Alabama is getting ready to carry out the execution of a man who confessed to taking the lives of five individuals with an axe and a firearm during a drug-fueled incident in 2016. Derrick Dearman, 36, has decided to drop his appeals, allowing his execution to proceed as planned.
Scheduled for Thursday at 6 p.m., Dearman will be executed via lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility, located in southern Alabama. In 2016, he entered the home of his estranged girlfriend and carried out the killings. Earlier this year, Dearman chose to give up his appeals, expressing in an April letter to a judge, “I am guilty.” He also stated that prolonging the judicial process would be unjust for the victims and their families, who deserve closure.
Speaking in an audio statement sent to the media, Dearman mentioned, “I am willingly giving all that I can possibly give to try and repay a small portion of my debt to society for all the terrible things I’ve done.” He hopes the focus will shift from him to the healing process of those he has harmed.
The five victims of Dearman’s violent outburst on August 20, 2016, were all connected to one another. They included 35-year-old Shannon Melissa Randall; 26-year-olds Joseph Adam Turner and Robert Lee Brown; 23-year-old Justin Kaleb Reed; and 22-year-old Chelsea Marie Reed. This tragic event took place at their residence near Citronelle, which is about 33 miles north of Mobile. Notably, Chelsea Reed was pregnant at the time of her death, having plans to name her unborn son Aiden Kaleb. Turner, married to Randall, shared the home with the Reeds, and Brown was Randall’s brother who was also present that night.
The circumstances leading to the murders involved Joseph Turner, who brought Dearman’s girlfriend back home the day before after she endured abuse at Dearman’s hands. Following that, Dearman made several attempts to gain entry into the house that night and was ultimately refused. With all the victims asleep in the early morning hours, he returned to the home, armed with an axe that he took from the yard and later a gun that he found inside. After attacking the victims, he forced his girlfriend—who managed to survive—to drive him to Mississippi.
At the behest of his father, Dearman eventually surrendered to law enforcement. He later attributed his actions to substance abuse, claiming to have been under the influence of methamphetamine during the attacks, which caused him to perceive false realities.
Initially pleading not guilty, Dearman shifted to a guilty plea after dismissing his legal counsel. Due to the nature of the case being capital murder, Alabama law mandated that a jury hear the evidence to determine the validity of the charges. The jury ultimately found Dearman guilty and unanimously recommended the death penalty.
Since being sentenced to death in 2018, Dearman has spent time on death row. This execution marks the fifth scheduled in Alabama this year, with two executions carried out using nitrogen gas and the other two utilizing lethal injection, which remains the state’s primary method for executing death row inmates.
