Criminal Misconduct: The Murder of Suzanne Marie Collins

The Two-Decade Fight for Justice for a Murdered Marine

Lance Corporal Suzanne Marie Collins (photo source)

Suzanne

It was Thursday, July 11, 1985 in Millington, Tennessee, a city roughly 15 square miles large, less than ten miles outside of Memphis and home to Memphis Naval Air Station (since renamed Naval Support Activity Mid-South). As a major training center for both the Navy and the Marines, the base covers nearly 4,000 acres and both the active duty and retired military personnel contribute to Millington's economy.

Around 11 p.m., two marines, Private First Class Michael Howard and Private First Class Mark Shotwell, were jogging on base when they saw a very pretty, tall blonde girl wearing a Marine Corps t-shirt jogging in the opposite direction. Only moments later, they noticed a dark colored 1970s Ford station wagon with wood-grain paneling and its high beams on, traveling in the same direction as the pretty girl.

(photo source)

That girl was Suzanne Marie Collins. In that summer of 1985, 19-year-old Suzanne was a marine, assigned to Naval Air Station Memphis and preparing to graduate. The only daughter and youngest child (brother Stephan was just a bit older) of an American Foreign Service officer and attorney and his wife who adopted both Suzanne and Stephen, the Collins family did stints in Greece and Madison, Wisconsin before settling in Springfield, Virginia. A pretty little girl, Suzanne grew into a lovely young woman who was popular and outgoing at school, if not the most devoted student. Her devotion to sports and socializing left her without any college prospects upon graduation and not wanting to attend the local community college and live at home while she worked a minimum-wage job, she instead enlisted in the Marine Corps.

The decision was apparently a surprise to everyone, from her family to her friends to her high school teachers. When quizzed about why she would choose to enlist, Suzanne said she wanted to challenge herself and the marines were the very best.

In June of 1984, the same month she graduated from high school and turned eighteen, Suzanne began her basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina. She excelled during the grueling boot camp and it allowed her to give serious consideration to her future. Her plan was to go to the Naval Academy and then become part of the first class of female marine fighters. Suzanne hoped that the restriction on females in aerial combat position would be lifted. As her first step, she applied to and was accepted in the marines' avionics training program.

On October 20, 1984, Private First Class Suzanne Collins reported to Naval Air Station Memphis. She had less than a year to live.

By the spring of 1985, Suzanne had been promoted to lance corporal and the honor deck, a ceremonial troop of "the most motivated students." The students selected for the honor deck had to maintain a top academic average; Suzanne's parents were incredibly proud of her. Suzanne also had the great honor of being the first female marine at Air Station Memphis to be named for the honor deck. This led to razzing and harassment by not only male marines but other females as well but Suzanne, with her characteristic good nature, stuck it out.

She was scheduled to graduate on Friday, July 12 and had received her assignment to Cherry Point, North Carolina from there. It seemed the only thing putting a potential damper on Suzanne's life on July 11 was that both her boyfriend and her best friend had been assigned to California. The trio, however, figured that once they had all reported to their new duty assignments, there would be a way to get Suzanne transferred out to California.

Thursday, July 11 was a routine day for Suzanne. She had planned to accompany her best friend Susan and Susan's mother and sister to dinner at a friend's house in Memphis but the barracks staff sergeant assigned Suzanne Duty NCO for the day. The duty was not taxing; it involved checking people in and out and doing an hourly round of the building and recording any findings in a logbook. Suzanne was disappointed that she would be unable to join Susan and her family for dinner but assured them she would see them the next morning at graduation.

It had rained earlier in the day and once Suzanne's duty assignment ended, she decided to take advantage of the weather cooling a bit (it had hit nearly 100 degrees that day) and get some exercise. Dressed in a red Marine Corps t-shirt, red shorts, white socks and Nikes, she wrapped a white bandana around her forehead and a blue sweat belt around her waist and chatted briefly with another friend before she took off on a run around 10 p.m., saying she would only be gone about half an hour.

