JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As countless people worldwide gear up to celebrate Christmas Day, the wife and son of slain Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Corrections Officer, Brad McNew, prepare to celebrate their first without him.
In mid-October, a suspect shot and killed McNew moments after he intervened during a domestic dispute at a Northside truck stop. McNew was off duty at the time. The shooting, caught on surveillance, sparked an intense manhunt.
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Days later, JSO announced that Demaurea Grant had been arrested in North Carolina. He remains inside the Gaston County jail awaiting extradition back to Duval County.
In their first sit-down interview since the murder, McNew’s widow, Elda, and his 19-year-old son, Liam, shared special memories. Liam reflected on how his life has changed in the two months since his father’s death.
“I’ve been holding up, but there are times where the memory just comes back in the weirdest way possible,” Liam McNew said. “And then it’s like the emotions start slapping me in the face, and I start crying.”
For McNew’s widow, Elda, the memories of her late husband are largely filled with music and joy. They met while in college, while each was pursuing degrees in music. As the years moved forward, music was a key part of the life they built together. More than anything, Elda says her husband was someone who always made time for others, no matter who needed it. This became especially apparent to her following his murder.
“Officer after officer that worked with Brad came to me saying, ‘He saved my life, he kept me from committing suicide, he kept me from going and drinking,’” Elda McNew recalled.
McNew served with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for 24 years. Elda and Liam said he also left an impression on the inmates within the walls of the jail where he worked. One story they shared was especially humorous.
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“The ‘Despicable Me’ movie, the first one that ever came out. Somehow the inmates saw the movie,” Liam McNew said. “The minute my dad walked in there, he had a shiny bald head, and the minute he walked in there, every single inmate said, ‘despicable’.
“It was ‘Despicable Me’! He was Gru!” Elda McNew said.
Though he took his job seriously, McNew’s priority was being a devoted husband and father to Liam and Elizabeth. Tragically, Elizabeth died at age 12 after battling COVID-19. He grieved the death of his daughter, but McNew kept his bond with Liam strong, literally. McNew passed his passion for the gym on to Liam.
“There was even one time where I was scrolling through pictures on my phone, I was watching a video that we filmed where I was deadlifting,” Liam recalled. “I hear his voice in the video, and I just broke because that was the only way I could really remember my dad’s voice.”
Also paying tribute to McNew is the city of Jacksonville.
“Mayor Deegan, asked me, she goes, ‘Me and the City of Jacksonville want to do something in honor of Brad. What should we do?’ She came and talked to me for over an hour in our front driveway,” Elda said. “And I said, ‘I’m going to have to think about that.‘”
Elda said she gave it some thought and eventually settled on a design for a special bracelet that embodies her husband’s kind spirit. Elda said plans to work on the bracelets with the Arc Jacksonville are in the works.
“I found Brad’s nameplate, and it just has capital ’B’ McNew,” Elda recalled, adding that she saw it as an “awesome inspirational bracelet.”
“Either you’re McNew’d or you McNew someone else. And then on the other side of the bracelet, ‘B Kind’. Just the letter, ‘B Kind’,” she explained.
Elda knows the road to justice is just beginning, but she is determined. The man now charged in the shooting, Damaurea Grant, remains inside the Gaston County jail in North Carolina. Exactly when he will be extradited to Jacksonville is unclear, but Elda McNew plans to be there when that time comes.
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“Every minute that man is in the Duval County courtroom, I’m [going to be] sitting there staring him down,” Elda McNew said. “And I can say with God in my heart, and this is going to sound completely nuts, but I forgive that man. He didn’t have a chance in the world.”
Liam McNew said forgiveness is something he is working toward, but that journey will take time.
“Two to three years from now, if we do get to speak to him, I can forgive him,” Liam McNew said. “When that time has come, I will probably have fully forgiven him. As of right now, he’s nothing but a lost soul, [a] coward.”
Corrections Officer Brad McNew is laid to rest in Tennessee, where he was originally from. Elda and Liam McNew said visiting his old stomping grounds and speaking with his many friends and loved ones is part of the healing journey.
