A night of violence outside an Oklahoma City nightclub in the fall of 2001 ended the life of Otis Payne Jr., a 26-year-old man who was the first of three people killed by a member of a local street gang. While little is known publicly about the man Otis was, the path to holding his killer accountable would unfold over several years, intertwined with the investigation of two other murders that shook the city.
On the night of November 24, 2001, Otis was in a sport utility vehicle with
another man, Meldon Moore, outside the Lexus Club in northeast Oklahoma City. They were not alone in the vehicle; with them were 19-year-old Michael Dewayne Smith and his 29-year-old accomplice, David Walter Burns. Smith was a member of the Oak Grove Posse, a subset of the Crips gang, and was known on the streets as the "Hoover Killer." An altercation broke out among the men inside the car, and the argument quickly escalated to gunfire.
Smith handed a gun to Burns, and both men opened fire. The intended target was reportedly Meldon Moore, but in the chaos, a fatal bullet struck Otis Payne. He was killed instantly inside the vehicle. Moore was wounded in the shoulder but survived the attack. In the aftermath, Smith and Burns fled the scene, leaving behind a homicide that would be the first in a deadly spree for Smith.
For three months, Smith evaded capture. Then, on February 22, 2002, he committed two more brutal and separate murders. He first went to the apartment of 41-year-old Janet Moore, looking for her son who he believed was a police informant. When he encountered Janet, he shot and killed her. Later that same day, Smith went to a convenience store where he shot and killed Sarath Pulluru, a 22-year-old college student working as a clerk. Smith mistakenly believed Pulluru had spoken disrespectfully to the media about a fellow gang member who had been killed during a robbery.
Two days after the double homicide, on February 24, 2002, police arrested Michael Smith, initially for the murder of Otis Payne. During his interrogation, detectives began questioning him about the murders of Janet Moore and Sarath Pulluru. At first, Smith denied any involvement, but he eventually confessed to all three killings on videotape. He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, as well as burglary, robbery with a firearm, and arson.
Smith first stood trial in 2003 for the murders of Janet Moore and Sarath Pulluru. A jury found him guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. In March 2004, while already on death row, Smith was brought back to an Oklahoma County courtroom to face justice for the killing of Otis Payne Jr. After a five-day trial, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, a term ordered to run consecutively with his two death sentences. His accomplice, David Burns, was sentenced to 25 years for second-degree murder and an additional five years for firearm possession.
For more than two decades, Michael Dewayne Smith remained on death row, appealing his convictions and death sentences. His claims of being under the influence of PCP during his confession and of intellectual disability were repeatedly denied by the courts. On April 4, 2024, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Smith was executed by lethal injection. He was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m. He declined a last meal and had no final words. The execution brought a final, legal end to a violent chapter that began with the senseless shooting that took the life of Otis Payne Jr.
