MEMPHIS, Tenn — The attorneys of a Tennessee man say new evidence could exonerate him from the conviction of a double murder that took place in 1987. However, federal investigators say not so fast.
Pervis Payne is currently on death row.
Shelby County D.A. Amy Weirich said in a press conference Thursday there is no new evidence in the case, explaining that the bloodied sheets Payne’s lawyers want to be tested are from another Memphis murder.
“I understand that the D.A. is now saying that that’s evidence from another case,” said Payne’s attorney Kelley Henry. “That’s something we’re going to have to investigate on our own.”
Pervis Payne, 53, has a legal team which includes the Innocence Project.
The Tennessee man, who has an intellectual disability according to his lawyers, was convicted in 1988 for the double murder of Millington mother and her young child. A second child survived. Payne is set to be executed in December for murders of 28-year-old Charisse Christopher and her two-year-old daughter Lacie. Three-year-old Nicholas, her son, was critically injured but survived multiple stab wounds.
Payne said he was waiting for his girlfriend to return to her apartment when he heard a baby crying in Christopher’s apartment. However the medical examiner said the child’s knife wounds “would have been rapidly fatal.”
“As an African American young man he found himself at an overwhelming crime scene,” said Henry. “He tried to help. That’s all he did he tried to help.”
Henry shared that the legal team found evidence in the property room they’d never seen. Werich said in a statement Thursday an attendant gave the defense two marked boxes of evidence and a bag containing bloody bedding items. The defense filed for the sheets to be tested for DNA.
Yet District Attorney Amy Weirich announced Thursday the reported newly discovered evidence is from a murder nine years after Payne’s conviction.
“Let’s assume for the sake of the argument that the DNA testing would come back and it would have somebody else’s DNA on it right,” said Weirich. “So what? The state was still going to prosecute Mr. Payne because the evidence of his guilt was so overwhelming.”
“It was not overwhelming,” said Henry. “It was even described as by the district attorney at the time as circumstantial.”
The D.A. says the mother sustained 42 knife wounds and 42 defensive wounds.
“He was seen by police running out of this apartment sweating blood,” said Weirich.” “He puts himself there. His fingerprints were found in the apartment, his hat on a dead baby’s arm.”
Henry commented she believes police tampered with evidence at the crime scene and tampered with victims’ the bodies.
“We have lots of questions about the integrity of this crime scene,” said Payne’s attorney. “We have photographs that show one thing. We have a diagram that shows something else.”
Payne is set to be executed December 3, 2020. His attorneys said he’s had no prior criminal record and maintained his innocence for 30 over years.