Debbie Gama: Murder, Overturned Conviction, and a Mother’s Forgiveness

The Debbie Gama murder was the 1975 killing of a 16-year-old Erie, Pennsylvania high school student by her English teacher, Raymond Dale Payne, who bound her with copper wire and strangled her, then hid her body in a Crawford County creek. Payne was convicted of first-degree murder in 1977 and sentenced to life without parole. DNA testing decades later excluded him as the source of seminal fluid found on Gama’s body, briefly overturned his conviction in 2019, and led to a new hearing in 2020 that reconvicted him. He died in prison months later.

Who Debbie Gama Was

Debra Lynn Gama, known as Debbie, was entering her senior year at Strong Vincent High School in the summer of 1975. Her family last saw her on the morning of Friday, August 8, 1975. According to her younger sister Myshelle Will, she was happy that morning and planning to go to the beach.¹

Four days later, on the evening of August 12, 1975, her body was discovered floating in Cussewago Creek, off Route 98, roughly 12 miles north of Meadville in Crawford County. Her hands and feet were bound with copper wire, and additional wire was embedded completely around her neck. The Crawford County coroner determined the cause of death was acute asphyxia due to ligature strangulation.¹ Forensic testing also detected seminal acid phosphatase in the victim’s vaginal and anal areas, indicating a sexual assault.²

The Teacher Who Killed Her

Raymond Dale Payne, a 38-year-old English teacher at Strong Vincent, was the last person known to have contact with Gama. More than a year passed before he was charged. Payne was arrested on September 23, 1976, and on October 8, 1976, he gave a lengthy statement to Assistant District Attorney Donald E. Lewis.²

In that statement, Payne admitted involvement but described the death as accidental. He said he had asked Gama to pose for photographs on a “bondage” and “damsel in distress” theme, that he drugged her beer, tied her with clothesline rope, and that she fell forward into a ligature and died.¹

Payne also described elaborate steps to hide what he had done. He admitted moving Gama’s body to a pond on his rural property, weighting it with cement blocks and copper wire. When the body surfaced days later, he retrieved it and transported it to Cussewago Creek.³ Investigators found jewelry belonging to Gama hidden in a well or septic tank on his property, along with her shoes and a spool of copper wire buried nearby.¹ Murder charges were formally filed in Erie County on December 8, 1976, which assumed jurisdiction even though the body had been found in Crawford County.²

The 1977 First-Degree Murder Conviction

On April 11, 1977, Payne pleaded guilty to a general count of murder. Under Pennsylvania law at the time, a separate hearing determined whether the crime was first-degree or third-degree murder. That hearing was held on June 7, 1977, before a three-judge panel: Judges Lindley McClelland and William Pfadt and President Judge Edward Carney.¹

Prosecutors argued Payne intentionally killed Gama during a sexual assault. A key witness was Anthony Lee Evans, a fellow inmate housed with Payne in the Erie County prison in January and February 1977. Evans testified that Payne had confessed in detail, describing the killing as the “culmination of a sexual fantasy” he had harbored for a long time. According to Evans, Payne said he drugged Gama, tied her up in the woods, and strangled her when she cried and begged him to stop.²

On July 18, 1977, the panel found Payne guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced on August 5, 1977, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the sentence on January 24, 1979.²

DNA Testing and the Overturned Conviction

From prison, Payne filed repeated petitions under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act seeking DNA testing on the seminal fluid found on Gama’s body. Courts denied him in 1997, 2003, and 2011, reasoning that the sexual assault evidence was not the sole basis for the first-degree finding. In 2011 he shifted to federal court, filing a civil rights complaint alleging that the refusal to allow testing violated his constitutional rights. That case ended in a stipulated order signed on December 16, 2014, granting post-conviction DNA testing.²

The testing conclusively excluded Payne as a contributor to the seminal fluid found on Gama’s body.³ Erie County Judge John Garhart ruled in 2016 that the DNA suggested Payne had an “undisclosed partner” in the crime. District Attorney Jack Daneri said any investigation into a second suspect had been “thwarted by Raymond Payne,” who refused to cooperate, and both the judge and the district attorney acknowledged the samples were too degraded to match to any specific person.⁴

Payne filed a new petition arguing the DNA results were “after-discovered evidence” warranting a new trial. The PCRA court denied relief in 2016 and a three-judge Superior Court panel affirmed in September 2017. On April 29, 2019, a nine-judge en banc panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed course in a 6-3 decision, overturning Payne’s first-degree murder conviction. The majority concluded the 1977 panel had placed “significant weight” on the theory that Payne murdered Gama while raping her, and that the DNA evidence meaningfully refuted that theory.³ The court ordered a new degree-of-guilt hearing. It did not clear Payne of the killing but opened the possibility of a conviction on a lesser charge, such as third-degree murder, which carried a maximum 40-year sentence rather than mandatory life.

