Global Information2016 Citronelle homicides information
| 2016 Citronelle homicides | |
|---|---|
| Location | Citronelle, Alabama, United States |
| Date | August 20, 2016 4:10 a.m. (CT) |
Attack type | Mass shooting |
| Weapons |
|
| Deaths | 6 (including an unborn child) |
| Injured | 0 |
| Perpetrator | Derrick Dearman |
| Motive | Under investigation |
On August 20, 2016, a mass killing occurred in Citronelle, Alabama, resulting in the deaths of five people, including a woman who was five months pregnant. They were killed in the early morning in a private residence in a rural area west of the city. It was owned by a brother of Laneta Lester, who had sought refuge there. She and her brother's infant were abducted and taken to Leakesville, Mississippi, by her estranged boyfriend, Derrick Dearman. He released her that day. Lester returned with the infant to Citronelle. She notified police of the killings. Investigators described this mass killing as the worst in Mobile County's history. The house burned down a couple of weeks after the crime.
Dearman was considered a suspect. He was arrested after he turned himself in at the Greene County, Mississippi police station. He was extradited to Alabama, where he was charged with six counts of capital murder (including the fetus, under Alabama law) and two counts of abduction. Initially he pleaded not guilty to the charges. In September 2018 he pleaded guilty to the capital murder charges. He still had to face a jury trial, which convicted him of the murders and kidnappings, and sentenced him to death. The court upheld the sentence.