Alabama is set to execute Derrick Dearman by lethal injection Thursday for the brutal killings of five members of his girlfriend’s family in Mobile County in 2016. It would be the state’s second execution in a span of three weeks.
Court records show he used an ax, a .45 cal. handgun and a shotgun in the massacre at a home in Citronelle, which is about 30 miles north of Mobile. One of the victims, Chelsea Marie Reed, was five months pregnant.
Dearman, 35, fired his attorneys from the Equal Justice Initiative in April, and has asked for appeals to stop. He also sent letters to Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall to ask that his death sentence go forward, CNN has reported .
Dearman's execution is set for 6 p.m. on Oct. 17, but his death warrant is in effect for the 30-hour period of midnight Oct. 17 to 6 a.m. Oct. 18. The execution would happen in the death chamber of the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, about and hour and a half south of Montgomery.
The state also has set the sixth execution of the year for Nov. 21, the week before Thanksgiving, which would be the third execution in a span of eight weeks.
More: Alabama nears state record for most executions in one-year period
Alabama's 2024 executions
The state plans to execute Carey Dale Grayson by nitrogen gas hypoxia on Nov. 21. He was convicted in the 1994 Jefferson County murder of Vickie Deblieux, who was hitchhiking from Tennessee to visit relatives in Louisiana.
More: Alabama executes Alan Eugene Miller with nitrogen gas
Derrick Dearman's crime
Court records show Dearman had been working at his girlfriend’s family home the day of the murders. Shannon Melissa Randall, the mother of a three-month-old son, expressed concern about how Dearman was acting and said she didn’t want him staying the night at the home.
Records show Dearman had a history of drug abuse and he told investigators that he used methamphetamine later that night before he returned to the home when the family was asleep. He pulled an ax from a tree in the yard before going into the home.
He was also armed with the handgun and a shotgun.
More: Sheriff: Suspect in massacre admits killing at least 1
His first victims were Shannon Melissa Randall, 35, and the father of her son, Joseph Adam Turner, 26. They were asleep with the infant between them when Dearman bludgeoned them with the ax. He also killed Robert Lee Brown, 26, Joseph Kaleb Reed, 23, and Chelsea Marie Reed, 22, who was pregnant.
Court records show he shot all five victims to ensure they were dead.
He then fled the home with his girlfriend and the infant, going to his native Mississippi. He later turned himself in.
He pleaded guilty to five counts to capital murder on Aug. 31, 2018, and a jury later recommend the death penalty.
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at mroney@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Alabama set to execute Derrick Dearman Thursday for 2016 murder of girlfriend's family
Local News
