El Toro Marine Gunnery Sergeant Charged With Murdering His Wife

An El Toro Marine sergeant has been charged with the premeditated murder of his wife last May, a Marine spokeswoman announced Tuesday.

Gunnery Sgt. Murray D. Payne of Marine Wing Support Squadron 373, Marine Wing Support Group 37, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, will appear Thursday at a preliminary hearing, Sgt. Deborah Bragagnini said.

Payne, who is accused of killing his wife, Ella Mae Payne, at their Corona home, was originally arrested in connection with the murder last month by Corona police, who had been investigating the case. The case was transferred 2 weeks ago to military authorities for prosecution, Corona police said.

Payne is the second Marine in Orange County to be charged with the murder of his wife. Sgt. Joseph L. Thomas, was sentenced to death last November for bludgeoning his wife to death, then strapping her into their car before sending it off a cliff in December, 1987.

Locked in Brig

Bragagnini said Payne, 40, is being held in the brig at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, pending Thursday’s hearing in El Toro.

Ella Mae Payne’s death May 10 was initially listed as a suicide. But a second autopsy in November led authorities to reclassify the case as a murder, and Payne became a suspect, Corona Police Detective Jim Montoya said.

Montoya said the 39-year-old woman’s body was found hanging by the neck from the rafters of the garage at the couple’s Corona home. Murray Payne’s 22-year-old son Darreyll telephoned 911 to report his stepmother’s death.

“There was a little stool or box or something near the body, but things didn’t feel right,” Corona Police Sgt. Henry Aja said Tuesday.

Montoya said he initially questioned whether it was a suicide because “the knot looked too complicated to me for a woman to be able to tie that. We had a military knot expert look at it, and his results will conclude whether it was a military knot.”

Montoya said his suspicions grew when, 2 days after Ella Mae Payne’s body was found, he discovered that the family’s dog had died the day before her death. When Murray Payne said he was unaware of the cause of the pet’s death, Montoya said he had the animal’s body exhumed and reexamined.

“The dog was determined to have died from a blow to the head,” Montoya said.

First Autopsy

The first autopsy, performed by the Riverside County coroner’s office about a week after the body was discovered, was a preliminary process that showed no proof that Ella Mae Payne, 39, had been dead before the hanging, Montoya said, in part because the coroner believed that it was a suicide.

Ella Mae Payne’s body, buried in Marlin Falls, Tex., was exhumed later at the request of Montoya and Naval Investigator Mike Wortley. “It just got to the point when we thought we needed a second pathologist’s opinion,” Montoya said.

A second autopsy was performed Nov. 29 by a military medical examiner. Murray Payne was arrested at the El Toro base 3 days later, on Dec. 1, by Corona police.

Montoya said the second autopsy revealed sufficient evidence that Ella Payne’s death was a homicide. “There are certain things that happen when people are hanged that didn’t show up in the autopsy and vital signs that didn’t make sense for it to be a suicide,” he said.

Officials with the Riverside County district attorney’s office decided to turn the case over to military authorities because Payne was a member of the military and because they believed that he would be given a quicker trial, Montoya said.

“If the military doesn’t get a conviction, they can still take it back to our courts” in Riverside County, he said.

Thursday’s military preliminary hearing will determine whether Payne should receive non-judicial punishment or a trial by court-martial, Bragagnini said.