Axe-murderer who brutally killed 5 people executed in Alabama

An axe-murderer who brutally slaughtered five people has been executed via lethal injection. These were his last words. WARNING: Distressing

WARNING: Distressing

An “evil” axe-murderer who brutally slain five people in a frenzied attack has been executed for his crimes.

Back in 2016, Derrick Dearman armed himself with an axe and gun before brutally slaughtering five people, including a pregnant woman, in the small US city of Citronelle, Alabama.

The now 36-year-old claimed at the time that it was a drug-fuelled rampage that caused him to have an out-of-body “evil” experience and commit these unthinkable crimes.

He pleaded guilty to the gruesome murders in 2018 and was sentenced to die by legal injection.

He was executed via lethal injection. Picture: Alabama Department of Corrections

The day of his execution arrived last month, and surprisingly, Dearman welcomed death in the hours before he was strapped to the gurney.

“I am willingly giving all that I can possibly give to try and repay a small portion of my debt to society for all the terrible things I’ve done,” he said in an audio recording, according to CBS news.

“From this point forward, I hope that the focus will not be on me, but rather on the healing of all the people that I have hurt.”

He dropped his appeals earlier this year. “I am guilty,” he wrote in an April letter to a judge, adding that “it’s not fair to the victims or their families to keep prolonging the justice that they so rightly deserve.”

Alabama Attorney-General Steve Marshall stated that the execution was “in the interest of justice and finality for the families.”

Dearman said something "evil" came over him during the killings. Picture: Facebook

“As a jury of his peers unanimously agreed, the gruesome facts of this case merited the ultimate punishment,”he said.

“Dearman viciously struck his victims with an axe, leaving them conscious and suffering for some time before he executed each at close range. Dearman showed no pity and no mercy.”

Last words

The day of his death, Dearman requested a very decadent final meal of a large seafood platter, which was delivered by a local restaurant.

Strapped to the gurney at Alabama’s Holman prison, he spoke to the family of his victims as well as his own loved ones in his final statement.

“Forgive me. This is not for me. This is for you,” he said to the victims’ families before adding, “I’ve taken so much.”

He closed by telling his own family, “Y’all already know I love y’all.”

After the lethal drugs were administered, his left arm moved slightly after a guard performed a consciousness check.

The execution chamber in Holman prison. Picture: Alabama Department of Corrections

This involves a guard shouting his name and pinching his arm to ensure a prisoner is not awake when the final deadly drugs are given.

However, Commissioner John Hamm said Dearman was not awake and the arm movement was not a sign of consciousness.

The curtains to the viewing room closed at 6.08pm, and his father, who was in the same room as media witnesses, sobbed and repeatedly called out his son's name.

Senseless killings

Back in August 2016, Dearman brutally took the lives of Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Robert Lee Brown, 26; Justin Kaleb Reed, 23; Joseph Adam Turner, 26; and Chelsea Marie Reed, 22, who was five months pregnant.

He said in an interview with NBC News in April that he was awake for nearly a week before the crime, high on methamphetamine.

He was put to death at the W.C. Holman Correction Facility in Alabama. Picture: Supplied

In a recording he made with his minister before his execution, Dearman described his crime in vivid detail and described it as an out-of-body “evil” experience.

After living in a “dope house” for a few months, he had reconnected with his on-again, off-again girlfriend at the time, Laneta Lester.

Their relationship was said to be “volatile” according to court filings and she had recently fled from him to the home of her brother, Joseph Turner and his wife, Shannon Randell, along with their three-month-old baby in Citronelle.

Dearman went to the home to see Lester but was told he could not stay the night.

“I wanted to be in a place where I could distance myself from drugs,” he said.

“I broke down, poured my heart out and was told no.”

From left, Chelsea Reed (who was 5 months pregnant); Shannon Randall; Robert Brown; Justin Reed and Joseph Adam. Picture: Supplied

He was turned away multiple times, and as he was driving away, he ran out of gas. Sitting in his car, he said something “evil” had washed over him and kept “pressing on his mind”.

Dearman walked several kilometres in the early hours of the morning in the pitch black. He saw his ex on the couch, and begged to be let inside the house.

When she refused, he completely turned.

“I didn’t want to hear none of that,” he said.

“Something just took over. And I know now with the entirety of my being that it was evil.

“I walked up to the front yard; there was an axe there. I grabbed it.

“I went to the front door. It had a little latch thing on the inside. I popped it, and then I went inside.”

He killed all his victims with an axe before shooting them. Picture: Alabama Department of Corrections

Dearman went through the home, violently attacking the five occupants with an axe while they slept.

The first victim was Robert Brown, who was in a recliner. He then moved into Turner and Randall’s bedroom, striking them with the axe but leaving their baby unharmed.

He wrestled a pistol away from Justin Reed as Reed tried to defend himself and Chelsea Reed. After he shot the Reeds, he went back and shot the other victims, as well.

He then kidnapped his ex Lester and the baby, fleeing to his father’s home in Leakesville, Mississippi, a 30-minute drive away.

She escaped with the baby the next morning and went to the police. Dearman surrendered after he came down from his high and realised what he had done.

The house where the horror murders took place. Picture: Supplied

“I knew that my life was over with,” he said.

“I knew that something terrible had happened and that I was responsible, whether it was 100% me or not.”

He said he found it difficult to comprehend that he had the ability to carry out the gruesome murders.

Although he claims to have been under the influence of drugs at the time of the slayings, a psychological evaluation during his trial found that “he appears to have been aware of his actions and their effects on the victims and to have been able to discern the wrongfulness of his behaviour.”