The rear parking lot of River Run Apartments on Maple Avenue in West Warwick was the scene of a fatal stabbing on Saturday night. A man who lived there has been charged with murder.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

A 45-year-old West Warwick man with a long history of stabbing victims was held yesterday on a charge that he stabbed a 66-year-old man to death Saturday night.

Robert E. Payette, of 19 Maple Ave., was arrested Sunday night on a charge of first-degree murder. He was ordered held without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions by a bail commissioner. Payette is scheduled to appear this morning in District Court, Warwick.

According to the police, a person who learned of the stabbing after it occurred contacted the state police Sunday night and told them Payette had stabbed a man at the River Run apartment complex on Maple Avenue where Payette lives. Payette then allegedly dumped the body into a ravine leading to the Pawtuxet River behind the apartments, the police said.

The victim was stabbed several times, police said, following a dispute over a small debt he owed Payette, the police said. The stabbing occurred in the rear parking lot of the apartment complex. The police declined to identify the victim until relatives who live outside the state are notified.

The police found the victim’s body in a hole at the bottom of the ravine Sunday night, but did not attempt to move it because of its location and the difficulty in properly lighting the site, state police Capt. Stephen J. Lynch said.

“There was some attempt to cover up the body with debris, trash and leaves that were in the area,” Lynch said.

The state police, West Warwick police detectives and fire officials and members of the state medical examiner’s office removed the body yesterday morning, and the medical examiner is conducting an autopsy, Lynch said.

Payette has behind bars for many years over the past two decades on robbery and assault charges. While in prison, he was accused of stabbing another inmate and a corrections officer.

In 1982, when Payette was serving an 18-month sentence for grand theft and larceny, he was charged with assault with intent to commit murder and assault with a deadly weapon after he allegedly slashed a fellow inmate’s throat with a pen-sized knife while they were in the prison yard. It took 72 stitches to close the wound. The assault charges against Payette were later dropped.

In 1985, Payette was charged with assault to commit murder after he stabbed a 57-year-old man in the same apartment complex where Payette now lives. Wilfred Gileau was stabbed six times at his River Run apartment after an apparent argument with Payette.

In 1989, while Payette was serving 25 years for robbery and attempted murder, he was charged with stabbing a guard with a homemade ice pick. The stabbing occurred in an area where 12 of the prison’s 102 high-security prisoners were housed. The guard was stabbed in the upper chest and lower back with a weapon allegedly fashioned from a paint roller. The guard was hospitalized for nine days; his wounds included a punctured spleen. Payette served 18 years on the robbery and attempted murder charges and was released in 2003, state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Tracey Z. Poole said.

On March 23 of this year, Payette was picked up as a fugitive from the law and was held at the ACI until April 6, when he was released. Poole did not have details on that arrest.

efitzpat@projo.com