Lisa Ann Millican

Abduction

On September 25, 1982, Lisa Ann Millican was on a shopping outing at the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia. She was with other residents of the Ethel Harpst Home, a facility for neglected and abused girls and boys located in Cedartown, Georgia. Separated from her group, Millican was coerced from the mall's gaming arcade by Alvin and Judith Neelley.

Torture and murder

The Neelleys had previously committed other crimes in the mall, but the Millican case was their move into sexual torture and murder. The Neeleys took Millican to Alabama, where they sexually abused her for three days, injected her with drain cleaner, shot her, and Judith threw her into the Little River Canyon.

Apprehension and sentencing of perpetrators

Kenneth Kines, the lead detective in the case, followed the Neelleys for three weeks before capturing them in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Alvin Neelley was not charged with the murder of Lisa Ann Millican; but he was tried and convicted in Georgia of the murder of Janice Kay Chatman, age 22, another young woman the Neelleys abducted, tortured, and murdered during their crime spree. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was still serving that life sentence at the Bostick State Prison in Hardwick, Georgia, at the time of his death in 2005. Starting on March 7, 1983, Judith Neelley (only 18 at the time of the killing), went on trial in Fort Payne, Alabama, for the torture-murder of Millican. The trial lasted for six weeks, resulting in a conviction. Despite the jury's sentencing recommendation of life in prison, Judge Randall Cole sentenced her to death in the electric chair. Following this conviction, Neelley pleaded guilty to Janice Chatman's murder. On January 15, 1999, days before her execution date, Alabama's Governor, Fob James, granted her clemency, commuting her death sentence to life in prison instead of life in prison without parole. The decision was met with controversy, but James cited the jury's recommendation of life in prison.