Keen to make someone else feel worse than they did, the Neelleys went to the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia on 25th September 1982. There they entered the video arcade and Alvin started playing the machines. When his back was turned, Judith approached Suzanne Clonts and asked her if she was alone, and if she wanted to drive around for a while. Suzanne looked at the dead eyed and dirty teenager and declined, a move that undoubtedly saved her life.
Lisa’s abduction
Judith then approached thirteen-year-old Lisa Millican. The teenager was with a party from a children’s home for neglected girls but had become separated from them. She was frightened as some youths had been eyeing her up and she’d had bad experiences with abusive men. She chatted eagerly to Judith as her care workers searched for her throughout the mall.
Lisa had already suffered greatly during her short life, as her family - who lived in a rundown trailer - had neglected her. She’d been sexually abused by her father from the age of eleven. Her mother had also taken her to bed with a man on various occasions saying that the man wouldn’t rape her because he was too drunk.
Lisa and her three siblings had all been taken into care and she had been placed in several foster homes before being moved to the Harpst Children’s Home. The attractive dark-haired teenager was actively bisexual - but clearly had no idea what the sadistic Judith Neelley had in mind.
Lisa now got into Judith’s car, excited at the idea of an adventure. Judith may have had the twins in the backseat, yet another reason for Lisa not to feel alarmed. Alvin probably wasn’t around at this stage, for by now the unlikely couple had a car each.
The reasons for this were myriad. Alvin liked a tidy vehicle whereas Judith kept hers littered with food wrappers and other junk. Plus they fought a lot and the separate vehicles allowed them to maintain a necessary distance. And it couldn’t have escaped their notice that if a potential victim got into Judith’s car and was driven someplace quiet, she would be especially taken by surprise when Alvin suddenly appeared.
At some stage on the journey Lisa was introduced to Alvin. It was easy for Judith to arrange this as the couple both had CB radios in their cars - ironic, given that Judith had so hated her mother’s CB radio. Judith called herself Lady Sundown and Alvin called himself Nightrider. The hamburger diet hadn’t been kind to Nightrider so he was a smiling, roly-poly kind of man. Lisa had no reason to fear the couple, and by now had no idea how to get back to the children’s home even if she’d wanted to. So they all went to a cheap motel and booked a room.
One motel worker saw Judith walking through the building with Lisa following close behind her. She also saw Alvin going again and again to the vending machines which sold junk food. He clearly found it taxing to be active, his movements further hampered by a long-term injury that had resulted in a metal plate in his leg. Witnesses would describe Alvin as an overweight, breathless man who only ventured out of the room to obtain more sustenance. And Judith would admit that he liked to lie around for hours just watching TV. But his semen would be found inside thirteen-year-old Lisa’s body so he clearly managed to have sex with the needy child.
When they were locked in their motel room, Judith produced her gun and told the terrified Lisa to do whatever she said. Then the couple gagged her and tied her to the bed. For the next four days Judith sexually assaulted her and Alvin raped her. Both Neelleys took turns in beating her whilst their own little children watched. At night they handcuffed the teenager to the bedframe and made her sleep on the floor. There was a spare bed in the room so leaving her cold and naked on the carpet was yet another instance of abuse.
Killing Lisa
After four days they decided to move on and Judith decided to kill Lisa - she would later claim this was so that the teenager couldn’t identify her. Judith left the hotel very early whilst no one was around and handcuffed the girl to the inside of the car. She then drove her to a canyon in a remote part of Dekalb County, told her to get out of the vehicle and lie down. Lisa obeyed and Judith promptly handcuffed her young victim’s arms around a tree.
Next, Judith produced a loaded syringe and injected Lisa in the neck with liquid drain cleaner. She would later claim that she did this to kill her quickly, but it’s apparent from what followed that it was simply another form of torture, particularly when she had a gun available that could have instantly killed the raped and beaten child.
Lisa cried out and writhed on the ground but didn’t die. After a time, Judith injected a different solution into the other side of Lisa’s neck. Again, Lisa remained conscious. Judith ordered Lisa to walk about, ostensibly to make the solution work faster. Then she handcuffed her again, still at gunpoint. She went on to inject both of Lisa’s arms and her buttocks using a total of three different syringes and waiting for a few minutes after each injection but the girl still didn’t die.
Lisa pleaded to be allowed to go back to the children’s home and said she was cold and could she have a blanket? The caustic agent was literally causing her flesh to bubble and liquefy and she must have been in terrible pain. Judith had taken care to drive to a remote region so there wasn’t a rescuer for miles around.
Judith untied Lisa for the last time and ordered her to walk to the very edge of the canyon, which in some places is 600 feet deep. The pretty brunette teenager again pleaded for her life but Judith ignored her pleas and shot her from behind. The girl fell backwards onto the ground rather than toppling forwards over the edge so Judith pushed her over, watching her body plunge over eighty feet before it was caught by a jutting tree. Whilst rolling the girl over she’d gotten blood on her jeans so she now swapped them for a clean pair that she had in the car. She threw her blood-stained clothing and the syringes over the edge where they would be found near the body by Dekalb police.
