Sedgwick County inmate recovering after stabbing with ‘improvised weapon,’ official says

A Sedgwick County Jail inmate is recovering after being stabbed multiple times by another inmate.

The stabbing happened around 9 a.m. on Friday in one of the jail’s maximum security units. Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office officials are still trying to determine what led to the incident, including whether or not it was gang-related.

The victim, a 37-year-old Wichita man who has been in custody since November on a theft and drug-related charge, was stabbed in the upper right shoulder and back, Col. Jared Schechter said in an email. EMS took the man to the hospital, and he was released back to the jail the same day.

Schechter said the suspect used an “improvised weapon made from a small piece of metal.”

And the suspect, the sheriff’s office said in a news release, is a 41-year-old Wichita man who had been at the jail since Jan. 13, 2021. He was booked on two counts of first-degree murder, the release said.

Jail and arrest records show 41-year-old Jason A. Payne of Wichita had been arrested and booked into the jail on Jan. 13, 2021, on suspicion of intentional first-degree murder and first-degree murder.

Payne has since pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the killing of his wheelchair-bound cousin, who was found stabbed and stuffed into a basement crawl space. Payne told police he stabbed 34-year-old Michael Montgomery at their apartment near 13th and Oliver after Montgomery allegedly confessed to molesting relatives in the past, an affidavit released in the case says.

“This is the only inmate-on-inmate improvised weapon assault of 2023 for the Sedgwick County Detention Facility,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.