MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Family members of a slain woman and her daughter sat through a gruesome crime scene video that played in a Tennessee courtroom Monday – images of two blood-soaked bodies lying stabbed to death in awkward positions on the floor of their apartment, a knife resting next to the little girl’s foot.
Just feet away, the man convicted in the fatal stabbings 34 years ago, Pervis Payne, sat motionless as the footage showed the mother lying on her back and her daughter on her stomach, lifeless and awash in red.
The video was entered into evidence during a sentencing hearing in the case of Payne, who received the death penalty for the 1987 killings of Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter, Lacie Jo, but was removed from death row after court experts found him intellectually disabled.
Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan heard testimony from family and friends of Payne, who will be sentenced to two terms of life in prison by Skahan, the same judge who vacated his death sentence Nov. 23.
Skahan must decide whether Payne, 54, will serve the terms consecutively or concurrently. The distinction is significant. A ruling for the life terms to be served one after the other – or consecutively – would mean Payne would not be eligible for parole until he is 85 years old.