Lisa Jo Chamberlin is a woman from Mississippi who was sentenced to death for the murders of two people
Lisa Jo Chamberlin and her boyfriend Roger Gillett were manufacturing meth when they heard a rumor that a woman was talking to police about their operation
Lisa Jo Chamberlin and Roger Gillett would travel to the woman’s home and once there they discovered her and her boyfriend. Lisa Jo and Roger would murder both of them
Lisa Jo Chamberlin would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Lisa Jo Chamberlin Photos
Lisa Jo Chamberlin FAQ
Where is Lisa Jo Chamberlin now
Lisa Jo Chamberlin Appeal Denied
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday announced it would not review a Mississippi death row inmate’s case after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated her sentence last year.
Lisa Chamberlin and her then-boyfriend, Roger Lee Gillett, were convicted of two counts capital murder in the March 2004 slayings of Gillet’s cousin, Vernon Hulett, 34, and Hulett’s girlfriend, Linda Heintzelman, 37, in Hattiesburg. Their bodies were transported to Kansas in a freezer.
Chamberlin is the only woman on Mississippi’s death row. The Supreme Court’s ruling means her death sentence stands.
The dismembered bodies were found at an abandoned farmhouse owned by Gillett’s father.
Both were sentenced to death. Gillett’s sentence has since been reduced and he is serving a life sentence with the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
The Supreme Court does not explain why it declines to hear some cases.
The Cornell University Legal Information Institute explains that the Supreme Court’s decision to deny the petition doesn’t mean the court agrees with the lower court’s ruling.
“It simply means that fewer than four justices determined that the circumstances of the decision of the lower court warrant a review by the Supreme Court,” the LII website explains.
Lisa Jo Chamberlin News
Despite claiming new evidence that she was forced to help her boyfriend kill two people more than 20 years ago, Mississippi’s only woman on Death Row will not get a new trial.
On Tuesday, the Mississippi Supreme Court denied a petition from Lisa Jo Chamberlin, saying, in part, that her appeal was subject to a one-year time bar and that she is prohibited from presenting claims addressed in prior proceedings.
Chamberlin was sentenced to death in 2006 for the 2004 murders of Linda Heintzelman and Vernon Hulett.
Chamberlin argued that there was new evidence in the case, and that she “acted under extreme distress or under the substantial domination” of her then-boyfriend, Roger Lee Gillett, when the killings took place.
She also pointed to an affidavit from Gillett, who affirmed that she was under his control.
However, the court was “unpersuaded” by that affidavit and wrote that had it been introduced at trial, it would not have resulted in a different sentence.
“It is undeniable that the victims in this case were subjected to prolonged violence that ‘was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.’ Moreover, Chamberlin’s involvement is irrefutable, as her own confessions make no mention of substantial domination and provided that she repeatedly advocated killing the victims,” the majority wrote in the opinion’s footnote.
“A jury found Chamberlin guilty as charged and she was sentenced to death on each capital-murder count; this Court affirmed her convictions and sentences on direct appeal; and this Court unanimously denied her first petition for post-conviction collateral relief.”
According to the Hattiesburg American, the couple killed Hulett and Heintzelman in May 2004. The paper states that “Heintzelman was stabbed, smothered, and stuffed in a freezer, while Hulett was killed by a blow to the head, dismembered, and stuffed on top of his girlfriend.”
The Court ruled on the case on an 8-1 vote, with Justice Robert Chamberlin writing for the majority.
He was joined in the opinion by Justices Mike Randolph, Josiah Coleman, James Maxwell, David Ishee, Kenneth Griffis, David Sullivan, and Jenifer Branning.
Justice Leslie King dissented, and in a fiery response, took the court to task for failing to consider the new evidence, for failing to provide death penalty petitions with the heightened scrutiny required by the “unique nature of the death penalty and … the Eighth Amendment.”
Instead, he cites a line from an article in the Mississippi Law Journal, saying the Mississippi Supreme Court “has a long history of merely paying lip service to heightened standards in capital cases, while failing to actually apply any such heightened standards.”
Part of the argument was whether an affidavit from Gillet would have changed the outcome in Chamberlin’s case.
Gillett was initially sentenced to death for his role in the killings as well. But his sentence was vacated by the Supreme Court, and he was granted a new trial. In 2014, he was again found guilty of two counts of capital murder but received a life sentence after the Forrest County District Attorney, at the time, chose not to pursue the death penalty.
In 2023, Gillett signed an affidavit saying that he had “complete control” over Chamberlin, and that she “seemed to thrive best under a strong influence.”
According to court records, Gillett went on to say that he had intentionally overdosed Chamberlin with meth and, on at least two occasions, beat Chamberlin unconscious.
An August 2024 affidavit from Marti Loring, a clinical social worker, provided additional details, saying Gillett attempted to drown her at his brother’s pond in the mountains of Colorado, would choke her with one hand, and drugged and raped her.
https://www.wlbt.com/2025/05/14/woman-death-row-murdering-dismembering-victims-wont-get-new-trial
