Woman convicted of kidnapping 13-year-old Ga. girl from shopping mall, killing her denied parole

Alabama officials swiftly denied parole Thursday 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.

The Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole Boards refused to release Judith Ann Neelley, 58. 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, making her eligible for parole.

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She will be eligible for parole consideration again in 2028.

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.

Alabama Gov. Fob James commuted Neelley’s death sentence to life in 1999. Lawmakers in 2003 approved a state law to bar Neelley from parole but it was later ruled unconstitutional.

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

“Quite simply, Ms. Neelley should not be allowed to set foot outside of an Alabama prison,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey wrote in a letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

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