Alabama has executed a death row inmate convicted of killing five people, including a pregnant woman, in 2016.
Derrick Dearman, 36, died by lethal injection at William C Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, where the state houses and executes its death row inmates. His time of death was 6.14 p.m CT.
He requested a seafood platter for his final meal.
Prior to his execution, Dearman had written several letters to Alabama officials, including in April to Attorney General Steve Marshall, requesting his death sentence be carried out.
“It is not fair to the victims or their families to continue to delay the justice they so rightly deserve,” Dearman wrote to Marshall. “I am guilty and was fairly sentenced to death.”
The inmate terminated his appeal attorneys with the Equal Justice Initiative earlier this year. The non-profit asserted that Dearman suffered from serious mental illness.
Dearman was sentenced to death for the 2016 murders of Joseph Adam Turner, 26, Robert Lee Brown, 26, Chelsea Marie Reed, 22, Justin Kaleb Reed, 23, and Shannon Melissa Randall, 35, in Mobile County. Reed was five months pregnant.
He pleaded guilty to capital murder charges in August 2018. A jury later sentenced him to death.
On the day of the murders, Dearman had used a large amount of methamphetamine and had not slept for six days. He began to hear voices and believed people were “after” him, according to the non-profit.
He was in a relationship with Turner’s sister Laneta Lester. She was staying with her brother and his wife, Randall, in Citronelle after she fled the home she shared with Dearman because he’d begun abusing her while under the influence.
Dearman went to the residence but was asked to leave. He reportedly went back three more times in the same evening, leading the brother to alert police.
Police patrolled the area outside the home but stopped around 3am due to a shift change. Dearman later returned a fourth time on foot.
In the morning of August 20, Dearman broke into their home through two sliding glass doors that were locked at the time.
He was armed with an axe that he had retrieved from the front yard of Randall’s residence. Dearman used the axe to strike Brown, who was asleep in the living room recliner, multiple times in the head. He then proceeded to a bedroom that was being used by Turner, Randall and their three-month-old son. Dearman struck Turner multiple times in the head using the axe then struck Randall.
He then went to another bedroom occupied by Chelsea and Justin Reed. Dearman struck both of them with the axe. He and Justin briefly struggled over a gun Justin owned. Dearman obtained the gun and used it to shoot Justin, Chelsea and Turner. Dearman later shot Randall in the back of the head as she lay in the bed with her son.
Dearman went to the living room and finished the rampage by shooting Brown in the head.
The infant and Lester were not harmed in the incident.
Dearman drove to Mississippi and took his girlfriend and the baby to the police, turning himself in following a request from his father. Dearman said he had tried to fight his appeal for the sake of his family.
Alabama Prison Commissioner John Hamm read a statement from Bryant Henry Randall, Chelsea Reed’s father, during a news conference following the execution. Someone could be heard weeping in the background.
“Today this world is saying goodbye to an individual who stripped me of my only daughter and unborn grandchild,” Bryant Randall, who was also Shannon’s brother, wrote. “I would have loved to meet my grandchild. I was so looking forward to being a grandparent.”
Robert Ford Brown, Brown’s father, also spoke after the execution. He said he forgave Dearman prior to his execution.
“I feel pity,” he said. “This is the worst crime ever committed in Mobile County.”
Marshall announced the man’s execution in a news release, stating that his request to halt appeals and proceed with the execution was appropriate in the interest of the families.
“The gruesome facts of this case merited the ultimate punishment,” Marshall said following the execution. “Dearman viciously struck his victims with an axe, leaving them conscious and suffering for some time before he executed each at close range.
“Dearman showed no pity and no mercy.”
The inmate’s remains will be released to the Escambia County Coroner and transported to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for a postmortem examination .
