Too Pretty To Live by Dennis Brooks

Author:Dennis Brooks [Brooks, Dennis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781682301982
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2016-01-19T16:00:00+00:00

26

A few witnesses later, it was Roy Stephens’s turn to share his observations. As the person who had discovered Bill and Billie Jean dead, his testimony would be riveting.

At the time of the victims’ deaths, Roy was having an on-again, off-again relationship with his wife and began having his mail sent to Bill Payne, Sr. so he knew where his mail would be regardless of his marital status. His friend Paw Bill would stick Roy’s mail on a shelf, and since the Paynes always left their door unlocked, Roy was free to enter and find his mail.

On January 31, 2012, Roy pulled his vehicle into the Paynes’ driveway with his wife Linda riding with him. It was around 10 a.m. The first unusual thing Roy noticed was Bill Jr.’s truck. Bill should have been at work, Roy thought. Paw Bill’s truck was absent.

Roy entered through the back sliding door into the living room, and went straight to the shelf holding his mail. The house was silent. With Bill’s truck present, he expected that Bill and Billie Jean would be home, milling about.

“I hollered their names out,” Roy said. “I didn’t want to catch them in the act of something, you know, sexual. So, you know, if I enter someone’s house I’m going to holler so I don’t get shot, or you know, see something I don’t need to see.”

No one answered him.

“I hollered again, and I looked around and I said, well you know, something’s not right.”

With his wife waiting in the car, Roy ventured toward the hallway through the quiet, still home. In the first room to the left, he saw Bill lying on the bed.

“What I saw when I walked in that room was a little bit of blood on his neck, and then I walked up and touched his arm about right there to shake him,” Roy testified, his emotions building. Bill’s body was lifeless.

“So, I backed up and I went ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ And I realized he was dead.”

Roy ran out of the house, screaming for his wife to call 911. Linda rushed out of their vehicle and into the home, where she called from the house phone. Meanwhile, Roy looked around some more. He walked farther down the hall. What he saw was even more shocking.

When he saw Billie Jean lying on the floor with baby Tyler in her arms, Roy froze.

“I really didn’t step into the room ’til I seen the baby breathe and pulled it out of her arms,” he said. “It was just laying kind of on its face in her arms, just, you know, I didn’t know.

“And I seen it breathe and I said, ‘No!’ And I pulled it out of her arms ‘cause I saw the back of her head blowed out. I mean, you couldn’t help but to grab the baby.”

Tyler was entirely quiet. No crying or whimpering. He had likely run out of such noises hours earlier.

With Tyler now in his arms, Roy went to Linda, who was on the phone with 911.

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