Judith Neelley

Names and identities

Judith Neelley was also known as Judith Ann Adams Neelley.

Background

Judith Ann Adams Neelley was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1964. Her father, an alcoholic, died when she was nine.

Alvin Howard Neelley, Jr. and Judith Ann Adams Neelley were an American couple responsible for two torture murders. They each were convicted of the kidnappings and murders of Lisa Ann Millican and Janice Chatman.

The offence

Lisa Ann Millican

Lisa Ann Millican was a 13-year-old girl from Cedartown, Georgia.

Alvin and Judith Neelley abducted Lisa Ann Millican from the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia on September 25, 1982. She was taken to a Murfreesboro, Tennessee motel where the Neelleys held her captive.

During her captivity, Lisa was molested by both Neelleys, and Judith injected her with Drano. On the 28th, Lisa was shot in the head by Judith and her body was thrown in the Little River Canyon in Fort Payne, Alabama.

Judith even called police to report Lisa's body.

Janice Chatman and John Hancock

Janice Chatman and John Hancock were a young engaged couple from Rome, Georgia.

On October 4, 1982, they were abducted by Judith Neelley. John Hancock is shot while Janice Chatman was abducted and brought back to the Neelleys' motel room, where she was tortured and murdered.

John Hancock, however, did not die, and was able to point to Alvin and Judith Neelley as his assailants.

Investigation

Youth Development Center employee attacks

On September 11, 1982, a Youth Development Center employee, Ken Dooley's home was shot through four times.

The following day, fellow employee Linda Adair's home was firebombed with a Molotov cocktail.

Phone calls were made to the victims following the attacks by a female who claimed to have been sexually abused at the Youth Development Center, but neither victim could identify the caller's voice.

Telephone calls and taped statements

The call to the Rome Police Department had been taped.

While playing it for Mike Jones of the Walker County Department of Family and Children Services, Kenneth Kines got an important bit of information: “Y'all looking for Lisa Ann Millican on run from the Harpst Home?” the caller had said.

Kines played the tape for 13-year-old Debbie Smith. As the tape played, John Hancock passed by the room and stopped short when he heard the voice. John Hancock exclaimed: “That's the damn woman that shot me!”

Arrest

Judith Neelley was arrested on October 9, 1982, and Alvin was taken into custody a few days later.

On October 14, Kines got the word that his suspects were in custody.

On October 9, Judy Neelley had been arrested at a motel in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for passing bad checks. Her husband Alvin was arrested a few days later.

Trial

Trial dates and procedural events

Judith Neelley's trial began on March 7, 1983.

Before her trial, she gave birth to a third child behind bars.

After a six-week trial, Judith was convicted of the torture murder of Lisa Ann Millican.

Jury selection and opening statement

Jury selection went rapidly, and within two days, the seven women and five men chosen were ready to hear evidence.

During his opening statement, defense counsel (Bob French) said: “I will tell you,” he said, “that every move, every act, every thought carrying out the perpetration of this heinous event was planned, calculated, instituted by Alvin Neelley.”

Prosecution witnesses in the Millican case

Debbie Smith identified Judy as the woman who had tried to pick her up as she walked home from school on October 4, 1982.

Suzanne Clonts identified Judy as the woman who had approached her and asked if she was alone at Aladdin's Castle in Rome's Riverbend Mall on September 25, the day Lisa Millican disappeared.

Diane Bobo identified Judy as the woman who had tried to get her to go for a ride on the afternoon of October 3.

John Hancock told the story of his abduction.

Defense witnesses and Judith Neelley's testimony

Jo Ann Browning testified that Alvin Neelley had beaten her throughout her marriage, even when she was pregnant, and had drugged and tried to rape her teenage sister. She also testified that she tried to leave several times but that Alvin had threatened their children. She only escaped him because he had suddenly become interested in Judy.

Igou damaged Browning's credibility by establishing she was definitely a bigamist and probably a liar as well.

During Judith Neelley's testimony, she answered a question about fear and nervousness by saying: “I smile a lot.”

Judith Neelley claimed she bathed Alvin and dried him and combed his hair, did stocking and sweeping and mopping, cooked for him, and tied his shoes. She testified that when she did any tasks wrong, he beat her.

She testified that he taught her robbery and forgery, and that he was insanely jealous even though she said she had always been faithful to him.

She said the stories about the abuse she'd supposedly received at the YDC were of Alvin's making and had never happened.

Evidence and disputes mentioned in testimony

Igou asked John Hancock questions about ordering and shooting. Hancock answered: “Yes, sir.” “She was.” “She did.”

Igou asked Judy about shootings in the Chatman case. When asked whether Alvin had ordered her to shoot the victim two more times in the chest just to shut her up, Judy answered: “No, sir.”

Dr. Alexander Salillas, called by Igou as a rebuttal witness, testified that Judy had known the difference between right and wrong at the time of her crime and that she had made a conscious decision to kill Lisa.

During questioning, Salillas stated that bruises could be consistent with a pinching, and he answered: “Not necessarily.” “A pinch would give you the same result.” “Certainly.”

Closing arguments

Defense counsel's closing argument included a directive: “Don't you hold Judy Neelley to a standard of some healthy, robust female whose husband may slap her around now and then.....,” he ordered the jury.