The Scene of the Crime

Shortly after 11 p.m., after PFC Michael Howard and PFC Mark Shotwell had seen Suzanne jog by, and noticed the station wagon with the high-beams on, they heard a female voice screaming "Don't touch me!" and "Leave me alone!" They both ran in the direction the screams came from, and where the car had been headed, but were momentarily blinded by oncoming headlights. Once they regained their bearings and night vision, they were unable to locate the car or the source of the screams and so ran to the nearest base gate and notified the guard on duty. That guard on duty called base security, saying that he had seen that very car. A man was driving it and he had his arm around a woman next to him in the front seat. The guard remembered that the car had Kentucky plates. A "be on the lookout," or BOLO, was issued not only for the base but also for the Millington PD and the Shelby County Sheriff's Department.

Sedley Alley's car (photo source)

At roughly ten minutes after midnight, a chief of watch for the base, who had gotten in his own car to search for the station wagon, located it. He stopped it and brought the driver back to the security office. His name was Sedley Alley and he was a big man. Six-foot-four and 220 pounds, he was twenty-nine years old and his wife, Lynne, was enlisted in the navy and working on the base.

Lynne Alley was brought into the security office, where it was noted she matched the description of the woman seen in the station wagon. Alley claimed that the screams the two male joggers heard was a simple domestic dispute that had since been resolved. As Alley and Lynne said the same thing, there was nothing to hold Alley on and so he was released. The two male joggers, PFC Howard and PFC Shotwell, had both been giving their statements at the same time and heard the Alley station wagon departing. When they heard the loud muffler, both said they were certain it was the same car they had seen earlier that evening and they disputed what both Alley and his wife said about the screams being from a domestic dispute. However, at that point there was no missing persons report having been filed and so Howard and Shotwell were thanked and sent back to their barracks.

Around 5 a.m. on Friday, July 12, Suzanne's roommate awoke and discovered that Suzanne was not in her bed, nor had it appeared she had slept in it. Her roommate was worried and call base security, which issued an all-points bulletin, or APB, not only for the base but with the Millington PD and the Shelby County Sheriff's Department. Suzanne would officially be missing for no more than an hour before she was found.

Sheriff's deputies found Suzanne at the Edmund Orgill Park, just off the base. She was lying facedown, just 150 feet from the road, with her t-shirt, shorts, underwear, socks, shoes and exercise belt scattered around her. A pair of men's underwear, red in color, was also tossed by her body. Her head was bloody and her left eye swollen shut. The injuries to her head and face were so severe that the photographs the Navy Security Personnel had provided to the authorities could not assist them in identifying her. Also visible with regard to her injuries were bite marks on her left breast, bruises on both shoulder blades and scratches that ran from her shoulders to her waist.

The true horror of what Suzanne had been subjected to and endured would not be fully known until the medical examiner completed his autopsy.

The bruises on Suzanne's neck suggested that she had been strangled, but strangulation had not been what killed her. She had been beaten so badly that not only was she unrecognizable but her skull had been fractured. The bludgeoning alone was enough to have killed her but she was still alive when her killer took a beveled tree branch, just over 31 inches in length -- or nearly a yard long -- and an inch and a half in diameter and shoves it so forcefully into her vagina that it tore through her perineum and abdomen and ruptured one of Suzanne's lungs, causing massive hemorrhaging.

In Dr. James Bell's opinion, the injuries to Suzanne's skull could have been caused by the rounded end of a screwdriver (one was found near the scene) but not the pointed end. Dr. Bell would later say Suzanne's case was the worst he had ever seen.

The authorities found several earwitnesses who recalled hearing what could only be described as "death screams" coming from the park at roughly the same time Suzanne died.

When the chief of watch was informed that Suzanne's body had been discovered, he immediately issued an order that Sedley Alley be arrested by two military police. His car was impounded and upon inspection, bloodstains were discovered both inside and outside the vehicle in type O blood, the same type as Suzanne and of Alley. Paper napkins from a regional restaurant chain that were found by Suzanne's body were also found in Alley's car. Also found in the car was a stolen air conditioner pump taken from a house near where Suzanne had been running.

Alley at first denied any knowledge or involvement in Suzanne's murder and asked for an attorney but while awaiting an attorney announced that he had changed his mind and wanted to explain what happened. He consented to his statement being tape recorded.

