Prosecutors may go after stepmom in brutal running death of little girl in Alabama

Prosecutors may go after stepmom in brutal running death of little girl in Alabama

The girl's grandmother, Joyce Hardin Garrard, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being spared the death penalty. She is accused of making her granddaughter run for lying until she died of seizures.

Now that prosecutors have successfully sent the grandmother of a girl who made her run to death as a punishment for lying to life in prison, they are now turning their sites toward the stepmother who allegedly sat by and let it happen.

Joyce Hardin Garrard of Alabama was spared the death penalty by jurors, who sentenced her to life imprisonment without parole on Thursday — Garrard’s 50th birthday — for the February 2012 death of 9-year-old Savannah Hardin, according to an Associated Press report. Although prosecutors had been pushing for the death penalty, they accepted the jury’s recommendation, making it less likely that the judge will overturn the jury’s decision at the May 11 final sentencing hearing.

Now, they are turning their attention on Savannah’s stepmother, Jessica Mae Hardin, who is currently free on bond. Prosecutors say that Garrard made the girl run as punishment for lying about eating candy until she collapsed from a fatal seizure. Hardin is accused of simply observing the situation rather than intervening.

Defense lawyers complained of the verdict, arguing that Garrard didn’t get a fair trial. Her relatives wept after the verdict was read, but Garrard herself was stone-faced, according to the AP report.

The defense wanted to include medical evidence that the judge would not allow, and the defense also believes that four jurors were on Facebook during the trial despite instructions not do so.

Prosecutors say Garrard made the girl run as a punishment for lying, and she wouldn’t let her stop running even after she was vomiting and begging for it to end. They also introduced evidence that showed Garrard saying on a school bus surveillance video she would run the girl to teach her a lesson.

Garrard testified that she didn’t try to harm the girl, and that Savannah had even enlisted Garrard’s help in running faster for school races, and that they had both run a lot before her collapse.

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