JACKSONVILLE, Florida. – As countless people around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas Day, the wife and son of Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Corrections Officer Brad McNew are preparing to celebrate their first holiday without him.

In mid-October, a suspect fatally shot McNew moments after he intervened in a domestic dispute at a Northside truck stop. McNew was not on duty at the time. The shooting, captured by surveillance cameras, sparked an intense manhunt.

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A few days later, JSO announced that Demaurea Grant had been arrested in North Carolina. He remains inside the Gaston County Jail awaiting extradition to Duval County.

In their first 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 held on, but there are times when the memory comes back in the strangest way possible,” Liam McNew said. “And then it’s like the emotions start to slap me in the face and I start crying.”

For Elda, McNew’s widow, memories of her late husband are largely filled with music and joy. They met while in college, while each was pursuing a degree in music. Over the years, music became 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 evident to him after his murder.

“The officers who worked with Brad came to me and said, ‘He saved my life, he stopped me from killing myself, he stopped me from going drinking,'” Elda McNew remembers.

McNew worked at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for 24 years. Elda and Liam said he also left an impression on the inmates inside the walls of the prison where he worked. One story they shared was particularly humorous.

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“The film “Despicable Me”, the first to be released. Somehow the inmates saw the film,” Liam McNew said. “The minute my dad walked in there, he had a shiny bald head, and the minute he walked in there, all the inmates said, ‘despicable.’

“It was ‘Despicable Me’! It was Gru! » said Elda McNew.

Although he took his job seriously, McNew’s priority was being a devoted husband and father to Liam and Elizabeth. Tragically, Elizabeth died at 12 after battling COVID-19. He mourned the death of his daughter, but McNew kept his bond with Liam strong, literally. McNew passed on his passion for the gym to Liam.

“There was even one time when I was scrolling through photos on my phone, watching a video we filmed where I was deadlifting,” Liam recalls. “I hear his voice in the video, and I just broke down because that was the only way for me to really remember my dad’s voice.”

The city of Jacksonville is also honoring McNew.

“Mayor Deegan asked me,” she said, “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 driveway,” Elda said. “And I said, ‘I’ll have to think about it.'”

Elda said she thought about it and ultimately decided on a special bracelet design that embodies her husband’s caring spirit. Elda said plans to work on bracelets with Arc Jacksonville are underway.

“I found Brad’s nameplate, and it just has a capital ‘B’ McNew on it,” Elda recalled, adding that she saw it as a “great inspirational bracelet.”

“Either you’re McNew’d or you’re McNew’d someone else.” And then on the other side of the bracelet, “B Kind”. Just the letter ‘B Kind,’” she explained.

Elda knows the path to justice has only just begun, but she is determined. The man now charged in the shooting, Damaurea Grant, remains inside the Gaston County Jail in North Carolina. It’s unclear when he will be extradited to Jacksonville, but Elda McNew plans to be there then.

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“Every minute that this man is in the Duval County courtroom, I (will) be sitting there watching him,” Elda McNew said. “And I can say with God in my heart, and this is going to sound crazy, but I forgive this man. He didn’t have a chance in the world.

Liam McNew said forgiveness was something he was working on, but that journey would take time.

“In two or three years, if we can talk to him, I will be able to forgive him,” Liam McNew said. “When that time comes, I will probably have forgiven him completely. For now, he is just a lost soul, a coward.

Corrections Officer Brad McNew rests 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 was part of the healing journey.