Kayla Neel, a 20-year-old White/Caucasian woman from Bluewell, West Virginia, was fatally wounded in a shooting that authorities said was carried out by her estranged husband, Michael Neel Jr. Although December 16, 2014, is sometimes listed as the date of her death, contemporaneous news reporting indicates that December 16 was actually the date of the shooting. Kayla survived for 12 days before dying on Sunday, December 28, at a hospital in Roanoke, Virginia.
The violence occurred near Bluewell while Kayla and her friend Dakota Walls were sitting inside a pickup truck parked outside her parents' home. Both were struck by gunfire. Kayla suffered critical injuries, while Walls was shot in the neck and also required extensive hospitalization. Later reporting indicated that Walls survived but was left using a wheelchair as a result of the injuries he sustained. Investigators identified Michael Eugene Neel Jr., Kayla's estranged husband, as the person responsible for the shooting.
Michael Neel was taken into custody in connection with the attack and remained jailed as the investigation developed. At the time Kayla died, he was being held on $350,000 bail. Because she had initially survived the shooting, the case against him changed after her death. Mercer County Prosecutor Scott Ash announced that prosecutors intended to increase the charges to murder, and Neel was subsequently charged with first-degree murder. In February 2015, a Mercer County circuit judge also approved a request for Neel to undergo a psychological evaluation while the murder prosecution was pending.
The case eventually went before a jury in August 2016. Neel faced charges stemming both from Kayla's killing and the shooting of Walls. His defense maintained that the shootings had been accidental, but jurors did not completely accept that explanation. They found him guilty of malicious assault and wanton endangerment. However, the jury could not reach unanimous verdicts on first-degree murder and attempted murder, resulting in a mistrial on those two charges and leaving prosecutors in a position to try him again.
Rather than proceed immediately through another full murder trial, the case moved toward a negotiated resolution. In January 2017, Mercer County Prosecuting Attorney George Sitler announced that an agreement had been reached under which Michael Neel would plead guilty to first-degree murder. The state agreed that the murder sentence would carry mercy, an important distinction under West Virginia law because it would permit him to become eligible for parole after serving 15 years, although parole would not be guaranteed. The plea agreement followed more than two years of criminal proceedings that had already produced convictions for offenses connected to the attack and a mistrial on the most serious counts.
The prosecution therefore treated Kayla's death as a homicide arising directly from the December 16 shooting. What began as a double-shooting investigation became a murder case when she died from her injuries nearly two weeks later, while Walls' survival provided another living victim of the same attack. Michael Neel's arrest, the murder charge, the 2016 trial and partial convictions, and the later first-degree-murder plea agreement ultimately established a clear criminal case against Kayla's estranged husband rather than leaving her death unresolved.
