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Thread: Judith Ann Neelley - Alabama

  1. #11
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Ivey says Neelley should not be paroled "not now, and not ever."

    By Anna Beahm
    al.com

    Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said convicted child killer Judith Ann Neelley, who is up for parole Wednesday, should not be paroled "not now, and not ever."

    Ivey made her remarks in a media statement Monday afternoon.

    Neelley, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal rape and killing of Lisa Ann Millican, was granted a parole hearing last month after the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unconstitutional a 2003 retroactive law enacted to prevent her parole.

    "Under no circumstances should Judith Ann Neelley be granted parole. Her crimes...include acts of unspeakable brutality. And her character includes a disturbing tendency to manipulate others toward her own, violent ends," Ivey said in the statement.

    "These things alone should prevent Ms. Neeley from ever stepping food outside an Alabama prison."

    Neelley tried to waive the May hearing, but officials said either the hearing happened or Neelley waived her right at a chance for freedom forever.

    In late September 1982, Neelley kidnapped Lisa from Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia, and took her to a motel room from her husband, Alvin to rape. Alvin raped Lisa four times over the next few days while Judith assisted him by beating Lisa and handcuffing her to the bed.

    Neelley then took Lisa to Little River Canyon outside Fort Payne where Neelley injected Lisa six times with liquid drain cleaner in a botched attempt to kill her. After that didn't work, Neelley led Lisa to the rim of the gorge, shot Lisa in the back and then shoved her into the canyon.

    Neelley was tried and convicted, and the jury recommended life in prison. However, the judge sentenced her to death.

    Neelley's death sentence was commuted to life in 1999 on Gov. Fob James' last day on office. James later talked to The Post, a northeast Alabama newspaper, about his decision.

    "That DeKalb County jury, which heard all of the facts that heinous crime in the months right after the events took place, convicted her to life in prison," James said. "Then, the judge changed the sentence to death."

    In her statement, Ivey said she would not have commuted Neelley's sentence in the first place.

    "Do not forget the depravity of Ms. Neelley's crimes. Do not forget the danger Ms. Neelley poses to society," she said.

    Even if Neelley is granted parole, though, she may not have been a free woman. Georgia has a detainer warrant pending for Neelley for a consecutive life sentence in a 1999 kidnapping case. If released from Tutwiler prison, authorities in Georgia could arrest Neelley and take her to a Georgia state prison.

    The hearing is scheduled for Monday morning in Montgomery.

    https://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/20...rt_river_index

  2. #12
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Kay Ivey has earned my respect as a governor who does not let these people, no matter how manipulative, get away with it. Seems women are more likely to recognize the depravity of a woman's crime, since they won't be swayed by the "delicate female" act as much.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

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  3. #13
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    No parole for woman in Georgia teen's slaying in Alabama

    By Associated Press

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama officials swiftly denied parole Wednesday for a woman convicted of murder in the 1982 death of a 13-year-old girl who was abducted from a Georgia shopping mall, sexually assaulted, and injected with drain cleaner before being fatally shot.

    After an emotional hearing, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole Boards took just 55 seconds to announce that it was refusing to free Judith Ann Neelley, 53. Neelley originally had been sentenced to the electric chair for the slaying of 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican, but had her death sentence commuted, setting off a battle over her possible parole eligibility.

    She will be eligible for consideration again in 2023. Neelley was not present at the hearing.

    Neelley was convicted with husband Alvin Neelley of killing Millican, who was abducted from a mall in Rome, Georgia. The girl’s body was dumped into a canyon in northeast Alabama. Alvin Neelley died in a Georgia prison in 2005.

    Calvin Millican told the board that his sister’s killing devastated his family and that Neelley should have gotten the death penalty.

    “Judith Ann Neelley is a very cruel, sick person and needs to do her punishment for killing, taking lives,” he said.

    After the hearing, Lisa Millican’s sister Tina Millican remarked that Neelley “is the true essence of evil.”

    Millican’s mother, Frankie Mason, said she had hoped Neelley would be present at the hearing so she could see her face when she was denied parole.

    Parole board members heard dueling depictions of Neelley during the 30-minute hearing: that she was a cold-blooded person who killed for sport or that she was an abused teen dominated by an older, controlling husband.

    “She loved killing. She enjoyed the death of Lisa Millican,” said Mike O’Dell, a district attorney who prosecuted Neelley.

    O’Dell told the board that Judith Ann Neelley was the one who tied Millican to a tree, injected her with drain cleaner six times to see what it would do to her body and then shot her when she didn’t die quickly enough.

    An attorney representing Neelley told the board Neelley was coerced by Alvin Neelley into committing the crime.

    “To say that Miss Neelley was brainwashed was a vast understatement. She was more like a zombie,” Julian McPhillips said.

