By Zack Sampson, News Staff
Steps away from a brick building on Parker Hill Avenue, Virginia Payne stood in a parking lot Sunday and showed a crowd of onlookers the apartment where her daughter, Rebecca, was killed four years ago.
She and Nick Payne, Rebecca’s father, gathered at 170 Parker Hill Ave. shortly before 1 p.m. with about 50 supporters on the fourth anniversary of their daughter’s death for a peace march to City Hall Plaza. Several people traveled by bus from Connecticut — where the Paynes live in New Milford — and joined supporters, young and old, from the Boston area.
When Rebecca Payne’s parents conceived the idea for the march last year, Nick Payne said they planned to have it center on justice. The intent was always to ensure Rebecca, a 22-year-old athletic training major, was not forgotten. But the plan shifted a few weeks ago when the Suffolk district attorney’s office charged Cornell Smith, 30, with first-degree murder in connection with Rebecca’s shooting.
“Now we hope that justice will be served. We now want to emphasize peace,” Nick Payne said.
“There’s so many other murders in the city. It’s so easy for criminals to get guns, and you need to bring attention to these issues.”
After their departure from the parking lot, the marchers strode with purpose in protest of gun laws and violence in the hot afternoon sun toward Parker Street. They chanted, “What do we want? Peace. When do we want it? Now.”
Banners unfurled from wooden posts stated the group’s purpose in two lines of green lettering, “Becca’s March for Peace and Justice,” next to a picture of Rebecca’s smiling face. Underneath, two more lines of small red text offered further explanation: “Justice For Northeastern Student Murdered May 20th 2008.”
As they passed Calumet Street, the marchers’ signs — white posters attached to thick wood dowels — bobbed along the sidewalk. On some, handwritten messages decried violence next to pictures of Rebecca.
One banner, carried by two people who angled it towards passing cars, condemned laws allowing unregistered gun purchases. It was adorned with several messages like, “Bullets Leave Holes,” “Registered private sales take a few minutes. Unregistered ones take a life,” and “Rest in Peace Becca.”
The reproach of what they view as lax gun regulations was central to the marchers’ message. In states like Maine and New Hampshire, buyers can purchase guns without registration through private sales, Nick Payne said. He said Cornell Smith did not legally own the gun he used to shoot Rebecca.
“They’re not registered, and so anyone with any kind of criminal background is going to buy a gun up there, and it seems to me those states are not doing their part,” he said.
Along with the sporadic chants, the signs seemed to answer the questioning stares of passers-by along the march route. The group crossed paths with hundreds of people — from Boston Duck Tours passengers near Copley Square to diners at patio tables outside Panera Bread on Boylston Street.
At the intersection of Ruggles and Parker streets, one driver honked his horn, stopping to look out his window and simply say, “I agree.”
Lieutenant Detective Jim Casinelli of the Northeastern Division of Public Safety, who has helped guide the Paynes through the emotional and legal process after their daughter’s death, mapped the approximately 4-mile route through the heart of Boston.
The visibility of the men and women walking through the city “[made] people stop and think,” one marcher said. Jeff Stone, head athletic trainer at Suffolk University, helped set up a $2,500 scholarship in Payne’s honor as a regional director for the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.
“If it makes people stop and think about their actions, and [they] can think about someone who was really at the wrong place at the wrong time, who was a good person, there it is,” Stone said.
Prosecutors said Rebecca Payne was an innocent victim of mistaken identity. Cornell Smith was reportedly looking for someone else when he allegedly shot Payne in 2008.
Her freshman year roommate, Jessica Meiley, 25, noted during a water break outside the main branch of the Boston Public Library how many people had already asked about the march by its halfway point.
“I’ve been stopped on the street by a number of people asking me what this march is for, and once they realize what it is and how it’s something peaceful, how we’re encouraging people to step forward and talk, I think it’s having a lot of positivity to it,” she said.
More than three hours after the meeting in the parking lot, the marchers paused for an emotional stop in the Garden of Peace, a serene city memorial for homicide victims that sits between the State House and Boston City Hall. In the garden, Rebecca’s stone stood out, topped by a flower and a trio of commemorative green bracelets.
Some people bowed their heads and several took photographs of Rebecca’s stone. A small contingent stood to the side and said a prayer.
After almost a half-hour of reflection, the group drifted downhill into City Hall Plaza. The march was over, but the message lingered.
Pressed into the green rubber bracelets for Rebecca and written on a sign in the Krentzman Quadrangle that bore Payne’s smiling face, one principle stood out: “You’ll never walk alone.” It is the phrase sung by fans in Europe of the Liverpool Football Club — the team Rebecca supported.
But on Sunday, it seemed especially fitting in Boston.
“[It] works nicely because we always know that she’s with us,” Meiley said of Rebecca. “So we’re never alone, she’s always watching over us, too.”
