Celestine Payne

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

Smart choice.

Progressive loves to help people make smart choices.

That's why they offer a tool called AutoQuote Explorer that allows you to compare your progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies.

So you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you.

Give it a try after this episode at progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

Not available in all states or situations.

Prices vary based on how you buy.

Hey, it's Stephanie Gomolco with Oxygen.com.

When I'm running a marathon, I have enough to worry about.

My hydration, to my time, to how my knee is feeling.

The last thing I need to worry about is blisters.

Thanks to Bombas, that hasn't been an issue.

Don't let bad socks and blisters stop you in your tracks either.

Bombas make slides, socks, and seamless essentials to keep up with however you pace your days.

Bombas offers sweat-wicking blister fighting and impact cushioning socks.

You can also order Bombas abroad.

That's right.

Along with the U.S., they now ship internationally to over 200 countries.

Head over to bombas.com and use code SNAPT for 20% off your first purchase.

That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com, code SNAPT, at checkout.

The discovery of a Jane Doe in a park launches an intense murder investigation.

There was massive trauma to the back of the head.

Nobody knew who she was, just an unknown teenager dead in the park.

The quest for a killer unveils a disturbing series of crimes.

They noticed large stains that appeared to be dry blood.

That, of course, did narrow down the suspects to somebody that knew her and had access to the house.

You've been breaking the law in all kinds of ways.

You're frauding people.

That's how they did it, forging and impersonating people.

As detectives zero in on a motive, they uncover a criminal ring with an unlikely mastermind.

Somebody who can actually manipulate people is much more dangerous than the actual murderer.

We had a lot of killers cross paths with us.

As far as somebody as devious and as treacherous, you gotta have to put her right at the top.

March 4th, 1995.

An unseasonably warm Saturday morning brings joggers to a popular park on the east side of Patterson, New Jersey.

Eastside Park is a place where people love to go to jog and walk and exercise.

For the most part, not a lot goes on there, but it's a pretty safe place for people to go and hang out.

But just before 11 a.m., two joggers come across something out of place.

They were jogging and it looked like there was a sleeping bag.

One of the joggers went over and he looked and he said he saw red sneakers and

parts of a jean coming out.

One individual opened it a little bit to see there was a body inside.

They called the police right away.

They stood by until the patrol units responded along with a sergeant of patrol, who then contacted the detectives to to come to the scene.

I got there approximately around noon.

I saw that the crime scene had already been blocked off by the patrol officers that were present.

The state medical examiner is first to inspect the body.

She was able to determine that there was massive trauma to the back of the head.

There was no blood around outside of his sleeping bag.

The medical examiner gave them information that this person person was killed somewhere else and placed here.

We looked to see whether there was any identification on her person, and there was no identification at that particular point.

She was young, 18 or 19, fairly tall young lady, about 130 pounds, a black female.

Nobody knew who she was.

It's an unknown teenager

dead in the park.

With scarce evidence at the scene, the Jane Doe is transported to the state medical examiner's office in Newark, New Jersey.

The number one thing we want to do in this is determine who the individual is.

They ended up fingerprinting her at the autopsy so they could put it through APHIS, which is the automated fingerprint identification system.

It's not long before APHIS comes back with a match.

Then it became a case with a name.

It was Tara Carter.

They identified her.

That's when the case really took off.

Tara Carter was born October 12th, 1976.

Tara was born and raised in Patterson, New Jersey.

It was me and Tara, and we have an older brother.

My mom was church-going, and my dad was hard-working.

He always worked a lot of hours.

There's never been a time I can remember that it wasn't all of us together.

Tara was just a typical kid.

She was very social.

very friendly.

She had no problem meeting people.

Just a few years apart, Tara and her older sister Rosie were inseparable.

We did church programs and we were on a choir and my mom had us in Girl Scouts.

She had a very bubbly personality.

She would, you know, always come home and have a friend.

She was that person that always, you know, gravitated to people.

