A crime lab in California has found unknown male DNA on the knife Pervis Payne is accused of using to murder Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter, and non-fatally stab her 4-year-old son. The knife from the 1987 crime scene had never been tested before Shelby County Criminal Court ordered the testing in September 2020.
However, a criminal court judge said the presence of another person’s DNA on the weapon is not enough to prove Payne’s innocence. Payne’s team of lawyers, some who are affiliated with the Innocence Project, intend to file a request for clemency to spare him the death penalty. Despite maintaining his innocence from the beginning and having an intellectual disability, Payne is scheduled for execution on April 9, 2021.
“The DNA testing results are consistent with Payne’s long-standing claim of innocence. Male DNA from an unknown third party was found on key evidence, including the murder weapon, but unfortunately, is too degraded to identify an alternate suspect via the FBI’s database,” said Vanessa Potkin, Director of Post-Conviction Litigation, Innocence Project, in a statement.
The knife
According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, who obtained a copy of the crime lab report, DNA on different parts of the knife point to three contributors.
DNA recovered from the handle was determined to be a mixture of at least three contributors, at least two of whom are male. Analysis suggests DNA material is from the sole surviving male victim—the son, Nicholas—and an unknown male. The crime lab eliminated Payne as a contributor to the DNA mixture on the knife’s handle.
The same is true for the knife’s blade: the DNA likely comes from the victims and an unknown male, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
Lastly, analysis of DNA material on the hilt of the knife revealed at least three contributors, two of whom are male. The Memphis Commercial Appeal says the report indicates the DNA likely comes from two of the victims: the son and mother—and Pervis Payne may have been one of the contributors.
Missing evidence
This was the first time the murder weapon had been tested since it was found at the crime scene in 1987. A tampon, blood-stained curtains, a pair of glasses and a bloodstained stuffed animal were also tested for the first time. However, other evidence has either never been tested or has gone missing.
According to the Innocence Project, a comforter, sheets and pillow with blood stains were recently discovered—untested—in the court clerk’s office. Additionally, fingernail clippings from Charisse Christopher and a rape kit are missing from evidence.
“In recent troubling developments, the State is currently unable to find any of the evidence most likely to contain sufficient perpetrator DNA—including the victim fingernail scrapings. The existence of this critical evidence had been confirmed in writing by the district attorney in late July 2020. Yet, mere months later, at the September 2020 hearing on DNA testing, prosecutors declared this evidence missing, and offered no further explanation,” the Innocence Project explained. “We continue to find it frustrating and disturbing that the State still has no explanation for how key pieces of DNA evidence that could conclusively prove who committed this crime have gone missing.”
Case Background
Payne was 20 when he was convicted of murdering Christopher and her child in Shelby County, Tennessee.
According to Payne, he was waiting for his girlfriend at her apartment in Millington, Tennessee, when he saw a man with blood on him sprinting out of the building. The man ran past him, dropping change and papers as he ran, a few of which Payne picked up before he entered the building and made his way to his girlfriend’s apartment. There, he noticed that the door to the apartment across the hall was open and heard a noise.
Payne says he entered the neighbor’s apartment where he encountered Charisse Christopher, who had been stabbed 41 times and still had a knife in her throat. He says he removed the knife, then checked on her two young children before running to get help. Shortly after leaving the apartment, he saw police officers arriving, panicked, and thought they would think he had committed the crime. Payne was arrested later that day.
According to the Innocence Project, at trial, the prosecution relied on racial stereotypes and fears, arguing that Payne, a black man, had taken drugs and was looking for sex, and attacked and killed a white woman and her child. Although the prosecution argued that Christopher had been sexually assaulted, she was discovered fully clothed.
“Racism, hidden evidence and intellectual disability were a recipe for wrongful conviction for Payne,” said Potkin. “Police zeroed in on Payne immediately and never investigated any other suspects. The presence of DNA belonging to someone other than Payne would support the consistent story that he has told for more than 30 years: he was an innocent bystander who came upon the crime scene.”
A previous petition from The Innocence Project’ describes three cases similar to Payne’s, where bystanders were convicted after coming upon a murder scene and later had their convictions overturned as a result of DNA testing.
Payne is intellectually disabled, although that fact was not recognized at the time of the trial. He has an IQ of 72 and other evidence of intellectual disability. One of the main reasons the U.S. Supreme Court barred the execution of people with intellectual disability in Atkins v. Virginia (2002) is that they present a special risk of wrongful conviction. According to the Innocence Project, Payne was convicted, in part, because he was unable to assist his attorneys in making his defense and he made a poor witness on his own behalf.
“Today’s results make crystal clear that it would be a gross miscarriage of justice for Tennessee to execute Pervis Payne,” said Potkin.
Photo: Pervis Payne in Riverbend Maximum Security institution in Tennessee. Photo courtesy of PervisPayne.Org/Innocence Project