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A Knox County jury delivered the death sentence this afternoon to the ringleader in the torture slayings of a young Knoxville couple following a carjacking. The same panel of seven men and five women who convicted Lemaricus Davidson, 28, in the 2007 attack on University of Tennessee student Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, decided his fate. Davidson was found guilty of more than 30 counts, including felony murder and premeditated murder of each victim. The jury had a choice of a life sentence mandating a minimum of 51 years in prison, life without parole with no...

KNOXVILLE - A Knox County jury this afternoon sentenced convicted torture-slaying ringleader Lemaricus Davidson to death by lethal injection for the January 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. The jury of five women and seven men deliberated about four hours before returning its decision to a packed courtroom. “The punishment is death,” the jury foreman said. The victims' families gasped at the verdict, but Davidson showed no reaction. Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner admonished those in the courtroom to control any outburst. “The murder was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel,” the foreman said, reading from the verdict form....

KNOXVILLE - A Knox County jury this afternoon sentenced convicted torture-slaying ringleader Lemaricus Davidson to death by lethal injection for the January 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. The jury of five women and seven men deliberated about four hours before returning its decision to a packed courtroom. “The punishment is death,” the jury foreman said.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A Tennessee man convicted of kidnapping, rape and murder charges in the fatal carjacking of a couple on a date has been sentenced to death. The defendant, 28-year-old Lemaricus Davidson, showed no reaction Friday as jurors announced the death sentences for the murders of 21-year-old college student Channon Christian and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Christopher Newsom. Davidson was found guilty of abducting the couple in Knoxville during a 2007 carjacking by several armed men.

How the jury voted in each of the charges in the torture-slaying trial of Lemaricus Davidson.Count 1: First degree felony murder of Hugh Christopher Newsom during the perpetration of robbery of Hugh Christopher NewsomA. Guilty of First Degree Felony Murder of Hugh Christopher Newsom, during the perpetration of Robbery of Hugh Christopher Newsom.[Guilty on all 46 counts including rape and torture of both victims, male and female]Count 29: Aggravated rape of Hugh Christopher Newsom by coercive anal penetration, while aided and abetted by one or more personsB. Guilty of Facilitation of Aggravated Rape of Hugh Christopher Newsom, by coercive anal...

Davidson found guilty Murder One all counts.

KNOXVILLE - While jurors watched for the second time torture-slaying alleged ringleader Lemaricus Davidson's account after his arrest in the January 2007 slayings of a Knox County couple, the parents of one victim lashed out at defense claims of drug use. Within a half hour of resuming deliberations this morning, jurors pondering Davidson's fate in the slayings of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom asked for a replay of a two-hour-long interrogation video of Davidson after his Jan. 11, 2007 arrest.

KNOXVILLE — The case against the alleged leader in the torture slaying of a young Knoxville couple went to the jury Tuesday with the defense trying to poke holes in a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Lemaricus Davidson, 28, faced 38 counts including kidnapping, theft, rape and murder in the January 2007 carjacking deaths of University of Tennessee student Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23. The counts were consolidated from an original 46. The state intends to seek the death penalty if he is convicted. The case has touched a racial nerve because the defendants are black and...

Tennessee Jury Lets Torturer-Murderer-Rapist Live, to Prey on Others August 28, 12:24 Some juries are indulgent towards even the most vicious and plainly-guilty criminals. A Nashville jury just let a nightmarishly-evil torturer-murderer-rapist, Letalvis Cobbins, escape the death penalty in the rapes, torture, mutilation, and murders of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian. Now, he can spend the rest of his life raping and preying on vulnerable prison inmates, like first-time offenders. The jurors who blocked the death penalty may have mistakenly believed that they were sophisticated and progressive by rejecting the death penalty, but in truth, they were being cruel, since,...

Tennessee Jury Lets Torturer-Murderer-Rapist Live, to Prey on Others August 28, 12:24 PMDC SCOTUS ExaminerHans BaderPrevious Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe Subscribe Get alerts when there is a new article from the DC SCOTUS Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use. Email Address Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use Some juries are indulgent towards even the most vicious and plainly-guilty criminals. A Nashville jury just let a nightmarishly-evil torturer-murderer-rapist, Letalvis Cobbins, escape the death penalty in the rapes, torture, mutilation, and murders of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian. Now, he can spend the rest of his life raping...

The first of four defendants in the carjacking, rape and murder of a young Tennessee couple has been sentenced to life in prison without parole by the same jury that convicted him of murder. The sentence for 26-year-old Letalvis Cobbins of Lebanon, Ky., was announced in Knoxville after less than three hours of jury deliberation Wednesday. Cobbins took a deep breath and then sat down after the jury foreman finished delivering the sentence. The jury convicted Cobbins on Tuesday in the January 2007 attack on 21-year-old Channon Christian and her 23-year-old boyfriend Christopher Newsom, both of Knoxville Earlier Wednesday Christian's...

