A Covington man accused of killing the mother of his two children earlier this month told police the fatal shooting was a “horrible accident,” a police detective testified on Wednesday.
Mario Duran Payne, 38, is charged in Kenton County District Court with murder and illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Investigators say Payne shot and killed 25-year-old Kierra Lane at her home in Covington’s Latonia neighborhood on the afternoon of Jan. 6 and then fled to Louisville, leaving his children at the scene.
When police caught up with Payne at a hospital in Lousiville, he claimed that he only was trying to hand the gun to Lane and could not explain how it fired four times, Covington Detective Jim Lindeman said at a hearing to establish probable cause to send the case to a grand jury.
Witnesses told police that Lane and Payne were exchanging custody of their children at another location in Latonia and he followed Lane to her West 34th Street home to pick up clothes so the kids could spend the night with him, investigators said in a criminal complaint.