ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 20, 1996 TAG: 9608200059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: Associated Press
For nine years, the rape and murder of Grace Elizabeth Payne went unpunished. But Monday, a jury using evidence from new DNA tests convicted a man who had avoided prosecution for the crime in 1987.
Ricky DeWayne Rogers was convicted of first-degree murder, rape, robbery, credit card theft and credit card fraud. Norfolk Circuit Judge John Morrison handed out the maximum sentence: three life terms plus 25 years.
Before he was sentenced, Rogers said, ``I apologize to my mother, my family for having put them through all this.''
He said he accepted the verdict because he did not want to further hurt his family, but he insisted he was innocent. He will be eligible for parole in 20 to 30 years, prosecutors said.
Payne's sister, Dale Pennell, said she was relieved that Rogers finally had been brought to justice.
``To have let this go without seeing it settled would have meant that her loss didn't matter,'' she said.
Rogers was arrested two weeks after the slaying. He was released because DNA tests and analyses of hair samples and fingerprints were inconclusive.
But a new DNA test requiring smaller amounts of semen than older tests was conducted last year. It showed similarities between Rogers' DNA and DNA in semen found in the victim, prosecutor Jon Zug said. That type of DNA is found in one out of 26,000 blacks.
``We know who did this; we have the evidence that shows this,'' Zug told jurors during closing arguments on the fourth day of Rogers' trial.
Defense attorney Thomas Reed argued the prosecution's evidence could not place Rogers at the scene. Reed said that although the DNA and hair samples found at the scene have characteristics in common with Rogers' DNA and arm hairs, tests couldn't determine that the DNA and hair belong to Rogers.
``You can take that cart of evidence over there and roll it into the river, for all the good it does helping you determine Ricky Rogers' guilt or innocence,'' Reed told the jury.
Reed also said authorities ignored some evidence that could have proven someone else committed the crimes, because they thought Rogers was guilty. That evidence included marijuana in Payne's apartment, and hairs from an unidentified white person that were found on her sheets and towels.
Reed questioned why police never tried to find out where the marijuana came from, suggesting that Payne could have been the victim of a drug dealer.
In addition to rape and first-degree murder, Rogers was charged with stealing two guns and $400 in change from the apartment, and obtaining a $300 cash advance from her Visa card.
Payne, 28, was found raped, stabbed and strangled in her apartment on Oct. 21, 1987. Her feet and hands were bound, and duct tape covered her mouth and nose.
Rogers was arrested after Payne's fiance, Jay M. O'Connor, identified him as the man shown in a bank camera videotape using her Visa to withdraw $300 from a bank machine 24 hours after her murder.
Rogers, 40, was a part-time employee in a business run by O'Connor.
Prosecutors declined to pursue the original case after losing two witnesses. One was killed during a domestic dispute before he could testify. The other, on trial for arson, recanted, saying police had offered him a deal to testify.
In 1991, Rogers was charged with abducting and raping two women in Portsmouth. A jury acquitted him on most charges, but found him guilty of sodomy.
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