COLUMBIA, Md. — She headed out on foot to the grocery store in Columbia’s Owen Brown Village back in March of 1982, and it was the last time 28-year-old Laney McGadney’s four children would ever see her alive.
“This is my mother when she graduated high school,” Katrina McGadney told investigators recently while displaying a locket in her hand, “and this is the only picture I have of her.”
Witnesses reported seeing a man grab McGadney and force her into his car.
Her body turned up in a vacant lot three hours later, but her killer would elude police for almost 40 years.
RELATED: Howard County Police make arrest in 1982 rape and murder of a 28-year-old mother of four
“Miss McGadney died a brutal death,” said Howard County State’s Attorney Rich Gibson. “I mean she was raped. Her throat was slashed. She was stabbed over 30 times, and to have no answers to something like that, it’s just terrible.”
The answer came when a Howard County police detective re-tested DNA found on a napkin at the scene, which matched an out-of-work truck driver named Howard Jackson Bradberry, Junior of Laurel.
Neighbors recalled him from decades before upon his arrest, and he has since pled guilty to second degree murder.
“I don’t think anyone is really surprised that he was on the wrong side of the law,” said one person.
A Howard County circuit judge has sentenced the 64-year-old Bradberry to 25 years in prison.
“He is likely to perish in prison,” said Gibson, “Is it possible that he could get out? Sure, it’s remotely possible, but unlikely and I think that result is just in light of the harm that he inflicted on our community and this family in particular.”
“She has a lot of grandchildren she never met,” the victim’s eldest daughter told investigators upon hearing of Woodberry’s arrest. “Whatever you do in the darkness will come to the light.”
