Brandon Wayne Hedrick was born on February 23, 1979, in the United States. He experienced a tumultuous upbringing marked by learning difficulties and a chaotic family environment. Hedrick's IQ was assessed at 76, placing him in the borderline range of intellectual functioning. He struggled with substance abuse from an early age, a pattern that persisted into his late teens. At 18, Hedrick was unemployed and heavily involved in drug use, particularly crack cocaine and marijuana.

On the evening of May 10, 1997, Hedrick and his acquaintance, Trevor Jones, spent time consuming alcohol, smoking crack cocaine and marijuana, and engaging with prostitutes in Lynchburg, Virginia. After dropping off the last two prostitutes, they encountered 23-year-old Lisa Yvonne Crider. Jones, aware that Crider's boyfriend was a crack cocaine dealer, suggested they pick her up under the pretense of purchasing drugs. Crider voluntarily accompanied them to Jones's apartment, where she engaged in consensual sex with Jones for $50.

Following this, Hedrick, at Jones's direction, retrieved a shotgun and robbed Crider of the $50 at gunpoint. They handcuffed her, duct-taped her eyes and mouth, and forced her into Jones's truck. During the drive, Hedrick raped Crider. Fearing retaliation from her boyfriend, the two men decided to kill her. At dawn on May 11, 1997, they stopped near the James River in Appomattox County. Jones led Crider to the riverbank and instructed Hedrick to "do what you got to do." Hedrick then shot Crider in the face with the shotgun, killing her instantly.

Later that day, Crider's body was discovered by the river, her face unrecognizable due to the shotgun blast, and her head wrapped in duct tape. Hedrick and Jones fled Virginia, but were apprehended a week later in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Hedrick was convicted of capital murder in the commission of robbery, rape, and forcible sodomy, along with charges of abduction and use of a firearm in the commission of murder. During sentencing, the jury found that Hedrick posed a continuing serious threat to society and that his conduct was outrageously or wantonly vile. He was sentenced to death on July 22, 1998.

After exhausting all appeals, Hedrick chose electrocution over lethal injection, expressing concerns about the potential pain associated with the latter. On July 20, 2006, he was executed in the electric chair at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, and pronounced dead at 9:12 p.m.