06x24 - Pastoral Care

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Narrator: just miles north of new york city,

A female correctional officer

Was discovered missing from her post at the prison.

There was no trace of her anywhere inside the prison.

None of the inmates or guards knew where she went

Or reported seeing anything suspicious.

How could a guard simply disappear

In an overcrowded maximum security prison?

Narrator: green haven state correctional facility--

One of the toughest maximum security prisons

In the united states.

A violent, overcrowded space that is home

To , of new york state's most violent criminals.

Man: green haven was, I think, at that time

Had to be considered our supermax prison in the state,

And, uh, everybody in there had long time.

Everybody in there was a vicious criminal.

There were no newcomers.

It was a pretty, pretty bad place

As far as the population was concerned.

Narrator: more than prisoners inside green haven

Were convicted murderers.

Was the first year female correctional officers

Worked in this all-male maximum security prison.

There were on staff--

All new to the job.

One of them was -year-old donna payant.

Woman: if I want to describe donna

And her personality,

I would describe her as a very strong-willed,

Independent, uh,

Determined, uh, person

And with a strong sense of justice.

Narrator: donna had children.

Her husband was also a corrections officer

But worked at another prison.

Although her family came to accept her job choice,

Some of the men working

Inside the prison establishment did not.

While at the training academy,

An instructor entered donna's room at night uninvited.

Donna responded by filing a sexual harassment lawsuit

But later thought better of it

And dropped the suit.

On may , , donna punched in

Just after noon for the : to : shift.

About an hour later,

Donna was with two other officers

When the phone rang.

[Telephone rings]

Woman: yeah? Yes. Hold on.

Donna, it's for you.

Narrator: it was a call for donna.

Donna: hello?

Man: donna payant received a telephone call

In the early afternoon of that friday,

And it was a strange call,

And in the opinion of her co-officers

Who were working with her,

Her reaction after receiving the call

Was somewhat alarming.

Narrator: the other officers didn't know

Who placed the call,

But they said that donna turned away from them

To keep her conversation private.

When she hung up, she left,

Not saying where she was going.

Donna: there's something I have to take care of.

Defrancesco: donna payant was upset--

Not upset in a sense that she was nervous,

But she was angered.

Her words were, "I'm putting an end to this.

It's gonna end right here and now,"

Or something to that effect,

And then she storms off.

Narrator: hours later,

At the regular evening roll call for officers,

Donna payant was absent.

Prison officials immediately ordered an emergency lockdown.

All prisoners were confined to their cells.

Officers combed the prison,

Going through all the cell blocks,

Offices, and recreation areas,

But there was no trace of donna payant.

That's a maximum security prison,

So they had pretty good control of who left

And entered there,

And there was no indication that she'd left.

Narrator: as dawn broke the next day,

Prison officials received some terrible news.

In a nearby landfill,

Where all of the prison trash was taken each day,

Workers found the badly mutilated body

Of a blond woman in a prison guard uniform.

The body had been wrapped in a garbage bag.

Narrator: the day after donna payant disappeared,

Her family was called to green haven prison.

Saari: there were officials there,

And they met us,

And I knew then, uh-- they didn't say so--

But I knew something was wrong.

So we walked in,

And they told us, you know, she was dead

And that they had found her, you know,

In a nearby dump.

Narrator: the body in the landfill

Was positively identified as donna payant.

She became the first female corrections officer

To die in the line of duty in u.s. History.

She was found with ligatures around her wrists and neck.

The cause of death was strangulation.

There were also signs

That she had been sexually assaulted.

Saari: my father was very, very upset,

And he never got over it.

Narrator: the body had gone through the trash compactor

Of a garbage truck.

This told investigators that the body had been placed

In a prison garbage can,

Where it was emptied into the trash truck

That serviced the prison.

And at the landfill,

The body had been run over by a bulldozer,

Which levels the garbage into a flat surface.

Every bone in her body had been broken.

Defrancesco: she was covered with all sorts of debris

And garbage, filth, and wetness

Because it was a very, very wet dump,

And, uh, any evidence that would have been available

Had to have been contaminated

By all of this extraneous materials

That covered her body.

Narrator: if donna payant's body had left green haven

Along with the prison's trash,

The k*ller had to be someone [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]inside[/span]the prison,

With more access than prisoners customarily have.

But who inside the prison would want her dead?

Defrancesco: were any of the inmates harassing her?

Was she a disciplinarian

Who came down hard on any inmates?

Um, was there any reason

Why an inmate would want to att*ck her?

Narrator: in addition to access,

An inmate would have needed privacy

To commit the m*rder.

Since prison guards would have this kind of freedom of movement,

They became the focus of the investigation.

Just days before her death,

Witnesses saw a male guard

Involved in a heated physical confrontation

With donna payant.

Saari: he was seen--

As she turned away from that heated discussion,

He was seen poking her on her shoulder,

On her back.

He was very upset.

Narrator: and it was soon discovered that this guard

Was among many at green haven

Who had something to hide.

