00:00:07
[music playing] NARRATOR: A spring
morning, a little girl begs her neighbor for help.
00:00:38
NARRATOR: As emergency
operators listened, the gruesome details worsened. NARRATOR: What has happened
to 1200 Green Springs Road?
00:00:51
Her mother lies dead. Nearby, her father, too. Her husband is on the run. NARRATOR: Who has killed
Mrs. Jessica Miller?
00:01:08
[theme music] [music playing] [beeping] ANNOUNCER (ON RADIO): KZ 106. Right now, traffic
on the big show.
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[music playing] NARRATOR: Jessica Miller--
a familiar, friendly face in Dalton, Georgia.
00:01:53
She was really well liked. Young, about 27 years old. Blonde, tan. NARRATOR: Born one of five
children in Atlanta, Georgia
00:02:02
on September the
11th, 1984, Jessica was a single mum
after having her baby Maddie at the age of 18.
00:02:09
She was really
close to her daughter. And they just had a wonderful
relationship, it sounds like.
00:02:13
NARRATOR: Not long
after having Maddie, Jessica met Adolph
Neal, known as Sonny.
00:02:20
They had met while she was a
contestant in, like, a pageant, like, a beauty pageant.
00:02:27
NARRATOR: Sonny let everyone
know he was smitten. 22 years older than Jessica,
he was a property developer
00:02:33
embedded in the community. He had a lot of friends. He had an adult daughter
from a previous marriage,
00:02:42
and they were very close. Sonny was not known
as an unfriendly guy. Sonny had friends.
00:02:49
Sonny had associates. Sonny had people
that cared about him. NARRATOR: At first,
Jessica's family
00:02:54
were concerned about
the age difference, but Sonny succeeded
in charming them, as well as Jessica, still
a teenager when they met.
00:03:02
Her parents told
me that he was real charismatic, real charming. There was a large age
gap between the two.
00:03:12
When they married,
Jessica was 19 years old. Sonny Neal at the time
was around 41 years old.
00:03:20
NARRATOR: Sonny also got on
well with Jessica's young child. And in 2004, it looked like
the family was complete.
00:03:27
Sonny adopted
Jessica's daughter after they got married. And they seemed to have a
really good relationship.
00:03:35
Sonny loved Madeline. Treated her very well, had
actually adopted Madeline. You know, it seemed
to say something,
00:03:42
I guess, about his character
that he was willing to treat her like his own. NARRATOR: Sonny,
Jessica, and Maddie
00:03:49
moved to a new home in Green
Springs Road, Dawnville, which they shared with
an extended family.
00:03:55
SCOTT MCALLISTER: Jessica's
grandfather, Donald Shedd, lived at the residence
with Jessica and Sonny.
00:04:05
NARRATOR: The family
home needed to be big. Sonny's elderly grandfather, who
suffered with Alzheimer's, soon
00:04:10
had to be cared for here, too. Despite the challenges,
this appeared a happy home.
00:04:15
SCOTT MCALLISTER:
From the outside, the marriage of Sonny
and Jessica Neal appeared to be a solid marriage.
00:04:21
They appeared to
be happy together. They would go out a lot. They would post
photos on social media
00:04:28
where they were out at
local establishments, you know, winding down,
having a good time together.
00:04:35
Friends would say,
you know, he was really known for making her laugh. They were real close.
00:04:40
SCOTT MCALLISTER:
Their marriage seemed to be well for a long time. Sonny was very fond of his wife.
00:04:49
He was very almost-- some of the friends
described him as almost being obsessed with her.
00:04:55
NARRATOR: With
Sonny's help, Jessica set up a business on Cleveland
Highway, just 10 minutes away
00:05:00
from their home. She and Sonny owned
a tanning salon. And that was their business
that they had together.
00:05:07
JOY LUKACHICK SMITH: Jessica's
friends and family said that she was very outgoing.
00:05:12
She was kind of the
face of their business. And so anyone who went into
their tanning salon knew her.
