A man suspected of killing five people while they slept in a house in Alabama before kidnapping his estranged girlfriend and an infant has given himself up to police.
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The woman, meanwhile, returned to Citronelle, a community of some 3,900 people, 30 miles (48 km) north-northwest of Mobile, and told police there what had happened.
Five adults, one of whom was pregnant, were found murdered in a home in the southern Alabama city of Citronelle early Saturday.
Paul Burch, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said Dearman “is cooperating” with investigators.
The Mobile County district attorney Ashley Rich added: ‘I’ve never seen a scene where there were 5 people that were brutally and viciously murdered, and that’s what we have here’.
Detectives are “attempting to establish the relationship between Dearman and the victims”, said the sheriff’s office on its official Twitter account.
He faces six counts of murder, including the killing of the unborn child.
Burch said Dearman “is cooperating” with investigators. Several weapons were recovered from the scene that may have been used as murder weapons.
The killings took place hours after Dearman’s girlfriend, Laneta Lester, fled to a relative’s house Friday afternoon to escape Dearman, who was abusive, Lester told police.
The victims were identified as Robert Lee Brown, 26, Chelsea Marie Reed, 22, Justin Kaleb Reed, 23, Joseph Adam Turner, 27 and Shannon Melissa Randall, 36.
It was not immediately clear which victim was her sister.
“He’s been cooperative”, Burch told AP on Sunday.
Residents of the house called 911 to report a trespasser between midnight and 1am on Saturday, and Dearman appears to have been identified as the trespasser.
Captain Burch said he understood that Citronelle police responded to the call but did not find anyone.
Later, sometime between 1:15am and dawn on Saturday, Dearman returned to the home and attacked the victims while they were sleeping, the statement said.
Dearman remains in custody in MS and will likely be extradited to Alabama this week, Burch said. The three drove to the MS home of Dearman’s father.
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According to his Facebook profile, Dearman is from Leakesville, Mississippi, and he has an apparently outstanding warrant in Mobile County for burglary.
