Tragedy Repeatedly Strikes Eakly Family

By Amy Lester, NEWS 9

EAKLY, Oklahoma -- An Oklahoma family has faced one tragedy after another, relying on themselves and the community to help them through a difficult time.

Joy was murdered by her husband less than a month ago, before he turned the gun on himself. Joy was trying to leave him, but when things turned violent, she couldn't get out.

Now her brother, Joe Payne, is raising her four children.

"I just try to take it day by day and I hope she's proud of the job I'm doing with her babies," Joe Payne said. "I just want her to know that I love her."

Payne and his wife, Connie, are raising both the four children and two of their own.

"I don't want to see them with anyone else," Connie Payne said. "They know me, they know Joe. We've been in their lives ever since they was really young. I love them."

It has been a challenge and especially difficult to explain to the kids what happened to their parents.

"We told them it was a car accident," Joe Payne said. "I can't tell them their father killed their mother, I just don't know how to do it."

It was only a week after the murder, the family's house burned down.

"I told him, 'Honey, we'll get through it. All that stuff in the house could be replaced, but you and the kids couldn't be.'" said Joe Payne's aunt, Marie Hollan. "I just said, 'Thank God you all was here.'"

The family believes they'll eventually see a positive and something to soften the pain.

"I know there's evil out there, but I think there's just as much good," Connie Payne said. "There's just as much good and I think some kind of good will come out of this."

The family set out jars at convenience stores to collect money for the kids, but two of them were stolen.

The Swan Lake Fire Department said the cause of the fire at the Payne's house is not yet known.

A fund has been set up under the Payne Children's Trust Fund at all Hydro Banks.  Donations can be sent to

Bank of Hydro
PO Box 7
Hydro, OK 73048

Phone: (405) 663-2214