Derrick Dearman, convicted of the 2016 murders of five people outside Citronelle, was executed Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024 but the process was clouded with the suspicion that Dearman was under the influence of drugs as recently as two days before he was put to death. (Alabama Department of Corrections)
The state of Alabama Thursday executed Derrick Dearman for the 2016 murders of five people in Citronelle, outside of Mobile on Thursday by lethal injection.
Dearman, 36, was convicted in 2018 of the murders of Robert Lee Brown, Chelsea Reed, Justin Reed, Joseph Adam Turner, and Shannon Randall. Chelsea Reed was pregnant at the time of her death. Dearman abandoned his appeals earlier this year and asked state officials to schedule his execution.
“To the victims’ family, forgive me,” Dearman said as part of his final statement. “This is not for me, this is for you … I have taken so much … To my family, you all already know I love you.”
Media witnesses did not report any complications with the execution. The only reported movement was a twitching of the arm.
“It was not a sign of consciousness,” said ADOC Commissioner John Hamm in a press conference after Dearman was executed. “His arms did move a little bit. I saw both arms move a little bit, but it was not because he was conscious.”
The commissioner then read a statement from Bryant Henry Randall, the father of Chelsea Randall Reed and brother of Shannon Randall and Robert Lee Brown.
“Today, goodbye will be easy for me because we have all heard the horrific things that Derrick Dearman did to all the innocent individuals that you murdered,” Randall said. “Whether it was drugs or just pure hate, and the devil in his heart, Dearman will get a final goodbye whereas I am still waiting on mine.”
Robert Brown, the father of Robert Lee Brown, said the experience was a sample of “all this evil going on in this world.”
“If it doesn’t change, the Lord is coming back, and everybody in this world is all committing some kind of sin of some kind,” he said. “It doesn’t stop here, it goes all the way to the top, all this bickering, fighting, stealing, robbing, murdering, and these people out here are not even thinking about it. They are just all killing each other.”
The execution took place just three weeks after Alabama executed Alan Eugene Miller by nitrogen gas. It was the fifth carried out this year by the state, which is tied with Texas for the most in the nation so far.
According to court documents, Dearman drove to a house where his estranged girlfriend was staying and murdered the five people. Afterward, he drove the estranged girlfriend and the infant son of one of the victims to his father’s house in Mississippi, where he released them. He later turned himself in to law enforcement in Greene County, Mississippi.
“Six lives, including an unborn baby, were gruesomely taken by Mr. Dearman in 2016,” said Gov. Kay Ivey in a news release Thursday night. “In using an axe and then a gun, he clearly made the decision to kill. Then he made the clear decision to flee to his hometown in Mississippi. And now, he himself has clearly stated his guilt and asked to move forward with his death sentence. The state has obliged, and justice has been served. I pray for the loved ones of all these victims whose lives were taken far too soon.”
Dearman, who pleaded guilty at this original trial, withdrew his appeals in April, terminated his attorneys and wrote letters to Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall asking the state to schedule his execution.
Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual advisor to Dearman and other death row inmates, said Dearman was “deeply remorseful for what he did” at a news conference after the execution.
“He deeply believed that volunteering was a way that he could prove that he was sorry, that he was remorseful, and when he volunteered, I thought to myself, ‘man, this is going to give us the chance to really spend time together and grow spiritually, and do all these wonderful things so he could be at peace,’” Hood said.
Besides Miller, Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen gas in January. Jamie Ray Mills, executed in May, and Keith Edmund Gavin, executed in July, were both killed by lethal injection.
Alabama is scheduled to execute Carey Grayson by nitrogen gas next month. If that execution takes place, it will be the most number of executions in Alabama since 2011.