
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 14, 1994                   TAG: 9409140074
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Short

DEATH ROW INMATE HAD A HACKSAW

State Corrections Department officials say they foiled a planned escape by death row inmate Joseph P. Payne Sr.

Authorities said ``a couple of small pieces of hacksaw'' blade and a piece of Plexiglas fashioned into a handle were found in Payne's cell on death row at the Mecklenburg Correctional Center.

``There was never any danger to the public. He had not gotten free from his cell, and even if he had he would still have been in the compound,'' said Jim Jones, a Corrections Department spokesman.

Payne was sentenced to death for setting an inmate ablaze in retaliation for the victim's disclosure of an earlier escape attempt.

Jones said officers searching Payne's cell Aug. 30 found that part of a metal screen on his cell's window had been partly cut.

by CNB