On a rainy evening in Mobile County, Alabama, on October 16, 1976, 23-year-old Cheryl Lynn Payton was working as a clerk at a Compact convenience store. That night, she was abducted at gunpoint from her place of work. Signs of a struggle were later found at the deserted store, including an overturned Coke machine and a broken six-pack of sodas. Her husband had dropped her off at work earlier that afternoon, the last time he would see her alive.
The man who took her was Thomas Warren
Whisenhant. He drove the young, white female to a remote, wooded area in rural Mobile County where he raped her in the front of his truck and then shot her in the head with a. 32 caliber pistol. He left her body in the woods. The following day, Whisenhant returned to the scene and mutilated her body. He was seen near the area and, after a short chase, was apprehended by authorities.
Following his capture, Whisenhant gave a detailed confession to the abduction, rape, and murder of Cheryl Lynn Payton. He also confessed to the murders of two other women in Mobile County over the previous 18 months, Venora Hyatt and Patricia Hitt. Whisenhant's first trial for Payton's murder took place in 1977, where he was convicted and sentenced to death.
Over the next several decades, Whisenhant's case went through numerous appeals, and his initial conviction was overturned, leading to retrials. Despite these legal battles, he was ultimately resentenced to death. After spending over 32 years on death row, making him Alabama's longest-serving death row inmate at the time, Thomas Warren Whisenhant was executed by lethal injection on May 27, 2010. Several of Cheryl Lynn Payton's relatives, including her husband, witnessed the execution.
