EXCERPT: Active from 1980 to 1982, Alvin Neelley and his wife, Judith, liked to refer to themselves as the Night Rider and Lady Sundance. This murderous couple who delighted in the association of their heinous exploits with those of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, killed at least fifteen women [based on Alvin’s confession] in a reign of terror that ranged across three southern states. [Michael D. Kelleher & C. L. Kelleher, Murder Most Rare: The Female Serial Killer, Praeger Books, 1998, p. 135]
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EXCERPT: Judith adapted the standard “politically correct” defense [its the man’s fault] only after reflection and thus created a new narrative adding stories of domestic violence. As Davis notes, “Asked if she was afraid of her husband Alvin, she shook her head and said that he was the only person she’d ever trusted. She would later change this story to suggest that he’d abused her almost every day of her life – though the endless beatings mysteriously left not a single bruise. … Prior to her trial, Judith had never alleged that Alvin had abused her – but now she followed Jo Ann to the stand and gave a defence that amounted to Battered Wife Syndrome, even though she didn’t fit the true definition of a battered wife. [Carol Ann Davis, Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial killers, 2001, Allison & Busby Ltd, p. 100-01]
Yet, the following type of inaccurate, yet politically correct, claim – fitting the dogma of ideological “gender theory” continue to be put forth: “Judith Neelley, a battered woman and the youngest American woman to serve time on death row, was convicted of committing the heinous murders of two women at the behest of her abusive husband.”
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Wikipedia: Alvin Howard Neelley, Jr. (1953–2005) and Judith Ann Adams Neelley (born 1964) are an American couple responsible for two torture murders. They each were convicted of the kidnappings and murders of Lisa Ann Millican and Janice Chatman. Judy Neelley was sentenced to death by the state of Alabama in 1983, but her sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment in 1999. She is serving her sentence at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama. Alvin Neelley was serving a life sentence at the Bostick State Prison in Hardwick, Georgia at the time of his death in 2005.
~ Early lives ~ ~
~ Alvin Neelley ~
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 ~
Judith Ann Adams was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in June 1964. Her father, an alcoholic, died in a motorcycle accident when she was nine. After meeting Alvin Neelley, she began her life of crime, committing armed robbery across the country (even when heavily pregnant) for which she was later caught. She gave birth to twins while incarcerated at Rome’s Youth Development Center.
~ Youth Development Center crimes ~
On September 11, 1982, a Youth Development Center employee, Ken Dooley’s home 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 Youth Development Center, but neither victim could identify the caller’s voice.
~ Lisa Ann Millican ~
Lisa Ann Millican, a 13 year-old girl from Cedartown, Georgia was abducted by Alvin and Judith Neelley from the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia on September 25, 1982. She was taken to a Murfreesboro, Tennessee (Scottsboro, Al.) motel where the Neelleys held her captive. During her captivity, Lisa was raped 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.
“The couple held her prisoner for three days, repeatedly molesting her in seedy motel rooms while their own children looked on. Finally tiring of the game, Judith tried injecting their victim with liquid drain cleaner, but she kept hitting muscle instead of a vein, reducing Lisa’s flesh to what a coroner would call “the consistency of anchovy paste. Still Lisa lived, in agony, and she was driven to Alabama’s Little River Canyon, finished off with bullets after more injections failed to do the job. [Bad Girls Do It!,
~ 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 was 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.
~ Arrests and trial ~
Judith Neelley was arrested on October 9, 1982, and Alvin was taken into custody a few days later. Judith was deduced as being the perpetrator in the YDC employee attacks.
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. Judith Neelley’s trial began on March 7, 1983, in Fort Payne, Al. Before her trial however, 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. 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.
Following her first conviction, Judith pled guilty to Janice Chatman’s murder.
~ Aftermath ~
Alvin Neelley was incarcerated at the Bostick State Prison from 1983 until his death in November 2005.
Judith Neelley became the youngest woman sentenced to death in the United States. She was 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 United States Supreme Court affirmed her death sentence. On January 15, 1999, Judith Neelley was days from her execution date when Alabama’s then-governor Fob James granted her clemency, commuting her death sentence to life in prison. The decision was met with controversy, but James cited how Judith’s jury wanted to sentence her to life in prison, but the judge sentenced her to death. Judith will be eligible for parole in January 2014.
~ In the media ~
On February 28, 2008, the Neelleys’ case was profiled on the Investigation Discovery 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.
On October 23, 2008, Alvin and Judith Neelley were featured on another Investigation Discovery program, Wicked Attraction, in the episode “Hearts of Darkness.”
Judith, presented as the mastermind of the murder spree, was featured on a third Investigation Discovery program, Deadly Women, in the July 2011 episode “Twisted Thrills.”
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Alvin’s attest and statements following October 14, 1982 arrest –
“Police got a break on October 14, when the Neelleys were arrested for check in Judith’s hometown of Murfreesboro. Alvin initially denied raping Lisa Millican, but he finally caved in. Even so, he contended, the crimes had been Judith’s idea. She enjoyed rough sex with women, he said, but the real turn-on was power – in this case, the literal power – in this case, the literal power of life and death. Neelley fingered his wife for a minimum of eight murders, perhaps as many as fifteen, committed in her role as “enforcer” for an elusive white-slave ring. More to the point, he sketched and signed a map of rural Cattooga County, Georgia, where police found Janice Chatman’s decomposing corpse.” [Michael Newton, Bad Girl’s Do It! 1983, Loompanics Unlimited, p. 128]
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Chronology:
Oct. 1980 – Judith armed robbery, mugging of female victim
Summer 1981 – Judith arrested for theft
Sep. 11, 1982 – Youth Development Center employee, Ken Dooley’s home was shot at four times.
Sep. 11, 1982 – fellow employee Linda Adair’s home was firebombed with a Molotov cocktail.
Sep. 25, 1982 – kidnapping of Lisa Ann Millican, 13
Sep. 28, 1982 – murder Lisa Ann Millican
Oct. 1982 – Murfreesboro woman raped
Oct. 3 (4?), 1982 – murder Janice Chatman, shooting of John Hancock
Oct. 9, 1982 – Judith Arrested
Oct. 14, 1982 – Alvin, check fraud arrest
Mar. 7, 1983 – trial begins in Fort Payne, Al., for torture murder of Lisa Ann Millican
1983 – Conviction Following her first conviction, Judith pled guilty to Janice Chatman's murder.
April 18, 1983 – sentenced to death
Jan. 15, 1999– death sentence was commuted to life in prison by Gov. Fob James That was just a few days after the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected an appeal by Neelley.
April 18, 2014 (?) – files lawsuit
Victims:
Lisa Millican, 13 – 4 days couple raped; Judith murdered Sep. 25, 1982
Janice Chatman – murdered, Oct. 3, 1982
John Hancock – wounded, shot in backOct. 3, 1982
Unnamed victims – Alvin’s confession claimed a total of 8 to 15 women murdered [Michael Newton, 1993]
Oct. 1982 – Murfreesboro woman raped [M. Newton, 1993]
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