    “Unquestionably the crime committed was a dastardly and unthinkable crime that defies human comprehension. … Miss Neelley couldn’t agree more with that and will be to her very dying moment incredibly ashamed and remorseful for what happened. She has said many times if she could trade her own life for the victim’s she would have done so.”

    McPhillips said that Neelley, if released, would immediately go to Georgia to serve a life sentence there.

    Neelley was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die in Alabama’s electric chair, but Alabama Gov. Fob James commuted Neelley’s death sentence to life in 1999. A 2003 Alabama law to bar Neelley from parole was ruled unconstitutional in March.

    This was Neelley’s first opportunity for parole since that ruling.

    http://theprovince.com/pmn/news-pmn/...f-eb441b1440da
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
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    - Rev. Richard Hawke

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  4. #14
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    Lisa Millican’s family fights for new laws

    By Donna Thornton
    The Gadsden times

    For the family of Lisa Ann Millican, it seems the fight will never end.

    They fought to keep her killer from coming up for parole — that battle was lost in the courts, and Judith Ann Neeley had a parole hearing in May.

    They fought to keep her behind bars, collecting names on petitions and asking for letters in opposition. They won that battle; Neelley remains in Julia Tutwiler Prison.

    Now they are fighting against a TV show seeking to re-enact the 1982 crime.

    The show proposed by the Oxygen network would be the third true show to re-enact what happened to Lisa — without any say from the family, unless they choose to be interviewed.

    “Families of crime victims already have to deal with the fact that they couldn’t protect their family member in life,” said Cassie Millican, wife of Lisa’s brother Calvin and spokesperson for the family. “We can’t protect them in death either.

    “We can’t grieve and move on,” she said.

    Her mother-in-law, Lisa’s mom, has told her that each time she thinks she can move on, there’s another disrespectful book or show.

    Millican believes they have stopped the proposed show by going to the sources of its information. She and family members called on prosecutors and law enforcement officers involved in the case, asking them to refuse to take part. She said they agreed, telling producers they would not discuss the case without the family’s permission.

    Now, the Millicans are gearing up for another battle. They are supporting a proposed law that would protect crime victims and their families from criminals trying to profit from their crimes and from others who seek to profit from a victim’s pain; and a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a governor to notify crime victims and prosecutors before commuting a death sentence.

    As the family fought the parole issue, Millican was in touch with leaders of Victims of Crime Against Leniency, a statewide crime victims advocacy group, and began working with its lobbyists.

    She had been thinking legislation was needed to protect victims’ families since the parole question arose; during her family’s battle, something happened that helped galvanize her commitment.

    Millican, friends and family used social media to seek help opposing Neelley’s parole, Robert French, a Fort Payne attorney who represented Neelley in her trial for capital murder, started commenting and posting on those sites — about the book he’d written about the case and how people could buy it.

    Millican was furious that he tried to use the family’s platform to keep Lisa’s killer behind bars as a way to sell books.

    Combating such profiteering became part of her quest. She reached out to Troy King, a former state attorney general and a current candidate for the job, to help with the effort.

    Last week, she joined King at a press conference announcing a law that seeks to block defendants making money from their notoriety as criminals and to block re-enactment shows popular on several networks, as well as the amendment that would require a governor considering commuting a death sentence to notify the same family members and concerned parties that must be notified if a defendant is coming up for parole.

    “We had no warning,” Millican said, when then-Gov. Fob James commuted Neelley’s death sentence as one of his last actions on leaving office — an action he never explained at the time.

    In a 2002 story billed as an exclusive interview with James about the Neelley case, the former governor noted that the DeKalb County jury that heard all evidence in the case recommended life in prison without parole for Neelley — but the judge in the case overrode the recommendation and sentenced her to die.

    James also said he did not believe his commutation of the death sentence would make Neelley eligible for parole. He said his lawyers had investigated it, and he believes ruling that she would be eligible for parole was wrong.

    The courts did not agree, opening the door to parole for Neelley.

    “Every individual has a property right in the use of that person’s name, photograph or likeness in any medium in any manner,” the proposed bill states. The right doesn’t expire, the bill states, when an individual dies. Instead it is “descendible” to the executors, assignees, heirs or devisees of the individual, and they hold the right to commercial exploitation of the property right.

    The bill would give the executors, assignees, heirs or devisees exclusive right to the assignment or licensing of those rights for a period of 20 years after the death of the individual.

    Commercial exploitation of that deceased person’s image would be the exclusive property of executors, assignees, heirs or devisees unless it is terminated by proof of non-use for two years subsequent to the initial 20-year period after the person’s death.

