Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds. The axe with which Louis Rude Payne, 21 years of age, used to kill his mother, Carrie L. Payne, and 15-year-old brother Robert. Louis R. Payne turned himself in for the killings of his mother and brother four to five days after their deaths. When he turned himself in, police found on his person both a letter and a telegram addressed to his father Lucius Payne, a St. Louis businessman, confessing to the crime, apologizing for his actions, and explaning that he did not know what impulse it was that drove him to the murders.Payne was convicted of the two murders, but found to be insane at the time of the crimes. He was confined to psychiatric treatment at the Mendocino State Hospital at Talmadge, in Mendocino County, CA. His father stood by him throughout his trial and conviction. Text from original nitrate sleeve: Whitehead, Joe, Det.; Wallis, H.J. Capt., Gaskell, M.G.; Axe with which Louis R. Payne killed his mother and brother.
Type
image
Format
b&w nitrate negative
Identifier
ark:/21198/zz0025467g
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Parricide--California--Los Angeles Crime Fratricides--California--Los Angeles
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