This undated photo from the Alabama Department of Corrections shows Derrick Dearman, who was executed by lethal injection in Alabama on Oct. 17, 2024.
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ATMORE, Ala. — Alabama executed a man Thursday who admitted to killing five people with an ax and gun during a drug-fueled rampage in 2016 and dropped his appeals and asked to be put to death.
Derrick Dearman, 36, was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. Thursday at Holman prison in southern Alabama. He pleaded guilty to the killings that prosecutors said began when he broke into the home where his estranged girlfriend had taken refuge.
Strapped to a gurney in the Alabama execution chamber, Dearman spoke to the family members of the victims and to his own family in his final statement. “Forgive me. This is not for me. This is for you,” he said to the victims’ families before adding, “I’ve taken so much.” He closed by telling his own family, “Y’all already know I love y’all.” Some of his words were inaudible.
The lethal injection was carried out after Dearman dropped his appeals this year and asked that his execution go forward. “I am guilty,” he wrote in an April letter to a judge, adding that “it’s not fair to the victims or their families to keep prolonging the justice that they so rightly deserve.”
Dearman’s execution was one of two planned Thursday in the U.S. Robert Roberson in Texas was scheduled to be the nation’s first person put to death for a murder conviction tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, in the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter. The Texas Supreme Court halted his execution Thursday night.
Killed on Aug. 20, 2016, at the home near Citronelle, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Mobile, were Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Joseph Adam Turner, 26; Robert Lee Brown, 26; Justin Kaleb Reed, 23; and Chelsea Randall Reed, 22. Chelsea Reed, who was married to Justin Reed, was pregnant when she was killed. All of the victims were related by blood or marriage.
In a statement read by the Alabama prison commissioner, a man who lost his daughter, sister and brother in the killings, wrote there were no words to describe the impact the murders had on him and his family. He said Dearman got to say a final goodbye to his family, but they did not.
“I so long for a final goodbye to my daughter and I would have loved to meet my grandchild,” Bryant Henry Randall, the father of Chelsea Randall Reed wrote. He said his siblings did not get to see their children grow up.
“I was stripped in many ways of happiness and the bond of family by your senseless act,” he wrote of Dearman.
Robert Brown, the father of Robert Lee Brown, told reporters that his family will “suffer for the rest of their lives.”
“This don’t bring nothing back,” he said. “I can’t get my son back or any of them back.”
The execution started about 5:58 p.m., but it is unclear when the drugs began flowing. At one point, Dearman raised his head and looked around the chamber as if to inquire when they were starting. He soon after appeared to lose consciousness.
His left arm moved slightly after a guard performed a consciousness check — which involves shouting his name and pinching his arm — to make sure he is not awake when the final lethal drugs are given. Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said Dearman was not awake and the arm movement was not a sign of consciousness.
When the curtains to the viewing room closed at about 6:08 p.m., his father, who was in the same viewing room as media witnesses, sobbed and repeatedly called out his son’s name.
The day before the killing, Joseph Turner, the brother of Dearman’s girlfriend, brought her to their home after Dearman became abusive toward her, according to a judge’s sentencing order.
Dearman had shown up at the home multiple times that night asking to see his girlfriend and was told he could not stay there. Sometime after 3 a.m., he returned when all the victims were asleep, according to a judge’s sentencing order. He worked his way through the house, attacking the victims with an ax taken from the yard and then with a gun found in the home, prosecutors said. He forced his girlfriend, who survived, to get in the car with him and drive to Mississippi.
As he was escorted to jail, Dearman blamed the rampage on drugs, telling reporters that he was high on methamphetamine when he went into the home and that the “drugs were making me think things that weren’t really there happening.”
Dearman initially pleaded not guilty but changed his plea to guilty after firing his attorneys. Because it was a capital murder case, Alabama law required a jury to hear the evidence and determine whether the state had proven the case. The jury found Dearman guilty and unanimously recommended a death sentence.
Before he dropped his appeal, Dearman’s lawyers argued that his trial counsel failed to do enough to demonstrate Dearman’s mental illness and “lack of competency to plead guilty.”
The Equal Justice Initiative, which represented Dearman in the appeal, wrote on its website that Dearman “suffered from lifelong and severe mental illness, including bipolar disorder with psychotic features” and was executed “despite evidence that he suffers from serious mental illness.”
NORMAN, Oklahoma — The stage was set for Oklahoma. Heck, the Sooners earned the right to set it. This was supposed to be the ushering in of a new era of postseason football for the No. 8 team in the country that had won 10 games in what was one of the toughest schedules this year.
No. 9 Alabama was even one of those teams that Oklahoma beat on its way to earning this spot. And Saturday night, all was going well for the Sooners. It was going so well, in fact, that after the first quarter, some Oklahoma fans might’ve peeked at flights and hotel rates for the Rose Bowl from inside Memorial Stadium.
And then the Alabama Crimson Tide curled and rolled the Sooners, 34-24, and are headed to Pasadena. After opening with 17 unanswered points, Oklahoma collapsed under the weight of that wave, becoming the only team in College Football Playoff history to blow a 17-point lead. And now, the Sooners have done it twice — before Saturday, in 2018 against Georgia.
[Best Teams in the College Football Playoff Era: Creating the Ultimate 12-team CFP]
Here are my takeaways from Alabama’s College Football Playoff first-round victory against Oklahoma on Saturday:
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Zabien Brown #2 of the Alabama Crimson Tide stiff-arms John Mateer #10 of the Oklahoma Sooners during the second quarter during the 2025 College Football Playoff first-round game on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
Crimson Tide quarterback Ty Simpson is an avid reader and listener of college football news. Following the largest comeback win in Alabama postseason history, Simpson took a moment to facetiously thank media members for choosing Oklahoma to win on Saturday night.