From a young age, Tara and Rosie's closest friend was Wendy Joy Payne.

We met Wendy in school.

It always became Tara and Wendy.

She started going over their house and they would come over by our house and things like that.

And our parents met

from the kids.

As their friendship grew, Tara's parents got to know Wendy's parents, Celestine and Alphonse Payne.

In the 80s when we met, it was a mom and dad and then there was three girls and a boy and that was their family element.

Tara going to school with them.

They, you know, wanted to stay the nights over sometimes.

So that's how my mom met Celestine Payne.

They were just our friends.

They were just nice people and good people.

And, you know, sometimes they run into mishaps.

And, you know, you help each other out.

For years, Alphonso worked as a driver for tuxedo enterprises while Celestine tended to the household.

She was a mom who was concerned with her children, and you know, her best interest was her children and her family.

In the early 90s, the Payne family came across hard times when Alphonse fell ill.

As time went by, they were like, you know, my dad is sick, he's not feeling well.

So we thinking, you know, either they're going to get well or they're going to pass long.

But in September 1991, Alphonse's life meets a sudden and tragic end.

Celestine Payne's husband was discovered dead on the street in an area of town that was known for drug sales.

He did have a high amount of different kinds of drugs in his body.

The medical examiner ruled it as an accidental death due to drugs and alcohol mixture.

Just hearing about that he died was just like, oh, I'm so sorry for you, Wendy.

That's what we were trying to do, just to be there, a friend, a helping hand.

While offering support to the Payne family, the Carters experienced a major life change of their own.

My mom moved to Alabama, but my dad, his job was still here in New Jersey.

And my dad stayed here for a little bit, but Tara ended up moving.

I never moved.

I stayed in New Jersey because I wanted to finish high school.

Though ripped away from her sister and her best friend, Wendy, Tara met a young man in Alabama who helped ease the pain.

Tara met him, I believe, in school, and when I would go down, we would go by his house.

They were a boyfriend and girlfriend.

In 1991, when Tara was only 14, the young couple learned they were expecting a daughter.

He and Tara had a relationship at the time, but I don't think it was steady.

They were kids.

She just was a teenager, so she knew that she wasn't prepared to be a mom.

Tara and her boyfriend broke up after the birth of the baby, but luckily for Tara, her family was willing to step up and help her with everything.

Tara was still young, and my mom actually was still raising Tara.

And then she's trying to prepare Tara to be a mom for herself with her daughter.

My dad took like a family leave and he went to Alabama.

Then when he went back to work, his job transferred him to Georgia.

After another move, 18-year-old Tara missed her hometown more than ever.

Once he transferred to Albany, Georgia, we came back to New Jersey.

And my mom kept her daughter because Tara was not old enough and responsible enough to really have

full custody or control over her daughter.

We were young, wanted to live in New Jersey.

Back in Patterson, Tara reconnected with the Payne family.

I went and stayed with my best friend and she stayed with Celestine.

Celestine told Tara that, okay, you know, I'll rent you my first floor, my apartment here in my house.

So Tara gave her her money and was supposedly renting the apartment from her.

She always seemed like she was...

wanting to make sure that she was okay, that she wanted the best for Tara.

After several months living in patterson tara started to focus on a career

she wanted to go to school and get her license to do here she was very good at it and she enjoyed doing here so that's what she was doing when we was going to move back to georgia with our parents which she never made it back to georgia

After joggers found Tara's body wrapped in a sleeping bag on the east side of Patterson, New Jersey, Investigators are now on the hunt for a killer.

Once we have the victim identified and redo what's called a victimology, we find out the background of the victim, where she was living, potentially people that she might have had a problem with.

We found out through APHIS.

She had an address at

on Clark Street, I believe, in Patterson at that time.

We had two detectives go down to Clark Street.

They went, they talked, they talked to the superintendent of the building on Clark Street.

He said that she no longer resided there, that she was residing up at Jefferson Street, Patterson.

After learning that she had been living at the Jefferson Street address, police went there to investigate.

