In Alabama, a 36-year-old man was executed for killing five people. Derrick Dearman had withdrawn his appeal several months earlier and asked for execution. – I'm guilty. It would be unfair to the victims and their families to prolong justice, he said.
On Thursday, 36-year-old Derrick Dearman, sentenced to death for killing five people in 2016, was executed by lethal injection at Holman Prison in Alabama.
Earlier, he withdrew his appeal and asked for the sentence to be implemented. “I am guilty. It would be unfair to the victims and their families to delay justice,” Dearman wrote to the judge in April. Then, in a telephone interview with CNN, he said that he “doesn't want to die” but “I feel in my heart that this is the only option that will help the victims' families close the case and move forward.” Before the execution, the man asked the victims' families for forgiveness.
2016 murder
The murder of five people, including a pregnant woman, took place on August 20, 2016 in a house near Citronelle. It was the home of the man's girlfriend's brother, Laneta Lester, where she had taken refuge the day before after her partner began abusing her.
On the night of the murder, Dearman showed up at the house several times, wanting to meet his partner, but was not let in. He came back at 3 a.m. when everyone was asleep. He attacked the victims with an ax taken from the yard and then used a firearm found in their house. The victims were Laneta Lester's brother, Joseph Turner, and his wife Shannon Randall, Randall's brother and niece, Robert Brown and Chelsea Reed, and Reed's husband, Justin, and their unborn child. The man's partner and her brother's 3-month-old child survived the attack.
According to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, the convict “hit his victims with an axe, leaving them conscious and suffering for some time, and then executed them (with a firearm – ed.) at close range. Dearman showed no mercy.”
After the attack, the killer forced his girlfriend to get into his car and drive with him to his native Mississippi, where he also took the baby, who survived. A day later, persuaded by his father, he turned himself in to the authorities.
During his arrest, the man explained that he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the incident. According to Dearman's defense attorneys, he “suffered from severe mental illness, including bipolar disorder with psychotic features.”
Prosecutor Marshall said Thursday that the 36-year-old's execution was “in the interest of justice” for the victims' families. It was the fifth execution carried out in Alabama this year.
Main photo source: Associated Press/EastNews