For Immediate Release:
August 4, 2022
For press inquiries only, contact:
Mike Lewis (334) 353-2199
Attorney General Steve Marshall Announces Resentencing of Troy Connell to Life Without Parole for 2004 Bibb County Capital Murder
(MONTGOMERY) – Attorney General Steve Marshall announced that a Bibb County Circuit Court on Wednesday has again sentenced Troy Connell to life without parole for the brutal 2004 capital murder of Steven C. Spears Jr.
Connell was first convicted of capital murder in 2006 and received a mandatory sentence of life without parole for crimes he committed while age 16. He appealed his sentence after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory life-without-parole sentences could not be given to juveniles convicted of capital murder. The Supreme Court’s decision involved another Alabama case in which Evan Miller also received a mandatory life-without-parole sentence for a capital murder he committed in 2003 while he was age 14. Like Connell, Miller was resentenced on appeal to life without parole for his heinous crimes.
“Troy Connell willfully committed horrendous crimes, taking the life of an innocent man followed by the brutal assault of the victim’s wife,” said Attorney General Marshall. “On the scale of justice, the savage and evil nature of his crimes outweighs the fact that he committed them when he was 16. This week, the court correctly ruled that he should again receive the maximum allowable punishment for which he is eligible, life without parole.”
In November 2006, Connell was convicted of three counts of capital murder and one count of assault for the December 10, 2004, drive-by shotgun shooting into a vehicle of a Bibb County couple in which Steven C. Spears Jr. was fatally wounded, and afterwards Spears’ wife, Monica, was viciously beaten with a chain. The attacks occurred on State Highway 139 in rural Bibb County. Connell’s co-defendant, Jimmy Lamar Killingsworth Jr, is also serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for his involvement in Connell’s crimes.
Attorney General Marshall commended those involved in the successful prosecution of this case including Assistant Attorneys General Jimmy Thomas, John Hensley and Chenelle Smith. The original case was prosecuted in 2006 by former Assistant Attorneys General Don McMillan, Corey Maze, Don Valeska and Cheryl Schuetze, and investigated by the Attorney General’s Office, the State Bureau of Investigation, and the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office.
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