00:05:17
She was the life of the party as
well wherever she went and just had a real love for life.
00:05:25
NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
Sonny continued to expand his own interests. They were looking at going
into business with Jessica's
00:05:31
father, who was going
to open to a sports bar and grill here in Dalton. Sonny had multiple
rental properties
00:05:39
that he owned and managed. And he, of course,
dedicated some of his time to that as well.
00:05:50
NARRATOR: A happy house, a
striving business couple, wedded bliss. But few know what goes
on behind closed doors.
00:05:57
Fault lines were
appearing in the marriage. They kind of
portrayed themselves as this perfect
couple, no problems.
00:06:05
But I think there was a lot
going on below the surface. He was prone to
become very angry
00:06:13
and was very possessive
over Jessica. He definitely seemed
controlling and jealous
00:06:20
and wanted to kind of
keep a tight grip on her. NARRATOR: Whenever they
went out socializing,
00:06:27
Sonny seemed to
tighten that grip. SCOTT MCALLISTER:
When they would go out to local establishments
together, he and his wife,
00:06:35
there was several times that
it was reported he had gotten into fights with other men,
supposedly over them flirting
00:06:44
with Jessica or he
had took something as meaning something
that maybe it wasn't, in
00:06:50
regards to his wife. NARRATOR: Sonny and
Jessica's perfect picture was proving to be an illusion.
00:06:59
Things were definitely
going downhill. Their relationship
had hit a rocky patch.
00:07:06
They had begin to differ
in which direction that they wanted
to go individually.
00:07:14
He had started
acting differently, was just not acting his self. Sonny seemed to change.
00:07:20
NARRATOR: Friends and family
began noticing odd things. They were on the
phone with Jessica,
00:07:26
and they could hear
Sonny in the background. And they could
hear them arguing. SCOTT MCALLISTER: They admitted
that Sonny had changed,
00:07:34
that he wasn't acting himself. That he was saying things
that were unlike him to say,
00:07:39
things that were
out of his head. And that he had
made statements that concerned them that he was--
they were worried about Sonny.
00:07:48
They were afraid that he might
try to do something to himself. When I spoke with
Jessica's mother,
00:07:54
she told me things really
changed for the couple. And, you know, he went
from seeming charismatic
00:08:03
to controlling and that,
really, in her words, he was a charismatic,
narcissistic sociopath.
00:08:12
NARRATOR: Strong words
from an anxious mother, had the family's initial
concerns about Sonny
00:08:17
been right all along. The atmosphere inside the family
home in Green Springs Road
00:08:25
began to deteriorate. Donald Miller, Jessica's
grandfather, noticed. Sonny and Donald
did not get along.
00:08:34
And this was mainly
due to the fact that Donald being
Jessica's grandfather would take Jessica's side
when there was the argument.
00:08:48
Sonny's possessiveness
stepped up to new levels. Friends said he
became very controlling.
00:08:54
He didn't like her to go to
the bathroom without him. I mean, she was always, like,
looking over his shoulder.
00:08:59
Sonny had, on a
couple of occasions, been violent towards Jessica. NARRATOR: In early 2012, eight
years into their marriage,
00:09:07
Sonny Neal discovered that his
worst fears had materialized. Jessica was having
an extramarital affair.
00:09:16
And Sonny knew about it. SCOTT MCALLISTER:
We learned that he had discovered that his wife
was having a relationship
00:09:23
with another man. NARRATOR: Jessica didn't
try to deny the affair. Instead, she suggested that
her marriage to Sonny was over
00:09:30
and that the couple
should divorce. Jessica told her stepmom that
she was going to leave Sonny,
00:09:35
even though he had begged her to
stay, give him another chance, work it out. She was insisting that,
you know, it was over.
00:09:44
NARRATOR: Despite all his
efforts to control his wife, Sonny Neal was staring
at the prospect
00:09:49
of losing the
perfect family life that he'd felt he had created. The effect on him appeared
to be devastating.
