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Old 10-31-2009, 12:51 AM
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Jeanfromfillmore Jeanfromfillmore is offline
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Default Remember these murders that the media ignored?

Defense Rests in Tennessee Torture Slay of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06...shtmlKNOXVILLE, Tenn. (CBS/AP) The defense has rested in the trial of Lemaricus Davidson, the man investigators say was the leader in the torture deaths of a young Knoxville couple.

University of Tennessee student Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, were kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered in January 2007.

The couple was on a Saturday night date when prosecutors say they were jumped by several gun-wielding assailants, taken to Davidson's house and over the next several hours raped, beaten and killed.

Newsom's naked, shot and burned body was found on Monday along railroad tracks. Christian's body was found a day later stuffed in a trash can in Davidson's house. Medical experts say she was alive when she was placed hog-tied in the can and then suffocated.

Davidson's ex-girlfriend, Daphne Sutton, testified against him last week.

"He was begging me to believe he didn't do anything. It was all his brother," she said when she confronted him after the local media reported that Christian's body had been found in the small rental house she had shared with Davidson until just a few days before the crime.
Sutton said Davidson came to see her the night after the abduction at her friend's apartment. He was driving Christian's stolen Toyota 4-Runner and wearing Newsom's too-small silver athletic shoes. Sutton's apartment host, Kassi Suttles, testified she also saw the SUV and the shoes.

Defense attorney Doug Trant made little attempt to blunt the testimony and Judge Richard Baumgartner announced without elaborating that he couldn't ask a follow-up question from the jury.

Davidson's brother and co-defendant, Letalvis Cobbins, has been convicted of murder and related charges in the case and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Cobbins testified he participated because he feared his 28-year-old brother and that he saw him choke Christian.

The grisly crime, which has gripped this community and touched a racial nerve with some because Davidson and his co-defendants are black and the victims were white, has been portrayed by prosecutors as a carjacking gone horribly awry.

Davidson, described as a small-time drug dealer and ex-con who served time for carjacking, has pleaded not guilty to 46 counts of premeditated murder, felony murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping and theft. The prosecution will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.
Two other co-defendants are awaiting separate trials. A fifth conspirator, Eric Boyd, was convicted in federal court of being an accessory after the fact for helping hide Davidson and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Sutton, an acknowledged drug user, said she moved into a friend's apartment a few days before the carjacking but stayed in touch with Davidson. He invited her back to the house on Sunday afternoon to give her a bag of clothes, including a red skirt Sutton identified, that turned out to be Christian's.

She testified that Davidson, Cobbins and co-defendant George Thomas were all at the house, and she was told Cobbins' girlfriend and co-defendant Vanessa Coleman was in the bathroom so she couldn't go in to retrieve her makeup. She also was prevented from going into the kitchen and back bedroom where Cobbins said Christian was held.

Davidson ended up spending a few nights at the apartment, telling Sutton that his brother disappeared with his house keys and he couldn't go home. She testified she doubted him but let him stay even after she found his keys. She confronted him after her mother called to say Christian's body had been found, and he blamed Cobbins.

Suttles testified she, Sutton and another roommate all drove Davidson to another apartment complex to hide.

Davidson was later captured at an abandoned house, where police said they found Newsom's shoes, a few clothes, binoculars and an unloaded .22-caliber revolver — the same caliber that killed Newsom.



Another older article on the crime.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (CBS/AP) When Christopher Newsom's bound, shot and burned body was identified, authorities warned his mother the sight would be too gruesome for her, but she insisted she had to go.

More than two years later, the first of four people who could face a death sentence in the carjacking, rape and murder of her 23-year-old son and his 21-year-old girlfriend, Channon Christian, goes to trial on Monday.

Mary Newsom recalled last week what she did in January 2007 when she viewed her son's body.

"I put my arm around the body bag and told him, 'Chris, I will not say goodbye to you because I know someday I will see you again.' That's what I believe. And that's what gets me through. It's been a long 2½ years."

Newsom and Christian had been on a Saturday night date on Jan. 6, 2007, and were leaving a friend's apartment complex around 12:30 a.m. Christian was behind the wheel and Newsom was standing in the open door kissing her when they were jumped at gunpoint in the parking lot, according to police accounts .