    Those who knowingly use another individual’s name, photograph or likeness in any medium as an item of commerce; for advertising, merchandise, goods, services, fundraising or soliciting donations; or for the purchasing of products, merchandise, goods or services without prior consent of the individual, the executor, or the parent of a minor would be subject to civil action.

    Millican said the bill is not directed at the media’s right to cover crime stories; it is aimed at the “shows like ‘Snapped.’”

    “It gives the right of the victim back to the family,” Millican said. With it, “exploiters” would be subject to Alabama law, she said, and could be pursued by the attorney general’s office.

    Neither measure has sponsors at this point, according to Hayden Pugh in King’s office. However, Millican said she and King are confidant sponsors will want to back these protections for crime victims and their families in the next legislative session.

    http://www.gadsdentimes.com/news/201...s-for-new-laws
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  5. #15
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    40 years after girl's murder in Alabama, Millicans take fight to voters

    By Donna Thornton
    The Gadsden Times

    Almost 17 years after Lisa Ann Millican, 13, was raped and murdered, her family was told to prepare: The state soon would set an execution date for the woman a DeKalb County jury had convicted of brutally killing Lisa.

    Instead, the family got a "complete sucker punch" from then-Gov. Fob James, Cassie Millican said. A few days before leaving office in 1999, James commuted Judith Ann Neelley's death sentence to life in prison. Alabama laws at the time meant not only would Neelley escape execution, but she would also be eligible for parole.

    Cassie Millican is married to Lisa Ann Millican's brother, Calvin, and has become a spokesperson for the family as it has fought to prevent other victims' families from being left out of such decisions. Their advocacy has led to Amendment 3, which appears statewide on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

    Amendment 3 would require a governor who stops an execution or commutes a death sentence to notify the attorney general and make a "reasonable effort" to contact a victim's family, using the information provided by the attorney general. If the governor does not make these notifications, the reprieve or commutation of the sentence would be void.

    Such a notification would give a victim's family the opportunity to raise objections. Millican said it also would give families a chance to go to the media — to make the public aware of their opposition, and if the public shares it, to put pressure on the governor to change the decision.

    It's something the Millican family never had the chance to do. The governor's decision in the Neelley case, Cassie Millican believes, was a "cowardly" one — made when he wouldn't have to answer for it to voters or the family. It left the family to worry that Neelley will one day be released from prison. They've had to oppose her parole in one hearing already, she said. Another is slated for next year, she said.

    "It just looms over us," Millican said. "This whole year, we're dreading next year." In addition to her husband and their children, Lisa Ann has sisters and her mother who must relive the horror of what happened to the girl in 1982.

    Days of torture, a painful death

    Lisa Ann Millican was lured from a Georgia mall on Sept. 25, 1982, and subjected to rape and abuse from Alvin and Judith Neelley. According to court testimony, Judith Neelley injected Millican multiple times with drain cleaner to kill her. When that failed, she shot the girl in the back and pushed her from a cliff into Little River Canyon in Fort Payne.

    Alvin Neelley was not tried in the Millican case. He pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated assault in another case in Georgia. He died in prison in 2005.

    Judith Neelley was convicted of capital murder. Jurors recommended a life sentence for the 18-year-old mother of three, but the judge imposed the death penalty. She was on death row till the commutation in January 1999.

    Alabama lawmakers later passed a law that in effect sentenced Neelley to life in prison, but Neelley sued and the law was ruled unconstitutional. Neelley is currently incarcerated at Alabama Therapeutic Education Facility in Columbiana.

    Amendment 3 'not stepping on [governor's] toes'

    Cassie Millican said her family is well aware that Amendment 3 would not change what they face regarding Neelley's sentence.

    "We just want to prevent any other family from having to go what we have," she said.

    Cassie Millican said she worked with Gov. Kay Ivey's team, and the governor has no problem with the requirements the amendment would make for governors.

    "This is not stepping on her toes at all," Millican said; it does not alter the governor's ability to grant reprieves or commute sentences — providing notification is made.

    Commutations are not a common occurrence; James is the only Alabama governor to have commuted a death sentence since executions resumed in 1983.

    State Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, was the primary sponsor of the bill.

    "No one has objected to the amendment," she said, and it has the support of the attorney general's office.

    https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story...e/69574432007/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #16
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    Parole hearing for Judith Ann Neelley set for May

    By Adam Carey
    The Rome News-Tribune

    A parole hearing for convicted killer Judith Ann Neelley is scheduled for May in Alabama.

    Neelley was originally sentenced to death in the electric chair for the torture, rape, and slaying of 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican, but her death sentence was commuted in 1999 by then Alabama Gov. Fob James.

    Neelley and her husband Alvin Neelley abducted 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican from Rome’s Riverbend Mall in 1982.

    Millican was driven to a motel in Alabama where she was held captive before being raped, injected with drain cleaner, and shot before being dumped into the Little River Canyon.