00:09:57
Sonny did not want a divorce. He wanted things to work
out and had actually told one of his friends
that all he wanted
00:10:03
was for his family
to get back together. Sonny was very unhappy. And his range of
emotions over those weeks
00:10:13
begin to deteriorate. He had been
drinking a lot and had been on some medication,
prescribed medication,
00:10:21
but was drinking
about every day. Sonny had lost a
considerable amount of weight.
00:10:26
I believe one friend
had said it looked like he had lost 30 or 40 pounds. NARRATOR: Criminologists
point to this moment,
00:10:33
when a woman decides she's
leaving, as very dangerous. In 2020, 41% of women
murdered by their partners
00:10:41
were killed once they
had tried to leave. Had Jessica signed her own death
warrant with the revelation
00:10:47
that she was leaving Sonny? [music playing] NARRATOR: 2012, Sonny Neal's
marriage is on the rocks.
00:11:06
And his businesses
were in trouble, too. SCOTT MCALLISTER:
Sonny and Jessica were having some
financial problems,
00:11:12
which was causing additional
strains on the marriage. NARRATOR: In the
spring of 2012, Sonny
00:11:17
was hit by a personal tragedy. On top of that,
Sonny's brother, who we were told he was very
fond of, had passed away.
00:11:27
NARRATOR: It was one more
blow to his crumbling life. He was drinking heavily,
had been prescribed alcohol
00:11:33
addiction pills. He was depressed not
only about his marriage, but he was also depressed
about his brother dying.
00:11:41
So all these things had
caused the relationship to become very rocky. NARRATOR: On the
night of May 23, 2012,
00:11:48
the storm that had been brewing
for Sonny and Jessica Neal finally broke. With the stress
on the marriage,
00:11:54
the financial problems,
his brother's death, the alcohol, prescription pills,
we believe it just exploded.
00:12:07
NARRATOR: At around
9:30 that evening, Sonny put his adopted daughter,
Maddie, to bed at their Green
00:12:11
Springs Road home. She recounted
how her father came up and tucked her into bed.
00:12:18
Sonny hugged Madeline and
told her that he loved her and that he wanted her to
have a good night's sleep.
00:12:26
NARRATOR: For some reason,
Jessica wasn't around to put Maddie to bed that night.
00:12:30
She said her mother did not
come up that night to do that. NARRATOR: In fact, Jessica
was out by the pool,
00:12:36
where she had made
contact with her father. According to Chattanooga
crime reporter
00:12:41
Joy Lukachick Smith,
who covered the story, she sounded terrified. She texted her father.
00:12:47
He showed me the
text later and said-- I believe it said,
all hell is breaking loose, is what she told him.
00:12:54
And so he asked her, do
you want me to come over? What do you want me to do? She told him no.
00:13:00
She had it handled. NARRATOR: Could Jessica
really handle her obsessively jealous husband?
00:13:05
The couple was spotted together. SCOTT MCALLISTER: The
last physical contact with Sonny and Jessica Neal was
around 10 o'clock that night
00:13:16
by a neighbor, who was
outside and waved to Sonny, as he and Jessica were walking
out toward the swimming pool.
00:13:24
Sonny waved back and
motioned as if asking the neighbor to come down with
them, which he had done before.
00:13:32
However, he was wanting
to watch a ball game, so he declined and
went back in his house.
00:13:38
NARRATOR: Instead of
chilling with their neighbor by the pool, Sonny
and Jessica got
00:13:42
into another fight and not
one of their standard fights either. Sonny Neal's rage and jealousy
exploded into violence.
00:13:50
[dramatic music] Jessica was stabbed
and bludgeoned with a medieval-looking
knife that had
00:14:07
a handle in which you inserted
your hand into the handle. Combat style knife with a
grip that had metal spikes
00:14:16
coming out from the grill. And the blade was probably
six, eight inches long. That was the instrument that
was used to murder Jessica.
