Alabama executes man who killed five people, including pregnant woman, hails its own death sentence

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Alabama executed a death row inmate convicted of killing five people, including a pregnant woman, in 2016.

Derrick Dearman, 36, died by lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, where the state houses and executes its death row inmates. His time of death was 6:14 p.m. CT.

For his last meal he asked for a seafood platter.

Before his execution, Dearman had written several letters to Alabama officials, including Attorney General Steve Marshall in April, calling for his death sentence to be carried out.

“It is not fair to the victims or their families to continue to delay the justice they rightly deserve,” Dearman wrote to Marshall. “I am guilty and have been rightly sentenced to death.”

The inmate terminated his appeals attorneys with the Equal Justice Initiative earlier this year. The nonprofit claimed that Dearman suffers from a serious mental illness.

Dearman was sentenced to death for the 2016 murders of Joseph Adam Turner, 26, Robert Lee Brown, 26, Chelsea Marie Reed, 22, Justin Kaleb Reed, 23, and Shannon Melissa Randall, 35, in Mobile County. Reed was five months pregnant.

He pleaded guilty to murder in August 2018. A jury later sentenced him to death.

On the day of the murders, Dearman had consumed large amounts of methamphetamine and had not slept for six days. According to the nonprofit, he began hearing voices and believed people were after him.

He was in a relationship with Turner's sister, Laneta Lester. She was staying with her brother and his wife Randall in Citronelle after fleeing the home she shared with Dearman because he began abusing her while under the influence.

Dearman went to the residence but was asked to leave. He reportedly returned three more times that evening, after which the brother alerted the police.

Police were patrolling the area in front of the house but stopped around 3 a.m. due to a shift change. Dearman later returned on foot a fourth time.

On the morning of August 20, Dearman broke into her home through two then-locked sliding glass doors.

He was armed with an ax that he had retrieved from the front yard of Randall's home. Dearman used the ax to hit Brown several times in the head, as he slept in an armchair in the living room. He then went to a bedroom used by Turner, Randall and their three-month-old son. Dearman struck Turner in the head several times with the ax and then struck Randall.

He then went into another bedroom where Chelsea and Justin Reed lived. Dearman hit both of them with the axe. He and Justin briefly argued over a gun that Justin owned. Dearman obtained the gun and shot Justin, Chelsea and Turner with it. Dearman later shot Randall in the back of the head as she lay in bed with her son.

Dearman went into the living room and ended the rampage by shooting Brown in the head.

The infant and Lester were not injured in the incident.

Dearman drove to Mississippi, took his girlfriend and the baby to the police and turned himself in at his father's request. Dearman said he tried to fight his appeal for the sake of his family.

Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm read a statement from Bryant Henry Randall, Chelsea Reed's father, during a press conference after the execution. You could hear someone crying in the background.

“Today this world says goodbye to a person who robbed me of my only daughter and my unborn grandchild,” wrote Bryant Randall, who was also Shannon's brother. “I would have liked to meet my grandchild. I was so excited to be a grandparent.”

Robert Ford Brown, Brown's father, also spoke after the execution. He said he forgave Dearman before his execution.

“I feel sorry,” he said. “This is the worst crime ever committed in Mobile County.”

Marshall announced the man's execution in a press release, saying his request to halt the appeals process and proceed with the execution was appropriate in the best interests of the families.

“The gruesome facts of this case deserve the highest punishment,” Marshall said after the execution. “Dearman brutally beat his victims with an ax, leaving them conscious and suffering for some time before he executed them at close range.

“Dearman showed no compassion and no mercy.”

The inmate's remains will be turned over to the Escambia County Coroner and transferred to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy.