An Alabama death row inmate was executed Thursday evening for the quintuple murder of his girlfriend’s relatives in 2016.
Derrick Dearman, 36, was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. at Holman prison after he pleaded guilty to murdering his estranged girlfriend’s family members during a meth-fueled rampage.
“Forgive me. This is not for me. This is for you. I’ve taken so much. Y’all already know I love you,” he told the victims’ family and his own family before the execution.
In April, Dearman dropped his appeals and asked to be put to death telling a judge in a letter: “I am guilty. It’s not fair to the victims or their families to keep prolonging the justice that they so rightly deserve.”
Dearman broke into his girlfriend’s family home near Citronelle on Aug. 20, 2016, after he was denied from seeing her.
He said he was high on meth when he grabbed an ax from their backyard and a gun he found in the home and slaughtered Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Joseph Adam Turner, 26; Robert Lee Brown. 26; Justin Kaleb Reed, 22; and Chelsea Reed, 22, who was pregnant at the time.
According to the Equal Justice Initiative, Dearman “suffered from lifelong and severe mental illness, including bipolar disorder with psychotic features.”
