Alabama executed a man Thursday who admitted to killing five people with an ax and gun during a drug-fueled rampage in 2016 and dropped his appeals to allow his lethal injection to go forward. Derrick Dearman, 36, was pronounced dead at 6:14pm at Holman prison in southern Alabama, the AP reports. He pleaded guilty in a rampage that began when he broke into the home where his estranged girlfriend had taken refuge. Dearman had dropped his appeals this year. "I am guilty," he wrote in an April letter to a judge, adding that "it's not fair to the victims or their families to keep prolonging the justice that they so rightly deserve."
Killed on Aug. 20, 2016, at the home near Citronelle, about 30 miles north of Mobile, were Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Joseph Adam Turner, 26; Robert Lee Brown, 26; Justin Kaleb Reed, 23; and Chelsea Marie Reed, 22. Chelsea Reed, who was married to Justin Reed, was pregnant when she was killed. Turner, who was married to Randall, shared the home with the Reeds. Brown, who was Randall's brother, was also staying there the night of the murders. Dearman's girlfriend survived. Turner and Randall had their 3-month-old son with them when they were attacked, but the baby was unharmed. Dearman's was Alabama's fifth execution of 2024. Two were carried out by nitrogen gas. The other two were by injection, which remains the state's primary method. In the hours ahead of his execution, Dearman had visitation with his sons, sister, and father.
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