Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom murder
| Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Location | Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Date | January 6, 2007 |
|
Attack type
|
Murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, carjacking |
| Weapons | Guns |
| Deaths | 2 |
| Perpetrators | Letalvis D. Cobbins, Lemaricus D. Davidson, George Thomas, Eric Boyd, Vanessa Coleman |
| Participant | 5 |
| Eric DeWayne Boyd Letalvis Darnell Cobbins Vanessa Coleman LeMaricus Devall Davidson George Geovonni Thomas |
|
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Other names |
|
| Criminal charge | See list to left |
| Criminal penalty | See here |
| Criminal status |
|
| Conviction(s) | See here and here |
Channon Gail Christian, 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom, Jr., 23, were from Knoxville, Tennessee. They were kidnapped the evening of January 6, 2007 when Christian's vehicle was carjacked, and taken to a rental house, where both of them were raped, tortured, and murdered. Five people were arrested and charged in the case. The grand jury indicted four of the suspects on counts of capital murder, robbery, kidnapping, rape, and theft, while a fifth was indicted on federal charges of carjacking.
Of the four charged at the state level, three (Letalvis D. Cobbins, Lemaricus Davidson, and George Thomas) had multiple prior felony convictions. After a jury trial, Davidson was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection. Cobbins and Thomas were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Vanessa Coleman was convicted and sentenced to 53 years in prison for facilitating the crimes, and Eric Dewayne Boyd was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for being an accessory after the fact to carjacking.
The state convictions were all initially set aside because of misconduct by the presiding judge, who has since been disbarred. Retrials were originally slated for the summer and fall of 2012. The orders for retrials of Davidson and Cobbins were subsequently overturned by the Tennessee State Supreme Court, and their convictions and sentences stand. The Coleman and Thomas retrials resulted in convictions, but with a reduced sentence for Coleman (35 years) and the same sentence for Thomas.
Christian moved from Louisiana to Tennessee with her family in 1997. She was a graduate of Farragut High School and a senior majoring in sociology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Newsom grew up in Knoxville, where he was a former baseball player for the Halls High School Red Devils, graduating in 2002.
Christian and Newsom were leaving an apartment together on the evening of January 6, 2007 to go to a friend's party when they were abducted via her car from the apartment complex parking lot. Worried about not hearing from their daughter, Christian's parents sought help from her mobile phone provider. They found her abandoned Toyota 4Runner on Monday, January 8. Police recovered an envelope from the vehicle that yielded fingerprint evidence leading them to Lemaricus Davidson of 2316 Chipman Street, an address two blocks from Christian's car. When police went to the address on Tuesday, January 9, they found the house unoccupied and Christian's body in a trash can in the kitchen.
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Wikipedia