True Crime Chronicles: Hit-and-run that caused the death of Montgomery County couple resulted in 46-year sentence
On the evening of May 14, 2016, Joe and Charlene Payte were riding their 1999 Harley-Davidson motorcycle eastbound on Highway 182 near Glenwood in Montgomery County when they began a turn onto Rocky Pines Road.
Behind them, a 1994 Lexus driven by Sergio Gabriel Garza closed the distance at a speed that left more than 170 feet of skid marks before the Lexus struck the motorcycle from the rear. The force drove the motorcycle’s taillight into the Lexus grille and deployed the car’s airbags.
Charlene Payte, 61, was thrown and found face down and unresponsive at the edge of the highway. A passerby who stopped at the scene called for help while her husband, Joe Payte, 62, lay severely injured in the ditch, still able to tell the witness they had been hit.
Montgomery County Coroner Jeanette Fryar pronounced Charlene dead at the scene around 9:08 p.m. Joe was transported to a Hot Springs hospital with life-threatening injuries and later died from them.
Garza did not remain at the scene. Witnesses reported seeing him park the damaged Lexus at a friend’s residence and leave in another vehicle. Roughly three-quarters of an hour later a Montgomery County deputy found him at his sister’s house about a quarter mile away.
When Garza tried to stand, he fell back onto the couch and needed help to walk. He smelled of intoxicants. Arkansas State Trooper Ryne Shelton, who investigated the crash, administered field sobriety tests that showed multiple signs of impairment. Garza refused a blood draw because of a needle phobia; a urine sample taken hours later tested positive for alcohol and for amphetamines, including methamphetamine.
Trooper Shelton concluded the Paytes had been rear-ended while the motorcycle was positioned in the oncoming lane during the turn. Garza later testified that he had been drinking whiskey shortly before the crash, that he was trying to pass the motorcycle when it moved in front of him, that he closed his eyes, and that afterward he saw no one and thought he might have struck an animal.
Joe and Charlene Payte had lived ordinary, rooted lives in the small community of Glenwood. Charlene was born March 2, 1955, in Coffeyville, Kansas, the daughter of Galen Leroy Stevens and Elaine Nelson Stevens. She married Joey Payte on March 27, 1973. She worked for Hamilton West Family Medicine/Quest, belonged to the Bonnerdale Seventh Day Adventist Church, and was a member of the Christian Motorcyclist Association.
Joe, born February 28, 1954, in Mount Ida, had retired after 24 years with the Arkansas Air National Guard and worked at the Walmart Distribution center. He shared the same church and motorcycle association memberships.
The couple left two children, Malena Selby of Kirby and Nicholas Payte of Glenwood, and two grandchildren. Both were buried in Mount Tabor Cemetery after services at their church.
Their deaths ended a marriage of more than four decades and removed two active members from a tight-knit rural county where motorcycle rides were a shared pastime rather than a spectacle.
Garza, born March 7, 1988, and living in Glenwood, was originally charged with leaving the scene of an accident involving death or injury. The charges were later amended to add battery in the first degree and negligent homicide, both Class B felonies.
In September 2017 a Montgomery County jury convicted him of all three counts and recommended the maximum sentences: six years for the Class D leaving-the-scene offense and twenty years on each of the Class B felonies. Circuit Judge Jerry Ryan ordered the sentences to run consecutively, producing a total of 46 years.
Garza’s appeal challenging the sufficiency of the evidence was rejected by the Arkansas Court of Appeals in 2018. The court held that the jury could reasonably find he had caused the deaths through criminal negligence while impaired and that the evidence supported the battery conviction even without proof of specific intent to injure.
In a county that records few homicides of any kind, Garza is one of only seven inmates currently held by the Arkansas Division of Correction on charges involving any form of homicide with ties to Montgomery County.
He entered the system on September 12, 2017, and s of October 2026 he is housed at the Texarkana unit, classified C2 custody with good-time class I-A, and carries a projected eligibility date of December 18, 2026. The consecutive structure of the sentences means the full term remains substantial even if good time is applied.
The case stands as a rare local example of a vehicular homicide prosecuted to the maximum available terms after the driver fled, was located nearby while still showing signs of impairment, and was convicted on evidence that included long skid marks, physical damage to both vehicles, positive toxicology, and failed sobriety test.s
.For the Payte family the outcome closed the criminal case but left the permanent absence of a married couple who had spent decades in the same small county, the same church, and the same motorcycle community.
