Alvin Howard Neelley, Jr. (July 15, 1953 – October 21, 2005) and Judith Ann Adams Neelley (born June 7, 1964) are an American married couple who committed the kidnappings and torture murders of Lisa Ann Millican and Janice Kay Chatman; they also attempted a third abduction. Judith was sentenced to death in 1983, but her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1999.^[1] She served her sentence at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama.^[2] Alvin was serving a life sentence at the Bostick State Prison in Hardwick, Georgia at the time of his death in 2005.^[1]

Early lives

Alvin Neelley

Alvin Howard Neelley, Jr., was born in 1953 in Georgia, where he was a car thief during his teenage years. He was the youngest of 3 children. 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 with Judith in 1980.^[3]

Judith Ann Neelley

Judith Ann Adams was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on June 7, 1964. Her father, an alcoholic, died in a motorcycle accident when she was nine. After meeting Neelley, she began her life of crime, committing armed robberies across the country (even when heavily pregnant) for which she was later caught. She gave birth to twins while incarcerated at Rome, Georgia's Youth Development Center.^[3]

Youth Development Center crimes

On September 11, 1982, Ken Dooley, a Youth Development Center employee, was shot at 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 YDC, but neither victim could identify the caller's voice.^[4][5]

Lisa Ann Millican

Lisa Ann Millican (March 18, 1969 – September 28, 1982), a 13-year-old girl from Cedartown, Georgia, was abducted by the Neelleys from Rome's Riverbend Mall on September 25, 1982.^[4] She was with other residents of the Ethel Harpst Home, a facility for neglected and abused girls and boys located in Cedartown, Georgia. Separated from her group, Millican was coerced from the mall's gaming arcade by the Neelleys. She was taken to a motel in Scottsboro, Alabama, where the couple held her captive. During her captivity, Lisa was raped by both Neelleys multiple times. On September 28, Judith injected Lisa with Drano, first into one side, and later into both sides of her neck, both arms, and both buttocks in an attempt to poison her to death. Liquid-Plumr was also used on some of the injections.^[1]

The Neelleys had previously committed other crimes in the mall, but the Millican case was their move into sexual torture murder.^[6]

When the painful poisoning failed to kill her, Lisa was shot in the back execution-style by Judith. Her body was thrown over a cliff in the Little River Canyon in Fort Payne, Alabama.^[1] Judith later called various police agencies several times to report the location of Lisa's body, where it was found on the canyon floor draped over a fallen tree.^[7]

Janice Chatman and John Hancock

Janice Chatman and John Hancock were a young engaged couple from Rome. On October 4, 1982, they were abducted by Judith.^[4] Hancock was shot while Chatman was abducted and brought back to the Neelleys' motel room, where she was tortured and murdered. Hancock survived the shooting and was able to identify the Neelleys as his assailants.^[7]

Arrests and trial

Kenneth Kines, the lead detective in the case, followed the Neelleys for three weeks before apprehending them in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Judith was arrested on October 9, 1982, and Alvin was taken into custody a few days later.^[4] Judith was deduced as being the perpetrator in the YDC attacks.^[7] To avoid the death penalty, Alvin pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated assault in Georgia. He was not tried for the Millican murder.^[7] He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Judith's trial began on March 7, 1983, in Fort Payne for the torture-murder of Millican. Before her trial she gave birth to a third child behind bars.^[4] The trial lasted for six weeks; Judith was ultimately convicted of the torture murder of Lisa Ann Millican. Despite a jury's recommendation to sentence Judith to life in prison, Judge Randall Cole sentenced the 18-year-old mother of three to death in Alabama's electric chair.^[8] After her conviction, Judith pleaded guilty to Chatman's murder.

Aftermath

Alvin was incarcerated at the Bostick State Prison from 1983 until his death in October 2005.^[1]

At 18 years old, Judith became the youngest woman sentenced to death in the U.S. She was placed on Alabama's death row, at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women. Judith appealed for a new trial, but it was denied in March 1987. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed her death sentence. On January 15, 1999, Judith was days from her execution date when Governor Fob James commuted her sentence to life in prison with a possibility of parole in another 15 years (thus, a minimum of 31 years in prison).^[8][9]

The decision was met with controversy, but Gov. James – long known for his "tough" position on crime – cited the jury's recommendation for Judith's sentencing. Judith would have been eligible for parole in January 2014, at age 49, but the Alabama legislature passed a law in 2003 that made her ineligible.^[8][9]

In the media

On February 28, 2008, the Neelleys' case was profiled on the Investigation Discovery (ID) program Most Evil. 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.^[10] The Neelleys were later featured on the ID programs Wicked Attraction^[11] and Deadly Women.^[12]