A DISTRAUGHT mother has described the thug who beat her son to death while
on a caravan holiday as “evil to the core”.
David Braddon kicked, punched and beat tragic Conner Marshall, 18, to death in
an unprovoked attack with a metal pole.
The assault has been described as a case of “horrific mistaken identity” after
Braddon mistook the teen for his ex-girlfriend’s previous partner when high
on drink and drugs.
Following Conner’s tragic death, devastated mum Nadine Marshall circulated
heartbreaking images of her son’s fatal injuries.
In an interview with Jason Mohammad on his BBC radio show, Nadine told why she
wanted everyone to know what Braddon did to her “innocent young boy”.
She said: “We needed everybody – the world – to know how ferocious David
Braddon was and what he did to a completely innocent young boy.”
Teen Conner Marshall had been spending a weekend away with his friends at
Trecco Bay Caravan Park in Porthcawl when he was murdered in March last
year.
26-year-old Braddon received a life sentence for the act later the same year.
He only noticed he had attacked the wrong person when he used his phone to
check his victim’s face, and realised he had assaulted a “young boy”.
When Conner was found by a fellow holidaymaker the following morning, he had
slipped into a coma and was suffering from hypothermia.
Speaking of her nightmare, Nadine told how the unprovoked attack had
devastated the entire family.
She said: “There are only two people who know exactly what happened.
“What we do know is that he sustained massive, horrific injuries, which
were just too awful and too horrific to survive.
“Poor Conner then was stripped, humiliated, clothes were thrown, he was
beaten, he was stamped on.
“He was just continually, continually pummelled for a long, long time and
then just left like a poor animal, just left.”
Conner died soon after being admitted to University Hospital Wales’ intensive
care unit with swelling of the brain and haemorrhaging to his eyes.
Tragically, Nadine opened the door on her birthday under the impression her
son had come to pay her a visit.
Instead, she was met by cops who informed her of her son’s serious injuries.
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She said: “It was awful. It was horrible.
“That’s the picture that stays with me, despite having all the lovely
ones [photographs of Conner], that’s the picture I see.
“All I can hope is that he was attacked and was unconscious very quickly.”
A year on from her tragic loss, Nadine described her son as her number one: “Conner
makes me smile when I think of him. He was just a normal 18-year-old.
“He wasn’t perfect but he had the most amazing smile, amazing blue eyes.
He was my number one.”
When asked how she feels about Braddon following his conviction, Nadine said
her family had been irreparably broken: “The easy answer is to say I
despise him, but I can’t actually put into my head how I do feel because
that just takes up space in my head that I want to fill with Conner.
“I think that 20 years is never enough.
“I think it should have been life meaning life.
“He’s just broken me and broken my family.”
Nadine explained why she decided to share the gruesome photograph of Conner’s
injuries: “In 20 years time, and there is a possibility that David
Braddon will be considered for parole, this is what he did.
“This wasn’t the first time he had done such a violent act, and there is
no way that we could take that chance, somebody like that can be allowed to
be free.
“There is no way of making somebody like that better.
“There’s just nothing there. It’s just pure evil, consistent pure evil to
the core.”
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