Celestine Payne answered the door and they asked her if Tara Carter lived there.

She said to them that

Tara does live here, but she's not home right now.

They asked her if she knew where she was now.

She gave the address of her sister, Rosie Carter.

At that particular time, they did tell her Celestine there was a murder that was committed because they hadn't made notification to the family yet.

When they went to the house, I don't think there was any sign of a murder or blood that was immediately evident.

But at this point, everyone's a suspect and every place is suspicious.

Coming up, detectives learn about Tara's final days.

There are several men that lived in or hung out at their house a lot.

And it's not long before stunning evidence comes to light.

Then you saw it.

A stain on the beams.

Blood had come through the floor itself and had dripped down.

March 6th, 1995.

Two days after recovering a Jane Doe from Eastside Park, investigators in Patterson, New Jersey have identified the victim as 18-year-old Tara Carter.

Now detectives want to question Tara's sister, Rosie.

Monday morning comes and the police come to the door.

And they started asking me questions and they're like, um, are you

related to Tara Carter?

And I'm like, yes, that's that's my sister.

So then my girlfriend's stepfather stepped in and they actually showed me the pictures of her body.

He took a look at the photo and was able to positively identify that it was, in fact, Tara.

And they told Rosie that she was the victim of a homicide and that she was found at Eastside Park.

I was crying.

You just want to go crazy and you just want to hurt something.

I was really distraught that this happened to my sister because I felt that that was my job as a big sister sister to make sure that nothing happens to her.

Though she's coping with tragic news, Rosie agrees to an interview.

I guess at the time I was considered to be a person who was of interest of the murder.

They started backtracking where she may have been prior to the time she was murdered.

Rosie tells detectives that she and her sister had made plans to move south that weekend.

She wanted to move back to Georgia with our parents.

We were supposed to leave that Friday.

I wanted to go to this concert before we left.

I said, okay, we're going to go to the concert tonight, and then Saturday, we're going to take the train and go to Georgia.

But Rosie says, when it was time to go to the concert, Tara was nowhere to be found.

That Friday, I was looking for her to go to the concert, but we never could find her.

So I just went on my own.

Rosie says the following morning she tried to track down Tara.

Saturday, I was looking for her and worried about her well-being.

She hasn't contacted me and nobody knows she's not by Wendy or anyone.

Where could she be?

And come to find up Saturday, never came for her.

I can't believe that someone would do this to Tara.

After collecting Rosie's statement, investigators circle back to Tara's landlady.

After speaking to Rosie Carter, they proceeded back over to Jefferson Street.

They then had Celestine Payne, her and her two kids, accompany the detectives down to the Detective Bureau.

Miss Payne, Aubrey, and the younger daughter went to headquarters, and they were going to get a written statement from them.

Celestine Payne was a middle-aged woman with grown children.

She said she certainly didn't look like

the kind of person that would be involved in a murder like this.

And they were just there interviewing her to try to find out who her acquaintances were and who might have done this.

They were close friends of the family and she had known Tara for approximately 10 years.

She said she thought of her as like a daughter.

Celestine says she doesn't have much information on Tara's final whereabouts because she'd left town to visit her two oldest daughters in South Carolina.

Ms.

Payne was telling them that last time she seen Tara was on that Friday afternoon hours.

That night, she had left to go to South Carolina.

Celestine Payne said she went at approximately 11 o'clock on the night of the third,

which would be on Friday night.

And she was down there until Sunday night and then proceeded back to Patterson, New Jersey, where she arrived early morning Monday.

Celestine's children confirm their mother's timeline.

With their written statements in hand, investigators asked Celestine if she'd let them conduct a search of Tara's things at the house.

They were still looking for a suspect.

They're still looking for a motive, anything that would give them some idea of who killed her.

She agreed to let them look through Tara Carter's things.

The detectives accompanied Celestine back to Jefferson Street, and she was very cooperative.

They were going through the bedroom that Tara has shared with her daughter, Wendy.