00:14:28
NARRATOR: It was a
frenzied, merciless attack. Any time that you
have a murder in which
00:14:37
the victim is stabbed
or beaten to death, that's a very personal murder. In order to kill
somebody with a knife,
00:14:46
you've got to be right there,
face-to-face with them, up close and personal. And it is very, very indicative
that it is a murder of passion.
00:14:57
It's a murder of anger and
incited by those very things. JOY LUKACHICK SMITH: You
know, it seems like a textbook
00:15:05
crime of passion. It's beyond what you can
imagine that someone supposedly who loved, you know, her
and took her grandfather in,
00:15:13
in his own home would be so up
close and personal like that and commit that kind of an act.
00:15:21
It was hard to stomach. NARRATOR: Barefoot, leaving
a trail of bloody footprints
00:15:29
behind him, Sonny
went into the house to face the man who had pushed
back on his granddaughter's
00:15:34
behalf against Sonny. He went inside the residence
and found Jessica's grandfather
00:15:42
in the kitchen. NARRATOR: Armed and covered
in his wife's blood, Sonny launched a furious
attack on Donald Shedd.
00:15:49
And beat him to death
in the head with a hammer. DAN SIMS: Once he
had killed Jessica,
00:15:55
then there was no downside to
killing her father, Donald. He probably was first
impacted upright
00:16:04
and then hit the ground, and the
beating continued from there. At the location of Donald's
body was voluminous amount
00:16:16
of blood spatter that was
low to the ground, which would indicate that
Donald was beaten
00:16:22
while he laid on the floor. NARRATOR: Sonny Neal's
nine-year-old adopted daughter
00:16:27
and others in the house
lay sleep, just yards away from the bloody scene. DAN SIMS: And that would have
been fairly close to Maddie's
00:16:36
bedroom and Robert's
bedroom, which were right across from one another. However, neither one of them
recounted hearing anything
00:16:44
during that night. NARRATOR: 7 o'clock the
following morning, Maddie makes the horrific discovery.
00:16:58
Madeline was the one that
had awakened on May the 24th and had found her grandfather
beaten to death in the kitchen.
00:17:06
When she saw him, she ran
immediately to a neighbor. The neighbor told me that she
said, somebody killed my papa.
00:17:15
NARRATOR: The neighbor
in Green Springs Road listened to her
extraordinary, chilling story.
00:17:20
And then the
911 call was made. NARRATOR: As emergency services
are called into action,
00:17:55
the operator keeps Maddie's
neighbor on the line. NARRATOR: With the neighbor
relaying questions to Maddie,
00:18:12
the operator finds
out more about what has happened at the Neal home. NARRATOR: Within
minutes, police officers
00:18:33
arrive in Green Springs Road. Lieutenant Scott McAllister
was one of the first detectives
00:18:40
to be called to the scene. I was putting
[inaudible] at the house, and I got a phone call
from my supervisor,
00:18:46
who asked me to be en route
to 1200 Green Springs Road, which was only about a
five-minute drive from my home.
00:18:56
I've been in law
enforcement for 25 years. And to this day, this crime
scene was the most brutal crime
00:19:02
scene that I have been to. NARRATOR: Officers from the
Georgia Bureau of Investigation
00:19:08
were not far behind the police. DAN SIMS: My name
is Daniel Sims, and I'm a special agent
in charge of the Georgia
00:19:14
Bureau of Investigation. The job of the GBI is to assist
local agencies and county
00:19:23
agencies in the apprehension of
fugitives, the investigations of criminal events
that happen that may
00:19:31
cross jurisdictional lines. It was in the early
morning hours that I got called by a captain
from the [inaudible]
00:19:41
County Sheriff's Office
requesting the help of the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation
00:19:47
in what appeared to be a double
homicide at 1200 Green Springs Road in Dalton, Georgia.
