A drug addict who had just gotten out of rehab murdered his mom and her longtime partner, a grandfather of 14 — then lived with their decomposing bodies for weeks before he was busted.
Neil Russell, 46, strangled his mom, Henrietta Russell, and stabbed to death her longtime partner, Marvin Spencer, a father of three who also had 14 grandchildren and six great-grandkids.
Then, “when his mother got paid her Social Security … he immediately went to an ATM machine and emptied out her account,” Fulton County Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney Travis Thomas told Channel 2 Atlanta.
Russell continued to live at home with the bodies. The alarm was raised when Spencer’s daughter Maria could not reach him, and Russell answered his mom’s phone when Maria called it.
When cops were called, they smelled the decomposing bodies from outside, sparking an hours-long standoff with Russell before he surrendered.
A SWAT team that forced entry found the bodies inside on March 7, 2025 — what should have been Spencer’s 76th birthday. They had been dead at least two weeks, authorities believe.
Russel was recently convicted of the murders and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus an additional 25 years — meaning he won’t be eligible for parole for at least 60 years.
His motive is not clear, prosecutors acknowledged, while noting the double murderer’s troubled history.
“We know he has drug history. He had just gone out of rehab at the time,” said Thomas, the prosecutor.