Celestine grabbed a suitcase from the closet, gave it to investigators, and told them it belonged to Tara.

They looked in the suitcase.

They really didn't find anything of value that would help them in the suitcase.

And at that point, she said, well, she did keep things also down in the basement.

They all went down to the basement to look through some more stuff.

And while they were down there, detectives noticed a brown stain on the floor.

Detectives knew full well what that stain was as soon as they saw it.

They noticed stains that appeared to be dry blood.

And then Detective Dasari looked up, he saw a stain on the beams.

Blood had come through the floor itself and dripped down.

That's what created the stain on the floor.

Once they saw the blood from the floor, obviously now they were pretty sure that the murder had taken place at that house.

At this point, investigators reveal their suspicions to Celestine.

Celestine Payne said, oh, if this happened here, I want to know about it.

If Harrow was killed here, I want to be the first to know about it.

So the detectives were looking at each other, probably raising their eyebrows.

So that's Celestine Payne.

At that point, the detectives called for the forensic team, got a search warrant so they could go through the whole house.

On March 9th, a full team of detectives and a crime scene unit searched the house for evidence.

They begin by locating the source of the blood found in the basement.

When they went back upstairs, that same closet that they were looking into for the deceased's belongings,

There was a lot of clothes that was piled up in there.

After they moved the clothes, then they could see that there was bloodstains on the floor there.

I took another detective from another squad with us the day we did the search warrant, retrieve a lot of these items who does contracting.

So I had to cut pieces of the beam out, the floor out.

We named it, but we were there for a few hours.

Patterson police came back with additional evidence, and that included swabbings, scrapings, floorboards,

carpeting, items from bedrooms, from the basement, and

they wanted that also tested for blood.

Though detectives suspect Tara was killed somewhere in the house, they are unable to narrow down the exact location.

It appears whoever killed her tried to cover their tracks.

They attempted to clean up pretty good, and it was a decent job, but they never thought that the blood would seep through the wood onto the floor or onto the beam that was down in the basement.

They didn't think of that part.

The location of the bloodstains offers a few implications as to who the killer might be.

You can eliminate strangers.

You can eliminate where a young lady picks up somebody in a bar and brings them home and something goes wrong.

Nobody's going to take the time to clean up or secrete you in a closet.

They're going to turn around and they're going to get out of there.

But that, of course, did narrow down the suspects to somebody that knew her and had access to the house.

Celestine's son, Celestine's daughters.

There were several men that lived in or frequented Celestine's house.

A lot of people were coming and going.

So there were quite a few potential suspects at that point.

So now there was an urgency for investigators to track down any and everyone who had stepped foot in that house.

Coming up, a detective's memory sparks a lead that could be the key to finding Tara's killer.

Sergeant Humphreys was with the detectives and he said he remembered a previous investigation an attempted murder and an anonymous tip shakes up the case somebody called police and told them they knew who killed tara

affordable and easy access to therapy is something everyone should have It can help you find the silver linings even during tough times.

Telehealth is one-way accessibility is more convenient than ever, thanks to Rula.

Rula isn't just affordable.

They stick with you throughout your journey to make sure you're getting the best therapy and that you're making progress.

With Rula, every provider is carefully vetted and chosen for their expertise, making the first step towards better mental health easy.

Rula starts by asking you some questions about what is important to you and then provides a list of licensed providers who match your preferences.

You can have an appointment as soon as the next day.

Thousands have already trusted Rula to support support them on their journey toward improved mental health and overall well-being.

Head over to rula.com slash snapped to get started today.

After you sign up, they ask where you heard about them.

Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.

Go to rula.com slash snapped and take the first step towards better mental health today.

You deserve quality care from someone who cares.

Candice Rivera has it all.

In just three years, she went from stay-at-home mom to traveling the world, saving lives and making making millions.

Anyone would think Candace's charm life is about as real as Unicorn's.

But sometimes the truth is even harder to believe than the lies.

It's not true.

There's so many things not true.

