Tyler lived in Tucson, Arizona with his three-year-old sister, Ariana Payne, his father, Christopher Michael Payne, Christopher's girlfriend, Reina Irene Gonzales, and the two-year-old son Christopher and Gonzales had together. They lived in a one-bedroom apartment. Tyler and Ariana's mother, Jamie Hallam, had custody of them. Hallam called 911 in March 2006 and asked for help in recovering her children. She had permitted Christopher to take them for a few days in January and he'd refused to return them. The police contacted Arizona Child Protective Services (CPS), who advised that the children were better off in Christopher's care and CPS was helping him get custody. CPS workers believed Hallam was using methamphetamine and neglecting her children. She does have a history of meth abuse, but it was never proven that she was abusing drugs in 2006. After speaking with CPS, law enforcement elected to take no further action, and Tyler and Ariana remained with their father. An officer did see both children and they appeared happy and healthy at the time. Christopher was supposed to pay child support to Hallam. He was $19,000 beyond in his payments in January 2006 when he took the children from her and kept them. Photographs of Hallam, Christopher, Gonzales and Ariana are posted below this case summary.

Ariana's body was found inside a storage locker in February 2007. An employee at the storage facility decided to clean out the locker, which hadn't been paid for in months. She found a 25-gallon plastic tub with a rank odor and bugs flying around it. When she dumped it in a trash bin, the lid came off and some liquid drained out. A duffel bag was visible inside the tub. The next day, the employee suspected the tub might contain a dead body and called police, who found Ariana's corpse. Tyler's body has never been located. Authorities later concluded his bones had been in the tub with Adriana's, but the police inadvertently overlooked them and they were taken to the landfill with the rest of the garbage.

Adriana's body was so decomposed that a formal autopsy couldn't take place. She had many broken bones, including twelve ribs, a vertebra and one of her shoulder blades. Some of the injuries showed signs of healing, indicating they'd happened weeks or months before her death. The cause of death was starvation. It took several days to identify the body and link it to Christopher. Police arrested Christopher on March 1 and charged him with his daughter's murder. Subsequently they charged him with Tyler's murder as well. Gonzales was also arrested on one count of child abuse in Ariana's case. In May, she was additionally charged with murder and child abuse in both children's cases. Investigators believe the children were killed sometime during March and September, 2006. A roommate who moved into the Payne home in June 2006 later testified she never saw Tyler or Ariana and believed they were with Hallam, but she did hear noises coming from the bedroom closet one at least one occasion. When police searched the apartment, they found Tyler's blood and "signs of death" in the closet.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty against both suspects. Gonzales initially maintained her innocence and stated she'd gone away for a week and when she returned, Tyler and Ariana were gone and Christopher told her they were back with Hallam. In August 2008, she pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree and received a 22-year sentence. She testified against Christopher and stated Tyler and Ariana were confined to a closet twenty-four hours a day for months and deprived of food and water, and she had done nothing to help them. She also witnessed Christopher beat the children. At his trial in 2009, prosecutors stated Christopher was addicted to heroin and permitted his children by Hallam to starve to death rather than spend money on food for them, although he and Gonzales did take care of their son. Christopher initially claimed the children deliberately starved themselves to death after they found out they weren't going to live with their mother again. Ariana apparently died first, and her body was put in a garbage bag and kept in the closet with Tyler until he died about a week later. Their father had no explanation for Ariana's broken bones and said he'd never hit his children. At his trial, his defense said Gonzales had starved the children and Christopher was guilty only of failing to help them. The defense cited Christopher's drug addiction and dysfunctional childhood as mitigating factors in the case, reasons why he should not be given the death penalty. In March 2009, the jury convicted Christopher and sentenced him to death. He is awaiting execution.

Hallam filed a wrongful death lawsuit against CPS and the Tucson Police Department, alleging they were negligent and contributed to her children's deaths. CPS admitted making mistakes in the Payne case, citing a staff shortage as the reason, and settled the lawsuit for one million dollars. The suit against the police is still pending. Foul play is suspected in Tyler's disappearance due to the circumstances involved. His body may be in the Los Reales Landfill in southeast Tucson; authorities searched it twice for his remains.

Top Left: Adriana Payne;
Top Right: Jamie Hallam;
Bottom Left: Christopher Payne;
Bottom Right: Reina Gonzales