Brigitte Harris never had a childhood.
Abandoned by her mother in a Park Hill apartment at age 2, she was shuffled between homes and abusive relatives on Staten Island, Long Island, Rhode Island and Liberia. She was repeatedly molested, raped and beaten by a father who was supposed to protect her. She was betrayed by a family who likely knew what was happening, but she neither said nor did anything to stop it.
It wasn't until Ms. Harris killed her father two and a half years ago that she finally started to get the help she needed - and the chance for a better future.
Ms. Harris, who is now 29, lured her 55-year-old father, St. George resident Eric Goodridge, into her Far Rockaway apartment on June 28, 2007. After wrestling Goodridge to the ground, she handcuffed him, stuffed a towel in his mouth, and then severed his penis with a scalpel.
During his murder trial in September, Ms. Harris told a jury she did not mean to kill him - just "take away his weapon" so he could not use it again. They found her guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter, and acquitted her of more serious charges of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter.
They found her story so compelling that seven members of the panel wrote to the judge to ask that he sentence her to time served so she can get psychiatric help.
But Judge Arthur Cooperman sentenced her to the maximum five to 15 years in Queens Supreme Court Friday anyway.
In an interview with the Advance, Ms. Harris said she should have sought an alternative to the brutal act.