Levelland man sentenced to life in prison without parole in mother's 2019 slaying

Jurors in Lamb County on Wednesday found a 41-year-old man guilty of capital murder in the August 2019 slaying of his mother at her home in Levelland.

Jeremy Atchison stood silently as District Judge Pat Phelan read aloud the verdict, which arrived after more than six and 1/2 hours of deliberation. Prosecutors we're not seeking the death penalty in the case so Atchison was automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Prosecutor Barron Slack last week told jurors in a Lamb County Court that Atchison knew right from wrong when he beat, strangled and shot his mother to death four years ago as he was stealing her purse in her home in Levelland.

Atchison, who has been held at the Hockley County Jail since his Aug. 31, 2019 arrest, last Monday pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to a capital murder charge in the slaying of his mother, Jill Atchison, a beloved Levelland dance teacher.

Atchison entered his plea after a jury of nine women and three men with two alternate jurors were selected to hear the case.

According to the indictment read in court last Monday by prosecutors, Atchison is accused of killing his mother in the course of an aggravated robbery.

The case is being tried in Lamb County after 286th District Court Judge Pat Phelan granted in November an agreed motion to change venue.

An insanity defense requires defendants to admit they committed the crime but were under the grips of a severe mental illness or defect and didn't know their actions at the time were wrong.

However, if jurors find he was insane when he killed his mother, Atchison will likely remain under the court's jurisdiction and be committed to a mental health facility to be released when he is deemed, after yearly evaluations, not to be threat to himself or others.

Slack told jurors in his opening statement that they will hear evidence that family members had growing concerns about Atchison's mental health issues in the decades before the crime.

However, he said he believed the evidence will show that his actions on the night he killed his mother were fueled by his desperation for money -- coupled with his resentment against his mother for his lot in life -- and not his declining mental health.

He told jurors that the defendant's behavior immediately after he killed his mother showed he knew what he did was wrong.

"This was a fight , this was about money," he said. "… It's a capital murder, not an insanity murder."

He told jurors to expect to hear Atchison's confession to a Texas Ranger, describing how he grabbed his mother's purse, chased her through her home, until he caught up to her, strangled her and bashed her head onto the floor.

Atchison would tell the Ranger that he "felt godlike after it was over," Slack said

However, as his mother lay on the floor, Atchison would allegedly tell the Ranger that he took her money, went to his truck where he retrieved a handgun, returned to the house, placed the weapon against her temple and fired.

"'To make sure she was dead.' Those were his words," Slack told the jury.

He told jurors that nothing Atchison said during the interview would suggest he didn't know killing his mother was wrong. However, what he doesn't show during the interview, Slack said, was remorse.

Despite retracting his confession the next day, Slack said Atchison's statements would be corroborated by the evidence.

"That crime scene will match what he relays to (the investigator)," he said.

Slack said there was no evidence that in the years Atchison life spiraled that he ever became violent or broke the law.

He said testimony will show that for years Atchison took Adderall for an Attention Deficit Disorder diagnosis and testosterone treatments.

"No arrests, no violence, no loss of control in that way or any indication that he had a mental illness that would prevent him from knowing right from wrong," he said.

Atchison's defense attorneys, Isaias Solorzano and Jesse Mendez, reserved their opening statements until after prosecutors rest their case.

Slack, a former prosecutor in Lubbock County hired as a special prosecutor in the case, told jurors that he expected defense attorneys to call on a Dr. Tim Nyberg, a clinical psychologist who evaluated Atchison, who will testify that, in his opinion, Atchison was insane at the time he killed his mother.

Court records show prosecutors also have a forensic psychologist as a potential expert witness in the case.

Slack told jurors he believed Nyber's opinion will be loaded with disclaimers based on what Atchison told him at the time of the evaluation.

"His opinion is the best he can do now (and is) subject to change," he said. "It's not proof."

Investigating a murder

Atchison's charge stems from an investigation by the Texas Rangers and Levelland Police Department that began with a 10:20 p.m. check welfare call from Atchison's sister, Meagan Stanley, who lived in Tennessee.

Stanley told jurors that she requested the welfare check after speaking to her mother earlier in the day and learning about a fight between her mother and brother.

Jurors heard Stanley's 911 call and heard her tell a dispatcher that she hadn't heard from her mother, who had an argument with Atchison, describing him as "out of his mind."

Responding officers arrived at Jill Atchison's home in the 400 block of East Jackson Street and encountered a man, later identified as Atchison, leaving the residence.

When officers attempted to contact the man, later identified as Jeremy Atchison, he fled in a vehicle, prompting a short high-speed chase that ended in the driveway of Atchison's father's house in the 300 block of Pecan Street.

He was initially arrested on a charge of evading with a vehicle and was later charged with capital murder, when officers eventually discovered Jill Atchison's body in her home later that night.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Levelland man sentenced to life in prison without parole in mother's 2019 slaying