For some parents, the loss of a child who has been killed is particularly painful if the murder has gone unsolved. After years of waiting, Mattapan mother Connie Mahogony Payne still hopes that justice will prevail.
Payne spoke to WGBH News at her Mattapan home while she listened to a song she wrote and recorded in honor of her two sons, Lloyd and Rashod. The lyrics to the song reflect on her life before her sons were shot and killed in two separate incidents.
Payne’s eyes welled up with tears when she shared memories of them. She lost her first son, Rashod, in 2008. He was shot in broad daylight on Geneva Avenue in Dorchester in 2006 and died from his injuries two years later at 22.
“I just admired having him as a son because he was so caring,” Payne said of Rashod.
Her other son, Lloyd, died at 18 when he was shot and killed on Mallon Road in Dorchester in 2010.
“Lloyd was definitely so funny, very bubbly. He wasn’t a serious person at all,” she said.
Payne, who’s known as Mahogony, her middle name, said in both cases, Boston Police conducted initial investigations but made no arrests and eventually stopped communicating with her.
“I feel more angrier with them than who shot my children,” Payne said, “because I feel like they leave us hanging.”
Payne argued her sons have been forgotten and other cases have been given a higher priority.
“I feel like all other children’s lives mattered, and even with the Boston Marathon, with the school shootings,” Payne continued as a single tear streamed down her face. “Like everybody’s lives matter besides our children who are dying right here on these streets of Boston.”
Mothers like Payne may have a powerful new ally in Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins. In March, Rollins appeared on WGBH’s “Basic Black,” where she promised to make solving homicides a priority. In Boston alone, about 1,000, dating back to the 1960s, remain unsolved.
“I’ve met too many mothers, all of them brown or black, saying, 'My loved one died seven or 10 years ago. No one from your office or BPD [Boston Police Department] has called me,'" Rollins said in March.
Rollins vowed to reopen cases like the murders of the Payne brothers.
“All, almost 300 of us, at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, we are going to start. Everyone gets an unsolved homicide,” Rollins said.
Rollins has offered no details on her office’s efforts to solve the homicides, such as how her office will coordinate with police.
Boston Police Commissioner William Gross declined an on-camera interview to address Mahogony Payne’s assessment of his department for "Greater Boston," but sent a statement that said:
“I can assure you that my detectives assigned to the BPD Homicide Unit work tirelessly to solve every case that comes their way. This mother has endured the loss of not one, but two children to gun violence in our city and we want nothing more than to bring her some small measure of comfort by holding those responsible accountable for their crimes. We continue to appeal to the community to help us with these cases and every case that we continue to investigate.”
Mahogony Payne said the community would be more likely to help when police follow up on cases like the unsolved murders of her sons.
“Once people see something working,” Payne said, “then you build the trust, and that’s where it starts at. It starts at building.”
