Levelland man sentenced to life in prison without parole in mother's 2019 slaying

A Lamb County jury on Wednesday found a 41-year-old Levelland man knew his actions were wrong the night he shot and killed his mother four years ago at his home.

The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for about six and 1/2 hours before returning to the courtroom with a verdict finding Jeremy Neil Atchison guilty of capital murder in the Aug. 31, 2019 slaying of 59-year-old Jill Atchison, a beloved dance teacher.

Atchison stood silently between his attorneys, Jesse Mendez and Isaias Solorzano, as 286th District Court Judge Pat Phelan read the verdict. However, Atchison could be seen wiping away tears in court as clerks prepared his judgement.

Hockley County prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in the case so Atchison was automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The verdict stemmed from a seven-day trial in Lamb County that began with Atchison pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.

The case was tried in Lamb County after Phelan granted in November an agreed motion to change venue.

Prosecutors argued that Atchison killed his mother to steal her purse to pay for his addictions to Adderall.

Prosecutor Barron Slack told jurors the case was about a son driven by rage, entitlement and desperation to kill the one person in his life who could not stand to see him destroy himself.

Atchison's defense attorneys, argued that their client was under the throes of a psychotic episode stemming from undiagnosed schizophrenia and did not know that his actions that day were wrong.

At the beginning of the trial, Phelan denied defense attorneys' motion to continue the trial, suggesting their client was incompetent to aid in his defense.

The case stems from a check welfare call made to Levelland police that resulted in a vehicle pursuit and the discovery of Jill Atchison's body in the living room of her home.

Atchison's daughter, Meagan Stanley, who lives in Tennessee, told jurors that she called Levelland police after being unable to reach her mother. Earlier in the day, she said her mother called her, telling her she was going to confront Atchison about his Adderall addiction.

Stanley said her brother was diagnosed in 2004 with attention deficit disorder and was prescribed Adderall to treat it. However, she later learned that he was abusing the medication, which is an amphetamine.

Stanley described her childhood as a happy one. She said her brother was a good student and well liked.

After graduating high school, she said Jeremy moved to Lubbock to attend Texas Tech University and major in biology.

However, she said throughout the years, she said, her brother began to change, grow distant and bitter.

She said her brother appeared stuck in life but never took any steps to improve his situation. He also began resenting their mother, blaming her for his lot in life.

She said it also appeared that her brother's mental health was spiraling as well.

She recounted conversations with her brother over the phone during which he complained that he could hear other people's thoughts through the radio.

In another phone call her brother sounded distraught, telling her something was wrong with him.

However, she said when she followed up with him the next day he would deny what happened.

Stanley said she regularly kept in touch with her mother who would tell her about brother's struggles.

She told jurors that her brother began working for their grandmother, Jean Riley, as a handyman for her rental properties.

Riley, who is also known as Mama Jean, told jurors that she gave her grandson access to a credit card as part of his job.

About six months before the shooting, Riley said she confiscated the card from her grandson after discovering that he was misusing it. She said she eventually fired Atchison and evicted him from one of her properties after he threatened to shoot Jill Atchison in February 2019.

Stanley told jurors that her mother hired her brother as a handyman for her dance studio.

However, she said her brother's behavior worsened leading to a confrontation between Jill and Jeremy that ultimately led to her death.

Stanley told jurors she told her mother to keep her cellphone on her throughout the day.

She began getting concerned when her calls and texts throughout the day were unanswered.

Stanley ultimately texted her brother around 9 p.m. Central time asking him to tell their mother to call her.

He replied 40 minutes later, telling her, "Yeah."

Jurors were presented the text messages that showed Stanley asking her brother if he relayed her message to their mother with Atchison replying that he was at a fast-food restaurant.

She asked Atchison what their mother was doing when he left and he told her that she was "watering the back."

A medical examiner would tell jurors that Jill Atchison was already dead and was likely killed around noon that day.

Stanley told jurors she also called their grandmother and told her she was going to call the police for a welfare check.

Stanley's 911 call was played to jurors and she could be heard telling the dispatcher that she had not heard from her mother after she told him she was going to confront her brother who was "out of his mind."

Officer Dakota Moody, one of two Levelland police officers who responded to the welfare check call, told jurors he arrived at Jill Atchison's home in the 400 block of East Jackson. about 10 p.m. and encountered Jeremy Atchison who was walking toward his pickup truck.

Moody told jurors that Atchison never stopped walking to his truck, telling them that his mother was inside.

Jurors watched video from the officer's body-worn camera that showed Atchison ignoring the officer's command to stop. Instead, Atchison got in the truck and could be heard asking officers if his sister sent them and then told them to leave.

Atchison could be seen driving away as Moody ran to his patrol vehicle to chase him.

The pursuit lasted a few minutes and ended when Atchison arrived at his father's driveway in the 300 block of Pecan Street where he was arrested.

Atchison's father could be seen speaking to him as he sat in the back of the police vehicle. The defendant could be heard telling his father that he was being arrested because he "ran a red light."

At no point during the arrest does Atchison tell anyone that his mother was dead in her home. Instead, Atchison appeared more concerned about his dog, which was in his truck.

