On Saturday June 27, 1987 Charisse Christopher and her 2 year old daughter Lacie were stabbed to death in their upstairs apartment in Millington, TN. Her 3 year old son Nicholas was also attacked but fortunately survived. Shortly after, 19-year old Pervis Payne was arrested and convicted of 2 murders and attempted murder and is currently serving his death sentence in TN. Was Pervis in a drug fueled rage that caused him to brutally murder Charisse and Lacie or was he wrongfully convicted?
Who was Charisse Christopher?
Charisse was born in Millington, TN just outside of Memphis and was 1 of 8 children, with 1 sister and 6 brothers. By all accounts, she had a happy childhood and according to her mother Mary, grew up “just a normal little girl.” She married at the age of 24 and had her first child, a son named Nicholas. She was married in TX. Her husband was abusive, and her sister Angie said she began to notice marks on Charisse (such as on her neck) when she would come home to visit. Charisse tried to keep the abuse she suffered private, but her family could see that she was in a physically abusive relationship.
After years of mental, physical, and emotional abuse, Charisse filed for divorce and returned home to TN with Nicholas, and pregnant with her second child, a little girl who would be named Lacie. Charisse, 3 year old Nicholas and 2 year old Lacie moved in with her sister Angie whose marriage had also recently ended. They chose an apartment in the Hiwassee Apartments in Millington, TN. The building they lived in had 4 units, 2 down and 2 upstairs. Angie says they chose an upstairs unit believing it would protect them from burglaries since they would have no windows on the bottom level. There is no way they could have foreseen the tragic events that would take place in that apartment.
Angie eventually decided to work things out with her husband and moved back with him leaving Charisse and her children in the apartment. On June 27, 1987 after Charisse put Nicholas and Lacie down for their afternoon nap, the unthinkable happened.
The State’s Case
To give you a little context, Charisse’s apartment building had 4 units, 2 up, 2 down. Charisse lived in an upstairs unit and across from her was Bobbie Thomas, the girlfriend of Pervis Payne. Below Charisse was the building manager, Nancy Wilson. The two upstairs units were separated by a narrow hallway and both units had back doors from the kitchen that led to porches that overlooked the back yard area, which was accessible from a center metal stairway. So Nancy is getting her afternoon nap on when she hears some unusual sounds in the apartment above hers. I will pull this information directly from the state’s case:
Nancy says she heard a door banging open and shut and Charisse screaming, “get out, get out.” She said it wasn’t as though she was telling the intruder to get out, it was like “children, get out.” The commotion began about 3:10 p.m., subsided momentarily, then began again and became “terribly loud, horribly loud.” She went to the back door of her apartment, went outside and started to go to the Christopher apartment to investigate, but decided against that, and returned to her apartment and immediately called the police.
She testified that she told the police she had heard blood curdling screams from the upstairs apartment, and that she could not handle the situation. The dispatcher testified he received her disturbance call at 3:23 p.m. and immediately dispatched a squad car to the Hiwassee Apartments. Mrs. Wilson went to her bathroom after calling the police. The shouting, screaming and running upstairs had stopped, but she heard footsteps go into the upstairs bath, the faucet turned on and there was a sound of someone washing up. Then she heard someone walk across the floor to the door of the Christopher apartment, slam the door shut and run down the steps, just as the police arrived.
Officer C.E. Owen, of the Millington Police Department, was the first officer to arrive at the Hiwassee Apartments. He was alone in a squad car when the disturbance call was assigned to Officers Beck and Brawell. Owen was only two minutes away from the Hiwassee Apartments, so he decided to back them up. He parked and walked toward the front entrance. As he did so he saw through a large picture window that a black man was standing on the second floor landing of the stairwell.
Owen saw him bend over and pick up an object and come down the stairs and out the front door of the building. He was carrying the overnight bag and a pair of tennis shoes. Owen testified that he was wearing a white shirt and dark colored pants and had “blood all over him. It looked like he was sweating blood.” Owen assumed that a domestic fight had taken place, and that the blood was that of the person he was confronting.
Owen asked, “How are you doing?” Defendant responded, “I’m the complainant.” Owen then asked, “What’s going on up there?” At that point Defendant struck Owen with the overnight bag, dropped his tennis shoes and started running west on Biloxi Street. Owen pursued him, but Defendant outdistanced him and disappeared into another apartment complex. Owen called for help on his radio, and Officer Boyd responded. By that time Owen had decided the defendant was not hurt and the blood was not his own, he was running too fast. Owen told Boyd that “there’s something wrong at that apartment.” They returned to 4516 Biloxi.
