Wal-Mart shooter pleads guilty

A Yopp Road Wal-Mart employee who brought a shotgun to work, took hostages and shot up the store's break room March 23 in retaliation of being picked on for his awkward appearance will spend the next six to eight years behind bars.

Elijah Payne, 19, of Burgaw Highway, pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree kidnapping and possession of a weapon of mass destruction for using a sawed-off shotgun.

Onslow County Superior Court Judge Gary Trawick sentenced Payne to six to eight years behind bars for the kidnapping charge and five years probation for the weapons offense. Payne is to seek mental health assistance, make no communications with his victims except a letter of apology and never again step foot inside any of Wal-Mart's more than 7,000 stores worldwide.

Payne's lawyer, Jacksonville attorney Ernie Wright, said his client suffers from a growth syndrome that had already claimed two of his brothers' lives. Wright said Payne was severely picked on by other Wal-Mart employees prior to the incident and just "snapped."

Senior Assistant District Attorney Mike Maultsby said that being picked on did not justify holding hostages at gunpoint.

"There are at least two dozen people whose lives have been forever altered by this," Maultsby said, listing Wal-Mart employees who were hurt in the mad rush for the exit once Payne began to blast away with his shotgun. "Fortunately no lives were lost.  I hope that the victims of this crime are able to recover from the stress they suffered."

Trawick said he honestly felt bad for Payne, but also had to watch out for the interest of the community.

It was revealed in court that Payne had left a note at home and had a suicide note in his pocket the night he kidnapped follow employees. In the notes, Payne talked about giving up on his faith in God and turning to Satan. He told his hostages he was a satanist and had carved a large satanic symbol in his mobile home floor before going to work that night.

"You may have moved away from God, but God has not moved away from you," Trawick told Payne as the judge passed sentence and bailiffs removed Payne from the courtroom.

Several of Payne's Wal-Mart coworkers taken hostage March 23 were in court but declined to speak.

Prosecutors said Payne intended to kill one of his assistant managers and a co-worker and, in turn, be killed by police. With that plan in mind, Payne smuggled a sawed-off shotgun into the store in a tent bag. He admitted to going into the bathroom, blackening his face with camouflage paint and shooting up the walls inside the employee break room.

Police dispatchers began receiving phone calls at 2:31 a.m. The JPD, the Onslow County Sheriff's Department and the N.C. Highway Patrol responded.

"All of the area's law enforcement descended on the store," Maultsby told the court Monday.

Police described the scene as "chaotic," with customers and employees pouring out of the front exits. Officers from the three agencies entered the building immediately.

Neither of Payne's intended targets were at work. Payne noticed Chris Deshotel and singled him out because Deshotel had picked on him in the past, prosecutors said.

Payne let the others go and tried to call one of his intended targets on Deshotel's cell phone, but Deshotel disarmed Payne just seconds before responding police officers reached the break room.

"My adrenaline was pumping so fast; I jumped up and grabbed the shotgun and shoved him against the wall," Deshotel told The Daily News a few days after the incident.

Payne was arrested and searched. He had shotgun shells, a knife and the suicide note in his pockets.

The JPD originally charged Payne with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, several counts of kidnapping and discharging a firearm into occupied property, according to arrest warrants. He has been held in the Onslow County Jail under suicide watch since his arrest on a $75,000 bond.

JPD detectives confirmed in March that Payne purchased the Mossberg 12-guage pump action Maverick shotgun used in the Easter Sunday hostage situation from the Western Boulevard Wal-Mart on March 20, three days before the shooting rampage.

Employees of the Yopp Road Wal-Mart told The Daily News they remember Payne purchasing a hacksaw just days prior to the incident.

Police charged Payne with possession of a weapon of mass destruction because the shotgun he used to shoot holes in the walls and blast out a window in the break room at the back of the store had a shortened barrel. The stock of the shotgun had been cut off, and the barrel was sawed off just above the pump action lever, police said.

North Carolina law makes the possession of a sawed-off shotgun a felony categorized as pos-session of a weapon of mass destruction.

Contact crime reporter Lindell Kay at 910-219-8456. Read Lindell's blog at http://onslowcrime.encblogs.com.