St. Helena mother convicted of drowning 6-year-old daughter in bathtub
A St. Helena Island mother of three was sentenced to prison Thursday for drowning her youngest daughter in a bathtub before attempting to drown another daughter in 2023.
Jamie Michele Bradley-Brun, 40, received a prison sentence of 50 years for murder and 30 years for attempted murder after pleading guilty to both counts on Thursday. The two sentences will run concurrently.
Prosecutors said Bradley-Brun woke up her youngest daughter Mackay around 1 a.m. on May 19, 2023, telling her to undress herself and get on her knees inside the bathtub. The 6-year-old fought back as Bradley-Brun “held her down by the hair under the water” until she drowned, according to the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.
After putting the girl’s body in a “funeral dress” and placing her on a bed, Bradley-Brun attempted to repeat the process with her 8-year-old daughter.
But Bradley-Brun’s 16-year-old daughter heard the girl’s screams and rushed into action, pulling her sister away from their mother and calling 911 as both girls retreated to a relative’s home across the street.
Confessed to purposefully drowning her child
Officials have asserted since the time of Bradley-Brun’s arrest that her actions could not be attributed to mental health issues.
In a preliminary hearing a month after the killing, Beaufort County Investigator Todd Duncan said Bradley-Brun “coherently” answered police’s questions following the event and confessed to “purposefully” drowning the 6-year-old girl during a one-on-one interview at the hospital.
Sheriff’s office investigators obtained warrants for Bradley-Brun’s mental health records at two local hospitals, Duncan said, suggesting the murder may be approached in court as an act of insanity.
“Obviously, it was a traumatic situation, but she was aware of what she did,” he said at the time.
Bradley-Brun waived her right to a bond hearing and has been incarcerated at the Beaufort County jail since her arrest the morning of the incident.
“This wasn’t an accident or mental health crisis,” Deputy Solicitor Mary Jones of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, who prosecuted the case, said in a press release. “This defendant planned it. She is competent and she knew what she was doing. She placed blame on others and on her alcoholism, neither of which is a legitimate defense in South Carolina.”
Circuit Court Judge Marvin Dukes handed down the sentence Thursday at the Beaufort County Courthouse. Bradley-Brun would receive credit for 983 days already spent in jail, reducing her prison term to about 47 years.
