Lisa Jo Chamberlin: Hope for Life in Mississippi
On March 20, 2024, Lisa Jo Chamberlin participated in a gruesome murder. Fueled by drugs and rage, Lisa Jo’s boyfriend Roger Gillett masterminded the killing of his cousin Vernon Hulett and Hulett’s girlfriend Linda Heintzelman, due to their forcing Lisa Jo and Gillett to move out of their home, where they’d been for a few weeks. First, Gillett slashed the throat of Hulett and and beat him to death. Then, Gillett raped Heintzelman with a beer bottle, beat her repeatedly, stabbed her, suffocated her and killed her using a plastic bag over her head. Though Lisa Jo was not the mastermind behind it all, she participated, particularly by not doing everything she could to stop the carnage. Realizing what they’d done, Lisa Jo and Gillett knew they had to cover up what they’d just done. So, Lisa Jo helped Gillett chop up the bodies and stuff them in a freezer. Then, they loaded the body parts up and drove them to an abandoned farm in Kansas. For nine days, they were able to evade capture. Then, police got word of methamphetamine manufacturing on the farm. When they raided the place, they found the body parts and the couple were subsequently arrested. After sensational trials, Lisa Jo and Gillett were both convicted and each given two death sentences.
During Lisa Jo’s sentencing phase and thereafter, it became clear that she’d been abused physically, emotionally and sexually her entire life. Her biological father abused her starting when she was a toddler. Her mother abused her after her biological father left. After her mother remarried, her stepfather started to abuse her. On multiple occasions during her childhood, she was sexually assaulted by her half-brother. When she was in fourth grade, a teacher raped her. Desperate for love, she ended up marrying three different times and had a child with each one. Numerous partners abused and mistreated her. Of course, she turned to drugs to numb the pain. To say that Lisa Jo has had a rough life would be an understatement. Over and over again, nobody stepped in to help. The murders of Hulett and Heintzelman can be traced back to the repeated murder of Lisa Jo’s soul and spirit throughout her life.
Despite it all, I have found Lisa Jo to be one of the kindest people that I’ve ever met. When you speak to her, her spirit simply radiates love. She desperately wants to make sure that everyone around her feels seen and loved. How could this be? Truth is always more complicated than headlines. It’d be easy to call Lisa Jo a monster. It’s harder to look deeper. Unfortunately, we live in a society determined to throw away broken things. But if we take the time to engage, maybe we will find that that which we thought was broken just needed some space for repair. The sick deserve treatment not to be simply thrown away and left to die. Why do we ignore the abused?
On June 12, 2014, the Supreme Court of Mississippi vacated both of Roger Gillett’s death sentences based on misinterpretations of the law in his sentencing phase. Then, on July 25, 2018, Gillett was resentenced to life in prison. That’s right the mastermind of the murder of Hulett and Heintzelman will get to live out his life in prison, while Lisa Jo is still sentenced to death. How is any of this fair?
Sometimes, it’s tough to make an argument against executing someone. Lisa Jo’s crimes are heinous. But her situation is more complicated than the gruesome details she was a part of. Then again, they all are.
Sometimes we must translate the scripture for our moment. Jesus commanded, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” How can we love Lisa Jo and execute her at the same time? Obviously, we can’t.
So, let there be life for Lisa Jo. Indeed, Jesus commands it.
-The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood
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