You gotta believe.

I'm Charlie Webster, and this is Unicorn Girl, an Apple original podcast produced by Seven Hills.

Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

After investigators in Patterson, New Jersey determined Tara Carter was likely killed at home by someone she knew, they combed through evidence from the scene in search of leads.

The police had to sort through this evidence with a fine-toothed comb.

They found life insurance policies in the name of Celestine Payne.

She was the beneficiary.

For an individual called Eugene Cooper.

For one detective, the name sets off alarms.

Sergeant Humphreys remembered the previous investigation, an attempted murder in September of 1994, where Eugene Cooper was the victim.

I realized that was a stabbing victor, so we wanted to know what connection he had to the house.

At that time, he got stabbed.

He was in a hospital.

He was on life support for a while, and he stayed there for a period of time.

But finally, when the detectives went back up to the hospital, he had left.

So nobody knew where he was.

In the original report, Eugene identified his assailant as a man named Charles Darby and stated that Charles frequented Celestine Payne's house where Eugene was a tenant.

He said that he was up in the house that night with Miss Payne,

Charles.

Ultimately, he left the house with Charles.

Charlie followed Eugene out when Eugene walked out of the house.

Charlie got ahead of him and

put his foot up on a curb or a bench or something and pretended to be tying his shoe.

When in actuality he had one of Celestine's knives in his sock and whipped it out and stabbed Eugene with it and then ran away.

Eugene somehow or another managed to get across this little bridge to

a street corner where he got an ambulance and took him to the hospital.

In the original investigation, they went to locate who this guy was

and they couldn't find the guy.

The question for investigators is: could this mysterious Charles Darby be involved in Tara's murder as well?

Now detectives want to talk to Eugene Cooper because they want to make a connection between his stabbing six months earlier and the murder of Tara Carter.

But on March 9th, 1995, five days days after Tara's body was found, detectives get a new lead that sends the case in a whole new direction.

Someone called police and told them they knew who had killed Tara, and that it was a guy named Original.

Investigators reach out to Tara's family and learn that Original is the nickname of Tara's current boyfriend, 27-year-old Edwin Morrison.

We checked him out because, you know, we figured, well, you know, could he have access to the home?

When he found out that we were looking for him, he called us and he said, I'll come down.

He came down.

He's very cooperative.

Original tells detectives that he was with a friend in the days leading up to Tara's body being discovered.

Police checked into where he was during the timeframe of the murder and confirmed that everything he was telling them was true.

He gave a full interview and we were able to establish his alibi.

Original was 100% checked checked out.

He had nothing to do with any of this stuff.

With the tipster's lead falling flat, investigators turn their attention back to Eugene Cooper.

The sergeant had directed a detective to pull out

the previous investigation from 1994 where Eugene Cooper had been staying.

to see if he could locate Eugene Cooper.

And he was successful in doing that.

On March 10th, detectives finally speak with Eugene Cooper about his time living under Celestine's roof.

We found out that she would take advantage of him by taking his money.

She charged him a pretty high rent for living in not-so-luxurious accommodations.

And Cooper told me it was $400 every two weeks.

That's $800 a month.

You don't even have your whole group.

When detectives ask Eugene about the insurance policy police recovered from the Payne house, he says it's fraudulent.

When they found out that Eugene's policy,

while it had his name on it, he said he never signed it.

Of course, then somebody forged his name on it.

Jean's statement to us that she had been trying to have his

life insurance at his job changed as her as the beneficiary.

He refused to do it.

He said it was for his mother, so he wasn't going to do that.

When asked about where he met Charles Darby, Eugene says he met his attacker while living at Celestine's house.

Charlie was a fixture there.

He dated her daughter, and he hung out at their house a lot.

The name rings a bell for detectives.

When they interviewed Celestine, she mentioned that a Charlie Pincham had been dating her daughter.

Which raises the question: could Wendy Payne's boyfriend, Charlie Pyncham, and Eugene's alleged attacker Charles Darby be one and the same?

