A South Carolina woman has been charged with killing one of her daughters and attempting to kill another after her younger sister’s screams woke her teenage sister and saved her from a drowning attempt, authorities said.
Jamie Bradley-Brun, 37, is charged with murder and attempted murder in the May 19 murder of 6-year-old Mackaya Bradley-Brun and the attempted murder of her 8-year-old sister, according to court records in Beaufort County, South Carolina. .
Jail records show Bradley-Brun is being held without bail.
Neither the 8-year-old girl nor her older sister, 16, have been identified. In a news release, the sheriff’s office said Mackaya likely drowned.
“She stood up for her family when no one else was available,” Beaufort County Sheriff PJ Tanner said of the teen credited with the rescue during a news conference. «Her courage of hers is amazing.»
Tanner declined to identify a possible motive, but said, «I know what happened and it’s pretty horrible.»
The 16-year-old called 911 at 1:25 a.m. Friday after waking up to her sister’s screams inside their home on St. Helena Island, about 50 miles north of Savannah, Tanner said.
The teen had been «dead asleep,» Tanner said. He went to the bathroom and saw his mother trying to choke the sister, Tanner said.
«She had the ability and the courage to use her own strength to get her 8-year-old son» out of the house, he said. «She had the composure to know that it was necessary to call 911 because she knew that her other sister was in the house.»
The teen fled with her younger sister to a relative’s nearby home, Tanner said.
Authorities later found 6-year-old Mackaya in a different part of the house and performed CPR on him, Tanner said. She was pronounced dead at a local hospital, she said.
After officers responded to the scene, Bradley-Brun allegedly tried to take a gun from one of them and authorities used a taser, he said.
Tanner said Bradley-Brun has no prior arrests and has been interviewed by authorities. It is not clear if he has an attorney speaking for him.