Alvin Neelley was born in 1953 in Georgia, where he was a car thief during his teenage years. He met his second wife, Judith Ann Adams, when he was 26 years old and she was 15. Alvin divorced his first wife shortly before eloping with Judith Adams (1980). Lisa Ann Millican, a 13-year-old girl from Cedartown, Georgia was abducted by Alvin and Judith Neelley from the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia on September 25, 1982. She was taken to a Scottsboro, Alabama, motel where the Neelleys held her captive. During her captivity, Lisa was raped by both Neelleys multiple times. On September 28th Judith injected Lisa with Drano into first one side, and later both sides of her neck, both arms, and both buttocks in an attempt to poison her to death. Liquid Plumber was also used on some of the injections. When the painful poisoning hadn’t killed her, Lisa was ordered to rise, shot in the back by Judith, and her body thrown over a cliff in the Little River Canyon in Fort Payne, Alabama. Judith later called various police agencies several times to report the location of Lisa’s body, where it was found on the canyon floor draped over a fallen tree. Janice Chatman and John Hancock were a young engaged couple from Rome, Georgia. On October 4, 1982, they were abducted by Judith Neelley. John Hancock was shot while Janice Chatman was abducted and brought back to the Neelleys’ motel room, where she was tortured and murdered. John Hancock, however, did not die, and was able to point to Alvin and Judith Neelley as his assailants.

Judith Neelley was arrested on October 9, 1982, and Alvin Neelley was taken into custody a few days later. Judith was deduced as being the perpetrator in the YDC employee attacks. To avoid the death penalty, Alvin Neelley pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated assault in Georgia. He was not tried for the Lisa Millican murder. Judith Neelley’s trial began on March 7, 1983, in Fort Payne, Al. Before her trial however, she gave birth to a third child behind bars. After a six-week trial, Judith was convicted of the torture murder of Lisa Ann Millican. Despite a jury’s recommendation to sentence Judith to life in prison, judge Randall Cole sentenced the 18-year-old mother of three to death in Alabama’s electric chair. Following her first conviction, Judith pleaded guilty to Janice Chatman’s murder. Alvin Neelley was incarcerated at the Bostick State Prison from 1983 until his death in November 2005.