Saari: people had motives to k*ll donna

Inside the prison.

I believe that because of all the illegal activities

That were going on in green haven

At the time of her death and long before that,

That there were people there that--

Not only did they have the motive,

They had the capability to carry out such a crime.

Narrator: those activities had been revealed

In an official report

Released just two weeks before donna payant's m*rder.

The green haven guards were suspected of having

A let's-make-a-deal attitude with the prisoners.

Guards were selling dr*gs

And even providing prostitutes to inmates.

A good old boy network had kept this secret for years,

But some of the new female recruits like donna payant

Wanted no part of that network.

And when donna payant had made the earlier charge

Of sexual harassment,

She quickly become known as a whistle-blower.

Saari: she was already marked as a person

That--that would, uh, say something

If something was wrong

Of if there were illegal activities going on--

That she was marked as a person

That would go as far up as possible and report it.

Narrator: during an autopsy on donna payant,

The medical examiner discovered she was not only sexually assaulted

With extreme savagery,

He also found what appeared to be bite marks.

One, a crescent-shaped wound on her chest,

Was particularly clear.

Defrancesco: a couple of the teeth marks

Obviously had sunk in much deeper than others,

And, uh, you could tell that it was--

The teeth, as I remember them, were...

Were not perhaps the best teeth in the world.

They weren't, um, perfectly shaped, it seemed to me.

Narrator: the bite mark, ligature marks,

Strangulation,

And the brutality of the sexual as*ault

All indicated that this k*ller

Had m*rder*d before.

It was not his first crime.

But who had this kind of homicidal history?

And who at green haven was so angry with donna payant

That they would not only want her dead,

But would k*ll her in such a brutal way?

Woman: the day after her death,

Donna payant's body was found here at the amenia dump,

About miles from the prison.

Narrator: news of donna payant's m*rder soon made its way

Throughout the state of new york.

The bite mark impression on donna payant's body

Was photographed and sent to forensic odontologist dr. Lowell levine.

When dr. Levine studied the impression,

He was immediately convinced of two things.

First, he was certain the mark was a bite impression.

Second, dr. Levine knew he had seen this same bite impression before.

Levine: I said, "wait a minute.

I just saw this or days ago,"

In a lecture that I had given

On a case that I had seen years ago in schenectady, new york.

Narrator: it was the case of a -year-old woman named marilee wilson,

Who had been strangled with a ligature, brutally sexually assaulted,

And bitten.

Dr. Levine immediately asked the logical question:

Was marilee wilson's k*ller an inmate at the prison

Where donna payant worked?

Levine: I said, "wait a minute.

"You know, lemuel smith has got to be in prison

And had access to this lady."

Narrator: the answer was yes.

-Year-old lemuel smith was in green haven state correctional facility.

He had confessed to the murders of marilee wilson

And another woman.

Both victims had been k*lled in the same way.

Both were signature killings.

But in the years in prison, lemuel smith had been a model prisoner.

He had found religion.

He was an alter boy and rose to become

The assistant to the catholic chaplain.

This new position granted smith enormous freedom inside the prison,

Freedom most of the inmates didn't have.

Smith: so there's no way in the world that I could have k*lled her.

The woman was beaten.

The woman was supposed to have been sodomized, right?

Now, this is right in a busy quarter, this office right here.

Sodomized, and then she was tied up.

Then she was put in garbage bags, right?

And then she was supposed to be put in the garbage can, right?

I know you've never tried to lift a dead body,

But it's twice as much as human weight, right? As live weight.

It's impossible. It can't be done.

Narrator: but prison officials found evidence

That smith had some prior contact with donna payant

And that the two developed a friendship.

Smith: yes, I definitely knew donna payant.

She used to work in my block.

That's it.

Donna payant had made some contact with lemuel smith

Concerning an item-- I believe it was a jewelry box--

That she was looking to have made.

Lemuel smith, while in prison, was doing some woodcarvings on occasion.

Narrator: in lemuel smith's prison file,

Investigators found a report from dr. Zvi klopott,

A psychiatrist who evaluated smith years earlier.

Klopott: after I interviewed him,

He said to me, "listen. One thing I want you to do

"Is I want you to make sure that I never get out

Because I'm going to do this again because I can't stop it."

I never confessed to nothing.

I made a statement--a statement while I was drugged up, right?

That was supposed to be for the psychiatrist.

Narrator: dr. Klopott diagnosed lemuel

As a paranoid schizophrenic with a borderline personality.

He warned officials that without psychiatric care,

Smith was sure to k*ll again.

That warning was ignored

When smith was granted extra freedoms by virtue of his pastoral duties.

Defrancesco: so he had the entire--several offices to himself,

With the telephones in that office,

And he had--he was the only person who really could use the office.

Narrator: when investigators searched the chaplain's office,

It seemed to be in perfect order.

A closer examination revealed the room had just been cleaned.

