Death row inmate who killed five, including pregnant woman, says he wants to be executed
An Alabama death row inmate has requested to be executed in order to help the families of his victims get closure.
Derrick Dearman, 35, made the admission to CNN during a phone interview from the William C Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. He pleaded guilty to capital murder charges in August 2018. A jury later sentenced him to death.
He was convicted of killing five people: Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Robert Lee Brown, 26; Justin Kaleb Reed, 23; Joseph Adam Turner, 26 and Chelsea Marie Reed, 22, who was five months pregnant.
According to the outlet, Dearman broke into a home in Citronelle, Alabama in 2016 and separately attacked the people inside with an axe, a pistol and a shotgun. The man had been at the home days before the murders helping scrap a trailer.
At least one occupant, Ms Randall, said his behaviour made her uncomfortable and she didn’t want the man around her infant son who was three months old at the time.
He left the residence and went to the home he shared with his then-girlfriend, Laneta Lester, in George County, Mississippi, located roughly 15 minutes from the other address. According to court records obtained by the outlet, Dearman took methamphetamine that evening and started abusing Ms Lester.
She fled the property, going to the Citronelle home, where her brother, Mr Turner, lived. Dearman returned 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.
The outlet reported that police patrolled the area outside the home but stopped around 3am due to a shift change. The man later returned a fourth time on foot.
When he broke inside, he woke up his girlfriend and brought her outside of the home to speak to her. He reportedly refused to leave and demanded that the woman stay and talk with him. He then left and returned with an axe that he found in a nearby tree.
That’s when he entered the home and swung the weapon at the occupants sleeping inside.
Dearman pulled a pistol from one of the victims and fatally shot them. Once the attacks were over, he went back to all of the victims and shot them. The man then left the house with his girlfriend and the infant, who was sleeping in bed with his parents when they were murdered.
After he came down from his high, he drove to Mississippi and took his girlfriend and the baby to the police, turning himself in.
The inmate’s father persuaded him to turn himself in to the police once he’d learned about what happened. The man stayed at his father’s home after the attacks. Dearman said he’d realised he’d have to pay for the crimes he committed with his life after being in jail and “talking to God”.
“From my point of view, there’s nothing that I could ever say or do that will make this right,” he told CNN. “I feel like I personally have a debt for the crimes that I committed. That’s the only way that I could ever show that I’m truly remorseful, that I truly do have a conscience.”
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