Columbia man accused of attacking wife denied bail

By Larry Carson

Baltimore Sun

May 07, 2008

A judge today denied bail for the 83-year-old Howard County man accused of attacking his wife with a hammer and called the incident 'a very scary situation.'

Calvin Ralph Payne, who appeared for today's bond review hearing via a video feed from the county detention center, is charged with attempted first- and second-degree murder and first- and second-degree assault in connection with the attack Monday evening that left 81-year-old Alma Payne lying in a pool of blood in the couple's Columbia home.

Payne appealed to Judge Patricia S. Pytash for a bail 'as low as possible.'

'I am hurt to no end that something like this has happened to my wife,' Payne said. 'She's a beautiful, wonderful person who loves the Lord. I'm asking you, judge, to pray in your prayers for me.'

But family members who attended the hearing urged the judge to keep Payne in custody.

'He's too much a danger to be walking the street,' said Cedric Payne, the couple's son, in court today.

'The man is a violent man,' said the Rev. Eric Figueroa, a Brooklyn, N.Y., resident who is the couple's nephew, in an interview outside of court. 'He can go from zero to one hundred in a second.'

New details about the incident emerged during the hearing. Payne was arrested at the Columbia home he has shared with his wife since 1977 after she had called 911 and said, 'I'm dead, he's got a hammer.'

The first officers to arrive at the home in the 6200 block of Satinwood Drive said they looked inside and saw Payne walking upstairs with a shiny object in his hands. After gaining entry, the officers found Alma Payne laying in a large pool of blood in the master bedroom and they thought she was dead.

When a tactical team of officers arrived, police re-entered the house and discovered that she was alive and found Calvin Payne sitting on the toilet in the master bathroom holding a large kitchen knife.

A blood-stained hammer with hair stuck to it was found on a dresser, police said.

Alma Payne was flown by helicopter to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where she was in serious but stable condition yesterday. She could lose her eyesight, and she suffered injuries to her head and has four broken fingers, assistant state's attorney James F. Brewer said.

Cedric Payne, a Wilde Lake High School graduate and master sergeant in the Air Force who recently returned from his fourth tour in Iraq, said in an interview that his father has some form of dementia. He said that about three years ago, Alma Payne went to live in Brooklyn with relatives.

Figueroa said in an interview that Calvin Payne, who is a retired Baltimore City Circuit Court reporter, called his wife three times a day begging her to return. She eventually did, against her relatives' advice, he said.

'We tried to get her not to come back,' Figueroa said.

In an interview, Cedric Payne said he spoke to his mother in the hospital.

'She's being strong,' he said. 'She knows what happened. She's in the healing process. She believes it was premeditation.'

Her fingers were broken when she raised her hand to protect herself from being struck by the hammer, according to family members. Cedric Payne said his mother told him she played dead, which is possibly why police first thought she had been killed.

larry.carson@baltsun.com

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