Grisly Details Surface In Alabama Mass Murder

CITRONELLE, ALABAMA (AP) – Sheriff’s officials now say several firearms and an ax were used on five adults slain in a house in a rural Alabama town.

The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office provided the new detail about the weekend killings in a statement Wednesday, though it didn’t specify the total number of weapons involved.

Derrick Dearman of Leakesville, Mississippi, is accused of having used the ax and guns to kill three men and two women at a house in Citronelle in the southern part of the state. One of the victims was a pregnant woman whose unborn child died.

Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran said Dearman didn’t have the guns when he arrived at the home, but found them in the house. Cochran said he attacked first with the ax, then with the guns.

Dearman is charged with six counts of capital murder and kidnapping. A judge appointed a defense attorney Wednesday for Dearman and scheduled an arraignment hearing for Aug. 31.