PERVIS TYRONE PAYNE Sentenced To Death In A Tennessee State Court For The Murder Of Charisse Christopher And Her Daughter Lacie Christopher | Judge Resentences Pervis to Concurrent Life Terms, Making Him Eligible for Parole in Five Years After 35 Years on

Pervis Payne. ALS. Commercial #10 (4.125” x 9.5”) envelope. Pmk: October 2, 2006. SEALED. Content unknown. Pristine.

Pervis T. Payne Sentenced To Death

Pervis T. Payne was convicted in Shelby County of killing Charisse Christopher and her daughter, Lacie Jo, in what prosecutors described as a drug-induced frenzy.

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.

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.ⁱ

Judge Resentences Pervis Payne

A Memphis judge has resentenced Pervis Payne to two concurrent life sentences, making the former Tennessee death-row prisoner who has long maintained his innocence eligible to apply for parole in five years. The sentencing order, issued by Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan on January 31, 2022, follows decades of litigation over whether Payne, who is intellectually disabled, was even subject to the death penalty.

County prosecutors fought to execute Payne for more than three decades, continuing to do so after the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 2002 that individuals who have Intellectual Disability were not eligible for the death penalty. As a December 13, 2021 hearing date on Payne’s intellectual disability approached, District Attorney Amy Weirich conceded that prosecutors had no evidence to challenge Payne’s claim, and Judge Skahan vacated Payne’s death sentence on November 23, 2021.

Payne, who is Black, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1987 for the murders of 28-year-old Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter Lacie, who were White. In a trial marred by prosecutorial misconduct and racial bias, prosecutors alleged that Payne had been high on drugs and murdered Christopher after she supposedly rebuffed his sexual advances. No physical evidence supported the sexual assault allegations against Payne and police refused a request by Payne’s mother to conduct blood testing on her son, who had never used drugs.

Judge Skahan resentenced Payne to two concurrent life sentences, which would make Payne eligible to apply for parole when he has served a total of 39 years. He has served 34 years so far.

“Today is a great day, a great day for the Payne family and for Pervis Payne,” Payne’s lawyer, assistant federal defender Kelley Henry said after the ruling. “The Shelby County D.A. was effectively asking for a sentence of life without parole—which is not authorized under the law. The plain fact is, Pervis Payne is no threat to society and he never was.”

“After 34 years and fighting to see this day as such, it’s just overwhelming,” said Payne’s sister, Rolanda Holman.

Weirich had asked the court to sentence Payne to consecutive life terms, which would have made him ineligible for parole until he was 85 years old. In a January 31, 2022 news release, the Shelby County District Attorney’s office said that “Weirich has asked the State Attorney General’s Office to appeal” Judge Skahan’s sentencing order.

In advocating for consecutive sentences, county prosecutors showed the court crime scene video of the murders. At the resentencing hearing, three members of Christopher’s family gave victim impact statements, describing the lasting pain their family continues to endure decades later.

Payne’s lawyers presented testimony from four Tennessee Department of Correction employees, who attested to Payne’s good behavior in prison, including his unblemished record and the time Payne came to the aid of a corrections officer who had been attacked in prison. More than 10 family members, friends, and volunteers who visited Payne and others on death row testified that Payne was “gentle, kind, spiritual, and helpful” and would have a tight-knit community that could help him navigate post-prison life.

In the opinion accompanying her ruling, Judge Skahan acknowledged that the Christopher family “has suffered tremendously,” but concluded that the defense had presented “ample evidence” that Payne did not pose a danger to society. On the other hand, she said, prosecutors had failed to establish that consecutive sentences were necessary to protect the public against Payne. “If released from custody, the defendant would have an extensive support network to assist him in his continued rehabilitation,” she wrote.

“The Judge considered this matter thoughtfully and deliberately and did the right thing by making the sentences concurrent,” Henry said, in a statement. “She followed Tennessee law, which favors concurrent sentences and places the burden on the State to prove that consecutive sentencing is necessary to protect the public.”

Henry said the hearing had presented Payne the opportunity to hug his son “for the first time without the specter of an execution hanging over their heads.”

Henry attributed Payne’s new sentence to reform efforts passed by the state legislature. In 2020, while a death warrant for Payne’s execution was pending, the Tennessee legislative black caucus announced plans to introduce a bill, inspired by Payne’s case, that would create a procedural mechanism for death-row prisoners to present their intellectual disability claims in the Tennessee courts. The legislators introduced the bill on November 4, 2020 and both houses of the legislature passed it by overwhelming margins in April 2021. One day after Governor Lee signed the bill into law.

“We are profoundly grateful to Gov. Lee, Rep. GA Hardaway, and the Tennessee Legislature, for answering the call of the Tennessee Supreme Court to modernize our state’s intellectual disability law which paved the way to removing Pervis from death row,” Henry said in the statement. “Without them, Pervis would be facing execution. We are equally grateful to our broad and diverse nationwide coalition of supporters, including more than 150 faith and community leaders right here in Memphis.”

However, she said, “Our work is not yet done. This journey will continue until we uncover the truth and Pervis is exonerated.”ⁱⁱ

• VIDEO: The case of death row inmate Pervis Payne-Tennessean | https://youtu.be/kz4e7fDyfaU
• VIDEO: “Making The Case” Analyzes the Case of Pervis Payne, Who Is on Death Row | https://youtu.be/uZ0O4_9ok-A
• VIDEO: 165: Pervis Payne | https://youtu.be/vWTzCjWGH_c

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iBlanco, J. (2023) Pervis Tyrone Payne | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers, Murderpedia.org. Available at: https://murderpedia.org/male.P/p/payne-pervis.htm (Accessed: 18 April 2023).