00:19:55
NARRATOR: A double
homicide and someone missing, Maddie's stepdad,
Jessica's husband, Sonny Neal.
00:20:02
Where was he? [music playing] One of the immediate jobs
that Dan Sims had to undertake
00:20:25
was talking to
little Maddie Neal. DAN SIMS: Madeline was my
first interview shortly
00:20:30
after I got on the scene. And what I saw was something
that a 9-year-old girl should
00:20:38
never have to go through. She was distraught. She was visibly shaken. She was crying.
00:20:48
And in a perfect world,
I would have never interviewed her on that day. But she was the only
person that could
00:20:56
lead me toward a truthful path. NARRATOR: As expected
from the 911 call, they found the smashed
up corpse of Donald Shedd
00:21:05
in the kitchen of
the family home. But worse was to come. They had discovered a second
body, a deceased white female,
00:21:15
that was laying
in the pool house, and that she appeared to have
been stabbed multiple times.
00:21:22
NARRATOR: There was a wealth
of evidence at the scene, which all pointed in one direction.
00:21:27
It became apparent very early
that Sonny was going to be the focus of the investigation.
00:21:37
And when you look at a
bare bloody footprint, it leads you to the
quick conclusion
00:21:44
that whoever was there
committing this murder was comfortable enough to have
their shoes off while they're
00:21:51
committing this murder. There was a bloody
patent fingerprint found on the door
that would have
00:21:58
matched Sonny's fingerprints. And the knife that was
used during the murder had a box that was found in
Sonny's master bedroom closet.
00:22:12
So that weapon was associated
very quickly with Sonny. NARRATOR: Agent Sims
was also able to collect
00:22:19
vital information from
Sonny's adopted daughter. DAN SIMS: During our
interview with Madeline,
00:22:26
she stated that
her dad was wearing swimming trunks
and a T-shirt when he came to tuck her into bed.
00:22:35
During the crime
scene examination, we found wet, bloody swim pants
or swim shorts at the scene,
00:22:43
also T-shirts with
blood stains in them, also water tinged
blood here and there within the marital bedroom.
00:22:52
So we believe that after he
killed Jessica, that he jumped in the pool to
cleanse himself off,
00:23:01
which sort of made a watery
bloody mess, instead of-- it's hard to clean yourself up
after a murder like that.
00:23:09
NARRATOR: There was more than
enough evidence in the house and around the pool
for homicide detectives
00:23:14
to arrest Sonny for
the murder of his wife and her grandfather. We were suspecting him,
had plenty of probable cause
00:23:21
to point the finger at him,
to the point where we secured murder warrants on day one.
00:23:28
The evidence that we
obtained at the scene the day of the incident confirmed that
Sonny Neal was our offender.
00:23:38
Our issue at that point
was to find Sonny Neal. NARRATOR: Sonny Neal
had disappeared.
00:23:50
There's plenty of
cover for a fugitive in this part of Georgia. DAN SIMS: He didn't leave
in a car to our knowledge.
00:23:56
He did not carry
his wallet away. He did not take his
cell phone with him. So as far as we knew, he
had no financial means.
00:24:06
He had no transportation
means that we knew of, and that he had actually
left the residence on foot.
00:24:15
SCOTT MCALLISTER:
We realized that we had a fugitive that
was on the loose in our county,
which is uncommon.
00:24:22
DAN SIMS: Sonny obviously
either left in a panic, taking nothing with him,
or Sonny left, leaving
00:24:30
everything behind on purpose. NARRATOR: Police
launched a manhunt, but Sonny fleeing the scene
without his phone or anything
00:24:39
else created a problem. DAN SIMS: In today's world,
all the conventional ways of tracking somebody
may go out the window
00:24:48
when those things happen. And you find yourself back in a
more old-fashioned day and age,
00:24:55
where you're looking
for somebody that is not only in the wind somewhere,
but they're in the wind
00:25:01
without telecommunications. They're in the wind without
cellular telephone signals.