They show Eugene a six-photo lineup to confirm their suspicions.

He picked out Charlie Pincham's picture instantly, of course.

He lived with him.

You know, he knew him for years.

Yeah, enough.

During the statement of Eugene Cooper, they'll make arrest warrants.

charging Charles with attempted murder.

We went down to Pincham's mother's house where we located him.

That's where we took him into custody.

He was broached on the Eugene Cooper attempted murder.

We told him that Eugene had identified him, identified the weapon, gave the rundown, and he admitted it.

They stabbed him and then he said he took off running.

However, Charlie claims the attack on Eugene was someone else's idea.

He went into telling us that he had been basically recruited by both Celestine and Wendy to do this.

They were after him for a while to do this.

According to him, it was for an insurance policy.

And he did.

He promised him an exorbitant amount of money, which I don't even think the policy was worth that much money.

She first said 20, and then I think she got all the way to 60,000.

When investigators ask about Tara's murder, Charlie says Celestine tried to get him involved in that too, but this time he refused.

Charlie claims that on March 3rd, he'd witnessed the true killer at work.

That he came over to the house because he was going to help her pack to go to South Carolina.

He said that when he got to the house, he saw Celestine and her son, Aubrey, dragging Tara's body across the floor.

and into a back room where they shoved her in a closet.

At that time, he says Audrey told him, look,

get out of here, get out of here now.

And Celestine was there smoking a cigarette.

Charlie's accusations are shocking, but investigators need more evidence to back up his claims against Celestine and her son.

They find this insurance angle with Eugene Cooper, and looking further, they find, lo and behold, there's an insurance policy on Tara Carter as well, in which Celestine is the beneficiary.

So now we got two individuals here that Celestine Payne has insurance policies on.

What possible reason would somebody have life insurance policies add on these two individuals?

They're not even blood relatives.

So when you start putting that puzzle together, it starts fitting.

Following their interview with Charlie, detectives secure arrest warrants for Celestine and her 21-year-old son, Aubrey.

We've set up a surveillance on Payne family.

They were moving around town, moving around town.

It appeared to us that they were trying to leave town.

Detectives tail Aubrey and Celestine to a family friend's home where they'd been staying since the murder investigation began.

We immediately went over to the area.

It was on 11th Avenue.

They were placed under arrest there.

She yelled out to the people in the house on 11th Avenue.

They think I killed that child, and I'm going to tell them exactly who did it.

Coming up, when stories clash, detectives must determine who is telling the truth.

She had her daughter pretend to be Tara Carter.

And the investigation reveals more skeletons in the closet.

She said, Don't eat anything or drink anything that I prepared for Batty.

March 11th, 1995.

One week after the discovery of Tara Carter's body, officers have arrested Celestine Payne and her son Aubrey for Tara's murder.

Investigators are eager to get information, and they start by questioning Celestine.

Right away, she was trying to throw more on Charlie Pinchot.

She suggested that she came into the house and, you know, she was surprised that Charles Pitchman had done this.

It didn't fit up with any of the things that we were able to develop during the course of our investigation.

So we returned her to the cell block.

But it isn't long until new information prompts Celestine to talk.

Celestine found out Aubrey was being charged with murder, and she wanted to talk to detectives for a second time because she wanted them to know that Aubrey had absolutely nothing to do with any of it.

She was aware that Charlie Dipshot had given a statement.

She admitted to the fact that they conspired to kill her.

She knew we knew all about the insurance policies and everything.

She just tried to downplay her role of it.

In general, you can't take out a policy on someone that you're not related to.

So what Celestine apparently did was she had her daughter, Wendy, go to the insurance agent and pretend to be Tara Carter so they could get the insurance insurance policy.

That's how they did it, both with Tara Carter and with Eugene Cooper, forging and impersonating people in order to get these policies.

Once all the pieces were in place, on Friday, March 3rd, it was time to cash in before leaving town.