Nancy Wilson had a master key and let them in the locked Christopher apartment. As soon as the door was opened they saw blood on the walls, floor everywhere. The three bodies were on the floor of the kitchen. Boyd discovered that the boy was still breathing and called for an ambulance and reported their findings to the chief of police and the detective division. A Medic Ambulance arrived, quickly confirmed that Charisse and Lacie were dead, and departed with Nicholas. He was taken to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis and was on the operating table there from 6:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m., Sunday, 28 June.
In addition to multiple lacerations, several stab wounds had gone completely through his body from front to back. One of those was in the middle of his abdomen. The surgeon, Dr. Sherman Hixson, testified that he had to repair and stop bleeding of the spleen, liver, large intestine, small intestine and the vena cava. During the surgery he was given 1700 cc’s of blood by transfusion. Dr. Hixson estimated that his normal total blood volume should have been between 1200 and 1300 cc’s. He was in intensive care for a period and had two other operations before he left the hospital, but he survived.
Charisse sustained forty-two (42) knife wounds and forty-two (42) defensive wounds on her arms and hands. The medical examiner testified that the forty-two (42) knife wounds represented forty-one (41) thrusts of the knife, “because there was one perforated wound to her left side that went through her side. In and out wounds produce two.” He said no wound penetrated a very large vessel and the cause of death was bleeding from all of the wounds; there were thirteen (13) wounds “that were very serious and may have by themselves caused death. I can’t be sure, but certainly the combination of all the wounds caused death.” He testified that death probably occurred within, “maybe 30 minutes, that sort of time period,” but that she would have been unconscious within a few minutes after the stabbing had finished.
The medical examiner testified that the cause of death of Lacie Christopher was multiple stab wounds to the chest, abdomen, back and head, a total of nine. One of the wounds cut the aorta and would have been rapidly fatal.
Defendant was located and arrested at a townhouse where a former girlfriend, Sharon Nathaniel, lived with her sisters. Defendant had attempted to hide in the Nathaniel attic. When arrested he was wearing nothing but dark pants, no shirt, no shoes. As he descended the stairs from the attic he said to the officers, “Man, I ain’t killed no woman.” Officer Beck said that at the time of his arrest he 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.”
A search of his pockets revealed a “pony pack” with white residue in it. A toxicologist testified that the white residue tested positive for cocaine. They also found on his person a B & D syringe wrapper and an orange cap from a hypodermic syringe. There was blood on his pants and on his body, and he had three or four scratches across his chest. He was wearing a gold Helbros wrist watch that had bloodstains on it. The weekend bag that he struck Officer Owen with was found in a dumpster in the area. It contained the bloody white shirt he was wearing when Owen saw him at the Hiwassee Apartments, a blue shirt and other shirts.
It was stipulated that Charisse and Lacie had Type O blood and that Nicholas and Defendant had Type A. A forensic serologist testified that Type O blood was found on Defendant’s white shirt, blue shirt, tennis shoes and on the bag. Type A blood was found on the black pants Defendant was wearing when seen by Owen and when arrested.
Defendant’s baseball cap had a size adjustment strap in the back with a U-type opening to accommodate adjustments. That baseball cap was on Lacie’s forearm; her hand and forearm sticking through the opening between the adjustment strap and the cap material. Three Colt 45 beer cans were found on a small table in the living room, two unopened, one opened but not empty, bearing Defendant’s fingerprints, and a fourth empty beer can was on the landing outside the apartment door. Defendant was shown to have purchased Colt 45 beer earlier in the day. Defendant’s fingerprints were also found on the telephone and counter in the kitchen.
Charisse’s body was found on the kitchen floor on her back, her legs fully extended. The right side of her upper body was against the wall, and the outside of her right leg was almost against the back door that opened onto the back porch.
Laura Picard was visiting her sister, Helen Truman, who lived in the downstairs apartment across from Nancy Wilson. She was sunbathing in the back yard and heard a noise like a person moaning coming from the Christopher 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.” It was about that time that Nancy Wilson came out of her back door looking around. Mrs. Picard testified that she knew the manager was looking for the source of the noise, and when Mrs. Wilson looked at her she pointed to the Christopher apartment. She said that it was just a few minutes later that the police arrived. She did not have a watch on at the time. She testified that the dark-colored hand she saw three or four times was at a level between the door knob and the bottom of the door.
