Vigilante Mom in Prison in Alleged Abuser's Death

A Florida woman reported to prison Thursday to begin finishing a 10-year sentence for killing a man she believed had molested her daughter.

Sylvia Neeley, now 48, admits killing Arthur Danner, 73, of Dade City, Fla., more than a decade ago, The St. Petersburg Times said.

Three months earlier, Neeley had reported to authorities that she believed Danner, her next-door-neighbor, had molested her daughter, the paper said. The girl, who is mentally disabled, was 12 years old at the time. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office investigated, but did not find enough evidence to charge Danner.

On May 24, 1998, Danner boasted about molesting the girl and threatened to do it again, Neeley said. "Stoned on beer and painkillers," Neeley went to her home in Dade City's Land O'Lakes mobile home park, got her gun, then returned and fired at Danner's chest and groin, the paper said.

Neeley was convicted of the killing in 2000 but the verdict was later thrown out and a new trial was ordered. With a new trial coming up, she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but will receive credit for the more than four years she already served, the Times said.

Before she headed back to prison, Neeley told the judge, "I'm very sorry for the crime I committed. I just felt like no one was helping my daughter."

Neeley's daughter, now 23, has been moved to a group home, the paper said.

For more information on this story, see The St. Petersburg Times.