A convicted murderer who killed five people with an axe will be executed by lethal injection in Alabama, the state's governor announced Tuesday, making him the fifth inmate to be executed in the state this year.
Derrick Dearman, 35, was convicted of killing five friends and family members of his then-girlfriend, including a pregnant woman and her unborn child, in a methamphetamine-fueled massacre in Citronelle, Alabama, in 2016.
Dearman fired his lawyer earlier this year and has finished appealing all of his conviction and death sentence.
“I have decided to withdraw my appeal and serve my sentence… I was fairly tried and convicted. I agree with the court's sentence,” he said. He told AL.com He was interviewed by phone from death row this spring.
“Whether I was in my right mind or not, innocent lives were lost and a crime was committed,” he said.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced that Dearman's execution would take place between 12:00 a.m. on October 17 and 6:00 a.m. on October 18.
He chose to be executed by lethal injection rather than nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial execution method introduced in Alabama just this year.
According to AL.com, Dearman said earlier this year that he wasn't prepared to die anytime soon, but wrote a letter to the Alabama Attorney General's office last month expressing outrage that other death row inmates were being sentenced to death before him.
“I have withdrawn my appeal and done everything necessary to serve my sentence and I am competent. [sic] “And in your right mind… please respond to this letter and tell me what is delaying you,” the inmate wrote.
“This is very hard not only for me but for my family and the longer it takes the more that me and my family have to go through,” Dearman added.
According to court documents, Dearman had been violent toward his then-girlfriend, Laneta Lester, and the day before the murder, Lester's brother picked her up and took her to safety at his secluded Mobile County home near Citronelle.
Dearman showed up to the house multiple times that night, but no one would let him in.
In the early hours of August 20, 2016, Dearman picked up an axe from the garden, broke into the home and began slashing his victims as they slept.
After attacking and shooting the five victims with an axe, Dearman forced Lester, who was unharmed, and his three-month-old child into a car and drove them to his father's home in Mississippi.
The victims were Lester's brother, Joseph Adam Turner (26), Robert Lee Brown (26), Chelsea Marie Reed (22), Justin Caleb Reed (23), and Shannon Melissa Randall (35).
Chelsea Reid was pregnant with her first child with Justin Reid.
The 3-month-old boy who was in bed with them at the time was Turner and Randall's eldest son.
He turned himself in the next day and admitted to authorities that he had been high on drugs during the murders.
“If I was sober it wouldn't have happened,” he said. He told AL.com.
Dearman was placed on death row in 2018. He is set to be the fifth person to be executed in Alabama this year.
