Alabama death row inmate stops fighting execution so ‘victims and their families can get justice’
A man waiting on death row in Alabama, after murdering five people eight years ago, says he will no longer appeal against his sentence so that his victims’ families can have peace.
Derrick Dearman, 36, burst into a home in rural Citronelle in August 2016, armed with an axe and firearms.
He killed five people and an unborn baby, before kidnapping his estranged girlfriend and her 3-month-old baby.
Two years later, Dearman pleaded guilty, but he was still tried by a jury under Alabama law and sentenced to death.
Earlier this year, his appeal against the sentence was denied by the state’s Supreme Court, but in an interview with NBC News, Dearman says he’s not fighting that anymore.
“Now it’s time for the victims and their families to get the justice they rightly deserve to start the closure,” he told the outlet. “I have laid many nights thinking, what would I say to any of them if I ever had the chance, the opportunity to say something?
“That’s part of the reason I’ve made my decision to have my sentence carried out. Words don’t have any weight in this situation,” he continued.
“The only thing I would say is that everyone that was hurt by the actions to forgive me, not for myself, but for them. That way, they will free their heart up to be able to truly heal.”
The convict wrote to Alabama Governor Kay Ivery, as well as the state’s Attorney General, judges and others involved in the case, to explain his decision.
He had originally appealed for the sake of his family, he told NBC, and not for himself.
Dearman had handed himself in shortly after the killings, having been high on methamphetamine and angered by his estranged girlfriend Laneta Lester taking shelter in her brother’s home.
That brother was Joseph Adam Turner, 26, who became one of Dearman’s victims.
The others were Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Robert Lee Brown, 26; Justin Kaleb Reed, 23; and Chelsea Marie Reed, 22, who was five months pregnant.
After he carried out the murders, Dearman put Ms Lester into a car along with her 3-month-old son and drove over the border to Mississippi.
When he came down from his high, he went to the police, with Ms Lester and the baby unharmed.
“I remember every bit of it,” he told AL.com. “And it was like someone else had the steering wheel.
“It was like being at the movie theatre or watching a movie and you want to turn your head or close your eyes because you didn’t want to see that part or that scene because it was that scary or horrible and not being able to.”
Dearman says he has opted for lethal injection when his time comes, although it is not clear when that might be.
At the moment, there are 165 people waiting on Alabama’s death row, with some having waited since 1982.
“Am I doing this because I can’t live with myself? No,” he added in his NBC interview.
“I made this decision for different reasons. One of those reasons is so that all parties involved, not just the victims and their families but my family as well, can kind of get some closure and begin healing and moving forward.”