Sedley Alley's Version of Events

(photo source)

Alley said that on the night of Thursday, July 11, his wife had gone to a Tupperware party around 7 p.m. with two female friends, which had made him mad. He missed his two children from an earlier marriage and his parents, all of whom lived in Kentucky. He had already drunk two six-packs of beer and a bottle of wine by the time he left home to go to a convenience store for more liquor. He said he was depressed, unhappy and lonely as he had no friends in Tennessee. He said he had driven to the north side of the base, where he had parked on a lot near the golf course, and began running toward Navy Lake. He ran past a girl jogging - Suzanne - and she caught up to him once he stopped at the lake, where they had a short conversation. He said they jogged together back to his car and then she continued on toward the gate on Navy Road. He got in his car and began to drive toward that gate on Navy Road, where the roadway narrowed and there was no curb. He heard a thump and realized he had struck her. According to Alley, she rolled around and screamed a couple of times. He put her in the car, stating he told her he was going to take her to the hospital. It was during this drive that Alley claimed that Suzanne had called him a "drunken bastard" and threatened to get him in trouble . Saying that he feared she was going to turn him in, he turned back toward the base in the vicinity of the lake, where he held her down, hit her several times and sticking a screwdriver, which he used to start the car due to a broken ignition, in the side of her head.

Alley was insistent that he did not have sex with Suzanne, nor did he attempt to, but had staged the scene to look like a sexual assault to divert suspicion away from what had actually happened. He stripped Suzanne's body of her clothing, dragged her by the feet over near a tree, and broke off a tree limb which he "pushed in" her vagina. He then claimed to run to his car and driven away.

After completing his statement, Alley voluntarily accompanied officers over the route he said he said he had taken the night before and to the location where Suzanne had lost her life. He accurately identified multiple things, including the tree from which he had broken the limb from to assault Suzanne with.

Sedley Alley was charged with murder in the first degree.

The graduation ceremony for Marine Aviation Support Squadron 902 on Friday, July 12, 1985 turned out to be more of a solemn affair than a celebration. The flag was flown at half-staff and Suzanne's empty seat was impossible not to notice.

On Wednesday, July 17 a memorial service was held for Suzanne at the base chapel. Suzanne's commanding officer officiated and by the end, when the lone bugler played "Taps," all attending, even toughened Marines, were in tears. The damage inflicted to her meant that her casket had to be closed.

On Thursday, July 18, 1985, Suzanne Marie Collins was laid to rest with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. There were too many mourners for the chapel to accommodate; some had to listen from outside.

The Legal Process

Although Sedley Alley had voluntarily given statements to authorities on the day that Suzanne had been found, he told his court-appointed attorneys that he didn't remember anything. Dr. Wyatt Nichols, a clinical psychologist from Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute, examined Alley on November 7, 1985 but feeling that a multiple personality disorder was at play, referred him to Dr. Allen Battle. Furthermore, Dr. Nichols said he could not form an accurate opinion on Alley's sanity because Alley claimed to have amnesia.

Convicted killer Sedley Alley (photo source)

From late April until late July of 1986, Alley was at the Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute, where he was examined by Dr. Willis Marshall and Dr. Allen Battle while under hypnosis and under the influence of sodium amytal. It was Dr. Marshall's opinion that Alley had at least one alternate personality, and possibly two; one was called Billie, while the other was Power/Death. Although Dr. Marshall said that if either of those personalities had been in charge during the commission of Suzanne's murder, Alley would not have been able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct, he couldn't say for certain that any personality other than Alley's was in control that night. He did not believe that Alley was faking.

Dr. Battle, who had treated more than a dozen cases of multiple personality disorders, hypnotized Alley three separate times and diagnosed him as suffering from multiple personality disorder. He believed that Alley had been suffering with the condition in July of 1985 but could not state with certainty whether an alternate personality was in control at the time of Suzanne's abduction and murder. Dr. Battle also did not believe that Alley was faking.

However, Dr. Sam Craddock, another clinical psychologist at the Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute who had examined Alley on May 15, 1986, interpreted the psychological tests to say that, in his opinion, Alley was exaggerating and malingering. He believed that Alley had borderline personality disorder with a chronic history of drug and alcohol abuse. Dr. Craddock found no evidence of multiple personality disorder or psychosis, an opinion that Drs. Zillur Athar, William Brooks, Ray Gentry, and Lynne Zager shared.