The floor had been washed down with not-so-clean water,

But it was pretty obvious that it had been done, and done recently.

Narrator: in an office closet,

Investigators found several blond hairs.

Those were found to be microscopically consistent with donna payant's hair.

The only other evidence was the bite impression

Found on donna's chest during the autopsy.

Because of the damage to donna's body by the garbage compactor

And the bulldozer, some believed it wasn't a bite wound at all,

And as evidence, it was essentially worthless.

Narrator: somewhere within the walls of green haven state correctional facility

Lurked the k*ller of prison guard donna payant.

A number of inmates told officials

That the male prison guard who was seen fighting with donna days before her death

Was the one responsible.

When the guard was questioned about donna's m*rder,

He admitted he was selling cocaine to prisoners,

But he also said he had nothing to do with donna's m*rder.

The other suspect was a prisoner named lemuel smith

Whose prior killings closely resembled donna payant's m*rder.

Whoever k*lled donna had bitten her,

Leaving a highly distinctive bite impression on her chest.

The bite wound was produced by someone's bottom teeth,

By someone who was missing one of his bottom incisors.

Lemuel smith was missing a bottom incisor.

This space can be measured, as can the spaces between the other teeth.

The picture on top is a bite mark

Found on marilee wilson's body,

The woman smith admitted k*lling.

In the middle is lemuel smith's bite pattern,

Imprinted on wax,

And on the bottom is the bite mark

Found on donna payant's body.

When compared, the space between the lower right incisors

Is clearly visible.

In all cases, the measurements and angles of the teeth

Are exactly the same.

But if lemuel smith k*lled donna payant,

How did he do it, and why?

Klopott: he was following exactly the same pattern

As the previous murders.

He had involved himself with her.

He believed, apparently, that she was someone who was interested in him.

Uh, he saw her as a close friend

Or someone who really cared about him.

He made her a gift,

So it follows the exact same pattern as before.

Narrator: the key, say psychiatrists,

Was the jewelry box lemuel smith had made as a gift for donna payant.

Smith: yeah, hello? Can I speak to...

Narrator: police theorize that the phone call she received just before her death

Was from lemuel smith, calling from the privacy of the chaplain's office.

Smith: you know, I made something for you.

Narrator: a personal call from an inmate would have been an embarrassment

For a rookie guard like donna payant.

Payant: I can't talk to you.

Narrator: other guards said donna seemed upset after the call

And left abruptly.

Payant: I have something I have to take care of.

Narrator: once in the chaplain's office,

The two may have argued,

Or donna may have rejected him or his gift.

Payant: I do not accept this!

Narrator: this set off the same homicidal fury

That had left two other women dead.

Then he sexually assaulted her, strangled her,

And at some point bit her.

The chaplain was away that day, and smith would have had enough privacy

To commit m*rder, wrap the body in trash bags,

And then clean the room.

The cleanup was well done except for hairs

That were inadvertently swept into the closet.

Smith also had enough prison access to get the body to the trash dumpster

Without being noticed.

In january of ,

Lemuel smith was convicted of donna payant's m*rder

And now spends hours a day in solitary confinement.

Lemuel smith continues to deny he was involved,

Insisting he was framed by prison guards.

Smith: I'm not politically correct.

I'm a criminal, right?

I got a bad record, right?

Nobody wants to say anything good about me, right?

Because that's going against the system,

And they all believe these experts--"in my opinion."

The opinion's only as honest as the person.

It's only as honest as the evidence that you use to come to this opinion.

Right? And this was a dishonest case.

I mean, I want to spit at their face.

Narrator: as for the bite mark, he claims it was an injury

Caused by the trash compactor and bulldozer at the landfill

And that those involved in the alleged cover-up

Doctored it to make it look like his bite pattern.

Man: you concede that there's a match.

You're just saying that the match is fabricated.

I can see it. Anybody can see it.

But it's not a bite wound.

Here's a body. It's been put in a compactor, crushed.

But the only thing clear and distinct on it is the bite wound.

Come on. It had to be distorted, unless it came afterwards.

Narrator: that claim is backed up by donna payant's sister.

She, too, is convinced that prison guards m*rder*d her sister,

Then covered it up.

Saari: I still do not believe

That an inmate would, you know, pick out a c.o. To k*ll

In a maximum-security prison in the middle of the prison in the middle of the day.

Uh, I don't believe that, and it's not possible.

It hasn't happened before. It hasn't happened since.

I didn't do it.

I hope she finds peace of mind.

I hope she gets justice for her sister. That's what I hope.

Narrator: for investigators, however, there is no question.

Lemuel smith had the means and the opportunity to k*ll donna payant,

A fact they say is backed up by the bite mark on her body.

Defrancesco: he committed the same crime different times

On different women,

And he had to know in his own mind, "I did it again."

And that's what caught him.

Narrator: a memorial headstone

Now sits in front of green haven prison,

A reminder of donna payant's brutal m*rder,

A m*rder experts say could

And should have been prevented.