An Alabama parole board denied parole on Wednesday for Judith Neelley, a woman convicted in 1982 for the rape, torture, and murder of a young girl in Georgia.
Associated Press reports that 53-year-old Judith Ann Neelley will remain behind bars in an Alabama prison after the parole board declined to free her, following a tear-filled testimony from the family of Lisa Ann Millican.
“Judith Ann Neelley is a very cruel, sick person and needs to do her punishment for killing, taking lives,” Calvin Millican, the victim’s brother, told the parole board.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Judith Neelley, 18 at the time, along with her then-husband, Alvin Howard Neelley, Jr., then 29, held victims agains their will for numerous days and took turns raping and molesting them, before killing them.
On September 25, 1982, the couple kidnapped their first victim, 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican, of Cedartown, from a mall in Rome, Georgia. The pair of convicts took the little girl to a hotel in Scottsboro, Alabama, where they both raped her repeatedly. According to court documents, the couple had two children of their own, who were present at the time their parents tortured the young girl.
Several weeks later, Judith Neelley attempted to kill Lisa Ann by injecting Drano into her neck with a syringe, followed by Liquid Plumber in the other side of her neck. When Lisa Ann didn’t die, Judith shot her in the back with a gun, then tossed the little girl’s lifeless body off of a cliff at the Little River Canyon in Fort Payne, Alabama.
On October 4, 1982, the convicts spotted a young couple, John Hancock, then 26, and Janice Chapman, 23, in Rome. They invited the victims to a party but after the couple agreed and followed them, the felonious couple lured the unsuspecting victims into the woods, where they shot John and left him for dead, then abducted Janice. The Neelleys brought Janice back their hotel room where they raped and tortured her repeatedly before murdering her. John survived the incident and was one of the many people currently protesting Judiths’s parole hearing.
Neelley’s lawyer, Julian McPhillips, said her client was “brainwashed” by then-husband, 11 years her senior. According to court documents, however, Neelley was not only brainwashed, but she was the ring leader of the pair and of sound mind when she committed the atrocious murder.
“The court finds that the defendant [Judith Neelleey] was not brainwashed and that she retained her will and her capacity to make independent choices,” court documents read.
[Feature Photo: Judith Neelley/Alabama Department of Corrections]