Judith would say in court that she carried out the injections and the shooting on Alvin’s orders because she was terrified of his violence - but there is no physical evidence linking him to the abuse at the canyon, only to having sex in the motel. She would also claim that he masturbated at the scene.
A taunting phone call
Shortly after Lisa’s death, Judith Neelley phoned a radio station in Rome, Georgia and told them where to find the teenager’s body. She repeated the detailed instructions in another phone call to the Rome police. The Rome police would search the area but fail to find the child’s corpse. Judith now phoned the Dekalb County Sheriffs Office and told them where to find ‘a young girl’s body’ adding ‘where I left her.’ They searched and finally found Lisa with a bullet through her head. They also found Judith’s blood-smeared jeans and the three syringes that had been used to torture Lisa immediately before her death.
Criminologists always state that female serial killers never make taunting phone calls to the police - but Judith Neelley is a rare exception. Her motive for doing so is still unclear. What’s certain is that the taped calls helped show that she was confident, calm and completely without remorse for her vicious crime.
Other potential victims are approached
On the afternoon of 3rd October 1982, Diane Bobo was approached by Judith Neelley, who tried to get her to go for a ride with her. She refused immediately. The next day thirteen-year-old Debbie Smith was walking home from school when Judith did the exact same thing. She too declined. Both felt uneasy after their encounter with the staring teenager in the brown Dodge - and Debbie’s mother would report the incident to the authorities. Both witnesses were later able to identify Neelley from photographs.
Judith shoots John
The approaches to Diane Bobo and Debbie Smith having failed, that evening Judith drew up alongside a couple who were out walking, John Hancock and Janice Chatman. She said that she was lonely and repeatedly asked them to ride around with her. John Hancock, a gravedigger, had a bad feeling about the offer, but foolishly ignored his intuition. He had recently become a Christian so thought he should satisfy Judith’s request for companionship. Janice, his common law wife, had learning diffi
culties so was quite happy to get into the car.
Judith started to drive along country roads with her two new passengers and her two small children in the car. Soon she switched on her CB radio. When someone calling himself Nightrider started to speak she responded immediately. She called herself Lady Sundown as she arranged to meet up with him. She sounded calm and assured, not the battered and brainwashed wife she would later try to make herself out to be.
After a while she drew up on a dirt road north of Rome and Alvin Neelley drew up in a red car beside them. Alvin suggested that John Hancock ride with him and Janice Chatman stay with Judith. John’s uneasiness increased but Janice seemed quite happy with this arrangement. The two cars then drove north looking for a cheap source of drink that Alvin had apparently heard of, but finally stopped because John Hancock needed to urinate.
Both cars stopped and John Hancock walked a little distance away and relieved himself. He was aware that Judith and Alvin had left their vehicles and were standing watching him. He could hear them whispering. Then he heard Alvin say ‘If we’re going to do it, let’s get it over with,’ and Judith approached him pointing her gun.
She ordered him to walk with his back to her. He did, his heart beating heavily in his chest. She told him which directions to take, marching him backwards and forwards until Alvin, by now out of sight, shouted to hurry up and get it over with. (John, who miraculously survived the shooting, would later say that Alvin sounded scared.) He asked if he could talk to her but she said ‘Hell, no’ and remained disinterested and cold. She added, ambiguously, that they were going to take care of his girlfriend - at which stage Alvin shouted again for her to hurry up.
Seconds later John felt a bullet enter his shoulder. The force of the shot threw him forward onto his stomach. He played dead, feeling his blood run down his back and into the ground as he heard his assailant, Lady Sundown, rush away through the woods.
John Hancock lay there for some time, hearing both cars drive away and knowing that twenty-three-year old Janice Chatman was in one of them. At last he dragged his bloodstained body to the road and tried to flag down a car.
Janice’s murder
Now it was Janice’s turn to be driven to a cheap motel for the couple’s sexual pleasure. Judith would later say that Janice was quite happy on the journey and this is possible as she hadn’t seen John Hancock being shot. He himself would later explain that Janice was almost childlike and had often been sexually used by men. But Alvin Neelley would state that when the two cars stopped - moments before Judith shot John Hancock - he saw that she’d handcuffed Janice to the inside of the car.
Once at the motel, Judith Neelley sexually assaulted Janice and Alvin allegedly raped her. Alvin would say that Judith also mocked the mentally retarded woman for talking so strangely. This murder, like that of Lisa, seems to have been about power, although that power was sometimes expressed in sexual terms.
The next day Judith decided to get rid of her victim, so drove the woman to a rural part of Chattooga County. There she marched Janice out of the car and shot her. Janice continued to scream and Judith angrily shot her twice more in the chest. She would later say that Alvin had ordered her to do so, but in his version he only heard about the death from Judith as he’d driven on ahead (A jury didn’t believe that he’d only helped to abduct and rape her and he was charged with causing her death.)
The listeners
A kindly stranger picked up the bleeding John Hancock and rushed him to the hospital. There he received emergency treatment and soon recovered from his gunshot wound. He was able to give an excellent description of Judith and Alvin Neelley, though obviously he only knew their CB names.