Celestine said, while Tara was curling her hair at the kitchen table, Charles walked up behind her and struck her several times in the back of the head with a crowbar.

Aubrey had come home.

The body was still there and they were still cleaned up.

He wanted to come in the house because he had crabs that he had purchased and she said, no, no, no, don't come into the house.

And he said, all right, I'll go to my friend's.

And he hung the bag of crabs on the exterior door and he left.

Though Celestine is adamant Aubrey wasn't involved, her statement contradicts what investigators heard from Charlie Pynchon.

We bring Charlie back in and readdress him.

You know, Celestine also gave a statement, Charlie.

This and that.

Some of the things you're telling us doesn't make sense.

The game's up.

Reality's here.

All of a sudden, he breaks down, starts crying, and he says, look, she used me.

She used me.

Said it multiple times.

Who?

Charleston, she used me.

Charlie Pynchon, in his second statement, said that Aubrey did not commit the murder.

He wasn't there.

He didn't help and he didn't help move the body.

Charlie says his girlfriend, Wendy Payne, had been in his ear about the murder for a while.

Wendy told him that with the insurance policy, she could get money.

Her mother told him she was going to give him money if he killed Taranton.

Charlie said he was sitting in the living room and Celestine Payne came walking in with this crowbar.

And she said, okay, now's your chance.

And he just took the crowbar, walked into the kitchen, bashed Tara Carter in the head with it several times.

The two of them picked up the body, moved it into the bedroom where Tara was staying.

And then they proceeded to clean up the house, which was extensive.

They then took her to the park.

where they dumped her bag.

He goes on his way.

She goes to South Carolina with Aubrey and the younger daughter.

Between Charlie and Celestine's statements, investigators believe they have finally learned the truth.

It corroborated where she was killed, how they moved her into the closet.

So it wasn't just that they gave confessions.

The physical evidence corroborated those confessions.

Based on the corroboration by them statements, the complaint against Aubrey was dismissed.

He had nothing to do with that.

As the evidence builds, investigators secure an arrest warrant for 22-year-old Wendy Payne.

She was charged with recruiting Pincham to some extent, both in the Eugene Cooper case and in the Tara Carter case.

We knew she was down in Lake City, South Carolina.

Recontacted the Lake City Police Department.

He made a request that they take her into custody.

They had called back later on.

They said that he had her in custody.

And then they asked, well, is she willing to talk to detectives from the Patterson police?

They said, yes, she's willing to talk.

So detectives were brought over to the Florence County Jail where they interviewed Wendy over there.

She admitted to the fact that, you know, she was involved with the planning of both Tara Carter and Eugene Cooper.

She didn't have direct contact.

being part of the murder itself, but she had knowledge of it, so she was a participant.

But in a stunning turn, Wendy also tells police that her mother's insurance schemes extended beyond Eugene Cooper and Tara Carter.

That time, she starts telling us about different fires that the mother had did for insurance purposes.

Wendy says her mother's crimes didn't stop there.

She also said that she, you know, she had no doubt that her mom poisoned her father because of, you know, the way he was always laid up there and

don't eat anything or drink anything that I prepared for daddy.

The information from Wendy adds another twist to the case.

Following her interview, detectives escort her back to New Jersey and open another chapter of their investigation.

Alfonso's case was then opened up, and we had to nail everything down on that and be prepared to charge her with that and go to trial.

To tighten up their case on Tara's murder, investigators tracked down the car Celestine had rented for her trip to South Carolina.

We sent detectives over.

They picked up the car.

They brought it up to the state police.

They brought in the trunk lining and the trunk padding from underneath the lining of a rented Ewick.

The liner itself didn't give any reaction for blood.

But it was interesting to see that the padding that was underneath the liner did.

This was consistent with the blood of Tara Carter.

Coming up, investigators find answers in Alfonso's death.

The high volume of the drugs that were in his system weren't anything that was prescribed to him.

And as trial approaches, the stakes rise.

They both knew it.

that no matter what they did, they were both going to get convicted.

