No parole for woman in Rome teen’s slaying in Alabama

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama officials swiftly denied parole Wednesday for a woman convicted of murder in the 1982 death of a 13-year-old girl who was abducted from a Georgia shopping mall, sexually assaulted, and injected with drain cleaner before being fatally shot.

After an emotional hearing, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole Boards took just 55 seconds to announce that it was refusing to free Judith Ann Neelley, 53. Neelley originally had been sentenced to the electric chair for the slaying of 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican, but had her death sentence commuted, setting off a battle over her possible parole eligibility.

She will be eligible for consideration again in 2023. Neelley was not present at the hearing.

Neelley was convicted with husband Alvin Neelley of killing Millican, who was abducted from a mall in Rome, Georgia. The girl’s body was dumped into a canyon in northeast Alabama. Alvin Neelley died in a Georgia prison in 2005.

Neelley was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die in Alabama’s electric chair, but Alabama Gov. Fob James commuted Neelley’s death sentence to life in 1999.

A 2003 Alabama law to bar Neelley from parole was ruled unconstitutional in March.

This was Neelley’s first opportunity for parole since that ruling.