Family of murder victim to protest parole hearing for Neelley
She was more than just the victim in a terrifying story, her family said Lisa Ann Millican was a 13-year-old girl who deserved to get the chance to grow up.
Now that her killer has a chance at parole and even has been given a date for a hearing — May 23 — they’re getting the word out that they don’t want her killer, Judith Neelley, to be released from Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama.
The case involved Judith Neelley and her husband Alvin’s crime rampage in Rome, Alabama and Tennessee — which left at least two women dead.
Cassie Nicole Millican, who is married to Lisa Ann’s brother Calvin, said she represents the girl’s family.
“We were shocked we didn’t’ think it would be scheduled this fast,” she said concerning Neelley’s parole hearing. “It’s a public hearing. We want protestors.”
Even more importantly, they want to know their loved one was a person and not just a story.
“She was MORE than your midnight terror read. More than some scary camp story,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “More than all the little cliche names the media gave her such as ‘the Drano murder’ or ‘little river girl’ she deserves more respect than that!
“She was the same little girl who was mommy to her siblings or giving them a kick in the butt when they needed it. She had wants and needs like we did at 13. The biggest one? A right we all had, but she was denied. Just to grow up,” Cassie Millican wrote. “She WAS MORE than all the things you’ve read or gossiped about. So we will be there. At every hearing. Fighting (Neelley) tooth and nail.”
35 years ago
In 1982, Neelley and her husband, Alvin Neelley, randomly abducted 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican from Riverbend Mall which has since been demolished and replaced by Riverbend Center.
They took her to Alabama, where she was sexually assaulted and killed.
According to testimony, Judith Ann Neelley injected the girl with liquid drain cleaner, which failed to kill her, then shot her in the back and pushed her into Little River Canyon. Neelley, who at the time was an 18-year-old mother of twins from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was sentenced to die.
Alabama Gov. Fob James commuted Neelley’s death sentence as his term ended in 1999.
In response, lawmakers in 2003 passed a law that death row inmates who had their sentences commuted “shall not be eligible for a parole.” Neelley filed a lawsuit challenging the statute and its retroactive application to her case.
A federal judge ruled in March the law, passed to block Judith Ann Neelley from getting parole after her death sentence was commuted, was unconstitutional. A federal judge ruled the measure was unconstitutional and lawmakers could not retroactively increase her punishment.
“She needs to stay there until the day she dies,” Cassie Millican said.
Her husband, Alvin Neelley, was died in prison in 2005 for the killing of 22-year-old Janice Kay Chatman, a Rome woman whose body was found in Chattooga County.