    If Neelley is granted parole, she would likely be arrested by Georgia authorities to serve her time for the kidnapping and killing of Janice Chatman.

    https://www.wrganews.com/2023/02/26/...ibextid=ykz3hl
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

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  7. #17
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Judith Ann Neelley set for parole hearing in 1982 murder of 13-year-old girl

    By Ivana Hrynkiw
    al.com

    Judith Ann Neelley is set for a parole hearing later this month, meaning the woman convicted of killing a child four decades ago could have a chance at leaving Alabama.

    The 59-year-old is set to go before the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles on May 25.

    Lisa Ann Millican, 13, was abducted from a shopping mall in Rome, Ga., in September 1982 by Neelley and her husband, Alvin Neelley. Judith Ann Neelley was later found guilty of the rape and murder of Lisa. After years of fighting for a shot at freedom, Neelley was first set for a parole hearing in May 2018; but, her lawyer at the time said she wanted to waive the hearing.

    Neelley wrote in a letter, obtained exclusively by AL.com at the time, that she made the decision after “much prayer and discussions with my children.”

    The group Victims of Crime and Leniency (VOCAL) asked the board to go forward with the hearing anyway, saying the Millican family should have the opportunity to be heard.

    The hearing happened in May 2018, and the board deliberated for just one minute before denying parole. Several spoke at the hearing, including members of the victim’s family and the district attorney who prosecuted Neelley.

    “I’ve been prosecuting for 38 years,” former district attorney Mike O’Dell told the board. “I’ve probably prosecuted over 200 murder defendants. I have never prosecuted one other defendant who murdered for sheer sport. She loved killing.”

    Even if Neelley is granted parole by the three-member board later this month, she will not walk out of Alabama’s Julia Tutwiler Prison as a free woman. Georgia has a detainer warrant pending for Neelley for a consecutive life sentence in a 1999 kidnapping case -- meaning that, if released from Tutwiler, authorities in Georgia would likely arrest Neelley and take her to a Georgia state prison.

    She pleaded guilty Georgia for the murder of 22-year-old Janice Chatman, also of Rome, Ga. In that case, she pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against her husband. Alvin Neelley died in prison in Georgia in 2005.

    Neelley was originally sentenced to death in Lisa’s death, but her sentence was commuted to life in prison by former Alabama Gov. Fob James before he left office in 1999.

    She is the only death row inmate in Alabama history to be granted commutation.

    But the former governor’s order didn’t do what he planned, he said later. James’ order did not specify whether Neelley would be eligible for parole. The legislature changed state law in 2003 specifically to block Neelley from the possibility of parole, but a federal judge years later ruled that law unconstitutional.

    So, after 19 years of legal battles, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles set Neelley for her first parole hearing in 2018. The Millican family protested and asked people to write letters to the board asking that Neelley not be granted parole.

    In a crime that shocked Alabama almost 41 years ago, the couple held 13-year-old Lisa captive and brutalized her, according to court records, and Alvin Neelley raped the girl several times. Three days after the abduction, Judith Ann Neelley handcuffed Lisa to a tree at Little River Canyon in Alabama’s DeKalb County and used a needle and syringe to inject her repeatedly with drain cleaner. When that failed to kill the young girl, she shot her and pushed her body into the canyon.

    An Alabama jury convicted Neelley of capital murder and recommended a sentence of life without parole, but the judge sentenced her to death.

    https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2...outputType=amp
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  8. #18
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    She should never get out.
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #19
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    Parole denied again for Georgia woman convicted of killing girl in 1980s

    WETUMPKA, Ala. (WTVC) — A convicted child killer who was once the youngest woman to face a death sentence in the U.S., but whose sentence was later commuted, learned Thursday morning that she'll remain behind bars, Chattooga County Sheriff Mark Shrader confirmed.

    Judith Ann Neelley was convicted in the early 1980s for the kidnapping, torture and murder of 13-year-old Lisa Millican.

    Millican was kidnapped from a mall in Rome, Georgia in 1982.

    She was sexually assaulted, injected with drain cleaner, and eventually shot to death. Her body was dumped in the Little River Canyon in DeKalb County, Alabama.

    Neelley, who was just 18 at the time of the crime, and her husband, Alvin, were both convicted in Millican's death, with Alvin pleading guilty.

    Neelley, at the time, said Alvin drugged her and forced her to help kidnap and rape Millican. But a jury didn't believe that defense.

    In 1999, just days before she was to be put to death, Gov. Fob James commuted Judity Neelley's death sentence to life in prison, which caused an uproar, and created a push to change the laws.

    Alvin Neelley died behind bars in 2005.

    Neelley has spent her prison sentence at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.

    https://bakersfieldnow.com/news/nati...tal-punishment
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

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