The medical examiner testified that Charisse was menstruating and a specimen from her vagina tested positive for acid phosphatase. He said that the result was consistent with the presence of semen, but not conclusive, absent sperm, and no sperm was found. A used tampon was found on the floor near her knee. The murder weapon, a bloody butcher knife, was found at the feet of Lacie, whose body was also on the kitchen floor near her mother. A kitchen drawer nearby was partially open.
Pervis Payne testified on his own behalf.
His defense was that he did not harm any of the Christophers; that he saw a black man descend the inside stairs, race by him and disappear out the front door of the building, as he returned to pick up his bag and beer before proceeding to his friend Sharon Nathaniel’s to await the arrival of Bobby Thomas. He said that as the unidentified intruder bounded down the stairs, wearing a white tropical shirt that was longer than his shorts, he dropped change and miscellaneous papers on the stairs, which Pervis then picked up and put in his pocket as he continued up the stairs to the second floor landing to retrieve his bag and beer.
When he reached the landing he heard a baby crying and a faint call for help and saw the door was ajar. He said curiosity motivated him to enter the Christopher apartment and after saying he was “coming in” and “eased the door on back,” he described what he saw and his first actions as follows:
“I saw the worst thing I ever saw in my life and like my breath had taken just took out of me. You know, I didn’t know what to do. And I put my hand over my mouth and walked up closer to it. And 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. I was about ready to get sick, about ready to vomit. And so I ran closer. I saw a phone on the wall and I lift and got the phone on the wall. I said don’t worry. I said don’t worry. I’m going to get help. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. And I got ready to grab it the phone but I didn’t know no number to call. I didn’t know nothing. I didn’t know nothing about no number or I just start trying to twist numbers. I didn’t know nothing. And she was watching my movement in the kitchen, like she [knew] I had saw her. It had been almost a year off and on in the back yard because her kids had played with Bobbie’s kids. And I have seen her before. She looked at me like I know you, you know. And I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t leave her because she needed she needed help. I was raised up to help and I had to help her.”
He described how he pulled the knife out of her neck, almost vomited, then kneeled down by the baby girl, had the feeling she was already dead; said the little boy was on his knees crying, he told him not to cry he was going to get help. His explanation of the blood on his shirt, pants, tennis shoes, body, etc., was that when he pulled the knife out of her neck, “she reached up and grab me and hold me, like she was wanting me to help her …”, that in walking and kneeling on the bloody floor and touching the two babies he got blood all over his clothes. He said he went to the kitchen sink, probably twice, to get water to drink when he thought he was going to vomit, but he denied that he went into the bathroom at any time or used the bathroom lavatory to wash up, as Nancy Wilson testified she heard someone do after the violence subsided.
He was then suddenly motivated to leave and seek help and he described his exit from the apartment as follows:
“And I left. My motivation was going and banging on some doors, just to knock on some doors and tell someone need help, somebody call somebody, call the ambulance, call somebody. And when I as soon as I left out the door I saw a police car, and some other feeling just went all over me and just panicked, just like, oh, look at this. I’m coming out of here with blood on me and everything. It going to look like I done this crime.”
The shoulder strap on the left shoulder of the blue shirt he was wearing while in the victim’s apartment was torn, a fact he did not seem to realize and could not remember when it happened. He said he ran because the officer did not seem to believe him. He claimed that he had the Colt 45 beer with him as he ran; that the open can with beer in it spilled into the sack, as he ran from Owen, the bottom of the sack broke, the beer and tennis shoes were scattered along his route.
He said that what witnesses had described as scratches were stretch marks from lifting weights.
Defendant presented five character witnesses who testified that Defendant’s reputation for truth and veracity was good. Ruth Wakefield Bell testified that she had known Defendant all of his life. She was 40 years old and lived in the same block on Biloxi as the Hiwassee Apartments, across the street. She said that on the Saturday afternoon of the murders, Defendant knocked on her door, identified himself and she looked out her bedroom window and saw him, but she did not let him in. She was upset with her boyfriend and did not want to see or “entertain” anyone. She denied that she was afraid to let him in or that there was anything unusual about his appearance. She estimated that it was about twenty minutes after he knocked on her door that she saw police cars and an ambulance across the street. Defendant testified that he knocked on her door just before he decided to go to Sharon Nathaniel’s and went into the Hiwassee Apartments to pick up his bag and beer.
During the cross-examination of Defendant, he was asked and answered as follows:
- 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.
