JOYCE Hardin Garrard, the diminutive grandmother whom prosecutors depicted as the "drill sergeant from hell" gripped the hand of her defence lawyer as Etowah County circuit judge Billy Ogletree on Monday said he would uphold a jury's recommendation of life without parole, rather than death by lethal injection.
Her husband, Johnny Garrard, cradled another of the couple's grandchildren as the sentence was read. Prosecutors said Garrard forced nine-year-old Savannah Hardin to run for hours after school after Garrard became enraged over the child's lie. A jury convicted Garrard of capital murder in March and recommended the life sentence over death by a 7-5 vote. Garrard denied that she meant to harm the child. She told investigators the girl wanted to run and get faster after finishing second in a race at school, according to police testimony. Prosecutors depicted Garrard as a woman who became so enraged that she made the child run until she dropped. Testimony at trial showed that Savannah Hardin collapsed and vomited in 2012 outside her rural home following an afternoon of running and carrying sticks. She died several days later in a hospital after doctors removed her from life support. Surveillance video from a school bus shown to a jury showed Garrard talking with the bus driver, Raenna Holmes, about Savannah taking sweets without paying from another student who was selling it. Garrard told Holmes: "She's going to run until I tell her to stop." Investigators said an autopsy revealed the girl was severely dehydrated and compared her condition to that of an athlete who ran a marathon without drinking any water. Prosecutors during the trial said the nine-year-old girl suffered a painful death at the hands of a woman who was supposed to protect her, her grandmother. The child's stepmother, Jessica Mae Hardin, is charged with murder and awaiting a separate trial.
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