Judith Ann Adams was born on June 7, 1964, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Her early life was marked by trauma and instability. At the age of nine, she lost her father, an alcoholic, in a motorcycle accident, a loss that significantly impacted her formative years. Judith struggled with direction and stability and soon found herself drawn into criminal activity after meeting Alvin Neelley, an older man with a violent disposition.

Judith and Alvin married when she was just 15 years old, and the couple began a cross-country spree of armed robberies. Despite being pregnant with twins during their crime wave, Judith continued participating in these robberies. She was later arrested and incarcerated at the Youth Development Center in Rome, Georgia, where she gave birth to twins. While serving her sentence, Judith's criminal impulses and violent behaviors began escalating. This period marked her transition from a troubled adolescent to a calculating and dangerous criminal.

The pair’s notoriety in the Southeast escalated after a series of violent incidents in 1982, including attacks on staff members of the Youth Development Center where she had been previously detained. Despite her young age and motherhood, Judith became deeply involved in acts of arson, assault, and, eventually, sadistic murder, with her husband playing a complicit role. Her crimes would come to shock even the most seasoned investigators, not only because of their brutality but because of her age and the level of control she exerted.

Judith Ann Neelley’s descent into murder began in 1982, alongside her husband Alvin Neelley. On September 11, 1982, Ken Dooley, an employee at the Youth Development Center in Georgia, was shot at four times. The next day, another YDC employee, Linda Adair, had her home firebombed. Anonymous phone calls followed, accusing them of abuse. Although the victims couldn’t identify the caller, the threats were traced back to Judith.

The couple’s most horrifying crime occurred on September 25, 1982, when they abducted 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican from the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia. Lisa was a resident of the Ethel Harpst Home, a group facility for neglected and abused children. Separated from her group at the mall arcade, she was lured by the Neelleys to a motel in Scottsboro, Alabama. There, Judith and Alvin repeatedly raped and tortured the young girl.

Judith then attempted to murder Lisa by injecting her with caustic drain cleaners—first Drano and later Liquid-Plumr—into various parts of her body. When these failed to kill her, Judith shot Lisa in the back, execution-style. The body was discarded in the Little River Canyon in Fort Payne, Alabama. Shockingly, Judith later phoned multiple police departments herself to report the location of the body, and it was found draped over a tree.

Just a week later, on October 4, 1982, Judith abducted a young engaged couple, Janice Chatman and John Hancock, also from Rome, Georgia. Hancock was shot and left for dead, while Chatman was taken to their motel room, where she was tortured and murdered. Hancock survived and was later able to identify the Neelleys as the perpetrators.

The couple was arrested days later. Judith was apprehended on October 9, 1982, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, while Alvin was arrested shortly afterward. Judith was identified as the assailant in the earlier YDC attacks, further building the case against her.

To avoid a potential death sentence, Alvin pleaded guilty to murder and assault in Georgia and was sentenced to life in prison, though he was never tried for Lisa Millican’s murder. Judith, meanwhile, stood trial in Fort Payne beginning on March 7, 1983, for Lisa's murder. During her incarceration, she gave birth to another child. The trial lasted six weeks. Although the jury recommended a life sentence, Judge Randall Cole imposed the death penalty, citing the horrific nature of the crime.

Judith became the youngest woman sentenced to death in U.S. history at the age of 18. She remained on Alabama's death row for years. In 1999, just days before her scheduled execution, Governor Fob James commuted her sentence to life with a possibility of parole after 15 years. Though technically eligible for parole in 2014, the Alabama legislature passed a law in 2003 specifically barring her from being released.