Defense counsel also argued: “You hold her to the standard of a woman that's beaten every day of her life, not enough to kill her, just enough to hurt, just enough to bust her head, just enough to leave teeth marks on her skin.”

In his closing argument, the prosecutor (Igou) told the jury: “Alvin didn't have the nerve, but she did.....That was Judy Neelley, not Svengali.”

The prosecutor also argued about Lisa Millican’s final moments at the edge of the canyon: “evil...and I don't think I've ever used that term before in a criminal case....but if it ever applied to a situation, it applies here.”

Verdict in the Millican case

The judge charged the jury at 4:30 pm on March 21. By 10:45 the next morning, the jury returned a verdict.

Judith Ann Neelley was found guilty of murder and abduction.

Sentencing in the Millican case

At a sentencing hearing, arguments were delivered in front of the jury.

Late that night, the jury delivered its recommendation to Judge Cole. By a 10-2 vote, they recommended that Judy be sentenced to life in prison.

After a brief sentencing hearing on April 18, 1983, Judge Randall Cole sentenced Judy to die in Alabama's electric chair.

Conviction and guilty plea in the Chatman case

Judith, after her first conviction, pled guilty to Janice Chatman's murder.

She pled guilty to kidnapping in the Chatman/Hancock case and agreed to testify against Alvin.

Charges and plea in Alvin Neelley’s case connected to Chatman

To avoid the death penalty, Alvin Neelley pled guilty to murder and aggravated assault in Georgia. He was not tried for the Lisa Millican murder.

Alvin pled guilty to kidnapping with bodily harm and intent to murder and was sentenced to two life terms.

Sentencing

On April 18, 1983, Judith Ann Neelley was sentenced to death in Alabama's electric chair. She was eighteen years old.

Appeals

Judith Neelley appealed for a new trial, but it was denied in March 1987.

In 1989, the United States Supreme Court affirmed her death sentence.

The Supreme Court denied her final appeal in late 1998.

Outcome

On January 15, 1999, Alabama's then-governor Fob James granted clemency, commuting Judith Ann Neelley's sentence to life in prison.

The decision was met with controversy, and James cited how Judith's jury wanted to sentence her to life in prison, but the judge sentenced her to death.

A month later, Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor pointed out that, while the governor has power to commute, he had no authority to regulate parole.

Judith will be eligible for parole in January 2014.

Aftermath

Alvin Neelley was incarcerated at the Bostick State Prison from 1983 until his death in November 2005.

Judith Neelley was serving her sentence at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama.

Judith Neelley became the youngest woman sentenced to death in the United States.

Other details

Names and relationships

Alvin Howard Neelley, Jr. was born in Georgia in 1953, where he was a car thief during his teenage years.

He met his second wife Judith Ann Adams when he was 26 years old and she was 15. Alvin divorced his first wife shortly before eloping in 1980.

Judith Ann Neelley began a life of crime after meeting Alvin Neelley, committing armed robbery across the country for which she was later caught.

Additional admissions and procedural events described

Judith was deduced as being the perpetrator in the YDC employee attacks.

Judge Randall Cole denied a motion for youthful offender status.

Psychological tests were done in January 1983, and Judy was found quite fit for trial, with superior intelligence and no tendency toward delusion or suicide.

French prepared Judy for trial by having her cleaned up while she was pregnant with her third child; her baby, a boy, was born while she waited for her court date.

French bought her several outfits at Black's Department Store.

Phone-call leads and case connections mentioned

A woman told police in Murfreesboro in August of 1984 that she had been abducted a couple of years back and had recently come across a picture of her abductor in the newspaper. The picture was of Judy Neelley.

The woman went by the street name of Casey. Casey said Judy bragged about her various crimes, saying she had killed a girl in Chattanooga, among others, and that she had newspaper clippings documenting all this.

Casey said she liked to see the look on people's faces when she pulled a gun.

In the morning the police came to arrest Judy for bad checks and Alvin held Casey at gunpoint in the bathroom until they were gone. Then he let her go.

Victim background details mentioned

Lisa had been part of a group of girls from the Ethel Harpst Home in Cedartown, Georgia, who had gone on a supervised outing to the mall.

The Harpst Home was a facility for troubled girls, and it was initially hoped that Lisa had simply run away. She had a history of such behavior.

Detective Kenneth Kines conducted interviews and emerged with a picture of Lisa's life. Lisa was removed from her parents' home following allegations of sexual abuse. She had been placed in and removed from four different foster homes. She spent 30 days at the Open Door Home in Rome before she landed at the Harpst Home. She was sexually precocious and unpopular with other girls, had once kicked another girl in the stomach hard enough to induce a miscarriage.

Media appearances mentioned

On February 28, 2008, the Neelleys' case was profiled on the Investigation Discovery program Most Evil.

On October 23, 2008, Alvin and Judith Neelley were featured on Wicked Attraction in the episode "Hearts of Darkness".

Judith was featured on Deadly Women in 2011.

Rankings and profiling mentioned

On a scale developed by forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone, Judith was ranked as a category 22 killer, the “most evil” level deemed for serial torture murderers.