Alabama to pay victims' families $1M over suspect's parole

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The state of Alabama will pay $1 million to three slaying victims' families who contend that the man accused of killing them had wrongly been paroled, the state attorney general said Friday.

The families of Colton Lee, Marie Martin and Martha Reliford allege that the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles should not have paroled Jimmy O'Neal Spencer and failed to properly supervise him once he was released.

"No amount of money is enough to compensate these families for their losses," Tommy James, the families' lawyer, said in an interview. "I think going forward, now that this part is behind them, they can focus on the criminal trial of Spencer where obviously they're hoping and praying for swift and severe justice."

The $1 million settlement is the maximum damages allowed under state law and will be divided among the three families. James said the current ceiling on compensation is a "shame" and the law should change to better protect victims.

Spencer is accused of killing all three in Guntersville in July 2018.

As WHNT reported , investigators say Martin was looking after her great-grandson, 7-year-old Colton Lee, at her home when she was strangled and stabbed. Colton was killed by blunt force trauma. Reliford, Martin's neighbor, had been hit in the head with the back flat part of a hatchet and stabbed days earlier, investigators say.

Spencer has been charged with capital murder in their deaths. Court records show his next appearance will be in September. A trial date hasn't been set.

Alabama Attorney Gen. Steve Marshall described Spencer as a "career criminal" in a news release Friday. Spencer initially entered prison in the 1980s, convicted and imprisoned for numerous serious property and violent crimes. He successfully escaped prison...