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Charisse Christopher, age twenty-eight, lived with her two children,
Nicholas, age three and one-half, and Lacie, age two and one half,
in the Hiwassee Apartments in Millington. Pervis T. Payne’s
girlfriend lived in the apartment across the hall from Charisse
Christopher’s apartment, and the apartment complex's resident
manager lived in the downstairs unit directly below the Christophers.
The building in which the Christophers resided consisted of four
units, two upstairs and two downstairs. Each of the upstairs
apartments had back doors in the kitchen that led to an open porch
overlooking the back yard. In the center of the porch was a metal
stairway leading to the ground. There was also an inside stairway
leading to the ground floor hallway and front entrance to the
four-unit building. On June 27, 1987, Payne visited his girlfriend’s
apartment several times in anticipation of their plans to spend the
weekend together. However, he found no one at home. On one visit, he
left his overnight bag and three cans of Colt 45 malt liquor near
the entrance of her apartment. While waiting for his girlfriend to
return, Payne passed the morning and early afternoon injecting
cocaine and drinking beer. Later, he and a friend cruised around the
area looking at a magazine containing sexually explicit material. At
approximately 3:00 p.m., Payne returned to the Hiwassee Apartment
complex and entered Charisse Christopher's apartment. At the same
time, the manager heard Charisse screaming, “get out, get out.” The
noise briefly subsided and then began, “horribly loud.” The manager
called the police after she heard a “blood curdling scream” from the
Christophers’ apartment. A police unit was immediately dispatched to
the Hiwassee Apartments. Meanwhile, although the manager noted that
the shouting, screaming, and running upstairs had stopped, she heard
footsteps go into the bathroom, the faucet turned on, and the sound
of someone washing up. The first police officer arrived at the
apartments within minutes of the radio dispatch. Upon arrival, he
observed a black man on the second floor landing pick up an object
and come down the stairs. The officer encountered Payne as he was
leaving the apartment building. He noted that Payne had “blood all
over him. It looked like he was sweating blood.” The officer
confronted Payne, who responded, “I’m the complainant.” When the
officer asked “What’s going on up there?” Payne struck the officer
with the overnight bag, dropped his tennis shoes and started
running. The officer pursued him, but Payne outdistanced him and
disappeared into another apartment complex. Inside the Christophers’
apartment, the police encountered a horrifying scene. Blood covered
the walls and floor throughout the unit. Charisse and her two
children were discovered lying on the kitchen floor. Nicholas,
despite abdominal stab wounds that completely penetrated his body,
was still breathing. Charisse and Lacie were dead. Charisse
Christopher had sustained forty-two direct knife wounds and
forty-two defensive wounds on her arms and hands. The wounds were
caused by forty-one separate thrusts of a butcher knife. None of the
eighty-four wounds inflicted were individually fatal; rather, the
cause of death was most likely bleeding from all of the wounds. The
body of Charisse was found lying on her back with her legs fully
extended. Her shorts were pushed up on her legs and a used tampon
was found beside the victim’s lifeless body. Lacie’s body was on the
kitchen floor near her mother. She had suffered nine stab wounds to
the chest, abdomen, back, and head. One of the wounds cut the aorta
and would have been rapidly fatal. The murder weapon, a butcher
knife, was found at her feet. Payne’s baseball cap was recovered
from Lacie’s forearm - her hand and forearm sticking through the
opening between the adjustment strap and the cap material. Three
cans of Colt 45 malt liquor, bearing Payne’s fingerprints, were
found on a small table in the living room. A fourth empty beer can
was on the landing outside the apartment door. Payne’s fingerprints
were also found on the telephone and counter in the Christophers’
kitchen. Payne was apprehended later that day hiding in the attic of
the home of a former girlfriend. As he descended the stairs of the
attic, he stated, “Man, I ain’t killed no woman.” One of the
arresting officers remarked that Payne had a “wild look about him.
