Sanford man gets life sentence in ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend’s killing

Nathaniel S. Bratcher II will spend the rest of his life in state prison for killing Larreon Da’Quan Cosby after telling his ex-girlfriend he was headed to her Lake Mary apartment to kill any man he found there. Seminole County prosecutors said the threat came just moments before the shooting, turning a domestic dispute into a fatal act of violence.

Bratcher, 28, was sentenced Monday by Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler after a jury convicted him March 19 of second-degree murder and battery. The case began the night of Sept. 18, 2024, at the Sun Lake apartment complex in unincorporated Lake Mary, where Lake Mary Police and Seminole County Sheriff’s deputies found Cosby, 32, on the back porch with a gunshot wound to the head.

Investigators said Bratcher called his ex-girlfriend while she was at a bar and warned her he was going to her apartment to kill any man he found there. When she called him back after the shooting, police said, Bratcher told her he had shot and killed Cosby. Within about an hour, deputies stopped Bratcher in traffic near Sanford and found blood on his pants and shoes after a sheriff’s helicopter spotted his white Ford Mustang convertible.

Prosecutors said the evidence was strengthened by a distinctive pair of shoes. They described the brand as uncommon, and said the soles matched bloody footprints at the scene. Seminole County prosecutors Stewart Stone and Anne Wedge-McMillen credited the Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit and Digital Forensics Unit with helping secure the conviction.

A Seminole County grand jury indicted Bratcher on Nov. 12, 2024, on first-degree premeditated murder and armed burglary with a firearm. A jury later found him guilty of the lesser murder charge and battery, and Recksiedler imposed the life sentence after hearing a victim-impact statement from Cosby’s mother, Latoshia McKinnon.

McKinnon told the court the killing took away her son, a father, a grandchild, a brother, an uncle and a friend. The case now stands as a stark example of how quickly a threat made over the phone can escalate into a homicide, and how crucial rapid police work can be when violence erupts in a Seminole County neighborhood.