Convicted murderer Judith Ann Neelley is shown on death row at Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka, Ala., in this 1984 file photo. (AP Photo/Montgomery Advertiser)Days after convicted murderer Judith Neelley asked for her parole hearing to be waived, the hearing is still scheduled.
Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole Darrell Morgan told the Times Free Press this evening that the board has received Neelley’s letter, in which she asked to cancel her May 23 hearing. However, Morgan said the hearing has not been waived at this time.
It’s not clear whether the hearing will, in fact, get waived. And if it does get waived, it’s not clear when she could go before the board again.
“The inmate’s attorneys are currently reviewing options regarding waiving the hearing,” Morgan wrote in an email. “Discussions after their decision will dictate next steps.”
On Tuesday, Neelley wrote that she wanted her hearing to be cancelled because the family of her victim, 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican, planned to speak against her release.
Millican’s sister, Judy Millican Bradley, told the Times Free Press she thought Neelley’s letter was strategic. There was too much attention on her hearing right now. Bradley thinks Neelley will wait until attention dies down, hoping to go before the board when Millican’s family and the media are not paying attention.
“I’m glad she’s staying in [prison],” Bradley said earlier this week.
According to Times Free Press archives, Neelley was accused of kidnapping Millican at a Rome, Ga., mall and moving her around North Georgia for several days in September 1982. Eventually, Neelley allegedly injected Millican with Drano and shot her in the back at the edge of Little River Canyon in Fort Payne, Ala.
A jury convicted her of murder in March 1983, and a judge sentenced her to death. Alabama Gov. Fob James commuted her sentence in 1999.
Police also arrested Neelley for her role in the death of Janice Chapman, a 23-year-old Rome woman. According to archives, she picked up Chapman and Chapman’s common-law husband on the side of the road. They drove around North Georgia. Eventually, she shot Chapman’s husband in the woods in Gordon County, where he had walked off by himself to urinate.
Police later found Chapman’s dead body in Chattooga County. Neelley pleaded guilty to kidnapping in that case, receiving a life sentence.
A jury convicted her husband, Alvin Howard Neelley, of murder. He died in a Georgia prison in 2005.