(Davenport, IA) -- A Davenport man is sentenced to three decades in prison for a fatal 2020 stabbing.
On Thursday, 27 year old Trai Terrell Anderson was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the stabbing death of 46 year old Danial Bradley in a Davenport hotel in January 2020. Anderson declined to make a statement before Judge Thomas Reidel handed down the sentence during a short hearing in Scott County District Court. Anderson, who initially faced a first-degree murder charge, pleaded guilty in March to attempted murder and going armed with intent.
Investigators say just before 8:00 the night of January 29, 2020, officers responded to a disturbance call at the Relax Inn on North Brady Street. When they got there, officers found Bradley inside the Inn, suffering from serious, life-threatening injuries. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to an arrest affidavit, the investigation revealed Anderson contacted Bradley, his uncle, and asked if they could hang out. The affidavit shows that he then entered Bradley’s room at the Relax Inn and stabbed him multiple times with a sharp object.
During Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Bradley’s daughter, Jessica, and father, Alan, gave victim impact statements. Jessica Bradley told Reidel that her father’s death left the family with “permanent mental scars and a gaping hole in our heart.”
“We’re robbed of ever having a father in our lives for special events like weddings, the first of his grandkids, or any other events,” she said.
Alan Bradley said his son was “good, caring, and loving” and that his intent was always good.
“I’m not the victim here, not like others,” he said. “Four children robbed of their father, robbed of their future in a way. They are the victims. They and Dan. Dan is the real victim, robbed of his future.”
Reidel sentenced him to 25 years on the attempted murder charge. He must serve 70% - or 17.5 years – of the sentence before being eligible for parole.
The judge ran the sentence back-to-back with a five-year sentence on the going armed with intent charge, for a total of 30 years. “When I look at the heinous nature of this crime, the violence, the danger it presents to the community, it leaves me with a clear answer that these charges must be consecutive in order to protect our community, to deter this conduct in others and to maximize your personal rehabilitation,” Reidel said.