Prosecutors said Neil Russell remained in the apartment with the bodies for about two weeks before a March 2025 welfare check led police to the scene.
ATLANTA, GA — A Fulton County jury has convicted an Atlanta man of killing his mother and her longtime boyfriend, then staying in the apartment with their bodies for about two weeks before police found them during a welfare check in March 2025.
Neil Russell, now 46, was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 25 years after jurors found him guilty in the deaths of Henrietta Russell and Marvin Spencer. The case drew attention in Atlanta because of the length of time prosecutors say he remained in the home, the condition in which officers found the victims, and the four-hour standoff that followed when police arrived at the apartment in the city’s West End.
The case began to surface publicly on March 7, 2025, when Maria Spencer, Marvin Spencer’s daughter, could not reach her father on what was supposed to be his 76th birthday. She later said she had been trying for two or three days to contact him. When she called Henrietta Russell’s phone, a man answered and identified himself as Henrietta’s son. Maria Spencer said the brief exchange made her suspicious. She went to the apartment complex on Oglethorpe Avenue Southwest and asked the property manager to help check on the couple. When no one could get inside, 911 was called. Officers arrived shortly before midafternoon and made contact with Neil Russell, who police said refused to cooperate and indicated he might harm himself or others. Negotiators were called in, and the standoff stretched for hours before Russell surrendered. Once officers entered, they found the bodies of Henrietta Russell and Spencer inside the unit.
Investigators later said the bodies were badly decomposed, and that condition slowed identification. The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office identified Henrietta Russell as one victim, while warrants and family members identified Spencer as the other. Court records said Neil Russell strangled his mother and stabbed Spencer multiple times with a sharp object. Prosecutors later said Henrietta Russell’s larynx had been broken. Authorities also said a third person was inside the apartment during the standoff. According to charging documents, Russell held that woman against her will and assaulted her with a knife. Police said she had no prior connection to the household and had met Russell earlier that day near the West End MARTA station. That allegation led to additional counts beyond the murder charges, including aggravated assault, false imprisonment and a weapon charge. Investigators have not publicly laid out a full motive, and prosecutors acknowledged at trial that the reason for the killings remained unclear.
The people at the center of the case were described in sharply different ways by those who knew them and those who prosecuted Russell. Spencer’s family remembered him as a father of three, grandfather of 14 and great-grandfather of six. Maria Spencer said her family has had to absorb the shock while still trying to grieve. Henrietta Russell, meanwhile, was living with her son and her longtime boyfriend in the same apartment where police later found the bodies. The home stood within walking distance of the West End MARTA station, in a part of southwest Atlanta where the March 7 police response drew attention from neighbors and passing commuters. Early reports on the day of the standoff described officers, hostage negotiators and later SWAT officers surrounding the apartment. At first, police did not release the causes of death, and even the ages reported in the first hours were uncertain. Those gaps reflected how little officers knew before the search and how much of the case had to be pieced together after they secured the apartment.
As the investigation developed, warrants filled in a more detailed timeline. The killings were believed to have happened sometime between Feb. 27 and March 7, 2025. Prosecutors later narrowed that window by arguing Russell stayed in the apartment with the bodies for about two weeks after the deaths. Fulton County Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney Travis Thomas said after Henrietta Russell’s Social Security payment arrived on the first of the month, Neil Russell went to an ATM and emptied her account. Thomas presented that action as one of the clearest clues to Russell’s conduct after the killings. He also said Russell had a history of drug use and had recently left rehab around the time of the crimes. At trial, the defense focused heavily on what it said was missing: no DNA evidence tying Russell to the killings and no fingerprint evidence that directly proved he committed them. Prosecutors answered by pointing jurors to the timeline, the condition of the victims, Russell’s presence inside the apartment, and the circumstances that unfolded when officers tried to enter.
The procedural path of the case moved in stages. On the day of the standoff, Russell was first booked on charges tied to the hostage allegations and the armed confrontation with police. Within days, Atlanta police and court records showed the case had widened into a double homicide prosecution. He was later charged with two counts of murder, two counts of possession of a knife during the commission of a felony, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. By March 2026, the case had reached a verdict. WSB-TV reported that Russell was convicted of murder and other charges and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus 25 years. Prosecutors told the station that under current parole rules, he would not be eligible for parole for at least 60 years. The verdict closed the trial phase but did not answer every question raised by the case, especially why prosecutors believe he killed both victims and then remained inside the apartment as their bodies decomposed.
Even with the conviction, several parts of the case remain unsettled in the public record. Officials have described how the victims died, but they have released only limited detail about the moments immediately before the killings. Public reporting has not fully explained whether there had been prior calls to the apartment, whether either victim had recently tried to seek help, or what happened inside the home during the days before Maria Spencer asked for a welfare check. Family members have spoken more about loss than about conflict, and prosecutors have described motive as uncertain. That left jurors to weigh a case built largely on circumstances, postcrime behavior and what officers found at the apartment. Maria Spencer’s public comments gave the story its clearest human frame. She said she knew something was wrong when her father did not answer on his birthday, and she said her faith had helped carry her through the grief. For her family, the case was not only about the horror inside the apartment but also about the delay before anyone knew what had happened.
The case now stands at a point where the criminal trial is over, the sentence has been imposed and any further movement is likely to come through post-trial motions or an appeal. For the victims’ relatives, the next stage is quieter and harder to measure. The trial established the legal result. It did not erase the image of a birthday call that turned into a homicide investigation, or the hours officers spent outside an apartment while two bodies were already inside.
Author note: Last updated March 27, 2026.