“He was able to overpower them before they were able to protect themselves”.
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Authorities say the suspect being held in MS after five adults were slain in south Alabama has signed papers allowing for his extradition to Alabama, where he will face murder charges.
Capt. Paul Burch of the Mobile County Sherriff’s Department said the crime was of a magnitude that had not been seen in southern Alabama.
People in the house called police early Saturday morning to report that Dearman was trespassing on the property, but he wasn’t found when officers arrived.
Dearman said he turned himself in to authorities in MS after sobering up and realizing “what was the right thing to do”.
Dearman, 27, said he turned himself in after sobering up.
In videotaped comments broadcast on Mobile-area television, Dearman expressed his love for Lester and apologized “to all the family members”.
An Alabama sheriff says the suspect in the slaughter of five adults was armed with an ax as he attacked them in their sleep, using the weapon to strike one of his first victims in a reclining chair and then moving through the house to assault the others. Crystal Dearman, his ex-wife who separated from him in 2013 because of physical abuse said she woke up one day with a “knife to my throat in bed”. Passarelli said he suspected that Dearman was either buying or selling drugs before he and Lester moved out in late spring.
One of the MS native’s victim was a five-month unborn baby.
“They were really good people”.
They had also become targets by welcoming Dearman’s ex-girlfriend into the home, the sheriff said. She says the community is coming together to help survivors of the slaying.
“He couldn’t deal with her being away from him and accept that she was leaving him”, he said.
Relatives of some of the victims have started an online fundraiser, and a plastic jug for donations sits on the counter of a convenience store a couple miles from the scene of the massacre near Citronelle, located in southwest Alabama.
“It’s a sad situation”.
A clerk at the store, Dawn Sullivan, says she knew all the victims and was related to one by marriage.
The decision by Mobile County Judge Rick Stout came as Derrick Dearman, 27, made his first court appearance on multiple charges of capital murder and kidnapping.
Alabama court records don’t indicate whether Dearman, of Leakesville, Mississippi, has an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
He then proceeded to murder (from left to right) Shannon Randall, 35, Robert Lee Brown, 26, Joseph Adam Turner, 26, Chelsea Marie Reed (who was five months pregnant), 22, and Justin Kaleb Reed, 23.
Mr Turner was Ms Lester’s brother and had let her stay at the house, which all the victims shared, Madison said.
Lester returned to Citronelle with the baby, alerting authorities to what had happened.
“I’d always get on my horse and ride down there bareback”, McDaniel said. Her step-aunt Ms Randall would say “Be careful because you’re already got a hurt knee”. Chelsea Reed was pregnant with the child of her husband, Justin Reed, said McDaniel. He drove them to his father’s house in MS before turning himself in. That’s where Dearman allegedly freed Lester and the infant before turning himself in to the Greene County Sheriff’s Office in Mississippi.
After the hearing, Rich said based on the gravity of the circumstances they asked for no bond for Dearman.
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“I deserve to die”, he said.
