The peaceful, rural town of Citronelle, Alabama awoke to a horrifying scene this weekend after authorites say a violent thug massacred an entire family — including a woman who was five months pregnant.
The suspect, Derrick Dearman, attacked them as they slept and then kidnapped his ex-girlfriend, Laneta Lester, and a 3-month-old infant from the home, a sheriff’s captain said. Both of the kidnap vitcims were found alive.
Dearman, 27, of Leakesville, Mississippi, will be charged with six counts of capital murder, Mobile County sheriff’s spokeswoman Lori Myles said Sunday. Five counts stem from the killing of Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Justin Kaleb Reed, 23; Joseph Adam Turner, 26; and Robert Lee Brown, also 26. The additional count is because 22-year-old Chelsea Marie Reed, was 5 months pregnant, Myles said.
(Mobile County Sheriff’s Office)
The crime was of a magnitude rarely if ever seen in this corner of rural, southern Alabama, Mobile County sheriff’s Capt. Paul Burch said.
“It’s unprecedented here,” Burch told reporters.
“It has touched a lot of people in the community,” said James Landers, a Citronelle city council member. “It’s just such an awful, awful tragedy.”
Earlier Sunday, Burch told reporters that investigators expect to be at the scene for a couple of days. “It’s obviously a horrific scene,” he said.
Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich told reporters near the scene that in her 20-year career as a prosecutor, she’s never encountered a crime “where there were five people who were brutally and viciously murdered, and that’s what we have here.”
She said “multiple weapons” were used.
Dearman was taken into custody after he walked into the sheriff’s office in Greene County, Mississippi, about 20 miles west of Citronelle, Burch said. Dearman was accompanied by his father when he showed up at the sheriff’s department and surrendered Saturday afternoon, the Alabama sheriff’s office said in a statement.
Dearman has confessed to the crimes, Burch told the news site Al.com.
“He’s been cooperative,” Burch said Sunday.
Prosecutors have already begun the process of trying to extradite Dearman from Mississippi to Alabama, Burch said Sunday. The sheriff of Greene County, Stanley McLeod, could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Though connections between Dearman and the five people killed were not immediately clear, investigators have determined that Lester had gone to the home on Aug. 19 to get away from an abusive relationship with Dearman, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. Lester was staying with a relative there.
Around 1 a.m. Saturday, someone inside the home called 911 and reported that Dearman was on the property, the statement said. Citronelle police came to the house, but Dearman had left before the officers arrived, sheriff’s officials said.
Later, sometime between 1:15 a.m. and daylight Saturday, Dearman returned to the home and attacked the victims while they were sleeping, the statement said. After the killings, Dearman forced Lester and the 3-month-old infant — the child of the one of the murder victims — into a vehicle at the home. The three drove to the Mississippi home of Dearman’s father.
After they arrived there, Dearman released Lester and the infant and then turned himself in at the Mississippi sheriff’s department, Burch said.
Dearman “always had a temper, especially when he doesn’t get his way,” his ex-wife, Crystal Dearman, told WALA-TV.
“I woke up to him holding a knife to my throat in bed with my baby in the crib,” said Dearman, who said the two divorced in 2010. “He’s made threats the entire time we were together and after we separated.”
The killings happened about 150 miles southwest of Rutledge, Alabama, another south Alabama town where six family members were found shot to death at their rural home on Aug. 26, 2002.
In that case, Westley Devon Harris was given a death sentence after being convicted of slaughtering his girlfriend’s relatives. Prosecutors said he was angry because he thought they were trying to keep him away from her. After the killings, Harris fled with his girlfriend and child. The girlfriend, who was 16 at the time, ended up testifying against him.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
I thought this was also over a family all dealing in drugs ?
The story written is a little confusing isn’t it?
I say shoot the bastard.
Agreed
And “doing drugs” is a “victim-less crime”? Question: If the mother is murdered and the baby in the womb dies too, it’s called a “double murder, right? But if the mother goes to an abortion clinic and HAS the baby killed in her womb, it’s O.K.? How can this be? It’s a good thing I’m not God. There would be a LOT of volcanic activity going on on THIS planet!
That’s what I have been saying for years. How can it be a life of Mom is murdered it just a “fetus” of Mom wants and abortion. Doesn’t seem to make any sense to me either.
Hopefully this guy will get sent to death row. Hopefully the appeals process will move fast enough that his day with the executioner arrives before he becomes an old man.
Some people will say that the death penalty doesn’t deter crime. It will definitely make sure this monster isn’t ever able to hurt anyone else.
Do they get to appeal if they confess and cooperate?
God this snake need to be hung,and not 20 years later “Now”
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