Family, friends mourn after Coast man charged with killing parents. ‘Everyone’s just sick’

The family stood in front of the empty house on Thursday, hands clasped in prayer.

“Everyone’s just sick,” said the Rev. O’Neil Wiley, who came to help the family grieve the deaths of Harold and Jittaun Payne, who lived in the house on Krebs Avenue in Pascagoula. Their son, Darold Sim Payne, was arrested there Wednesday night after a four-hour standoff that police said began after he allegedly beat his parents to death.

“I have no words,” said Damian Robinson, the suspect’s brother.

What led to the killings is still unclear. Family said that Payne, 39, struggled with mental health and was not himself when he did not take his medication. They also pleaded that others who hear their story take mental health concerns seriously.

“It’s important to pay attention,” said Edward Robinson, Payne’s uncle.

Family gathered Thursday afternoon to begin the long road of mourning and also to tend to practical problems, such as shoveling dirt back into deep tire tracks carved through the grass by tactical police cars the night before.

They remembered the couple as kind and devoted to their faith and tight-knit neighborhood.

“My parents were good people,” Robinson said.

The tragedy began Wednesday afternoon. Felicia Williams, a longtime neighbor, said she was home when her grandson told her he heard a commotion. She said she saw Payne outside hitting his parents with a brick. Pascagoula Police Chief Terry Scott said it appeared the victims were beaten to death with a cinderblock.

Williams said she called 911. Officers said they found the couple dead outside the home, then saw Payne run inside. Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said a team from the sheriff’s department worked with police to negotiate with Payne. They warned him they had the home surrounded, tried to breach doors and windows and ultimately used tear gas to force him out of the home and into custody. A side window was still broken on Thursday.

Scott said officers put themselves in harm’s way to try to save the couple, who died at the scene. Police tried to negotiate with Payne on the phone, he said, but Payne “would just say crazy things and hang up.”

“When he got very quiet on us,” Scott said, “we decided we had to move.”

Harold Payne, 85, was a retired car salesman, Robinson said. Jittaun Payne, 71, was a singer. Wiley said Harold Payne was at the Asbury Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Pascagoula every Sunday, joined by his wife when she was not attending her own church. The couple also helped found a neighborhood block party.

“Everyone on this street is like one big family,” Williams said. Nothing like this, she added, had ever happened there.

Darold Payne had been arrested before. He was charged in 2013 with aggravated domestic assault after police said he stabbed and injured his estranged wife, then said the devil made him do it. He got out of prison in July 2022, but his probation was later revoked for failure to pay his supervision fees and failure to report to meet with his MDOC supervisor. In September 2024, MDOC released Payne from prison, the court filings say.

On Thursday, the family bowed their heads and held each other. Robinson asked them not to remember their loved ones for this horrible moment. Remember who they were, he said.

Wiley led a prayer. A bouquet of white roses lay on the porch steps.

Staff Writer Margaret Baker contributed reporting.

This story was originally published March 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM.