The wife of a convicted killer is demanding that her husband be released from prison.

Anita McNeil joined leaders of the NAACP in Washington, D.C. on Friday.

McNeil's husband, John, is serving a life sentence for the 2005 death of Brian Epp of Cobb County.  Police originally said the death was in self-defense, but months later, the district attorney indicted him.

McNeil shot Epp to death after Epp threatened his son at their home.  When McNeil confronted him and repeatedly asked him to leave his property, police say he lunged at him with a knife.  That's when McNeil shot him.

Last month, a judge cleared the way for an appeal but Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens appealed the court's decision. 

Anita, who has breast cancer, got choked up when asked if she had anything to say to Olens.

"I get emotional with this,” said McNeil. “I would like to tell Attorney General Olens to just look at the transcript, look at the law.   And I'm hoping that if he has kids and his child called him that he would see that he needed to go home.  If you're a parent, you're going to make sure that your child is safe and that's what my husband did.  In doing so, he didn't go looking for trouble, he went home.  In going home, the person came to our property and started aggressively charging him.”

She says she's thrilled to have the support of NAACP behind her.

"I'm just truly thankful.  I'm thankful that I have you know, I have the support of the NAACP, but not only the support of the NAACP.  I'm beginning to see people from all over the world calling in and emailing and writing.  And they're saying that you know what, we are John McNeil and we're standing up and we're saying that this can happen to anybody.  Any one of us can be John McNeil.  John should have the right to protect his home and he should have the right to protect our child, and he should have had the right to protect himself," said McNeil.

McNeil says she will continue to fight for her husband's freedom.

"Just let him come home.  You know, I'm sick and my son needs his dad and John needs to be free," said McNeil.