Robert Payette, 47, shown in February 2008, was found guilty of first-degree murder Tuesday. At his right is his lawyer, public defender Collin Geiselman.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

WARWICK — Robert Payette let his emotions show for only a moment.

As the foreperson announced that the jury of nine women and three men unanimously agreed that Payette committed first-degree murder when he fatally stabbed 66-year-old Ronald Dufour on a cold November night two years ago, Payette allowed his lips to tighten in disappointment for a split-second.

Prosecutors painted Payette as a man intent on settling a debt one way or another, while his defense attorneys asserted that Payette began the night with good intentions and only stabbed Dufour when he assaulted Payette.

Payette, 47, lived down the street in West Warwick from Dufour, and shared a unit with his girlfriend, Judy Parente, and friend, Delo Repose. Payette said Parente was always complaining about $510 that she said Dufour owed her from when they previously lived together.

On Nov. 10, 2007, Payette went to Dufour’s apartment and told him he wanted to talk over dinner. The two went to Payette’s apartment, but Dufour, who was drunk, became agitated and, Payette said, kicked the couple’s dog. Payette said he asked Dufour to leave and walked him outside the apartment.

Witnesses said that Dufour had a reputation for starting fights when he was drunk. Payette said that night was no different. As the two walked, he said Dufour continued to be verbally abusive and, eventually, grabbed Payette by his coat and began hurling punches at his head. Payette said he tried to stop Dufour, but that the man wouldn’t let go.

Before he left the house, Payette had grabbed a steak knife from a kitchen drawer for protection, knowing Dufour’s predilection toward violence. As the assault escalated, Payette said he pulled out the knife and stabbed Dufour, hoping the fight would stop. It didn’t. He continued stabbing Dufour, seven times in all. One of the cuts sliced Dufour’s neck.

That, Payette said, was when Dufour finally let go.

Public defender Collin Geiselman argued that Payette acted in self-defense, and that his ability to reason was hampered by his inebriated state. Assistant Attorney General William Ferland disagreed.

“Ronald Dufour was murdered for no other reason except that this guy was tired of hearing [his girlfriend complain] about the money he owed her,” Ferland said.

In the darkened corner of the parking lot where the two fought, blood was everywhere. With Dufour prone on the pavement, Payette said he dragged him into a wooded area nearby, where he fell into a culvert. The police would find Dufour, dirty and bruised, stuffed into a hole beneath the culvert and covered with wooden railroad ties.

Payette’s roommate, Repose, testified that when he got home from work, Payette told him what had happened and showed him where it occurred. He said he’d disposed of the bloody clothes and Dufour’s body. Repose told jurors he saw a broken knife handle in the apartment, and Payette told him he had to come back to the apartment to get another knife to use on Dufour because the first had broken. Repose advised him to get rid of the knife.

The next morning, Repose said he awoke to find Payette and his girlfriend trying unsuccessfully to clean the bloodstained pavement. Repose called his daughter under the guise of taking her to dinner, but when she arrived, he asked her to take him to the state police headquarters, where he reported the crime.

Dufour’s death was ruled a homicide, according to state Medical Examiner Alexander Chirkov, due to the seven stabs and cuts he suffered to the chest and neck.

Payette’s bloody clothes and a broken steak knife were found in a Dumpster at the edge of the complex parking lot. Along the wooded trail toward Dufour’s body, the police found a broken steak knife blade. DNA tests would show that the blood on the clothes was Dufour’s. One of the knives had DNA from two different men, though Dufour couldn’t be excluded as a contributor. The knife blade did not have enough DNA on it to provide a profile.

Payette is already serving the remaining four years of a suspended sentence at the Adult Correctional Institutions for violating the terms of his parole in a 1990 assault.

In Rhode Island, first-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence. A pre-sentence report in Payette’s case will be presented on Nov. 10. He will be sentenced on Nov. 20.

tbuford@projo.com