Â鶹´«Ã½¹ÙÍø

Nearly 550 miles from Nashville, Tennessee, Kelley has found sobriety, community, religion and hope in another 'ville: Charlottesville, Virginia. 

"My entire life, the reason I travel so much is I was looking for home," she told The Daily Progress in an exclusive interview. "But ever since I came to Charlottesville and I gave my life to God — oh, man, it's just beautiful. I love it here."

Kelley made headlines late last year after she stowed away inside a trailer attached to a van belonging to the Charlottesville-based Ground Zero Church of the Nazarene. Unknowingly, the church's pastor transported Kelley to his Scottsville-area residence. When the pastor disembarked, Kelley took the wheel and drove off, damaging the van before she was intercepted by police.

Kelley was taken into custody on Oct. 27 and charged with seven crimes. On Dec. 12, she took a deal which downgraded those charges to three: possession of drug paraphernalia, drugged driving and petty larceny. Kelley was sentenced to the equivalent of time served after her arrest, and those six weeks in jail likely proved crucial, according to legal analyst David Heilberg.

"That's actually a significant sentence," Heilberg told The Daily Progress. "She was in jail long enough to dry out."

Sitting down with The Daily Progress earlier this month, a smiling Kelley said she is now completely sober. 

"I got a hold of some bad drugs," she recounted of the Oct. 27 incident, fiddling with a flip-flop in her hands, "and I was hallucinating."

When she climbed inside the trailer, she said, she didn't know it belonged to a church. She said she fell asleep on the nearly 10-mile ride to the pastor's house. Once she woke up, she said, she saw a dark forest that provoked paranoia and spurred a frantic quest to get away.

"It was like 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' in my mind," she said.

Pastor Kent Hart of Ground Zero Church happened to be looking through a kitchen window when he saw the van and trailer leave his driveway.

Hart said he and his congregation have prayed for Kelley since Oct. 27. Today, Kelley is praying too — as part of the congregation.

Her plea deal required her to stay away from the church, but the congregation had other ideas. The pastor's wife, Megan Hart, reached out to Kelley on Facebook. They quickly became friends, and earlier this year, Kelley was baptized at the church. Afterward, she went out for the first of what would be several dinners with the pastor and his wife.

"If it wasn't for Pastor Kent and Megan Hart, I would still be out there using," Kelley said. "I'd still be out there doing the same thing I was."

What Kelley was doing was racking up low-level drug and other criminal charges in four states to cope with her pain and addiction. She came to Charlottesville for a relationship with a man that quickly fizzled, she said.

"I did pray to the devil," she said matter-of-factly. "My story is so messed up."

She said she was surrounded by church teachings when growing up in Tennessee, but her home life messed with her head — and her body.

Kelley is the scion of a country music dynasty. Both her mother, Wynonna Judd, and her grandmother, the late Naomi Judd, are Nashville legends, with five Grammy Awards, nine Country Music Association awards and their names in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Kelley's aunt, Ashley Judd, is a Hollywood actress, best known for her roles in "Kiss the Girls" and "Double Jeopardy."

But Kelley's life growing up was hardly glamorous.

"Between 12 and 17, I was in 14 different facilities," Kelley said.

Her troubles began when her stepfather, the second of her mother's three husbands and the singer's former bodyguard, molested her. Her mother's response, Kelley said, was to bring the family together for counseling.

"Then when they found out in counseling what he had done to me, they're like, 'Wait a minute. We're going to report this to law enforcement.'"

Kelley was 10 when D.R. Roach was arrested in 2007. Roach eventually pleaded guilty to attempt to commit aggravated sexual battery, according to the Tennessee sex offender registry.

"When he was arrested and it came out in the news, that's when she divorced him," Kelley said of her mother. "So is my mom rich? Yeah, she's so rich that she was able to sweep me under the rug and abuse me and then cover it all up. I don't want to talk bad about my mom, but we'll just say she's a good performer. She was never a mother."

The Daily Progress' efforts to reach Kelley's mother were not successful.

If Kelley's life was lacking structure and support when she was younger, she's found them both now. She said she wakes each day at 5 a.m., puts food on the table for her boyfriend by 6 o'clock and then they're out the door to his early-morning job.

Her pastor is impressed.

"There's a lot of victory going on in her life," Hart told The Daily Progress, "and we're just continuing to walk with her as we know Jesus would want us to."

On a recent Sunday at their morning worship service, held in the basement of Jackson-Via Elementary School, the pastor asked if anyone wanted to say what they're thankful for.

"I'm thankful that we serve a forgiving god," Kelley said. "I'm thankful that God is forgiving."

Kelley is also working to forgive herself. She sometimes covers her close-cropped hair with a platinum wig, but the tattoos on her hands, neck and brow are more lasting reminders of her defiant old ways.

"I would love to fix my tattoos and have something more beautiful, you know, something more creative and colorful," she said. "But I just don't have the money right now."

Kelley said she's written a book about her dark past and her bright future. The working title is "Pronoia," the opposite of paranoia, the belief that the universe is conspiring not to harm but to help people.

"I believe that now's my time," she said. "I never had a voice, and I was iffy about talking about all this stuff, but no matter what is said about me, the Bible says the truth will set you free."

Settled in Charlottesville, Kelley spends her time away from memoir and morning services walking in nature, swimming and spending time with her boyfriend at her apartment. After decades on the run, she's finally still, finally at peace, finally home.

"I've been looking for home for a long time," she said, "and I think I found it."

Kelley is so enthusiastic about sharing her message of redemption that she encourages those who are moved by her story to reach out at pronoiarelations@gmail.com.