HEART BROKEN
Murder victim’s father decries lack of progress in his case:
Today marks four years since the murder of Robert Allen “Robby” Payne in Chester, a crime that goes unsolved to this day, and his father said it is the first year that he will finally be able to bring himself to visit his son’s grave.
“It’s been terrible,” said Payne’s father, the Rev. Robert Johnson. “It’s as though someone pulled me out of my skin and I’ve been fighting to get back into my skin, only to realize that new skin took its place. I’m able to go forward more so now than before, but I am very disheartened with the police in the City of Chester.”
Payne, 31, was suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to his head and body when police responded to the corner of Third and Kerlin streets about 7 p.m. July 4, 2016 for a 911 call. Payne was found unresponsive in the driver’s seat of his running white Ford Crown Victoria and was declared dead at the scene.
During an interview with the Daily Times in 2016, Johnson said that about 30 rounds were fired and his son was hit seven times with a weapon he described as a type of AK 47. At that time, Johnson suggested his son’s death was a result of mistaken identity. Former Chester Police Chief James Nolan IV, who now heads
“It’s been terrible. It’s as though someone pulled me out of my skin and I’ve been fighting to get back into my skin, only to realize that new skin took its place. I’m able to go forward more so now than before, but I am very disheartened with the police in the City of Chester.”
— Payne’s father, the Rev. Robert Johnson
up the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division, said that possibility was looked into, but eventually ruled out. Investigators maintain the motive for his murder was Payne’s relationship with a woman from the city area.
Payne, a city resident who taught English in the Chester Upland School District, was raised since the age of 5 by his maternal aunt and her husband in Swarthmore, Dorris and Arnold Adams. A 2003 graduate of Strath Haven High School, Payne was a standout athlete in football, baseball and track.
Johnson described his son as deeply passionate about his job, his culture, his heritage and progressive social issues. He said Payne loved people and if he was alive today, he would be out on the streets with his friends protesting for Black Lives Matter and working toward a better future for all people.
Just hours before his death, Payne attended a Fourth of July celebration in Swarthmore, an annual event in his aunt and uncle’s neighborhood. According to his uncle, Payne left between 4:30-5 p.m. to pick someone up, but he intended to return to the festivities.
Johnson said in 2016 that it was his understanding that his son went to Chester to meet a young woman, but she was late to arrive at their meeting destination. She found Payne shot in the car and called 911, the father said.
At that moment, Johnson said his world splintered and he has been living a sort of half-life ever since, only recently starting to heal.
“My life has been in shambles,” he said. “I’ve been suffering internally but functioning like the living dead. It’s been horrible. I mean literally horrible. And I have presided over so many funerals and I never knew grief until my son was murdered. Never knew it. Comforted families, but never knew it. But I know it now and God has blessed me to come to it. And it was very, very difficult, extremely difficult to live and not even have any life. But now I’m ready to move into another phase of my life.”
Johnson has been critical of the police response to his son’s murder, saying not enough has been done
to bring his killer or killers to justice. He added detectives looking into the murder do not call him to provide updates on the case. He always has to call them, he said, and the answer is always the same: Nothing new.
“I’m very disturbed about first of all his death, and our family is distraught about his death, but then the other component is that this investigation has gone cold from the beginning,” Johnson said. “I’m aware of the murder rate, the constancy of it in Chester, but it seems like the files just keep getting pushed back and back because of current stuff and whoever the detectives are, it seems they don’t have enough personnel to devote to a specific case.”
Authorities previously said they believe two individuals were involved in the shooting, and they believe they know who they are, but a lack of both a witness and physical evidence prevents arrests.
“We have a strong working theory which we intend to prove,” Nolan told the Daily Times in 2018. “This is an open case. If information presented itself where we can move forward, we will do so. Right now, we do not have enough information to forward prosecution.”
Nolan said Friday that police let the facts form the theories instead of the other way around. Sometimes that means detectives have to engage in a waiting game as circumstances with a particular case change, he said, such as shifting allegiances, deaths or new arrests.
“There are a number of different factors that can change the outcome, it’s just a matter of getting that break,” he said.
The previous District Attorney, Katayoun Copeland, said county detectives are continually working on unsolved or “cold” murder cases. Jack Stollsteimer, who took over as top prosecutor in the county in January, said Nolan has directed all cold cases to get a second look, but that has been put on pause with the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Nolan said Friday that Payne’s is among several cold cases that have been prioritized for a full review of what is already known, what new events have taken place since the last lead expired and what new methods can be used to move the investigation forward.
Anyone who might have any new information of Payne’s case is urged to contact Detective Rhaheem Blanden of the Chester Police Department at 610-4478420 or Detective Thomas Scarpato of the Delaware County Criminal Investigation
Division at 610-8914700, or 911.
“We do allot time to look at these older cases,” said Nolan. “Now that I’m not in the thick of things in Chester, I have more time to look at these more long-range issues. I still keep one eye on Chester, but I don’t have to deal with the day-to-day things like (Police Commissioner) Otis Blair does, so we can kind of assist them at looking at some of their older unsolveds and see what we can do to forward them.”
Blair did not return a call for comment on just how many unsolved murders the city has in its backlog, but Johnson noted that the same year his son was killed, the Philadelphia Inquirer printed a story indicating Chester had the highest murder rate in the nation and that only about a third of those get solved.
“There are so many unsolved murders in the City of Chester that it is ridiculous,” said Johnson. “There’s a backlog that’s taller than you or I. … These are lives
that we’re talking about. These are human beings that can never come back on this planet. And that’s the norm. I don’t accept that as the norm at all. Somebody has to be able to look into this from the perspective of the people who are suffering and not be afraid to make the bold choices that need to be made so the residents in the City of Chester can have some sort of peace in their city.”
Nolan said the city has plenty of economic challenges and a spike of violent crimes this year, with 19 murders recorded so far, which he agreed makes it difficult for detectives to focus on older cases. But he noted there have been some successes this year with a number of arrests on fresh cases.
Johnson is advocating a dramatic change in the way the city deals with violent crime. He wants the current police force removed or relocated, and federal agents to take over law enforcement – especially in solving cold cases.
Johnson pointed to Camden, N.J., as a success story in that regard. The city in 2012 disbanded its police force and replaced it with a regional county force, a move that has been credited with a drastic reduction in crime.
A recent re-examination of that action by Stephen Danley in The Washington Post indicates that changeover on its own was not successful and actually resulted in more authoritarian policing
techniques until local activists stepped in to help Camden right the ship in 2014 and 2015.
Nolan said the idea of disbanding or reshaping the police force in the city is a “giant political football,” but he was unsure if it was possible or feasible given the differences in the system from Camden. It would at the very least be logistically difficult, he said, but maybe not impossible.
As for federal assistance, Nolan noted the city and county have already put partnerships in place with the FBI, U.S. Marshal’s Service and Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms that has gotten results, with more expected in the near term.
Johnson meanwhile said he and hundreds of others whose lives were forever shattered by gun violence on Chester’s streets – including Nasir Allen Payne, his 3-year-old grandson who
Payne never met – are left waiting for answers that may never come.
“His case is at the bottom of the drawer along with many other cases in the City of Chester,” said Johnson. “I don’t know what manual the department is working out of, but you cannot police a city just waiting for someone to tell you something. You need to be out there just constantly shaking the tree, and if you shake them all enough, something is going to fall out.
“I miss my son and I love him so much,” Johnson continued. “My heart breaks every single day. But I thank God that he has given me the strength to move forward with an even deeper conviction, in terms of hope that there be a better day for all people and that there may be something that can happen that can change the situation in Chester and it can spread across our nation.”