Jordan Neely was a 30 years old subway busker and Michael Jackson impersonator who was choked to death by a stranger on a New York City subway while experiencing a mental health crisis on May 1, 2023.
Jordan Neely’s mother Christie Neely was strangled to death when he was 14 years old according to Jordan’s aunt Carolyn Neely. Christie Neely was a telemarketer in Manhattan at the time of her death.
Christie Neely was murdered by Shawn Southerland, then 50, who stuffed her dead body in a suitcase and threw it on the shoulder of the Henry Hudson Parkway.
Jordan testified during the trial that he tried to say goodbye to his mother before school on April 4, 2007, but Southerland barred him from entering their bedroom.
He stated that later that day, Southerland packed up and left. In March 2012, Shawn Southerland was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
According to family friends, Jordan Neely’s father had not been around much. He abandoned Jordan as a baby. However, they reconnected and Jordan lived with his father occasionally but the two did not get along.