In 2016, a death row inmate convicted of killing five people, including a pregnant mother, was put to death in Alabama.
At the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, where the state holds and executes its death row inmates, 36-year-old Derrick Dearman passed away via lethal injection. He passed away at 6:14 p.m. CT.
For his last supper, he asked for a seafood platter.
Dearman had sent multiple letters to Alabama authorities before his execution, including one to Attorney General Steve Marshall in April, asking that his death sentence be carried out.
Earlier last year, the convict fired his Equal Justice Initiative appeal lawyers. According to the non-profit, Dearman had a severe mental disorder.
Dearman received a death sentence for killing 26-year-old Joseph Adam Turner, 26-year-old Robert Lee Brown, 26-year-old Chelsea Marie Reed, 22-year-old Justin Kaleb Reed, and 35-year-old Shannon Melissa Randall in Mobile County in 2016. Reed had a five-month pregnancy.
In August 2018, he entered a guilty plea to charges of capital murder. He was later given a death sentence by a jury.
Dearman had taken a lot of methamphetamine and had been up for six days on the day of the killings. According to the non-profit, he started hearing voices and thought that people were “chasing” him.
He had a relationship with Laneta Lester, Turner’s sister. In Citronelle, she was staying with her brother and his wife, Randall, after she left the house she had with Dearman because he had started abusing her when intoxicated.
When Dearman entered the house, he was ordered to leave. He returned three more times the same evening, according to reports, and the brother called the police.
Around three in the morning, police ceased patrolling the area outside the house because of a shift change. Later, Dearman made a fourth foot return. Dearman broke through two sliding glass doors that were locked at the time of the August 20 am break-in.
He had taken an axe from Randall’s front yard and was carrying it with him. Dearman repeatedly struck Brown’s head with the axe when he was dozing off in the recliner in the living room.
He then went to a bedroom where Turner, Randall, and their three-month-old infant were sleeping. Dearman used the axe to repeatedly strike Turner in the head before striking Randall.
Then he walked to another bedroom where Justin Reed and Chelsea were sleeping. Dearman swung the axe at them both. For a moment, he and Justin fought over a rifle that Justin had. After obtaining the firearm, Dearman shot Turner, Justin, and Chelsea.
Dearman proceeded to the living room and shot Brown in the head to end the outburst. Lester and the baby were unharmed throughout the incident.
At his father’s request, Dearman turned himself in and drove to Mississippi to pick up his girlfriend and the infant. Dearman said that he had made an effort to defend his appeal for his family’s benefit.
At a press conference after the execution, Chelsea Reed’s father, Bryant Henry Randall, read a statement from Alabama Prison Commissioner John Hamm. In the background, there was a wailing voice.
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In a news release announcing the man’s execution, Marshall said that the families will benefit from his request to halt appeals and carry out the execution.
“The gruesome facts of this case merited the ultimate punishment,” Marshall stated. “Dearman viciously struck his victims with an axe, leaving them conscious and suffering for some time before he executed each at close range.
The remains of the inmate will be taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for a postmortem assessment after being released to the Escambia County Coroner.
Source: The Independent