Blood was smeared on the wall of the kitchen next to the back door and on the door itself, from doorknob height to the floor and laterally approximately six or seven feet. Defendant insists that the evidence is wholly circumstantial and is insufficient to support the verdict.
Prosecution’s Theory
The prosecution alleges that Pervis Payne had spent the day riding around with his friend Sylvester Robinson drinking alcohol, shooting up cocaine, and looking at Playboy Magazines. His girlfriend Bobbie Thomas was visiting family in Arkansas and had not yet returned when he was dropped off at her apartment, and since he did not have a key, he waited for her to come back. They allege that “he was unable to account for the expenditure of $30 to $50 of the sums that he withdrew from the bank on Friday and Saturday morning, and the State’s theory was that he spent it for cocaine and used the syringe he purchased to administer it.”
So he’s hopped up on drugs, having spent the day getting fully torqued on Playboy magazines and Bobbie isn’t back yet. They believe he knocked on Charisse’s door, and because Pervis was a familiar face in the unit she let him in when he asked for water. Then, he made sexual advances because the Playboy had him wanting sex from a white woman. She denied him, and he became totally enraged due to his drugged up state.
It’s worth noting the prosecution made many mentions of the “dark colored hand” on the back door and Charisse’s “white skin.” With no evidence of anything missing from the apartment, a motive of robbery can reasonably be excluded. Because Charisse’s tampon was removed, it is reasonable to believe that sex was the motivating factor for this crime. Pervis Payne was convicted and sentenced to death.
Open and shut case, right? Not so fast. Let’s look at the Defense’s side now.
Who is Pervis Payne?
Pervis Payne grew up in Tipton County, Tennessee born to Carl and Bernice Payne. Carl was a pastor and owned a painting business, and Bernice was a child care provider. Pervis was the oldest of 3 children and was born prematurely. The hospital was segregated at the time and he was in the NICU for some time before going home. As a result of this, he lives with an intellectual disability.
Pervis struggled in school. Though he tried, he continued to have difficulty with reading, spelling, and math, even after being placed in resource classes. Despite his best efforts, Mr. Payne was unable to graduate. Growing up, he also had trouble with everyday tasks like cooking and doing laundry; as a child, he needed help feeding himself until he was 5.
Pervis had gotten a job at the local Pizza Hut for a time after high school, but was unable to complete his necessary tasks without help or step-by-step instruction. This made it difficult for him to find work, but he was known for helping out around his father’s church in any way he could, such as driving people to and from service. He also worked with his father at his painting business, where he kept an eye out for his son. There is not one person who has ever testified to seeing him use drugs or knowing about him using drugs. By all accounts, Pervis was a moral and kind young man who had never been in trouble with the law before he was arrested for the brutal murder of the Christophers.
Discrepancies
First, there is 0 mention of Pervis being on drugs, being suspected of being on drugs, etc. in the police reports. In fact, Pervis’ mother Bernice went down to the police dept the day Pervis was arrested begging for them to drug test him.
AND.THEY.REFUSED.
Why? Why would they not drug test him? They found a syringe cap and a baggie with white residue in it… what else could it be? But they told Bernice they didn’t have any reason to suspect he’d been on drugs, so they didn’t need to test him. Then the “theory” that he was drug-crazed went into his case as fact at trial. Ok. So let’s go back through the case, this time from the defense perspective. And we think you will be astonished.
So Pervis’ girlfriend Bobbie Thomas was out of town visiting family. Pervis had no way to get into her apartment or get in touch with her cuz 90’s. The two had plans to spend the weekend together, so he dropped by her apartment throughout the day to catch her once she got back home. According to friends, family, and the friend that Pervis was “riding around with,” Pervis spent time with them, attended a church picnic and did ride around some with Sylvester Williams, but did not look at playboy magazines or “shoot up” cocaine. They were reading JET magazine which featured Eddie Murphy on the cover. Not hot white ladies.
Then the attack on the Christophers occurs. Pervis is returning to the complex to see if Bobbie is home again, and this time hears crying and calls for help. The prosecution says that Pervis could not have heard Lacie crying, as she would have bled out immediately. Therefore, he is lying and is guilty. I spoke with Kelley Henry, Pervis’s current lawyer, and she reminded me that Nicholas was under 4 years old at the time and was “a baby” in Pervis’ eyes. A 3 year old child would have been crying during this type of situation, so for the prosecution to zero in on that only being Lacie is inaccurate. He could very well have heard Nicholas crying.
