The Alabama grandmother convicted for making her young granddaughter to run as punishment resulting to her death died on Friday. The said grandmother was serving life without parole for the killing.
According to USA Today, Joyce Hardin Garrard, 50 years old died on Friday evening in Montgomery hospital. She was reportedly collapsed in jail, five days later she died in the said hospital. Garrard was convicted of capital murder in her 9-year old granddaughter's death, Savannah Hardin back in the year 2012.
The grandmother punished her granddaughter after she lied about eating candy. Garrard forced her to run for several hours caused her to collapsed and died days later in Birmingham hospital, WQAD reported.
Garrard had a heart attack on Sunday minutes after she was visited by her relatives at the state prison for women. She was taken by helicopter ambulance from the jail to a Montgomery hospital where she was placed on life support, however, she eventually died.
Garrard said in court that she was running along with her granddaughter outside their home in northeastern Alabama. "If she was running, I was running," she said. She also added that she never meant to harm the child, Big Story reported. The grandmother also claimed she was teaching her granddaughter to run fast for school races.
Dani Bone, her defense attorney said "This is another loss for a family that already has lost so much." Garrard was convicted last March, with prosecutors calling the grandmother, "drill sergeant from hell."
They had even described the child's death suffering in agony in the hands of the woman she loved and trusted. Carol Griffith, the prosecutor said in the closing argument, the child was tortured. Jessica Mae Hardin, Savannah's stepmother, is also scheduled to appear in court trial in June related to the murder charge as she allegedly failed to stop the punishment. Hardin pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.