They were bound, blindfolded and brought to a rundown rental home in an industrial inner-city neighborhood about six miles away, according to police. Newsom wasn't there long before he was taken away, sexually assaulted, shot in the back of the head, set on fire and left beside some railroad tracks a few blocks away, according to defendants' statements.

Over the next day, Christian was repeatedly raped, bleach was sprayed in her mouth to destroy evidence and, Coleman told investigators, Davidson broke her neck. A medical examiner has testified that she suffocated after she was wrapped in plastic bags and dumped in a closed trash can.
The case has drawn extensive coverage among bloggers who at first accused the national media of ignoring the case because of the racial implications – the defendants are poor and black, the victims, middle class and white.

Judge Richard Baumgartner obtained a sequestered jury from Nashville, about 150 miles away, to reduce chances of bias.

John Gill, special counsel to the district attorney, said he knows the community is aware of the case.

"Now because of the Internet, every story is a national story," he said.

Letalvis "Rome" Cobbins, 26, of Lebanon, Ky., will go on trial first. He is being tried on counts of murder, robbery, rape, kidnapping and theft. Cobbins along with two other defendants has acknowledged that he has some knowledge of the crimes, but that he wasn't responsible.

Cobbins’ half-brother, Lemaricus "Slim" Davidson, 28, of Knoxville,is scheduled to be tried next month and was the alleged leader of the group. Police have linked both defendants to the victims through DNA evidence.

Cobbins' attorneys, Kim Parton and Scott Green, did not return calls for comment.

Conservative commentators and Internet bloggers latched onto the case contrasting it to the heavily reported case of white Duke lacrosse players accused of raping a black woman. The charges in that case were later dismissed.

Two rallies in Knoxville in 2007 led by white supremacist sympathizers were met with significant opposition. Knoxville NAACP president Sheryl Rollins, an attorney.

"In no way does the NAACP condone or support anybody — black, white, Chinese, greenies, whatever — that would do what those people did to those children," she said.
Police, prosecutors and the families say Newsom and Christian were not victims of a hate crime.

The others awaiting trial on murder and related counts are Cobbins' friend George "G" Thomas, 26, and Cobbins' girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman, 21. Another man was sentenced to 18 years in prison for helping hide Davidson.

Christian, a University of Tennessee senior, and Newsom had been dating about two months. Both still lived with their parents.

"I know Chris had fallen pretty hard, and I know she was very happy," said Christian's mother, Deena Christian.

Both moms know just about all the details.

"No, I have no doubts in my mind" the defendants are guilty, Deena Christian said.

