Brandy Littrell.Photo: Courtesy Brandy Littrell
Brandy Littrellhad been a rideshare driver for five years in Mississippi when, on the late morning of Nov. 2, 2021, she picked up a routine ride from an apartment complex in Jackson.
The young man she picked up “just seemed like somebody that was trying to get to work,” she tells PEOPLE. “He was like, ‘How you doing? I need to pick up my friend and then we’re going to work.'”
At the first stop, he said he was getting his friend — but he returned to the car alone.
That’s whenLittrell’s lifewas forever changed.
Littrell, now 37, alleges the young man, who was later identified as Dontarius Magee, demanded her keys, phone, watch and debit cards before forcing her into the backseat of her Dodge Journey.
He then started peppering her with questions.
Courtesy Brandy Littrell
“What’s your pin number?,” she says. “Are you lying about the number? How much money do you have in the bank?”
Littrell says her kidnapper started driving erratically with “his left hand on the gun pointed at me and his right hand on the steering wheel.”
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He pulled over at an apartment complex where he told her to get out of the car and walk through the woods, she says.
“We walked through the woods for what seemed like forever — a quarter of a mile, at least,” she says.
At one point, he told her to get on her knees.
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“The first shot goes off, hitting me in the thigh,” she says. “The impact knocked me flat on the ground.”
She didn’t feel the second shot.
“The only shot I felt went into the back of my neck,” she says. “All I remember was ringing in my ears and blood dripping down my neck and face. My glasses turned to red and I thought, ‘I’m not going to make it. This is how I die.'”
Littrell says she was shot a total of seven times. “I thought I would die,” she says.
Approximately 10 minutes later, she opened her eyes to discover the gunman was gone.
“I was alive,” she says. “But my 75-year-old grandma was at my house, and [the attacker] has my keys, he’s got my address, he’s got my garage door opener. I had to warn her.”
Littrell was able to crawl to a small tree and get back on her feet. Miraculously, she dragged herself to an apartment complex where someone called for help.
“When we got to the hospital, there’s a team of 20 doctors and nurses ready to get to work,” she says. “I asked them to call my grandmother, save her. And they saved me.”
Littrell, who now drives for a company but stopped working as a rideshare driver, spent a week recovering in the hospital.
She has had a new lease on life since the attack.
“After being shot, I’m trying to live my best life now,” she says. “I’ve taken vacations, instead of being a workaholic. Now, I treat life like it’s a gift.”
Magee was indicted in December on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and armed carjacking. He has yet to enter a plea and PEOPLE was not able to reach his attorney.
source: people.com
