Woman Convicted in Brutal Death of Son Wins Custody of Her Baby
Originally published by The Associated Press, November 27, 2001
JERSEYVILLE, Ill. (AP) — A decade ago, Sheryl Hardy was sent to prison in Florida for the murder of her 2-year-old son, who had been shoved headfirst into a toilet for soiling his pants—a death so shocking it prompted an overhaul of the state's child-protection laws.
Now, over the objections of prosecutors and Illinois' child-welfare agency, Hardy has been given a second chance.
An Illinois judge has awarded her custody of her 9-month-old son, who had been in foster care because of his mother's murder conviction.
"This may be one of those rare cases where a parent has been able to progress from a point of total inability to parent and protect a child to a point of competence," Judge Thomas Russell wrote in his Nov. 16 decision.
Hardy, 33, said she lit a cigarette and watched as her then-husband, Thomas Coe, shoved his stepson's head into the toilet like a plunger in Lakeland, Fla., in 1989. She and Coe then beat the boy with couch cushions. Bradley died the next day of head injuries.
Hardy served nine years in prison and now says she wants to start over in her hometown 50 miles north of St. Louis with her new husband and their son. She says she can be a good parent and wants the opportunity to try.
The lead detective in Bradley's death says she doesn't deserve another chance.
"She's an evil person, a murderess," says Paul Schaill of the Fort Meade, Fla., police department. "This baby is going to end up dead, too."
Illinois prosecutor Mary Kirbach says she will appeal but declined to discuss the case.
The state's child-welfare agency also recommended Hardy not get custody of the boy. Martha Allen, the agency's chief of staff, says she can remember no other time that a parent convicted in the death of a child won custody of another child.
Hardy declined to discuss the case recently, saying only that her new son is "doing great, now that he's back with me." She then shut her front door on a reporter as she said, "I just want to live my life."
Hardy claims she was sexually and emotionally abused as she grew up in this poor rural town of 7,500. She says Bradley was conceived when she was raped. She moved to Florida after he was born.
There, she met Coe, who was living in his truck at the time. The two abandoned 4-month-old Bradley at a mall. He was placed in foster care, and Hardy and Coe married and had a daughter of their own.
Nearly two years later, when Hardy learned Bradley's foster parents wanted to adopt him, she sought and received custody. Sixty-six days after Bradley arrived at the Coes' secluded trailer home, he was dead.
Coe was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence.
Hardy insists Coe was responsible for the worst of the abuse but says she played a part, too: cleaning Bradley with a garden hose when he soiled his pants, shaking him violently and running a fork over his mouth with feces on it.
"I know it was gross," Hardy said in the Chicago Tribune earlier this month. "I know it was harsh. That's something I see when I close my eyes."
Her daughter—and a second girl born when she was in prison—were put up for adoption. Hardy has no contact with them.
Hardy says that Coe abused her and that she was too beaten down to protect Bradley—a claim the judge cited when he awarded her custody of her new baby. She says she took parenting classes in prison, received counseling and earned her high school equivalency diploma, all things that she says make her a good parent now.
Schaill, the Florida detective, says he doesn't buy it.
"Sheryl and Tom went through all the parenting classes, the shrinks, in Florida, too," says Schaill, who traveled to Illinois to testify at Hardy's hearing. "Then they butchered the baby."
Bradley's death led the Florida Legislature to overhaul its child-protection laws and spend $79 million to hire more social workers to detect child abuse.
In Bradley's case, four social workers were charged with failing to report the abuse. Three were acquitted, but Bradley's main caseworker, Margaret Barber, was convicted and placed on three months' probation.