00:25:06
NARRATOR: Georgia Bureau
of Investigation agents were working on the
basis that there
00:25:10
are certain patterns
that criminals on the run tend to follow, not good ones. DAN SIMS: Where somebody
is in fugitive status,
00:25:18
usually, they're going
to commit further crimes. They're going to commit a
burglary in order to eat.
00:25:24
They're going to
commit a robbery in order to get some money. They're going to commit a
carjacking or an auto theft
00:25:31
to get some transportation. None of that was
happening in this case. NARRATOR: So what had
happened to Sonny Neal?
00:25:39
Was the hunch that he was
still in the area correct? Or had he somehow managed to
escape the scene altogether?
00:25:45
When we didn't hear from
him on day two or day three or day four or day five,
we begin to really wonder,
00:25:52
has Sonny slipped
underneath the radar screen? Has he had somebody help
him get out of town?
00:26:01
There was, I think,
over 100 police from all over the region that
spent a week, just combing
00:26:07
the area, looking for him. SCOTT MCALLISTER: Until we
knew for sure that we had him
00:26:11
captured and in custody, we
had a community that we needed to look out for and to prepare.
00:26:19
NARRATOR: Reporters from
Georgia's newspapers and television stations told
the state it was on high alert.
00:26:25
One of the upsides
of this investigation, we were able to
utilize the local media
00:26:33
out of Chattanooga and Atlanta. And the media really helped
us in this investigation.
00:26:43
JOY LUKACHICK SMITH: And they
put out his picture everywhere. We had him in the newspapers,
on television, trying
00:26:47
to get everybody to help. They did not relent. They were on this case
every day because they
00:26:53
knew that Sonny was at least
dangerous, if not armed. We had a lot of people
trying to help us.
00:27:01
We were getting all
sorts of telephone tips. We were getting a lot of leads
that we'd follow the leads
00:27:08
and they'd sort of
end in a dead end. NARRATOR: Six days into the
manhunt, a breakthrough.
00:27:13
A customer from Jessica
Neal's tanning salon spotted someone near to
the Dollar General store
00:27:19
at the junction of Highways
2 and 201 in Varnell, about 10 miles north of Dalton.
00:27:25
JOY LUKACHICK SMITH: That
area of north Georgia is a pretty small town. And so most people
knew, you know,
00:27:32
Jessica and Sonny in that area. We got a call from a citizen
to the Sheriff's office.
00:27:38
And she claimed I've seen Sonny. JOY LUKACHICK SMITH:
And she, you know, like, jumped up
and was like, you
00:27:48
know, started shouting at
her husband and, you know, could barely grab her
phone because she was so--
00:27:53
you know, just couldn't believe
that she was seeing him. NARRATOR: It was the
strongest tip-off
00:27:57
the police had received so far. But was it right? DAN SIMS: Now we've got
to decide what to do
00:28:02
with this investigative lead. How do we respond to this? Because we had had other
potential sightings of Sonny
00:28:09
that led nowhere. Manhunts are labor intensive. And they take up a
lot of personnel.
00:28:20
They take up a lot of
manpower and man hours. We decided to take
it ultra seriously.
00:28:28
NARRATOR: With a command post
set up in a nearby parking lot, the GBI focused their
search on the area.
00:28:34
And we quickly assembled
every man we could. We had roving patrols. We had dogs.
00:28:42
We had helicopters
with infrared sensors. We were really pulled
out all the stops,
00:28:50
trying to find Sonny. NARRATOR: Were law
enforcement officers about to get their man?
00:28:57
DAN SIMS: We were really
hopeful that the infrared camera would find Sonny
somewhere in the woods.
00:29:02
And it just didn't happen
that evening or night. NARRATOR: Despondent and
worried, Special Agent Dan Sims
00:29:10
and his team began to
wonder if their tip-off had been a mistake. The next morning, they got a
call from the local police.
