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Derrick Dearman doesn’t feel ready to die but knows it’s the only way for his victims and their families to get the justice he agrees they so “rightly deserve.”
Dearman, 36, is set to be executed in Alabama on Thursday, eight years after he used an ax and two guns to kill five people, all of whom were related by blood or marriage to his then-girlfriend, Laneta Lester, who was spared.
Dearman’s rampage happened on Aug. 20, 2016, at the home of Lester’s brother in the Mobile suburb of Citronelle, where he attacked the victims as they slept. Dearman killed: Lester’s brother, Joseph Turner; Turner’s wife Shannon Randall; Randall’s brother Robert Brown; and Randall’s niece Chelsea Reed, Reed’s husband Justin and the couple’s unborn baby.
Dearman, who has been on death row since 2018, penned letters to four state officials in April, including Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, informing them that he dropped his appeals and asking to have his death sentence carried out.
“It’s not fair to the victims or their families to keep prolonging the justice they so rightly deserve,” Dearman wrote.
If the execution proceeds as scheduled, Dearman will be the fifth inmate executed in Alabama in 2024 and the 20th in the nation.
Ashley Rich, former Mobile County District Attorney who still works on cases, told USA TODAY that Dearman is “still motivated by power and control, and he wants power and control over his own death like he had power and control over all those victims’ death.”
As Dearman’s execution day approaches, USA TODAY is looking back at the crime, how Dearman ended up on the path of a murderer, and why he was willing to fast track his punishment.
In the middle of the night
Dearman wasn’t in his “right mind” and was high on amphetamine when he broke into Joseph Turner’s home in the early morning hours of Aug. 20, 2016, according to court documents obtained by USA TODAY.
Dearman and Lester were engaged in what court records describe as a “volatile relationship.” She was able to escape the abuse momentarily, crashing with her brother and his family in the interim.
But Dearman came back around.
He had already been told that he was not allowed to spend the night and had already been asked to leave earlier that evening. Dearman came back again later that night armed with an ax, busting into the home through the locked sliding glass doors, court records say.
Dearman worked his way through the house, bludgeoning Robert Brown, who was sound asleep in a recliner near Lester in the living room. He moved toward the bedroom of Joseph Turner, his wife Shannon Randall, and their 3-month-old infant.
Dearman hit the couple with the ax repeatedly, leaving the baby unharmed, before moving toward the other bedroom occupied by Justin and Chelsea Reed. He also hit the second couple multiple times, but a struggle ensued between Dearman and Justin Reed over a gun.
Dearman managed to wrestle the gun away and shot Justin and Chelsea Reed, and Robert Brown. Dearman doubled back to the bedroom and shot Shannon Randall.
Dearman kidnapped Lester and Randall’s baby after the killings, fleeing to his native Mississippi. He turned himself into authorities the next day, and Lester and the baby were spared.
Derrick Dearman conviction, death sentence
Dearman eventually plead guilty to the charges brought against him after, at first, pleading not guilty. After a number of mental evaluations were conducted, the courts determined “reasonable grounds existed” to doubt Dearman’s mental competency to either plead guilty or stand trial.
Dearman also chose to waive his right to counsel but was given a court-appointed attorney to assist him during trial proceedings. A jury found him guilty and unanimously recommended a death sentence in 2018.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals later upheld the sentence.
According to AL.com, Dearman’s attorneys filed a separate appeal in August 2020 which focused on “claims he was mentally ill at the time of the murders and had ineffective assistance of counsel.” It has been unsuccessful.
‘It’s not fair,’ Derrick Dearman writes in series of letters
Dearman wrote letters a couple months after the Alabama Supreme Court declined to review his case in February.
In them, he writes that it’s a “waste of the court’s time,” resources and taxpayer dollars to continue the appeals process.
“I am guilty, plead guilty and was found guilty,” he wrote. “I was fairly sentenced to death after my conviction in a fair trial and sentencing.”
He continued: “This decision is my own. I am of a sound mind and body. I am fully aware of all consequences related to this decision.”
Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced the date and timeframe for Dearman’s execution in early September, about five months after he wrote and sent the initial series of letters, according to reporting by AL.com. The execution is expected to take place just after 6 p.m. CT Thursday.
Dearman chose to die by lethal injection instead of nitrogen gas, a relatively new and controversial method used in Alan Eugene Miller’s execution last month and Kenneth Smith’s execution in January.
Dearman’s execution will come on the same day as that of Robert Leslie Roberson, a Texas inmate whose strong case of innocence is supported by the lead detective in the case and a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, among others.
