The Supreme Court said a trial court did not err in denying compassionate release for a woman who committed “heinous” crimes. (Getty Images)
A 71-year-old woman who killed her husband and enlisted her daughter’s boyfriend in one other murder in the 1990s should not be granted compassionate release from prison, the state Supreme Court said in a unanimous decisionMonday.
The justices said Celestine Payne’s actions were so monstrous, she is not eligible for early release under the law, reversing a lower court’s decision in Payne’s favor.
“Celestine’s overall course of criminal conduct between 1991 and 1995 was breathtakingly heinous, cruel, and depraved. It was also calculated, devious, and brutal,” Justice Rachel Wainer Apter wrote in the 29-page decision.
This is the court’s third time clarifying the state’s Compassionate Release Act, which Gov. Phil Murphy signed in 2020 to replace a 1997 law that led to few early releases.
Payne petitioned for her release in 2021, citing medical reasons. A trial court found she satisfied the medical and public safety requirements of the law but denied the request because of the “heinous cruelty” of her crimes and the harm her release would cause surviving victims.
The details of Payne’s crimes read like something out of film noir.
According to Monday’s ruling, she poisoned her husband in 1991 to collect $39,000 from his life insurance policy and had an autistic tenant, Eugene Cooper, and her children help dump the body in a box on the side of a road. At the time, her children were between 14 and 20 years old.
Two years later, she convinced Cooper to take out a life insurance policy and name her as the beneficiary. Once the policy was in place, she offered her daughter’s boyfriend $60,000 to kill Cooper — making up a lie that Cooper had molested the daughter to encourage him to follow through. The boyfriend stabbed Cooper, who was left on a street to die but ended up in a hospital in critical condition. Payne went to the hospital, pretended to be Cooper’s mother, and signed a do-not-resuscitate order.
Payne wasn’t done. She then convinced her daughter to impersonate an 18-year-old friend for the purpose of opening another fraudulent life insurance policy naming Payne as the beneficiary. In 1995, Payne enlisted the boyfriend to kill the friend, and he and Payne dumped the girl’s body in Paterson’s Eastside Park. Her body was discovered by joggers.
In 1997, Payne pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and several other charges and was sentenced to two concurrent life terms.
After she sought early release, doctors at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility told the trial court that Payne is “respectful,” a “delightful human being,” and “loved by her peers. They also noted she was psychologically stable and at a low risk of committing a new crime. But a sister of one of her victims said she fears Payne would “mastermind … another plot against someone else in the family” if released. The trial court denied Payne’s petition for release.
The Appellate Division reversed the trial court’s decision, saying the aggravating factors necessary to deny compassionate release must “rise to the level of extraordinary” and those present in Payne’s case “are often present in first-degree murder cases.” In reversing that ruling, Wainer Apter wrote that the Appellate Division “minimized Celestine’s conduct.”
“The trial court’s finding that Celestine’s crimes were ‘particularly heinous, cruel, or depraved’ … is amply supported by the record,” she wrote.
Payne is eligible for parole in March 2025.
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