Jerry Summers
One of the most notorious criminal cases in the State of Alabama occurring in September 1982 was the rape and capital murder cases involving defendants, Alvin Howard Neelley, Jr. and his teenage bride wife, Judith Ann Neelley and a 13-year old victim, Lisa Millican who had run away from an orphanage outing at the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Ga.
She had been enticed into sexual captivity by Judith Ann Neelley as part of a bizarre scheme whereby she attempted to lure young girls and young women into the car with her for the ultimate purpose of making them available to her husband for involuntary acts.
This crime spree also included a separate Janice Chapman murder on October 4, 1982 in Rome, Georgia of another young female and the non-fatal shooting of her male companion John Hancock in a wooded area in Catoosa County in northwest Georgia.
The victim in the Alabama case had been taken to the Little River Canyon rim above Fort Payne on September 28, 1982 and was handcuffed to a tree. She was injected six times with liquid cleaner (Drano) and then shot in the back and after the fatal shot her body was thrown into the canyon.
The facts of these crimes and others committed by Alvin Neelley and his pregnant teenage wife, Judith Ann are described in a lengthy opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama in the case of Judith Ann Neelley v.
State, 494 So.2d 669 (1985).
After a six-week sensational trial, Judith Ann was found guilty of capital murder in Fort Payne by a jury and sentenced to life without parole. The verdict was changed by the trial judge, Randall Cole to death by electrocution.
After exhausting her appeals the female murderer’s sentence was commuted back to life without parole by Alabama Governor Republican Fob James on the last day of his administration. This would lead to the Alabama Legislature passing a law that prohibits parole for any inmate whose death sentence was commuted to life. However, a federal judge ruled that the law could not be applied retroactively to Judith Ann Neelley.
Alvin Neelley had been charged as an accomplice to his wife’s deadly acts and allowed to plead guilty to a sentence of life imprisonment in Georgia and would die in prison at Milledgeville, Georgia in 2005. He was not tried on the Alabama case of Lisa Millican. His wife would also plead to a life sentence in the Georgia murder.
In May 2018 Judith Ann Neelley waived her first appearance before the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles after her commutation from the death penalty. The Board denied the automatic petition in about a minute after an earlier hearing on an impassioned public plea from Alabama Governor Kay Ivey who stated that “Neelley, age 53, should never be paroled.”
Attorney Robert B. French, Jr. of Fort Payne was also a victim in the case.
A successful trial lawyer he had acquired all of the material benefits of favorable results in both criminal and civil results over the years. Airplanes, luxurious automobiles, real estate and a reputation of being an outstanding lawyer were all part of Bob French’s standing in the community. He had also been teaching the Baraca Bible Class at the First Baptist Church in Fort Payne for 17 years when he got a call from Circuit Judge Randall Cole appointing him to represent Ms. Neelley.
French was one of the few Republicans in Democrat dominated Alabama in 1982. He had run unsuccessfully for public office three times on the GOP ticket. He was narrowly defeated for Congress in 1964, ran for Lt. Governor in 1970, and he also ran for the Alabama Supreme Court in 1988. He attempted to get out of the appointment of Judge Cole as the judge had previously reported him to the Ethics Committee of the Alabama Bar Association, of which French was acquitted, but the judge stated “If you can’t agree to take the case, I may have to order you to take it.”
Thus, began the court appointment that would adversely affect the veteran lawyer’s life forever.
Alabama at the time of the Drano murder did not have a government financed Public Defenders Office but relied upon members of the legal profession to represent by court appointment individuals that could not afford to hire an attorney to defend them. The State of Alabama provided the maximum sum of $500.00 to approved lawyers for their efforts. (Bob French did not get his $500).
In a book titled “Beaten, Battered and Damned. The Drano Murder Trial” published in 1989 French describes the ordeal that he went through in his belief that “anyone charged in a criminal case in America is entitled to be represented by an attorney!
The stress of fighting to save his clients life caused him to have a serious eye problem, his home was rocked by night riders and his law office was picketed by protestors and he received lots of hate mail.
is three children were harassed at school and he was asked by some church members to quit teaching his Sunday School class.
French bordered on the brink of financial disaster, incurred investigation and expert witness costs in excess of half a million dollars, went in debt, and finally had to file a Chapter 11 reorganization plan in Bankruptcy Court. His home was foreclosed upon and his law practice diminished substantially. The most serious and vicious attacks on his reputation were the rumors that he was in love with Neelley, had sex with her and was the father of her unborn child, although she was already pregnant when Frence was appointed to represent her.
Yet within 36 months he had paid off his debts and in 1990 was honored as the number one Criminal Defense Lawyer in Alabama.
Today at the age of 87 he is still practicing law in his hometown of Fort Payne.
The Dedication in the book about the Drano Murder is to “Criminal Defense Lawyers who represent shockingly evil clients”.
(It is a story worth reading!).
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Jerry Summers
(If you have additional information about one of Mr. Summers' articles or have suggestions or ideas about a future Chattanooga area historical piece, please contact Mr. Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com)