Martinsville man accused of molesting child more than a decade ago

MARTINSVILLE, Ind. — A victim of alleged child molestation has come forward more than a decade after her assault to accuse a Martinsville man of child sex abuse.

John D. Payton, 72, was arrested on June 9 for alleged crimes that stretch back to 2009.

According to court documents, Payton is accused of molesting a young girl over the course of multiple years. The victim first came forward with the allegations in 2014, but recanted her accusations against Payton, leading to no charges ever being filed. But on March 5, with the support of her mother, she once again brought the allegations forward.

The victim told investigators that she regretted recanting the allegations against Payton and only did so because she’d seen how devastated her mother was — who allegedly blamed herself for allowing Payton to be near her daughter.

Court documents detail how the victim recalled Payton forcing her to commit sexual acts on him when she was only 6 years old. Payton allegedly would talk about the child’s private parts and compare them to the child’s mother’s privates.

According to the victim, after she decided to come forward the first time in 2014, the victim overheard her mother on a phone call blaming herself and talking about how she “didn’t want to be here anymore.”

The victim said she started to blame herself and “felt responsible” for her mother’s strife and feared that if something happened to her mother, it would lead to the victim’s sister hating her. Due to all this guilt, the victim recanted her accusations.

But as the years went by, she regretted her choice as the trauma of the sexual assaults haunted her. The victim realized the decision to recant the allegations harmed her, didn’t provide justice and never gave her closure for her trauma.

Court documents reveal the victim supplied some messages and a recording to police investigators. One message, allegedly between Payton and the victim’s mother, had Payton blaming the victim for touching him while he was allegedly asleep.

“You sit there and you blame the victim, which that’s how all your abusers do,” the mother responded.

In a recording, the victim confronted Payton and asked him if he remembered all the times he took advantage of her body. Payton allegedly once again blamed the victim, saying she “did that to me,” despite the victim reminding Payton she had been a child, between 6 and 10 years old.

At one point in the recording, Payton allegedly apologizes to the victim, according to the court documents. He told her he was “very sorry” and said he was “a human being” who tried to treat everyone as good as he could.

On March 11, investigators spoke with Payton. Payton immediately denied the allegations, saying the victim had already once recanted her story and that she was a liar.

When confronted by the recordings, Payton again denied the allegations, saying the mother and the victim tried “scamming” him in the videos. He claimed it was hard to answer the questions when people are “screaming and spitting in his face.”

Payton did allegedly admit to one encounter when the victim touched him while he was trying to sleep. He claimed this was the only incident and that he yelled at the child not to do that.

On May 9, investigators learned that another child disclosed to her parents that she, too, was allegedly sexually assaulted by Payton.

Investigators requested that charges be filed against Payton. The Morgan County Prosecutor’s Office deemed it fit to charge Payton with two counts of child molesting on June 6. A warrant was issued for this arrest that same day and Payton was taken into custody.

Payton’s most serious charge is a Class A Felony, which carries a potential sentence of 20 to 50 years on a conviction. Due to Payton’s crimes allegedly happening prior to 2014, his charges were filed under the previous felony classification system.

A booking photo of John Payton was not provided at this time.