BOSTON, Feb. 13, 2015—The man who shot 22-year-old Northeastern University student Rebecca Payne to death admitted his guilt today, ending a seven-year saga that began with no leads and nearly ended without resolution when a critical witness died unexpectedly, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.
CORNELL SMITH (D.O.B. 12/19/81), formerly of Boston but now serving an unrelated federal sentence for drug distribution, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and unlawful possession of a firearm for shooting Payne to death in her Mission Hill apartment in 2008. Smith was indicted for first-degree murder, but the case suffered a major setback when the critical witness died last May prior to trial.
Judge Jeffrey Locke sentenced Smith to a term of 18 to 20 years in state prison, ordering that term to run concurrent with a sentence Smith is currently serving on a federal drug conviction. Prosecutors said the length and certainty of that sentence outweighed the risk that Smith would be acquitted at trial without the dead witness’ testimony.
“The Payne family has spent seven years waiting, wondering if they would find justice for their daughter,” Conley said. “Her killer’s unequivocal admission of guilt gives them a sense of finality and I hope this 20-year prison sentence provides some small measure of accountability in the face of their loss.”
Conley lauded the Suffolk prosecutors and Boston Police detectives who worked a case that was hampered from the very start by a lack of cooperation. At least six area residents later acknowledged hearing the five gunshots that killed Payne, but none of them called 911. A man who allegedly drove Smith to and from the murder was accused of lying repeatedly to the Suffolk County Grand Jury during its investigation. As a result, Smith wasn’t indicted until 2012.
Had the case proceeded to trial, Polumbaum would have introduced evidence and testimony that Smith, a career drug dealer, intended to kill a woman with whom he had fought in the days preceding the homicide. Smith believed that the woman, a rival drug dealer, had informed on him to Boston Police. This woman not only bore a striking resemblance to Payne but also lived at the same Parker Hill Avenue apartment building in which Payne resided.
Polumbaum would have sought to prove that MICHAEL BALBA (D.O.B. 3/1/57) of Billerica drove Smith and another man to Mission Hill in the early morning hours of May 20, 2008, and parked outside the apartment building. At about 3:30 a.m., prosecutors say, Smith scaled a balcony and entered Payne’s apartment through an unsecured door. He shot her five times and fled back to Balba’s Ford Expedition.
Police and prosecutors assembled surveillance footage, phone and cell tower records, and other evidence to support the allegations. The witness who could have testified to these facts and corroborated the other evidence died in May of last year, however, sharply limiting the provability of the case against Smith and effectively ending the case against Balba.
In October of last year, however, as part of plea negotiations in a Suffolk County drug case against Smith, Assistant District Attorney David Bradley of the DA’s Senior Trial Unit was reviewing filings in Smith’s federal drug prosecution. Among those filings were letters that Smith had sent to the federal court in which he appeared to take responsibility for Payne’s homicide. Bradley relayed his findings the the homicide trial team.
In addition to “apologizing to the Paynes and the Balba family” in those letters, Smith wrote of his physical confrontation with the rival female drug dealer, “which was leading to the unfortunate passing of Rebecca Payne at the hands of I, Cornell Alan Smith, Sr.”
Assistant District Attorney Sarah Montgomery of the DA’s Appellate Division second-seated Polumbaum on the case. Katherine Moran was the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Smith was represented by attorney John Amabile.
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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
