ATMORE, AL — Alabama executed a man on Thursday after he admitted to killing five people with an ax and a gun during a drug-fueled spree in 2016, dropped his appeals, and requested the death penalty.
Derrick Dearman, 36, was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. Thursday at Holman Prison in southern Alabama. He pled guilty to the killings, which authorities say began when he broke into the residence where his former girlfriend had sought refuge.
In his final words, Dearman, strapped to a gurney in Alabama’s execution chamber, addressed the victims’ families as well as his own. “Forgive me.” This isn’t for me. “This is for you,” he stated to the victims’ families before adding, “I’ve taken so much.” He concluded by addressing his family, “Y’all already know I love y’all.” Some of his words were not audible.
The fatal injection was carried out after Dearman discontinued his appeals this year and requested that his execution proceed. “I am guilty,” he wrote in an April letter to a court, adding that “it’s not fair to the victims or their families to continue delaying the justice that they so rightfully deserve.”
Dearman’s execution was one of two scheduled. Thursday in the United States. Robert Roberson of Texas was set to be executed for the murder of his 2-year-old daughter in 2002, which was linked to the diagnosis of shaken infant syndrome. The Texas Supreme Court stayed his execution Thursday night.
Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Joseph Adam Turner, 26; Robert Lee Brown, 26; Justin Kaleb Reed, 23; and Chelsea Randall Reed, 22, were killed on August 20, 2016, at their house near Citronelle, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Mobile. Chelsea Reed, Justin Reed’s wife, was pregnant when she was killed. All of the victims were linked through blood or marriage.
In a statement given by the Alabama prison commissioner, a father who lost his daughter, sister, and brother in the killings said there were no words to express how the murders affected him and his family. He stated that Dearman had the opportunity to say his final goodbyes to his family, but they did not.
“I so long for a final goodbye to my daughter and would have loved to meet my grandchild,” Chelsea Randall Reed’s father, Bryant Henry Randall, wrote. He claimed his siblings did not get to see their children grow up.
“I was stripped in many ways of happiness and the bond of family by your senseless act,” he wrote in response to Dearman.
Robert Lee Brown’s father, Robert Brown, told reporters that his family will “suffer for the rest of their lives.”
“This doesn’t bring anything back,” he explained. “I can’t get my son back or any of them back.”
The execution began around 5:58 p.m., but it’s unclear when the drugs started flowing. Dearman raised his head and gazed about the chamber as if wondering when they were going to start. He immediately appeared to lose consciousness.
His left arm twitched slightly after a guard did a consciousness check, which included calling his name and pinching his arm, to ensure he was not awake when the final lethal pills were administered. Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm stated that Dearman was not awake and that the arm movement was not indicative of consciousness.
When the viewing room curtains closed about 6:08 p.m., his father, who was in the same room as media witnesses, cried and repeatedly said his son’s name.
According to a judge’s sentence decision, the day before the death, Dearman’s girlfriend’s brother, Joseph Turner, brought her to their home when Dearman became aggressive to her.
Dearman had visited the house many times that night, seeking to see his lover, but was informed he could not stay. He returned after 3 a.m., when all of the victims were asleep, according to a judge’s sentence decision. He worked his way through the house, hitting the victims with an ax stolen from the yard and later a gun discovered inside, according to authorities. He pushed his girlfriend, who survived, to join him in the car and travel to Mississippi.
Dearman blamed the rampage on drugs as he was led to jail, telling reporters that he was high on methamphetamine when he entered the residence and that the “drugs were making me think things that weren’t there happening.”
Dearman first pled not guilty but altered his plea to guilty after firing his lawyers. Because it was a capital murder case, Alabama law required that a jury hear the evidence and decide whether the state had proven its case. The jury found Dearman guilty and unanimously recommended the death penalty.
Before dropping his appeal, Dearman’s attorneys claimed that his trial counsel did not do enough to illustrate Dearman’s mental condition and “lack of competency to plead guilty.”
The Equal Justice Initiative, which represented Dearman in the appeal, stated on its website that Dearman “suffered from lifelong and severe mental illness, including bipolar disorder with psychotic features” and was executed “despite evidence that he suffers from serious mental illness.”
Article Source: Alabama executes man who killed 5 and asked to be put to death
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