The Alabama Board of Pardons and Parolesdebated for about a minutebefore voting Wednesday to deny release for Judith Ann Neelley, reports AL. com.
The decision came two days after Alabama Gov. Kay Iveyissued a letter that also opposed parole for Neelley and decried the “unspeakable brutality” of her crimes.
Neelley was convicted afterabducting 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican from a shopping mallin Rome, Georgia, in September 1982, according to theCoosa Valley News.
She then took the victim across the state line to a motel in Scottsboro, Alabama, where Neelley’s then-husband, Alvin, raped the girl four times while the couple held her captive and tortured her, according to AL.com.
Alabama Department of Corrections
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Jurors who convicted Neelley recommended a sentence of life in prison, which the judge in the case disregarded when he sentenced her instead to death.
(Alvin Neelley also was convicted and died in prison in 2005 while serving his life sentence, according to WRBL.)
Former Gov. Fob James commuted Judith Ann Neelley’s sentence to life in 1999.
Those who testified Monday to the parole board against her release included Millican’s brother, Calvin. “That took a part of my life away. … And it took Lisa’s whole life away. She’s no longer here,” he said., according to AL.com. “Judith Ann Neelley is a very cruel, sick person.”
An attorney, Julian McPhillips, who testified for Neelley’s release, said she has acknowledged her crimes but argued that they were committed at the direction of her husband, the outlet reports.
Had Neelley been released, she would have been transferred to Georgia, where a life sentence awaits her following her conviction for an October 1982 murder tied to the abduction of an engaged couple, John Hancock and Janice Chatman, from a Rome service station.
Chatman was raped and shot, theCoosa Valley Newsreports, but Hancock survived his shooting and testified against the couple.
source: people.com