The timeline here is very contradictory. The prosecution says that as soon as Nancy Wilson heard “the commotion” she called police and they arrived so quickly, that nobody else could have been the perpetrator, but this is not true.
According to Kelley Henry, the attack began closer to 2:50PM and the police were called around 3:20. They did arrive within a few minutes of the call, but this is a wider time frame than the state’s theory, and therefore makes it more possible for another person to have been there and fled before police arrived. Nancy Wilson went to the backyard before calling police, trying to determine the best course of action. She didn’t call immediately.
Let’s talk about the tampon and the hat… and the beers.
The tampon appears in NO crime scene photos. The police admitted to moving the hat prior to the photos being taken. The police reports all differ as to how many beers were found and where (in the apartment, outside the landing, etc.) And the bottom line is if anything was moved prior to photos being taken, then the photos cannot be trusted.
Pervis had only 2 “nicks” on his hand. Charisse was stabbed 42 times and had over 40 defensive wounds. One of her fingernails was almost torn off. The assailant would have been bloody, most definitely suffered cuts and severe scratches, and left his blood and bodily fluids at the scene.
The prosecution used the fact that Pervis had blood on top of his shoe and Pervis’ testimony about Charisse “hitting the wall” as the reason that Pervis had to have been the attacker. Charisse would have already been dead by the time he got to her, in his story, and the only way she could have splattered blood on him is during an attack. His statement about her “hitting the wall” was the most damning piece of testimony he gave.
But, if he was trying to help her as he said he was, and she was found with her upper body against the wall, that would corroborate his story. The coroner himself said it would have taken her about 30 minutes to bleed out. 2:50-3:23PM is about that amount of time. When he pulled the knife from her throat (which he had to grab below the blade as it was securely lodged in her throat), she fell back against the wall. This is plausible and can match his story.
- The dark hand seen on the outside of the door… the detail of the dark hand came 2 days after the murder and the sheriff was going around town saying he had the right guy. Also, the way the witnesses describe the black hand grabbing the door would have smashed it to jelly if he were trying to close it.
- John Ed Williams (who lived in the complex) also saw a black man fleeing the scene that matched the description Pervis gave, but this was never followed up on and now he’s dead.
- Charisse’s ex husband was incarcerated at the time of the murder, but was in a prison that let them leave for the day. They kept no record of the comings and goings. He could have been gone and back before roll call that evening.
- The amount of blood on Pervis’ clothing is not consistent with the severity of the attack.
- No blood on the phone in the Christopher apartment and we know Pervis tried to call for help.
The state introduced the evidence that Charisse’s rape kit tested positive for acid phosphatase, an enzyme present in semen, which they then used as evidence that Charisse was raped, bolstered by the used tampon they “found” next to her body. During trial it was disclosed that this enzyme is present in other bodily fluids and does not alone point to sexual activity. Not disclosed at the trial was another explanation for finding that enzyme that did not point to rape; consensual sex. Charisse was dating a man named Daryl at the time and he had told police that they had slept together the night before the murder. The state’s expert witness at trial did agree that if it were semen found in Charisse’s body, it could have been there for days. Essentially, you can’t tell how fresh it is.
The thing is, the state is now using the fact that Pervis was never charged with or convicted of rape as a reason not to further test the tampon/rape kit. They contend that it had nothing to do with his conviction, and now if they were to retest the evidence it would not have affected the outcome of the trial. They say there’s not enough reason to believe that it would change anything now.
Also, now all of a sudden they’ve LOST ALL THE EVIDENCE. Fingernail clippings, gone. One of her nails is pulled back to the quick, there is DNA under her nails. No explanation, just gone. The state says the vaginal swabs were destroyed in 1990 when the evidence fridge broke, but nobody noticed for a few days. Oops. The testing did reveal an unknown male DNA on the knife, but there are not enough markers to put into the national database.
There are problems with this case. The crime scene photos are “staged” because they forgot to put color film in the camera the first time…
At the very least, Pervis has an intellectual disability and should not be put to death. They are set to go to court on the intellectual disability claim, and legislation is set to be passed so that people with intellectual disabilities are not put to death. Because of the appeals process and the way things stand in the criminal justice system, Pervis cannot get back into court on his innocence claim. Governer Bill Lee has the case for a review of clemency. We will link to the innocence project where you can reach out to the Governor’s office if you live in TN.
You can also contact the Shelby County DA if you live in that county as well!
