Hole inmate chipped into cell window was big enough to pass contraband into jail: Sheriff
A local detention deputy last week caught an inmate accused of first-degree premeditated murder breaking a cell window on an exterior wall of the Sedgwick County Jail. Officials say while the inmate hadn’t broken completely through “several layers of glass” — exposing him to the outside of the building — the hole he had chipped away would have been large enough to pass “dangerous contraband” items through had he finished the job.
The inmate, whom the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office identified as Jason A. Payne, will likely face additional felony criminal charges in connection with the window damage, Capt. Cody Alexander said in a news release.
Payne, 39, was booked into the jail on Jan. 13 in connection with the stabbing death of his wheelchair-bound cousin, 34-year-old Michael Montgomery, whose dead body was found in a zippered bag in the basement crawl space of the fourplex where the men lived together in the 900 block of North Oliver. Police made the gruesome discovery after 911 callers reported an apparently disoriented Payne running into the intersection at 13th and Oliver and lying in the street on Jan. 13.
He is charged with one count of first-degree intentional, premeditated murder in his cousin’s slaying, which an affidavit released in January says Payne committed in a fit of rage after his cousin reportedly admitted to molesting relatives. Payne’s court-appointed defense lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the murder or the damaged jail window.
His next court date, a preliminary hearing, is April 29.
The Sheriff’s Office said in its news release that a deputy noticed the inmate — Payne — “in the process of breaking a hole in his outer cell window” as the deputy was making routine in-person rounds in the jail early Friday morning, around 2:05 a.m.
“The deputy immediately removed the inmate from the cell and secured the area,” Alexander said in the release.
The “deputy noticed paper covering a portion of the window” during the cell checks and “instructed the inmate to remove the items so he could examine the window,” the release said.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Benjamin Blick told The Eagle that the items were all paper, some of which likely came from magazines.
With the window exposed, the deputy could see a roughly 6-inch wide hole in the glass, the release says.
“The inmate had already managed to break through the first several layers of glass, but was stopped before gaining access to the outside of the building,” Alexander said in the release.
Blick wouldn’t say what Payne had allegedly use to break through the window, citing “safety and security.”
The cell windows have three layers of glass, he said.
“A hole of this size, with access to the outside of the building would have provided an access point to introduce dangerous contraband into the secure portion of the facility,” the release continued.
“Due to the attention to detail and quick action of the Detention Deputy involved, the inmate was unable to gain access to the outside of (the) building.”
The inmate allegedly responsible for the hole in the window was jailed about three months ago and is being held on suspicion of one count of first-degree murder, the Sheriff’s Office said. A new case involving the damaged glass will be presented to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office “for charging at a later date,” the news release said.
It wasn’t immediately clear exactly what Payne’s plan for the hole was. Blick said he wasn’t interviewed about his reasoning.
But the jail has long battled the introduction of banned items, which range from everyday possessions like cellphones and cigarettes to illicit drugs and weapons, into the Sedgwick County Jail. In recent months, the jail has reported contraband flowing into its building in a number of ways including employees and the mail, prompting changes like having an off-site facility handle and process all incoming inmate letters.
Just last month, the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office arrested one of its own detention deputies and a contract kitchen worker for allegedly smuggling drugs — and also a cellphone and charger, tobacco and a lighter, in the deputy’s case — into the jail, The Eagle previously reported.
Late last year, authorities saw a number of inmates fall ill after smoking paper laced with K-2, a synthetic type of marijuana, that had been sent through the postal mail to the jail.
Someone posing as Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt also used the mail to send a package containing about five grams of synthetic pot and more than 30 rolling papers to a Sedgwick County Jail inmate in early March. But that attempt was foiled when the authorities confirmed with the AG’s office that the package wasn’t official legal mail, the Sheriff’s Office previously announced.
This story was originally published April 12, 2021 at 11:45 AM.
