A man sentenced to death for killing five people including his pregnant partner who decided to give up the appeals and asked to be taken to the gallows “so that justice is done”.
Derrick Dearman, 35 years old, waiting on death row in an Alabama prison, said his execution would be “the right thing to do.” Dearman, who spent six years in prison fighting to have his death sentence overturned, has changed his mind and now wants to be put to death. “I don’t want to die“he told the CNN in a telephone interview from Atmore Penitentiary, “But I feel in my heart that this is the only option that would help the victims’ families get what they need to move forward.”
“I’ve made peace with my decision,” he Dearman added, who in August 2016 broke into a house in the town of Citronelle, Alabama, and killed five of the occupants with an axe, a pistol and a rifle and then fled the scene, taking his girlfriend and young son with him of two of the victims. He later surrendered to the authorities and pleaded guilty to the charges. Once convicted, he attempted to appeal the sentence, but only for the “good of his family”, who according to him wanted him to fight for his life. The Alabama Supreme Court last February denied a motion to appeal the sentence and upheld the death sentence. “It’s time to do what I know is right and what I know I should do,” she said.
“My family’s rights have been guaranteed, now it’s time for the victims and their families to get what is theirs and what they deserve, and this is that justice be done“he told the CNN.
