MANDEL: 'Scourge' of domestic violence nets killer life without parole for 15 years
She had to speak to her sister's killer one last time.
So hours after Kadeem Nedrick, 34, was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 15 years for the brutal murder of his former partner, Brittany Doff, she waited for her chance to face the man she once loved as a member of their family.
It's conversation Miranda Doff would like to keep private but in broad strokes, she says he expressed his remorse and she told him the destruction he wreaked on their family by killing her 30-year-old sister can never be undone.
'I just wanted to see him for closure and for myself,' she explains. But in her broken heart, there is no end to this tragedy, no closure, especially not when she'll be facing him again at a parole board hearing in a future that is far too close.
'It is not just; it is not enough,' Doff says after returning home from the downtown courthouse. 'The fact that we call this a life sentence has to stop. It's not. People don't understand that you're not going to go away for life.'
Because since Nedrick's parole eligibility began counting from his arrest for Brittany's murder on Jan. 3, 2021, her sister's killer can now apply for release in 12 years.
On the eve of his first-degree murder trial in April, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder, which carries an automatic life term. The only issue Superior Court Justice Michael Brown had to determine was the length of parole ineligibility and Brittany's family was hoping he'd accept the higher end of Crown attorney Mary Humphrey's submission of a stiff 18 to 20 years.
'While all murders are by definition violent, this murder involves a measure of brutality. It was a murder by Mr. Nedrick of an unarmed, vulnerable female victim using a large knife,' Brown said in his ruling.
'The parole ineligibility period imposed in cases of second-degree murder of an intimate partner must reflect the reality that despite years of jurisprudence condemning such acts, the problem has not abated,' the judge continued. 'Intimate partner violence is a pervasive scourge on society with often devastating consequences for those who experience it, as well as their loved ones.'
Her family felt Brown said all the right things about domestic violence, but then fell short in his sentencing. 'I thought he was going to have more courage than where he ended,' Doff said.
This is a man who was on bail after being charged a year earlier with choking Brittany and threatening to throw her off the balcony in front of their three-year-old autistic son. He'd been diverted to the Partner Assault Response program where he had three more sessions of the 12-week program for anger management before his charges would have been withdrawn.
'He should not have been recommended there,' Doff insists. 'That program was supposed to be for low-risk offenders. Strangling somebody and threatening death is not low risk.'
This is a man who refused to leave her Grace St. home despite Brittany repeatedly asking him to pack up and go, who told his friend on New Year's Eve as 2021 became 2022, that 'I think about killing her every day' and 'I think about poking her up (stabbing her) and burying her in the backyard.' And who then came home and told her 'You are lucky that you are still alive.'
But not for long.
This is the man, who three days later, met Brittany's attempts to pack her belongings and leave herself by twice plunging a kitchen knife so viciously into her chest that the blade snapped off, killing her almost instantly in her own home with one of the stab wounds puncturing her heart. Again, in front of their son.
Brittany was failed, her sister says, all the way along. And now, once again.
'Brittany's case just really exemplifies how you can reach out for help, and you can call police and you can do all the right things, you can even leave, but no one's coming (to help). And that's what happened to her.
'And then here we are with this 15 years (of parole ineligibility),' she sighs. 'It's like even after you're gone, you're not respected.'
mmandel@postmedia.com
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