00:29:19
Varnell Police
Department is in very close proximity to that location. DAN SIMS: I got a call
that Sonny had been sighted
00:29:26
in a wood line in that same
area and had been apprehended by local police officers.
00:29:33
SCOTT MCALLISTER: So
units with Varnell PD and deputies with the Whitfield
County Sheriff's Office
00:29:38
responded and was able to
take Sonny Neal into custody without any incident. NARRATOR: When police
finally picked him up,
00:29:46
Sonny Neal was a physical wreck. DAN SIMS: Sonny was in the
woods and in the wilderness
00:29:54
for seven days. And that he had not drank
much water, if at all. And he had not eaten anything.
00:30:03
He had not robbed anybody
or did a burglary to eat. He had not walked into
a convenience store
00:30:09
and shoplifted
something to subsist on. He was very dehydrated and had
scratches and cuts on his legs
00:30:19
and his body from being
out in the elements. DAN SIMS: I was
astounded at what I saw.
00:30:26
Sonny looked decimated. He was eat up from head
to toe with insect bites. He looked-- and I'm
no doctor, but he
00:30:37
looked visibly dehydrated. And I said, Sonny, are you sick? And he nodded his head yes.
00:30:43
And I immediately
asked for an ambulance to take him to the hospital. NARRATOR: The fugitive
was in police custody,
00:30:53
being treated for
exposure and injuries that he had sustained whilst
hiding out in the woods.
00:30:58
It turned out he was
found just a few miles from where he'd murdered his
wife and her grandfather.
00:31:03
Detectives finally
had the chance to question their suspect. NARRATOR: Was Sonny
Neal about to confess
00:31:31
to the double homicide? Or did he have one
more card to play? [music playing] NARRATOR: If they wanted
their suspect to talk,
00:31:51
Special Agent Dan Sims and
Lieutenant Scott McAllister were going to have to play a
cat and mouse game of diplomacy.
00:32:08
Agent Sims and I
attempted to interview Sonny Neal after his arrest. When we approached Sonny
Neal about speaking with him
00:32:20
about these incidents,
he began to cry, and his legs were
shaking uncontrollably.
00:32:30
NARRATOR: Sonny was going
to need delicate handling. NARRATOR: As the
interview goes on,
00:32:58
the officers try a number of
tactics to get him to talk. DAN SIMS: And
whatever you tell me,
00:33:19
I'll make sure it's
documented exactly. NARRATOR: Nothing convinces
Sonny Neal to open up
00:33:49
about the night of the murders. And then-- NARRATOR: It was the end of
the line for the investigators'
00:34:10
interview. He realized that he
was in big, big trouble. And he realized he
needed an attorney.
00:34:19
And I agreed with him. He did need an attorney. And to this day, he's never
spoken to law enforcement
00:34:30
about any details of
this double murder. DAN SIMS: I just think
it was one of those cases
00:34:35
where Sonny knew it was over. And he was going to have
to face the consequences of what he did.
00:34:47
NARRATOR: Nine months
after the double homicide in Green Springs Road, Sonny
Neal appeared before a judge.
00:34:53
When they brought Sonny
in, he was shackled and was wearing, like, a jumpsuit. And he didn't look as
much like his picture.
00:35:04
I remember being
surprised by that. I think he had put on some
weight and looked older.
00:35:10
But he really didn't have any
emotion as far as I remember. He just sat there. SCOTT MCALLISTER: Speaking
on behalf of Sonny
00:35:21
was his attorney, Marcus Morris. Mr. Morris stated
during the plea that the combination of Sonny's
recent discovery of his wife's
00:35:34
infidelity, the
death of his brother, his financial problems,
his marriage crumbling,
00:35:43
and his recent drinking and
use of prescribed prescription medication had ultimately
resulted in his actions.
00:35:57
His attorney read a statement
in court that said, you know, that he was sorry
for what he had done,
00:36:02
and this isn't a
person that just decided to kill two people. And that was it. SCOTT MCALLISTER: I tend to
disagree with his statement
00:36:12
simply because regardless of
what may have been going on in Sonny's life, regardless
of issues and problems
00:36:20
that he may have been having,
nothing justifies what I saw on May the 24th, 2012.