The 2020 Reconviction and Payne’s Death

The new degree-of-guilt hearing was held on June 25, 2020, before Erie County Judge Daniel Brabender Jr. Payne was 82 and housed at the State Correctional Institution at Laurel Highlands.⁵

Judge Brabender agreed that the 2014 DNA testing excluded Payne as a source of the seminal fluid and treated Evans’s testimony about a sexual confession as unreliable. He found the 1977 panel had erred by leaning too heavily on those elements. But he concluded the remaining evidence still proved first-degree murder. His reasoning rested on the ligature evidence, with copper wire wrapped around Gama’s wrists and ankles and embedded completely into the skin of her neck; the shifts and contradictions across Payne’s own accounts; Payne’s extensive concealment of the body and evidence; and proof of preparation, including Payne’s purchase of clothesline rope at a K-Mart earlier on the day of the killing and his later retrieval of copper wire and cement blocks from a barn.¹

On August 12, 2020, Judge Brabender issued his ruling, calling Payne’s claims of an accidental death “pure fiction.” He reconvicted Payne of first-degree murder and immediately resentenced him to life without parole.⁶

Payne died on November 25, 2020, at SCI Laurel Highlands. He was 83. The cause of death was cardiorespiratory arrest due to pneumonia and COVID-19, with pre-existing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In a letter to the Erie Times-News dated November 4, 2020, weeks before his death, Payne maintained the killing was accidental and said he never intended to harm her.⁷

Betty Ferguson and a Mother’s Forgiveness

Debbie Gama’s mother, Betty Ferguson, kept detailed files on the case for decades and became one of Erie’s most prominent victims’ advocates. About ten years after Payne’s 1977 sentencing, she visited him in prison and forgave him. She later described the decision in terms of her own survival: “It hurt me, and I didn’t want it to hurt me anymore. To forgive, it will set you free.”⁸ She was a 2005 finalist for ABC’s Good Morning America “Story of My Life” contest.

Ferguson turned her experience into a career in victim services. She began volunteering at the Erie County Rape Crisis Center in 1981 and worked as a counselor for what became the Crime Victim Center of Erie County for 25 years. In 1987 she founded the Erie chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. She served as a mediator for the Pennsylvania Office of the Victim Advocate’s “Victim Offender Dialogue” program, which helps crime victims or their families meet with offenders, and taught courses on healing and forgiveness at the Whole Life Health and Education Center in Erie. Edinboro University awarded her an honorary doctorate for her community service.⁹

Ferguson never stopped pressing Payne for information about the possible accomplice suggested by the DNA. He never provided it. She attended the 2020 proceedings and expressed satisfaction that the conviction held. Ferguson died on February 22, 2023, at Elmwood Gardens in Erie at age 80, after suffering from dementia and complications from recent falls. Her family requested memorial contributions to the Crime Victim Center of Erie County.⁸ Gama’s sister, Myshelle Will, who was ten years old at the time of the murder, testified at the 2020 hearing and remained involved in the case throughout the appeals process.¹⁰

1
Erie County Bar Association. Commonwealth v. Payne, Degree of Guilt Hearing Opinion
2
FindLaw. Commonwealth v. Payne
3
GoErie. Murder Conviction Overturned
4
GoErie. Judge: DNA Suggests 2nd Suspect in 1975 Erie Murder
5
GoErie. Family Forgives as Erie Killer Resentenced in ’75 Case
6
Times Online. Inmate Notorious for Killing Erie Student Dies; Had COVID-19
7
Daily American. Teacher Who Strangled Erie Student Debbie Gama in 1975 Dies at SCI Laurel Highlands
8
GoErie. Debbie Gama Mother Betty Ferguson Dies
9
Burton Quinn Scott Cremation and Funeral Services. Betty Ferguson Obituary
10
YourErie. Degree of Guilt Hearing Could Alter the Sentence for a Former Teacher Convicted of Murder