“I guess we can thank you guys for that,” an emboldened Simpson said. “You guys kind of wrote us off in a sort of way. So I appreciate that.”
After building a three-score lead, the Sooners watched the Crimson Tide recover a fumbled punt, pick off Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer and return it 50 yards to the end zone — all before their First Team All-American kicker Tate Sandell missed not one but two field goals in the final minutes to solidify the worst collapse in College Football Playoff history.
Meanwhile, the Alabama Crimson Tide will prepare to take on No. 1 Indiana in the Rose Bowl for the CFP quarterfinal game. This team that punches back and played its best football with its back against the wall is one that the Hoosiers must prepare for on New Year’s Day.
[College Football Playoff Predictions: First-Round Winners to The National Champion]
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: John Mateer #10 of the Oklahoma Sooners is hit by Deontae Lawson #0 of the Alabama Crimson Tide during the first quarter during the College Football Playoff first-round game on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
The Crimson Tide began down — just like they did against Georgia in the SEC championship game. But the last three quarters of Saturday’s game demonstrated Alabama to be just who it says it is: the kind of team that can open with a loss to a bad Florida State and also be the first team in six years to walk into Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia, and come out with a win.
DeBoer’s task now is to find a way to make certain that the team that showed up at Georgia earlier this season and at Oklahoma in the first round is the same one against the Hoosiers. Linebacker Deontae Lawson said that’s his job too. But Bama’s best trait isn’t one that shows itself until it’s in a fight for its life.
“Man, I just think we’re a resilient team,” Lawson said. “And even though we were down 17-0, we didn’t really look at the scoreboard. Coach DeBoer always says, ‘Keep playing the game. The game will come back to you.’ … We just keep fighting.”
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Head coach Brent Venables of the Oklahoma Sooners speaks to an official during the fourth quarter against the Alabama Crimson Tide on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
Let’s look at the bigger ones:
These are blunders. Errors that aren’t forced but self-inflicted. It’s difficult to win any game with those kinds of mistakes on your drive chart. It’s nearly impossible in a game of this magnitude, against a team as talented and as resilient as the Crimson Tide.
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Keon Keeley #31 of the Alabama Crimson Tide celebrates after defeating the Oklahoma Sooners in the College Football Playoff first-round game. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
Oklahoma usually plays 50 Cent’s “Many Men” before the start of the fourth quarter. In an attempt to make a statement for its first CFP game at Owen Field, the Sooners brought the rapper himself out onto the field to perform the song for fans in a Hard to Kill Hoodie.
“I didn’t know it was live,” DeBoer said.
“I didn’t know who 50 Cent was,” Simpson said, “but I know that song.”
“We play that song at practice on Fridays,” Lawson said.
RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him @RJ_Young.
Hello college football fans, and welcome to The Athletic’s live coverage of the 2025 College Football Playoff!
Yes, after a 2025 season full of an incredible amount of twists, turns, controversy and pure chaos, the second edition of the 12-team College Football Playoff gets underway tonight. Our opening matchup is a battle of blue-bloods whose first meeting this season contributed to that chaos, as No. 9 Alabama takes on No. 8 Oklahoma in Norman.
Follow along for live pregame build-up and the latest news, play-by-play updates and real-time analysis from The Athletic’s college football staff!
The College Football Playoff gets underway Friday night as Alabama heads to Norman to take on Oklahoma. But to ESPN’s Michael Wilbon, there’s even more at stake for Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer.
DeBoer’s name has been the subject of rumors throughout the offseason in the coaching carousel. Most recently, he received questions about the opening at Michigan following Sherrone Moore’s firing for cause, though he made it clear he intends to be at Alabama in 2026.
However, Wilbon didn’t sound as convinced. He predicted Alabama would not only lose to Oklahoma on Friday night, but DeBoer would also be on a flight to Ann Arbor to take the Michigan job afterward.
“Let me tell you about … two schools that could be in the coaching carousel after [Friday night],” Wilbon said Thursday on Pardon The Interruption. “Because when Alabama loses to Oklahoma – let me say it again, when Alabama loses to Oklahoma – the coach of Alabama, half the people in the state will want to run him out. And he’ll be on the carousel – oh, wait, that’s a G5 being flown to Ann Arbor, Mich., where he has said, ‘Oh, no. I ain’t got no interest in that.’ He’ll have interest [Friday night].
“And then, Alabama will be in the coaching carousel because they’ll be looking for a coach. … The Alabama coach is going to have a job-on-the-line situation in 24 hours and then, headed to Michigan once he loses. And then, Alabama’s looking. Then, what are you going to say?”
During a press conference this week ahead of the College Football Playoff opener, Kalen DeBoer was directly asked if he intended to be Alabama’s head coach next season. He responded, “Yes.”
Earlier in that press conference, DeBoer received a question about the rumors surrounding him. He again spoke highly of his tenure at Alabama so far and made it clear he’s happy in Tuscaloosa.
“A lot of the same things I said before, a couple weeks ago, when asked really the same question, just feel completely supported,” DeBoer said. “My family loves living here. Just all the things that we continue to build on, love the progress. Haven’t talked with anyone, no plans of talking with anyone. So just, I think that’s a lot of what I said a couple weeks ago, and continues to be the same thing.
“Feel strong about it. And our guys, if there’s been any distraction, I haven’t seen it, haven’t felt it. I’m really proud of the way they’ve handled whatever noise is out there. And again, we probably all season long, have dealt with enough noise to where it wouldn’t surprise me on how they handle this.”
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