Triple-murder suspect indicted on theft charge

Published 2:20 pm Wednesday, August 1, 2012

A Lowndes County grand jury has indicted triple-murder suspect Deandra Marquis Lee on an unrelated charge of first-degree theft of property.

Lee is accused of killing 9-year-old twins Jordan and Taylor Dejerinett and their 73-year-old caretaker Jack Mac Girdner. The bodies of the three victims were discovered in Lowndes County in June.

The theft of property charge is unrelated to the murder charges, according to Lowndes County District Attorney Charlotte M. Tesmer. She said it is a Class B felony.

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It has to do with a charge originally filed in July of 2011, Tesmer said.

A $10,000 bond in Lowndes County on a third-degree robbery charge against Lee when he was captured in Selma after a four-day manhunt following the murders was revoked by District Court Judge Adrian D. Johnson at an earlier court appearance.

‘The original charge was robbery third, which was a Class C felony, so it bumped it up a class,” Tesmer said. “The grand jury just felt that that was the best charge for that.  It didn’t have anything to do with the three murders.”

Tesmer said she was “still waiting on the ABI (Alabama Bureau of Investigation) to get me their complete information on the capital case (the murders). And we will go forward when I get that information. Could be a specially called grand jury or of course, we could always present it at the next regularly scheduled grand jury which it about six months for now.”

On July 2, Johnson bound Lee over to the grand jury, finding probable cause on three counts of murder after hearing testimony from ABI Special Agent Matt Bowman.

The grand jury met on July 16.

Lee is being held in the Lowndes County Jail on a $3 million cash bond, $1 million for each murder charge.