Schanda Handley was at dwelling along with her daughter and a neighbor when two males confirmed up on the door, wearing what regarded like blue uniforms from an equipment retailer.
That they had a carpet steamer and requested Ms. Handley if they might reveal it for her. When she mentioned no, the boys compelled their manner into her home at gunpoint, put a hood over her head and handcuffed her and her neighbor, she mentioned.
Then they pushed Ms. Handley right into a van and drove off, leaving Ms. Handley’s 14-year-old daughter and the neighbor behind.
The abductors had been employed by Ms. Handley’s estranged husband, Lawrence Michael Handley, who was planning to have Ms. Handley pushed to his camp close to Woodville, Miss., from her dwelling in Lafayette, La., prosecutors mentioned. What he deliberate to do after that was not clear, the authorities mentioned.
However as the boys drove east on Interstate 10 on Aug. 6, 2017, with Ms. Handley handcuffed within the again, sheriff’s deputies observed the van was swerving and tried to cease it, prosecutors mentioned.
The boys, Sylvester Bracey and Arsenio Haynes, drove off the interstate, turned down a dead-end gravel highway, and had been penned in by the police, prosecutors mentioned. Each males tried to flee by swimming by way of a canal, prosecutors mentioned. They drowned.
On Monday, almost 4 years later, Mr. Handley, 53, pleaded responsible to 2 counts of second-degree kidnapping and one rely of tried second-degree kidnapping, prosecutors mentioned. He faces 15 to 35 years in jail. A sentencing date has not been set.
Beneath a plea deal, Mr. Handley prevented a cost of aggravated kidnapping, which carries a compulsory sentence of life in jail, prosecutors mentioned.
Ms. Handley, 50, mentioned in an interview on Thursday that it was “actually unlucky” that Mr. Handley — now her ex-husband — wouldn’t face the potential of life in jail.
“My hope is when he’s sentenced, he’s given the 35 years,” she mentioned. “I feel my life, my freedom, ends when he will get out.”
A as soon as profitable businessman, Mr. Handley had run software program and vitamin companies and had been the chief govt of a sequence of drug remedy facilities that bought in 2015 in a deal value about $21 million, Ms. Handley mentioned.
He subjected Ms. Handley to a whole lot of threats, as soon as telling her “Armageddon is coming,” as they went by way of a divorce, she mentioned. For 2 months, she mentioned, she had live-in safety at her home.
“I knew he was coming to get me,” she mentioned.
Mr. Handley’s lawyer, Kevin Stockstill, mentioned in an interview that his shopper had been utilizing methamphetamine and cocaine for days when he hatched the plan to have his spouse kidnapped. He mentioned that Mr. Handley had deliberate to “are available as a hero” and rescue Ms. Handley in an effort to “win her again.”
“It was definitely not logical considering, however if you’re doing lots of meth and cocaine, I suppose it appeared rational to him,” Mr. Stockstill mentioned. “It turned out to be a horrible determination.”
Detective Jared Istre of the Lafayette Police Division, who investigated the case, discovered video of Mr. Handley planning the kidnapping in addition to checklists that he had made and proof displaying that he rented the van and acquired {the handcuffs} utilized by the 2 kidnappers, prosecutors mentioned.
“The plea resolves the case with out the victims having to relive their ordeal,” Alan Haney, a prosecutor with Louisiana’s fifteenth Judicial District, mentioned in an announcement, “and the state appears to be like ahead to presenting further proof on the sentencing listening to.”
Mr. Stockstill mentioned the case offered a “powerful set of info” for his shopper, and he didn’t need to threat a life sentence for Mr. Handley.
“He’s helped actually hundreds of individuals with habit,” Mr. Stockstill mentioned. “He wants to just accept punishment. However he definitely deserves one other shot at having some life.”
Ms. Handley mentioned it was an off-duty police officer who had initially noticed the abductors’ van rushing on the shoulder of the interstate and had determined to observe it, believing it could be stolen. She mentioned she had spoken to him later.
“He didn’t know something concerning the kidnapping,” she mentioned, “and he had a second there the place he wasn’t certain he was going to pursue the van.”
If the police hadn’t stopped the van, Ms. Handley mentioned, she wasn’t certain what might need occurred as soon as she reached her husband’s camp in Mississippi.
“His conduct was very erratic,” she mentioned, including that she believed he might need been experiencing drug-induced psychosis. “He had misplaced his thoughts, like he was decided that we had been going to be collectively.”