00:36:31
Sonny is one of these people
that is in prison because he could not control his temper.
00:36:41
In Georgia, he probably could
have gotten the death penalty. NARRATOR: But he did not.
00:36:49
In fact, the case
never went to trial. A deal was struck. Sonny Neal entered
a guilty plea.
00:36:58
They accepted the
prosecutor's decision to give Sonny a plea deal
for two counts of murder
00:37:08
without the
possibility of parole. They were shielding
Jessica's daughter. They didn't want her to testify.
00:37:13
And they just didn't want
her to have to relive that and, you know, the distress
that it would cause her.
00:37:19
They were protecting her. He got life without parole
for the killing of Donald Shedd.
00:37:28
And he got life for
killing Jessica. So Sonny will spend the
rest of his life in prison.
00:37:43
JOY LUKACHICK SMITH: While
Sonny didn't show any emotion, his family showed
a ton of emotion.
00:37:49
It was really, actually, a
dramatic moment in court. SCOTT MCALLISTER:
Sonny Neal's attorney
00:37:55
during the plea agreement
stated that Sonny Neal was remorseful for his actions.
00:38:01
At the end of the day, I don't
know whether he was remorseful for his actions or not.
00:38:07
That's something
that will probably remain between him and God. NARRATOR: Since clamming
up at his interview,
00:38:13
Sonny has never spoken about
what drove him to kill his wife and her grandfather.
00:38:19
I never really
got a good sense of, you know, what made a
person who seemed fairly
00:38:26
normal and likable
just, you know, snap and commit, you know,
an extremely heinous crime.
00:38:35
There's only three
motives for murder-- sex, anger, and greed. This was certainly
a sexual motive.
00:38:44
It was certainly
an anger motive. It certainly appeared
like a crime of passion.
00:38:52
I mean, in the moment. DAN SIMS: Jessica's
murder was one that was incited by passion.
00:38:59
It was incited by anger. It was almost like when a
pressure cooker goes off and releases its steam.
00:39:08
He had definitely crossed the
line in a spontaneous moment where he just lost it
and attacked Jessica.
00:39:19
NARRATOR: And what
about Donald Shedd, Jessica's grandfather,
who shared the family home with them?
00:39:24
DAN SIMS: The question of
how Donald was murdered and the motive, why
Donald was murdered,
00:39:32
was an answer that we
sought for quite a while. And we believed that Donald's
murder was a motive of anger.
00:39:41
He was very angry at Donald. NARRATOR: Sonny Neal will spend
the rest of his life in prison
00:39:47
for killing his wife, Jessica,
and her grandfather, Donald Shedd. Sonny gave his nine-year-old
daughter, Maddie,
00:39:52
a life sentence of her own. One of the most stunning parts
of this case was the fact that
00:39:59
Sonny Neal had brutally murdered
his wife and Donald Shedd there at the residence and then
had left the residence,
00:40:09
knowing that his adopted
nine-year-old daughter was still there in the residence,
sleeping, and would
00:40:16
wake up and would find this. These murders had occurred. I still have a hard
time with the fact
00:40:23
that Maddie discovered
the crime scene. I really haven't
thought about this case since because I can't.
00:40:32
It's not something,
you know, especially having children now,
it's not something
00:40:37
you want to think about. SCOTT MCALLISTER: The rage,
the heinous actions that were involved in the
brutal stabbing of his wife
00:40:45
and the beating
to death of Donald is an unacceptable way
to handle any situation.
00:40:56
That amount of rage can
never be excused, regardless of the circumstances. There was a 9-year-old girl
in the middle of all this.
00:41:06
She didn't just lose her mother. She didn't just lose
her grandfather. She lost her dad, too.
00:41:21
[music playing]