Florida Man Gets Prison Sentence After Attacking Pregnant Girlfriend 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 18, 2005
Holiday, FL (LifeNews.com) — A Florida man will head to jail for 10 years after agreeing to a plea bargain with prosecutors in a case that saw his girlfriend reject an abortion and him attempt to kill her. Brandon Andrew Lawrence, 27, will go to prison and his victim, 17 year-old Gretchen Alvarez, will be left with the physical and emotional scars.
It was March 2004 when Alvarez found out she was pregnant. She told Lawrence he was the father.
Lawrence tried to talk Alvarez into an abortion and offered to pay for it. She wanted nothing of it and said she planned to keep the baby.
Lawrence later ask Alvarez to meet her at a local restaurant where he worked to talk about the situation, the Springfield Times reports. After going behind the restaurant to talk, he told Alvarez to close her eyes and claimed he had a gift for her.
Instead, the Florida man slashed her throat three times with a butcher knife and dragged her toward his car. Alvarez struggled and Lawrence stabbed her in the back as she tried to resist.
Meanwhile, according to a Springfield Times news report, a local couple, Jeffrey and Sheila McKinney, saw the attack as they were driving in the restaurant parking lot.
Jeffrey pinned Lawrence to the ground while Sheila called police.
Without the plea deal, prosecutors had also planned to charge Lawrence with aggravated child abuse because Alvarez was a minor at the time of attack. That could have landed him in prison an additional 30 years above and beyond the penalties for the attempted murder, according to the Times.
Facing a possible life sentence, Lawrence chose the deal and will sit in prison for ten years.
As Lawrence was sentenced, Alvarez’s family cuddled with her baby girl, born in November. She now lives in Puerto Rico.
