Donna Payant
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Donna Payant nee Collins (c. 1950-May 15, 1981) was a New York state corrections officer who was murdered while on duty at Greenhaven Prison. She was 31 years old at the time of her death.
Donna Payant attended the corrections officers' academy in 1980, and had only worked at Greenhaven for about a month at the time of the incident. The mother of three children, her husband was also a corrections officer, but he worked at a different facility. Her father, too, had been a corrections officer at the Clinton Prison for over 28 years.
Susequent investigation revealed that Payant had been killed by inmate Lemuel Smith, a rapist and two-time convicted murderer. Prior to those two murder convictions, Smith had also been the only suspect in at least two other killings, but prosecutors had declined to try him due to the 50-year sentence he was already facing. They reasoned that he would never leave prison anyway, so the indictments were dismissed. For having killed Officer Payant, Smith received a third murder conviction, and was originally sentenced to die, but it was reduced as unconstitutional.
As of 2000, Payant was the sole female correctional officer in New York State to die in the line of duty.