A search of his pickup truck yielded a loaded .40 caliber handgun -- that was later confirmed as the murder weapon -- and Atchison's wallet that was contained about $300 in cash.

Investigators also found a bottle of Adderall prescribed to Atchison that was refilled five days before the murder. However, investigators found that bottle had 10 fewer pills than there should have been.

Meanwhile, a second offiver told jurors that he completed the welfare check and found Jill Atchison lying in her living room floor in a pool of her blood.

Jurors also watched Atchison's interview with Texas Ranger Dominic Zuniga.

During the interview, which spanned about two and 1/2 hours, Atchison confessed to killing his mother after she refused to give him money, saying she didn't want him using it for drugs.

He could be heard saying he went to his mother's bedroom where he found her purse and looked for her money, saying he was disappointed that there wasn't more in there.

He said he chased her through her house and strangled her when he caught up to her. He said he bashed her head on the floor and then went to his pickup truck to retrieve her pistol, which he placed against his mother's head and fired.

"To make sure she was dead," he told the Ranger.

Atchison would later call the Ranger the next day to recant his statement.

As he awaited trial, court records show Atchison would be found incompetent. He was sent to a state mental health facility where he would regain competency and his defense attorneys gave notice of their intent to raise an insanity defense.

Defense attorneys called on multiple medical and psychological experts who told jurors that Atchison exhibited signs of schizophrenia.

Tim Nyberg, a court-appointed forensic psychologist, told jurors that he evaluated Atchison for insanity and found that he met the legal criteria for the defense.

He said he met with Atchison, whom he believed has schizophrenia and amphetamine dependence, multiple times for the evaluation using techniques and tools that ruled out that he was faking his condition.

He said during his evaluation, Atchison's was under the delusion that his mother was not dead but replaced by an imposter.

Another psychologist called by defense attorneys said Atchison told him that his mother was already dead when he entered the home and his gun was on her bed but he didn't know how it got there.

Nyberg said his evaluation included reading police reports and watching the interview with Zuniga.

He said Atchison also showed signs of the mental disease in his interview with the Ranger that manifested as "classic examples of schizophrenic delusions."

During the same two-hour interview in which he confessed to killing his mother, Atchison's mental disease would surface and he would tell the Ranger that his mother attacked him like a zombie or that he was shot in the head. He also mentioned other dimensions and involvement by the FBI and the CIA.

"He had a rambling dialog about a lot of things at the time," he said.

He said he believed most people who watched the video interview would conclude that Atchison was unwell.

However, Nyberg's report, which was submitted after a final meeting with Atchison in February, indicated Atchison's mental state made it difficult to arrive at his opinion that Atchison didn't know his actions were wrong the night he killed his mother.

"Mr. Atchison really continued to exhibit signs of active psychosis throughout my meetings with him," he said.

However, he said he was unaware that Atchison spoke with his sister before police arrived and he hadn't watched the body worn cameras from police officers who initially contacted Atchison at his mother's home.

He said it would be difficult to argue with a reasonable person that Atchison's deceptive behavior with his family when they were asking him about his mother's whereabouts and when police arrived showed he knew his actions were wrong.

He said it would be reasonable to conclude that Atchison was

Nyberg told jurors that he had evaluated more than 50 cases and only found three that he believed met the legal criteria of insanity.

"In almost every case there are some factors that indicate a person knew what he was doing was wrong and indicators that he didn't," he said. "This case is no exception."

In his closing argument, Slack told jurors that this wasn't a case of insanity, saying Atchison's actions that day, as described by his sister and in police videos showed he knew his actions were wrong.

"There's every reason to believe in the state he's in he can operate in a lawful society," he said.

He said Atchison's confession was corroborated by physical evidence and the evidence of his lies to his family and fleeing the police when they arrived, showed that he knew his actions were wrong.

Slack said Jill Atchison died trying to save her son from himself by refusing to fund his drug habit. He said Atchison's mother suffered more in the last months of her life as she watched her son's life continue to spiral out of control, than she did when he killed her.

"She wasn't going to let him destroy himself," he said. "She would never have let him go. Never. No matter what."

Ultimately, Atchison's sense of entitlement and desperation outweighed his mother's love.

"He wants what he wants," Slack told jurors. "He's entitled, he's mad cause she's been a problem his whole life. You have evidence that he didn't care. He was done."

Atchison's defense attorney, Isaias Solorzano, told jurors that the evidence showed that his client's schizophrenia had been manifesting for years and reached its peak the day he killed his mother.

"At the time that he committed the conduct, he didn't know it was wrong," he said.

He said he believed the evidence they presented met the standard that showed there was a greater credibility than not that Atchison was insane at the time.

Hockley County District Attorney Angela Overman said she said the jury's verdict served the ends of justice.

Slack said he appreciated the work the jurors put into their deliberation and ultimately came to what he believed was the right decision.

"We believe that the evidence did not support a conclusion that he didn't know right from wrong," he said. "He concealed (his crime), he lied and he ran from police, all of those obvious factors pointed to thatwe believe this was a crime of rage, and entitlement not insanity."

Solorzano said after the trial that he appreciated the jury's consideration and the time they took to reach their deliberation.

He said he anticipates and appeal will be filed in the case.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Levelland man sentenced to life in prison without parole in mother's 2019 slaying