Sedley Alley's trial finally commenced in March of 1987, after four postponements. Although the defense put forth the argument for multiple personality disorder, after ten days of testimony, the jury of ten women and two men, who received the case on March 18, did not buy it. After deliberating for six hours, they found Sedley Alley guilty of murder in the first degree, guilty of aggravated kidnapping, and guilty of aggravated rape. They spent two hours thinking on punishment before recommending execution. Judge W. Fred Axley agreed and sentenced Sedley Alley to death on May 17. Judge Axley also imposed two consecutive 40-year sentences for the two lesser charges. Although he set September 11 for Alley's execution, the appeals process began to grind away.

The Next Two Decades

For the next nearly 20 years, Alley and his defense team would file multiple appeals. The appeals ran the gamut from incompetent counsel to Judge Axley erring in allowing and/or excluding testimony during trial to demanding a new trial because Suzanne's father Jack had been allowed to get a cup of coffee from the judge's antechamber.

For Suzanne's family, who had suffered with her heinous murder, they felt Alley was abusing the system with the continuous filings. Her parents became regional directors for Citizens for Law and Order and spoke with not only citizens' group but law enforcement organizations. They made the talk show circuit, speaking the horrifying details of their daughter's last moments, and Suzanne's father spoke before Congress and then joined the justice department as a special assistant to the director of the Office for Victims of Crime.

In January of 2004, after a new execution date of June 3, 2004 was set, Alley changed what he had been claiming for many years and said he was not not guilty by reason of insanity; he was just not guilty. He recanted his confession, claimed he had been coerced into making his statements, and requested that DNA testing be done on the physical evidence.

On May 31, 2006, the court denied the petition for DNA testing and a new execution date of June 28, 2006 was set. On June 26, a final appeal was made and denied.

(photo source)

On June 27, Alley was moved to a holding cell at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. At 1:46 a.m. on June 28, he was brought into the execution chamber, where, through the viewing glass, he said goodbye to his adult son and daughter by telling them he loved them and they needed to stay strong and stay together, before the lethal injection was administered. At 2:12 a.m. he was pronounced dead. Suzanne Collins had been dead for almost 21 years. Had she been allowed to live, she would have turned 40 years old that same month.

Had Sedley Alley Killed Before?

The prosecutor in Alley's murder trial had been convinced that Suzanne had not been Alley's first victim. In checking into Alley's background, they found that Alley's first wife had died under mysterious circumstances.

On February 28, 1980, three days after filing for divorce, 20-year-old Debra Alley was found dead in the bathtub. Alley told investigators that she had been out drinking earlier that evening with other men, come home drunk, and had obviously drowned while taking a bath. He had no explanation for waiting several hours before calling for an ambulance.

The medical examiner noted numerous bruises on Debra's body and strangulation marks on her neck. A French fry was found stuck in her throat and it was ruled that she had asphyxiated, choking to death on her own vomit. Although Debra's death was officially considered "questionable," Sedley Alley was never charged or prosecuted.

Decades later, after Alley had been executed, his second wife, Lynne, spoke to FBI agent John Douglas about her life with Alley. She had met him when she was only fifteen years old, Alley being nearly ten years older and newly widowed after Debra's death. Lynne stopped going to school, choosing instead to hang out with him, and soon he had moved her away from her friends and family. He was an excessive drinker and according to Lynne, he had tried to strangle her one night, leaving her with the telltale petechial hemorrhaging (broken blood vessels in the eyes), purple bruises and a swollen face.

Lynne told Douglas that as time went by, Alley eventually confessed to her that he had killed his first wife Debra. He said that he had choked her and then held her underwater until she stopped breathing. He had undressed her body as he would his own, leaving her underwear and socks balled up in her pants inside out (to support the theory she had undressed herself and gotten in the tub for a bath) and then placed her body in the tub with bathwater hotter than normal so that the time of death would be inaccurate.

Lynne stood beside Alley throughout his trial and conviction before finally severing ties with him about a year after the trial.