Twenty years ago today, on Thursday, September 16, 1999, Sherry, Shelby, and Cassidy Brannon were found in their east Bradenton, Florida home stabbed and with their throats slit. It was Sherry’s 35th birthday. Cassidy had celebrated her 4th birthday the Monday before, and Shelby was 7, about to turn 8 in a little more than a week.
These were horrific moments for Sherry and Shelby, and hours of terror and confusion for Cassidy who was left alone all night in the house where her mother and sister had been killed. Although Cassidy died in a helicopter on her way to the hospital, she was able to spend most of her last time on earth in the comforting arms of her father, Dewey Brannon.
Sherry, Shelby, and Cassidy’s lives were so much more, though, than their final moments. From what I have been told and read in newspaper accounts of the tragedy, the three Brannon “girls” filled the lives they had with laughter, joy, and goodness. I wish I had met them. I know I would have liked them.
Sherry was a registered nurse, a cardiac rehabilitation specialist who worked at St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was loved by her patients who told news reporters stories of romances she had kindled between them and times she had rushed them from her ward to the emergency room, saving their lives. She was a valued partner among the staff at the hospital who spoke of her dedication and kindness. She was a devoted mother to her two daughters, a loving daughter to her parents Bob and Dolly Meyer, and a priceless sister to her twin, Mary Ann. She was lovely, a blonde, blue-eyed “Ivory Soap”kind of woman. After her husband left her in June, she often visited her next door neighbors, Van and Angie Balam, to share some of her sadness and worry. “How will I manage,” she asked them. Van later told detectives that he responded “How will you manage? Just answer me these questions. Who mows the property now? Who takes care of the kids? Who cleans the house, shops, fixes the meals? Who pays the bills?” She smiled.
Shelby had been an easy baby to deliver and she was an easy little girl to raise. Her friend next door, Ariel Balam, played with her nearly every day after school. Often they sifted through the Brannon’s shell driveway looking for shark’s teeth. When she found two, she always shared one with her friend. She loved animals and maintained a toy menagerie in her room. The shower floor was scattered with her toy horses, special favorites. Sherry coaxed her gently to participate in sports and games with her peers, and she did. She had a little tape player which her daddy turned on for her after he read her stories and kissed her goodnight on Wednesday, September 15th.
The day after her body was discovered would have been the first sleep-over birthday party she hosted–actually the first birthday party she had ever had with her friends instead of her family members–followed by a swim after breakfast and birthday cake before the moms came to pick up their daughters. When Angie Balam pulled into her church parking lot and told her daughter that Shelby was in heaven now, Ariel said “She was my best friend.” …And she told her mother she wanted to go into the church and talk to God.
Cassidy was a more difficult baby to deliver, and that was a harbinger of things to come. Her daddy called her “my tough little girl.” She was a spitfire, people said. At the ballgame she belted out “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” twice on her own after the audience had sung it, and once in church the following Sunday, her own unique hymn. At her grandparents’ house where she played after school until her mother picked her up, she yelled so loudly that her great-grandfather’s hearing aides would ring. “What’s that noise,” he’d ask. “Oh that’s just Cassidy,” Bob Meyer would tell his father. Dewey Brannon tucked his little girl into bed, read her several short books, and sang two songs to her before she fell asleep on September 15th. One was Jesus Loves Me.
Rest in Peace, beautiful girls. You are missed and loved.
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