His pupils were contracted. He was foaming at the mouth, saliva. He
appeared to be very nervous. He was breathing real rapid.” Payne had
blood on his body and clothes and several scratches across his
chest. He also was wearing a gold Helbrose wristwatch that had
bloodstains on it. It was later determined that the blood types
found on Payne’s clothing matched the victims’ blood types. A search
of his pockets revealed a packet containing cocaine residue, a
hypodermic syringe wrapper, and a cap from a hypodermic syringe. His
overnight bag, which was found in a nearby dumpster, contained a
bloody white shirt. A woman who was visiting her sister in the same
apartment complex that Saturday afternoon was sunbathing in the back
yard and heard a noise like a person moaning coming from the
Christophers’ apartment followed by the back door slamming three or
four times, “but it didn’t want to shut. And this hand, a
dark-colored hand with a gold watch, kept trying to shut that back
door.” The medical examiner testified that Charisse was menstruating
and a specimen from her vagina tested positive for acid phosphatase.
He said that result was consistent with the presence of semen, but
not conclusive, absent sperm, and no sperm was found. At trial,
Payne took the stand on his own behalf. He testified that he did not
harm any of the Christophers. Rather, he asserted that another man
had raced by him as he was walking up the stairs. When he reached
the landing, he heard a baby crying and a faint call for help and
saw the door was ajar. He stated that, motivated by curiosity, he
announced that he was coming in, and entered the apartment. He
described what he saw as follows: I saw the worst thing I ever saw
in my life and like my breath just had--had tooken--just took out of
me. . . . she was looking at me. She had the knife in her throat
with her hand on the knife like she had been trying to get it out
and her mouth was just moving but words had faded away. And I didn’t
know what to do. He explained that he got blood on his clothes and
his person when he pulled the knife out of Charisse’s neck and . . .
“she reached up and grabbed me and hold me . . .” Payne panicked and
fled when he heard the police sirens. During the State’s
cross-examination, Payne made the following admission: Q. Can you
explain why there’s bloodstains on your left leg? A. Left leg? Q.
Yes, sir. A. Evidently it probably came--had to come from when
she--when she hit the wall. When she reached up and grabbed me. Q.
When she hit the wall? A. When she--when she hit--when she hit when
I got ready to run up--when I got ready to vomit. Q. When she hit
the wall she got blood on you? A. When she splashed. It was blood--a
lot of blood on the floor. Q. She got blood on you when she hit the
wall. Is that what you said? A. She hit against the wall when she
fell back. Q. Is that what you said, sir, that she got blood on you
when she hit the wall? A. I didn’t say she got blood on me when she
hit the wall. Q. Isn’t that what you said just a moment ago, sir? A.
That ain’t--that’s not what I said. The jury returned guilty
verdicts against Payne on all counts. During the sentencing phase of
the trial, Payne presented the testimony of four witnesses. Payne's
girlfriend testified that she met Payne at church and stated that he
was a very caring person, and that he devoted much time and
attention to her three children. She said that her three children
had come to love him very much. She asserted that Payne did not
drink, nor did he use drugs, and that it was inconsistent with
Payne’s character to have committed these crimes. A clinical
psychologist testified that Payne’s IQ scores were verbal IQ 78 and
performance IQ 82. Historically, the “mental retardation” score is
considered 75. Based upon these scores, the doctor found Payne
“mentally handicapped,” but not “retarded.” He also stated that
Payne was the most polite prisoner he had ever met. Payne’s parents
testified that their son, who was twenty years old, had no prior
criminal record and had never been arrested. They also stated that
Payne had no history of alcohol or drug abuse, he worked with his
father as a painter, he was good with children, and he was a good
son. The State presented the testimony of Charisse Christopher’s
mother, who related the emotional trauma that the double murders had
on Nicholas and how he continues to cry for his mother and sister.
The jury found, as to both the murder of Charisse Christopher and
Lacie Christopher, that Payne knowingly created a great risk of
death to two or more persons other than the victim murdered during
his act of murder and that the murder was especially heinous,
atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of
mind. As to the murder of Lacie Christopher, the jury found that the
murder was committed against a person less than twelve years of age
and Payne was eighteen years of age or older. Finding no mitigating
circumstances sufficiently substantial to outweigh the statutory
aggravating circumstances, the jury sentenced Payne to death on each
of the murder counts. |
