Alabama officials are set to consider parole for a woman known as the ‘Lady Sundown Killer,’ who was convicted of abducting, torturing and murdering a 13-year-old girl with her husband in 1982.
Judith Ann Neelley, 58, will appear before the Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole Boards on May 25, marking her second chance at parole since her death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1999.
Neelley was convicted in 1983 of murdering 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican, after she and her husband Alvin Neelley abducted the girl from a Georgia shopping mall, sexually assaulted her, injected her with drain cleaner and fatally shot the girl.
At Neelley’s first parole hearing in 2018, officials deliberated for 55 seconds before denying her bid for freedom.
If she were granted parole next week, she would be immediately transferred to authorities in Georgia to serve a separate life sentence for murdering another young woman alongside her husband, who died behind bars in 2005.
Judith Ann Neelley, 58, will appear before the Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole Boards on May 25, marking her second chance at parole since her death sentence was commuted
Neelley was convicted in 1983 with husband Alvin Neelley of murdering 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican (top right in a family photo), who was abducted from a Georgia shopping mall
Alvin and Judith Neelley are seen in an undated photo. The couple abducted, tortured and murdered two female victims, all while they had two-year-old twins at home
However, even the possibility that Neelley could be granted parole in Alabama is dredging up painful memories for the families of her victims, who want to see the killer serve out her life sentence in Alabama.
‘With each passing parole, I fear it gets closer to Georgia,’ Lisa’s sister-in-law Cassie Millican told the Times-Journal last month. ‘She’s been here so long already that I fear eventually they’ll send her to Georgia to do her sentence there.’
‘We are, of course, urging protest letters once again,’ said Cassie. With each parole [hearing]typically there will be less exposure.
On Facebook, Cassie shared a letter from the Sheriff of Chattanooga County in Georgia, on behalf of the family of Neelley’s second victim, Janice Kay Chatman, who was abducted and killed there in October 1982.
In the letter, Sheriff Mark A. Schrader strongly recommends that Neelley be denied parole in Alabama, but advises that his deputies are waiting to immediately take her into custody to serve her Georgia sentence in the event she is freed.
The sickening saga of Judith and Alvin Neelley’s crimes dates back to September 25, 1982, when the married couple abducted young Lisa Ann Millican from Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia.
At the time of the crime, the Neelley couple had two-year-old twins, and Judith was pregnant with their third child.
Judith (left) and Alvin (right) Neelley’s crimes date back to September 25, 1982, when the married couple abducted young Lisa Ann Millican from Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia.
Judith Ann Neeley is photographed October 19, 1984 at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama. Known as the infamous ‘Lady Sundown’ killer, she was the youngest American woman to receive the death penalty at trial.
Judith Ann Neelley is seen on death row in 1984. In 1999, when she was days away from execution, Alabama Governor Fob James commuted her death sentence
Chattanooga Sheriff Mark A. Schrader strongly recommends that Neelley be denied parole in Alabama, but advises that his deputies are waiting to immediately take her into custody.
According to the Times-Journal, the Neelleys drove 13-year-old Lisa to a motel in Franklin, Georgia, where she was raped and made to sleep naked on the floor.
The following day, after picking up their own young couple, the married killers took Lisa to the Five Points Inn in Scottsboro, Alabama where Alvin raped her repeatedly over the course of two days, and Judith beat her and kept her handcuffed in the bathroom.
Planning to kill the girl and dispose of her body, the couple took Lisa to Little River Canyon in Fort Payne, where Judith injected the girl six times with a drain cleaner.
Frustrated that the poison didn’t kill the teen quick enough, Judith then shot the girl in the back and pushed her body into the canyon, the court heard.
After the brutal murder, the Neelleys drove to nearby Gadsden to enjoy breakfast.
Less than a month later, the murder spree continued in Rome, Georgia, when the Neelleys abducted 23-year-old Janice Chatman, after shooting an injuring her fiancé John Hancock in early October 1982.
Janice was also taken to a hotel, tortured and sexually assaulted, before the Neelleys murdered her and dumped the body.
The murders were solved when the Neelleys were arrested on a bad check charge in Tennessee, and authorities connected Judith to phone threats against a juvenile detention center in Rome where she once served time.