Complaint: Man attacked people with ax, shot them with gun

A Mississippi man used a gun and an ax to kill five adults as they slept in an Alabama home, police allege in criminal complaints filed today.

The criminal complaints filed in Mobile County District Court do not allege in what order Derrick Dearman used the weapons or elaborate on the nature of the slayings in the rural home Saturday.

Yesterday, as he was led to jail in shackles, Dearman professed his love for the estranged girlfriend whose family and friends were massacred and blamed the killings on drugs.

Speaking with reporters as he was escorted to jail by deputies in Mobile, Alabama, Derrick Dearman said yesterday that he was on methamphetamine when he went to the house, located at the end of a dead-end dirt road.
 

"Drugs (were) making me think things that's not really there," said Dearman, 27, hanging his head and dressed in a bright yellow jail uniform.

After the killings, authorities said, Dearman abducted estranged girlfriend Laneta Lester, who had sought refuge at the house, and a child of two of the victims. Dearman said he spared their lives because "I came down and realized what was really going on."

"(I) turned myself in because I was sober and knew what was the right thing to do," Dearman said.

In videotaped comments broadcast on Mobile-area television, Dearman expressed his love for Lester and apologized "to all the family members." Dearman, saying all the victims were friends, added: "Don't do drugs." He said he doesn't deserve to live.

A man who said his family provided a home for Dearman and Lester earlier this year near Leakesville, Mississippi, said Dearman was often on methamphetamine and physically abused Lester during walks in the woods in rural southeast Mississippi.

"He was taking her out there and beating the crap out of her," said Charlie Passarelli Jr., who said he had known Dearman for years. Passarelli said he suspected that Dearman was either buying or selling drugs before he and Lester moved out in late spring.

The slayings left three men and two women dead, including a pregnant woman and her unborn child. A teenager who said she was related to all five victims by marriage or blood shook her head and fought back tears as she described her anguish over the slayings.

"They were really good people. They'd call and check on you, ask if you want to come down and eat," said Madison McDaniel, 17, who lives near the scene of the violence.