A Georgia detective invited him to come down to the station and take a lie detector test, to make sure that he’d played no part in the disappearance of his partner Janice. (Though feared dead she was still officially listed as missing.) Incredibly, whilst he was there, he heard Judith Neelley’s voice emanating from another room. A policeman was playing tape recordings of Mrs Neelley’s phone calls to one of her almost-victims, Debbie Smith, the schoolgirl who’d declined a ride. John Hancock exclaimed that he was listening to the voice of the woman who’d shot him - and he proved to be right.
Debbie, John and other witnesses now picked out Judith Neelley’s face - and, in some instances, Alvin’s - from crime photographs that the police showed them and a warrant was issued for their arrest.
The arrest
By now the couple were back in Judith’s home town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, staying with her mother, Barbara. On 9th October Judith went to a hotel there and tried to pass a bad cheque. She was arrested - and word soon got back to Sergeant Kenneth Kines, who knew Neelley was responsible for John Hancock’s shooting and Lisa’s torture and death. After all, her taunting phone calls had told them where to find Lisa’s body, information no one but the killer could know.
The police searched Judith’s mother’s house and found some of the Neelley’s killing kit, including handcuffs, guns, knives and masks.
Alvin was also arrested the same week and when Janice Chatman wasn’t found with either Neelley the police strongly suspected she was dead. Alvin would later tell police where to find her body - in a rural backwater in Chattooga County. He’d claim that Judith told him where she’d shot the girl, that he wasn’t directly involved in her death. He even drew them a map of the killing fields and they did indeed locate the young woman’s body in the vicinity. Unfortunately she was too badly decomposed to undergo forensic tests.
He said, she said
Alvin now claimed that Judith was the powerful one - and certainly the police found her hard and cold, whilst several people said she had the most chilling stare they’d ever seen. A police photo at the time of her arrest showed her expression as one of repressed rage. It wasn’t the first time she’d looked frightening - she’d certainly terrorised the female student she mugged and unsettled Debbie Smith and Diane Bobo with her compassionless gaze.
Police thought that Alvin, in contrast, was a wimp, a weak man who seemed permanently close to tears and who admitted he liked to ride in a separate car to his wife because she had terrible mood swings and would pick arguments. (Possibly the peanut butter diet played havoc with her blood sugar.) He talked about the firebombing, shooting and killings that she’d instigated, and said that he’d begun to fear that she’d shoot him too.
When first brought into custody Judith denied everything. She was pregnant again and looked unkempt and impoverished. Her eyes were blank as she stared at the police and her voice was flat. Living in a car with two children whilst expecting a third would take its toll on anyone’s health - but it still didn’t give her an excuse to inflict misery on others.
The police let her hear tapes of the various calls that she’d made. Thereafter, she admitted firebombing one careworker and shooting into the house of another. When they played the tapes she’d made after Lisa’s death, she started to talk matter of factly about the girl’s sexual abuse, the drain cleaner torture and eventual death. She also admitted shooting Janice Chatman three times.
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. She was driven to Fort Payne, Alabama, and charged with the murder of Lisa Ann Millican. (Janice had been killed in a different jurisdiction so charges relating to her death would have to be brought separately.)
Keeping up appearances
Judith Neelley gave birth to her third child, a boy, whilst waiting to go to trial. Bob French, who intially didn’t like her, reluctantly agreed to act as her defense. He arranged for her to have dental work so that her buckteeth looked better. He also arranged for her hair to be styled and got her upmarket clothes. At the end of this grooming period she looked healthy and attractive. She was also intellectually f
it - tests showed her IQ was still well above average. It appears that Bob French also had her coached so that she lost her aggressive air.
Whilst putting together Judith’s defense, he found out about Alvin’s first wife and mother of his three children, Jo Ann Browning (she had married Mr Browning long before obtaining a divorce from Alvin Neelley, making the marriage bigamous) and managed to track her down.
The trial
Judith Neelley went to trial on the 7th March 1983. The venue was the Dekalb County Courthouse in Alabama. Seven women and five men made up the jurors. It had been clear from Bob French’s original questions during the jury selection process that he was going to take the woman-as-victim approach.
The prosecution stated that when Judith had started talking to Lisa in the mall, her plan had been to abuse her. They said that Judith was not Alvin’s victim - after all, she had acted alone during several of her crimes. She had approached complete strangers and engaged them in persistent conversations, and she had sounded confident during her calls to the police. The people who had declined to go with her also said that she was not bruised or cowed and that in some instances Alvin hadn’t even been around.
Bob French called Jo Ann Browning, Alvin’s first wife, to the stand. The couple had been married for three years in the seventies and had produced three children. Jo Ann had helped Alvin rob the stores where he worked - she would state that he made her do so. The couple had either inhabited trailers, where she said he hit her daily, or moved purposelessly around. When the stormy marriage faltered, he had insisted on keeping the children, so Jo Ann had good reason to hate him even more. A clearly immature man, he had used his offspring as pawns to hurt his ex-wife - for after insisting on custody he’d eventually given the children to relatives.
Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers Page 10