is alive by the grace of God.”