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By Fred Guarino

The Lowndes Signal

After six years, Lowndes County triple murder suspect Deandra Marquis Lee will go on trial in October.

According to court documents, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, Lowndes County Circuit Court Judge Terri Bozeman Lovell issued a court order setting the triple murder trial of suspect Deandra Marquis Lee for Tuesday, Oct. 9.

June 5, 2018 will mark the six-year anniversary of the this case.

On June 5, 2012, the bodies of 9-year-old twins Jordan and Taylor Dejerinett from Montgomery and their 73-year-old caretaker Jack Mac Girdner of Hope Hull were discovered by the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office and the Alabama Bureau of Investigation on a dirt road off Alabama Highway 21 near Hayneville, three miles south of U.S. Highway 80.

The three had been reported missing on June 4, 2012.

A day after the bodies were found, the ABI confirmed they had recovered the missing 1998 white Mercedes, owned by Girdner. The car, which was missing all four of its doors, was discovered in the Minter community in south Dallas County.
Lee was captured June 9, 2012, in a small apartment in Selma, reportedly huddled in the room with a woman.

He was indicted for the murders by the July 2013 Lowndes County grand jury and pled not guilty to the murders in September of that same year.

Lee faces a total of six capital murder charges, three capital murder charges for the murder of the victims during a robbery, two capital murder charges for the killing of a child less than 14 and one capital murder charge for the killing of two or more people.

Lee was 22 at the time of the murders

Also, according to court documents, an Atkins hearing will be held April 26, motion hearings will be held July 27, Aug. 27 and Sept. 24. And a pretrial conference will be held Sept. 24.

According to judicial.alabama.gov/library/rules cr11_6 in an Atkins hearing, a defendant is afforded the opportunity to testify, present evidence etc. of mental defect.

According to the Lowndes County Circuit Clerk’s Office, Lee is represented by attorneys Jerry L. Thornton and Robert Troy Teague.