They were just rolling the dice as to the death penalty part.

after arresting 44 year old celestine payne and her accomplices for the murder of tara carter patterson investigators are pursuing a lead that celestine also killed her husband alphonso payne

We reopened Alfonso's case, which was closed out in 1991.

Initially, when Alfonso was found down the Bunker Hill section, penitents claimed it was an accidental death through a drug overdose.

We were able to see on the tox and everything that

the high volume of the drugs that were in his system weren't anything that was prescribed to him and not really anything that you'd be getting on the street.

Our investigation revealed that, in fact, Celestine Payne was feeding her husband drugs that she had prescribed to her.

And that was how he died.

Further investigation reveals a familiar motive.

It was for a life insurance policy.

I think the total, or what we're able to determine, was about $56,000.

His policies were honestly taken out in the sense that he went down here and bought a policy and named his wife, Celestine, as the beneficiary.

Prior to her husband's death, mortgage was behind.

She was losing the house.

She was seeing a psychiatrist saying that she had a terrible marriage.

She hoped her husband would get killed or die.

After the husband died, he comes back and she's in a good mood.

She's happy.

House is paid for.

So she did a whole turnaround.

Based on all the facts, the totality of it, she was then charged with Alfonso Bainsburg.

In addition to the charges in Alfonso's death, they were also charging Celestine with the murder of Tara Carter, the attempted murder of Eugene Cooper, forgery, insurance fraud, and several other offenses.

Charles Pincham, same thing: murder, attempted murder, weapons offenses.

Wendy Payne got charged with conspiracy.

He's a mid-murder.

Though Wendy Payne accepts the plea deal, Celestine Payne and Charlie Pincham don't budge until the death penalty hits the table.

You never move for a death penalty case unless you're sure that you could prove the case.

We didn't do it often.

We did it when we thought it was a deserving punishment.

We go to Charlie and say, Look, Charlie, if you go to trial here, I don't know what's going to happen, but there is a potential that you could get the death penalty.

You ought to think about that.

And he did.

On April 7th, 1997, Charlie Pincham accepts a plea deal in exchange for his testimony against Celestine.

With no sign of concession from Celestine, trial proceedings begin as planned on May 27, 1997.

But a twist comes at the 11th hour.

We were in the process of jury selection when the defense attorneys approached us and asked us if they could plead guilty to all of the entire indictment and face a sentence of life with a 30-year parole ineligibility.

They took it right to the absolute bitter end.

I was really shocked that she took it that close.

She received a life sentence, as did Charles Pincham.

And after 30 years,

they would become eligible for parole.

Wendy Payne was sentenced to 28 years.

Somebody who can actually manipulate people into doing crimes like that is much more dangerous than the actual murderer.

Even after a quarter century, those who encountered Celestine won't soon forget her.

Well, we had a lot of killers cross paths with us in the Detective Bureau.

As far as somebody as devious

and as treacherous, you'd have to put her right at the top.

You're breaking the law in all kinds of ways.

You're You're frauding people.

I would describe her as an evil person with no love in her soul.

When you have children, you take on the mother figure for your kids and your kids' friends.

You want to make sure everyone is okay and protect them.

But for her to do these things to my sister, I think there's something wrong.

There's some type of disconnect.

For Tara Carter's family, the loss they feel never goes away.

My whole family still hurts from this.

We always say, I wonder how she will be today, what she will be doing,

you know, what will be going on in her life.

She never got a chance to live life.

She was still young.

She was 18.

She didn't even see life.

She didn't touch it.

She was a kid.

Wendy Payne was released from prison on September 23rd, 2009.

Celestine Payne will be eligible for parole in 2025, and Charles Pincham will be eligible in 2031.

Tara's daughter was raised by Tara's family and is now 31 years old.

How hard is it to kill a planet?

Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.

When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Are we really safe?

Is our water safe?

You destroyed our town.

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

We call things accidents.

There is no accident.

This was 100%

preventable.

They're the result of choices by people.

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wonder Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.