Miami Valley Murder Mystery: Who Killed Paula Payne?

Class Valedictorian, nature lover, and murder victim is the way to describe 20-year-old Paula Payne whose body was found near the Dayton Museum of Natural History, now known as the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery.

In 1977, Payne’s death launched one of the most sensational murder mysteries in the Miami Valley. Now, decades later, cold case detectives are still working to find her killer and are pinning renewed hopes on one important clue.

To those who knew Payne, it seemed nothing could keep her from a promising future.

Paula’s sister, Abigail Payne said, “You know, she was genuinely nice and caring and smart and driven.”

What drove Paula, said her younger sister, Abigail, was a passion for nature, especially birds which she loved to watch. It’s why she chose to study biology at Earlham College.

Tom Hissong was the curator of education at the Dayton Museum of Natural History, where Paula was teaching classes to children in the summer of 1977.

“She was great. She was super, enthusiastic,” Hissong said. “The kids really paid attention to her, and followed her. She was remarkable.”

On the morning of August 9th, Paula had to get to work early and was walking alone. A witness later told police she saw Paula come across the Ridge Avenue bridge just after 8 a.m., but she never made it to the museum.

“So, come time for the classes to start, there was no Paula,” Hissong said.

Abigail Payne said, “I was the one who got the phone call from the museum that said, she was not at work.”

Hissong and a co-worker went searching for Paula and backtracked along the now overgrown wooded trail that used to lead to the museum’s main entrance.

Hissong said he and his co-worker ended up seeing where something had been scuffed by the leaves.

A police diagram showed Paula’s killer dragged her about 80 feet into the woods. “So, we kind of walked that direction and then there she was,” Hissong said. It was a discovery that Hissong can’t forget. “Oh, it tore me apart,” he said,

Paula’s sister, Abigail, said, “It was something that devastated not only me but devastated my parents. I’m sure my parents never recovered from it.”

Investigators quickly determined how Paula was killed. Retired Detective Doyle Burke with the Dayton Police Cold Case Unit said, “She was strangled with her own clothing. Her blouse actually was used to tie around her neck.”

It’s unclear if Paula was sexually assaulted. “It’s not something we can rule out because there were other things that occurred to her such as a bite mark on her, on her breast,” Burke said.

Figuring out who did it has proven difficult. Burke said they are now zeroing in on Paula’s blouse, which has never been tested for DNA.

“When you put that murder weapon in somebody’s hands, it’s going to be difficult for somebody to work their way out of that,” Burke said.

Investigators sent that “murder weapon” and other evidence to the lab, hoping today’s advanced forensics could lead them to the killer.

Investigators are reviewing files from decades of investigative work and said they’ve not ruled out any previous persons of interest. One person is a former boyfriend who called Paula the night before she was killed.

“But I do distinctly remember her ending the call by saying ‘Well, I really have to get up early tomorrow morning because I’m going in early,’” Abigail said.

Detectives have also looked at a man accused but never charged, for raping a woman in the woods just a month before Paula’s murder.

Hissong calls himself a peace-loving man. “So, that person has lived 46 years, all right, out, free,” he said.

But when it comes to the person who killed his friend, he said, “It would be hard for me to contain my rage and not go after that person with my hands around his neck.”

Abigail Payne wants her sister’s killer to go to prison. “After 45 years, you can learn to live with it, but there would be a huge amount of comfort that I would receive from it.”

Comfort in finally knowing who stole the life of a promising young woman. And even all these years later, detectives want to hear from anyone who may know something about this or any other unsolved murder.

You can call the Dayton Police Cold Case Unit at 937-333-7109 if you have any information about who killed Paula.