"What is my hope? Well, I certainly hope that they are all convicted and all go to the death penalty," Newsom said. "And even that is not enough justice for what they have done."
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Old 10-31-2009, 12:52 AM
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Jeanfromfillmore Jeanfromfillmore is offline
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4 death sentences for Davidson in Christian-Newsom murders
KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- LeMaricus Devall Davidson was given four death penalty sentences Friday in the Christian-Newsom murders case.
The jurors unanimously found Davidson, 28, should receive the death penalty on four murder charges, also called capital charges. Those are for the two first degree felony murder charges and the two premeditated first degree murders of Channon Christian and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, in January 2007.
A loud gasp sounded in the court room when the first death penalty sentence was read by the jury foreman.
The jury got the case at 10:24 a.m. and reached a decision just before 2:30.
Jurors found a long list of aggravating factors, including the torture of the victims and their ability to identify the defendant, outweighed all mitigating circumstances brought by the defense.
After the sentences were read, Judge Richard Baumgartner said to Davidson, "The state imposes the penalty of death by lethal injection. May you find peace with your maker."
Davidson was found guilty Wednesday of all the murder charges of Channon Christian and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, in January 2007.
Prosecutors sought called members of the victims' families to the stand Thursday to give their impact statements as they sought the death penalty.
However, the defense had hoped he would receive life in prison (with the possibility of parole after 51 years), or life in prison without parole instead.
Davidson was also found guilty of especially aggravated robbery, especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated rape and theft in this case.
The jury found Davidson guilty of the lesser charge of facilitating Newsom's rapes, rather than raping Newsom himself.
Davidson was found guilty of raping Christian.
He's now the 90th person sent to Tennessee's death row, but he's only the second to be put there with four death sentences.
The jury was given extra security to leave the court Friday afternoon.
Victims' families thank jury
"The Christians and the Newsoms got justice today," said Channon Christian's mother, Deena, as the families' press conference started.
"I finally get to go see her (my daughter) and tell her, one down," said Channon's father, Gary, referring to a promise he made to his daughter to get justice for her kidnapping, torture and murder.
Chris Newsom's father, Hugh, said the jury, which is from Knox County, is "the pillars of our community" and a round of applause by the families followed.
When asked what they thought of Davidson's attorneys already seeking a mistrial, Deena said, "He's been crying since day one. Let him cry."
"I respect this court. I respect this jury, but I do not have to respect a couple of individuals because the court made them do something," Gary said, referring to defense attorneys David Eldridge and Doug Trant, "for attacking their son (as he looked at the Newsoms) and our daughter."
"There is no vindication in this," Gary said.
Hugh Newsom said Davidson "not one time" showed remorse for his actions during the trial.
Gary Christian asked the "thousands and thousands of people praying for them to pray for the jury. I know it was hard for them to do."
The death penalty "just makes it easier to go on," Deena said. "This made a dent in it," Gary added.
"We got justice despite the system," Deena said.
Hugh Newsom said after the other trials in this case was over, he wants to sit down with all the media and set the record straight on the reprimand they received during the testimony phase of this trial for an exchange with a defense attorney.
Hugh said they "weren't the instigators." Gary Christian said with a laugh that he didn't know if he would wait that long."
State's closing: No excuses for Davidson's actions
Prosecutor Takisha Fitzgerald told the jury Friday morning that Davidson had a tough life, but "it does not excuse what he did. Life is about opportunities and decisions you make."
"So what if he had a bad childhood, a crack addicted mother? You still have choices," Fitzgerald said. "Just obey the rules, Mr. Davidson," she says, "but he doesn't. He won't."
Davidson had an opportunity at age 16 to turn his life around in the care of a loving foster family.
His foster parents don't abandon him, even in prison, Fitzgerald told the jury. "What does he do after six years in prison for aggravated robbery? "He comes to Knoxville to sell dope."
At the end, Chris Newsom had only his life left, but "he (Davidson)took that," Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said also Christian gave Davidson some of her trust when she told him she wanted to live. "She didn't want to die."
Then Fitzgerald said, "He didn't have to kill her."
She also said at the end of their lives, all Newsom and Christian had was that they could identify their attackers.
"A rough early life does not excuse what you do at 26 when you take the lives of two young kids," Fitzgerald said.
Defense's closing: Please spare his life
Defense attorney Doug Trant began his closing argument by saying, Davidson had a horrible childhood, "and it's not an excuse, but an explanation" on how he got here.
"Why would you sentence him to life without parole?" Trant asked. He pointed to the Rudd family, took Davidson in as their foster son. "Consider that heavily."
Trant reminded the jury of Dr. Peter Brown's statement Thursday in his testimony. "He (Davidson) knows right from wrong when he's sober" and not on a cocktail of drugs.
Trant told the jury he knows they don't want to make the decision about Davidson's sentence, "but it has to be done."
"I'm going to ask you to spare his life," Trant said. "Please, I'm begging you to do the right thing."
"Do you think this will be the last death penalty in this case," one of the media asked. "We hope so, but we don't know," Deena said.
State's rebuttal closing: Crimes overwhelm all other factors
Prosecutor Leland Price told the jury Davidson could have used his Aunt Rose as inspiration "but he didn't."
"Use your common sense. Davidson had people who tried to help him," Price said, referring to the Rudd family. "He had every opportunity in the world."
"The aggravating circumstances are overwhelming beyond the shadow of a doubt," Price said.
Think of the suffering those kids went through, Price said. "You know the physical suffering. Think about the mental anguish."
"Heinous, atrocious and cruel doesn't begin to describe what they went through," Price said.
"Why were they killed," Price asked? "They knew too much."
Price said Newsom's family didn't get to have funeral with an open casket because his body was so mutilated.
"Why burn Newsom's body? Why did they mutilate his body?" Price asked. "They left him there for the whole world to see along those railroad tracks."
"These weren't just murders," Price said. "These crimes cry out for the maximum penalty. Give us justice."
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