The first of four alleged members of a black gang scheduled to be tried for murder for the torture-slayings of a young white couple has been found guilty on multiple counts by jurors in Tennessee. WND reported just days ago when the trial was begun for Letalvis Cobbins on counts of first-degree murder and others for the 2007 deaths of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Carjacking victims Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom The brutalized bodies of the victims showed evidence that the attackers had tried to destroy DNA evidence by dousing Christian with bleach and Newsom's body was burned beyond...

Torture-slaying trial, Day 8: Jurors resume deliberations By News Sentinel staff Posted August 25, 2009 at 9:11 a.m. KNOXVILLE — Jurors in the torture-slaying trial of Letalvis Cobbins resumed deliberations this morning. The panel from Davidson County deliberated about seven and a half hours Monday, ending the day without a verdict before returning to the hotel where they have been sequestered for more than a week. Testimony wrapped up Saturday with Cobbins, 26, taking the stand in his own defense. Cobbins is accused of taking part in the January 2007 kidnapping, rape and slaying of Channon Christian, 21,and Christopher Newsom,...

KNOXVILLE — Jurors this morning convicted Letalvis Cobbins of first-degree murder in the torture-slaying of Knox County couple Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. -snip- Description of crime (Wikipedia); According to the testimony of the Knox County Acting Medical Examiner Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan at the subsequent trial of Eric Boyd, Newsom was repeatedly raped and then blindfolded, gagged, arms and feet bound and his head covered. Barefoot, he was either led or dragged outside the house to a set of nearby railroad tracks. He was shot in the back of the head, the neck, and the back, and his body then...

This bastard murdered this young woman, and is accompliced to the murder of her boyfriend. It is now in the hands of the jury. 3 more are involved. It is a sad place to acknowledge. I stayed quiet until this trial was over. The anger is real.

Longtime readers will remember Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, the young couple brutally murdered in a racially-charged case in Knoxville, TN in 2007. My archives on the case are here. The trial of the first defendant Letalvis Cobbins began yesterday. The Knoxville News Sentinel reports:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Trial is under way in Knoxville for the first of four people charged in the kidnapping, rape and killing of a young couple more than two years ago. As court convened Monday, the judge read each of the 38 counts against 26-year-old Letalvis Cobbins. His attorney, Scott Green, responded by entering pleas. Green said his client pleaded guilty to five counts of facilitating robbery or theft in the carjacking that set the crimes into motion in 2007. He also pleaded guilty to one count of rape. To the remaining counts, Green responded "not guilty." Cobbins — of...

KNOXVILLE - Letalvis Cobbins is already confessing guilt to facilitating the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. During the routine reading of the indictment this morning, defense attorney Scott Green declared Cobbins guilty of the lesser charge of facilitating the January 2007 slayings. The move comes as no surprise. That's part of the plan by Cobbins' defenders to try not to spare him a prison term. They're trying to save his life.

Does anyone remember the white couple that got abducted, raped, and killed by the three African American guys somewhere in the south? I think they found some of the couple's body parts in a garbage can at one of the alleged criminal's house. Does anyone have any follow up info or a link?

A judge in one of the nation's most brutal carjacking and murder cases has openly questioned in court whether news websites – such as those covering his trial – should be permitted to allow open and anonymous "comments" sections at the bottom of Internet-posted stories. "I'm saying if there is a profit, there is a responsibility that goes with it," said Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner of Knox County, Tenn., to an attorney for the Knoxville News Sentinel. "This is not the Internet. This is a site created by you in which you invite comments," the judge stated. "This is...

A house where a Knox County couple was tortured and slain was razed today."It was an evil place," said Gary Christian, whose 21-year-old daughter was killed inside the 2316 Chipman St. house. "I'm glad it's gone."Waste Connections Inc., which is located next door to the house, bought it with the intent of tearing it down and putting in its place a memorial honoring Channon Christian and 23-year-old Christopher Newsom. "We have to work every day next to this awful scene," said Waste Connections division vice president Benson Henry.Henry said that the firm wants to keep the memorial simple."We want something...

How?It is that question, Hugh Newsom testified Wednesday, that he cries out every day since his son and his son’s girlfriend were slain in a carjacking turned torture slaying.[snip]U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan did not have an answer, but for the families of the slain couple he did serve up the dish they sought — the toughest penalty allowed by federal law for Eric Dewayne “E” Boyd, whom a jury concluded earlier this year helped hide out slaying suspect Lemaricus Davidson.“The underlying crimes were unquestionably horrific in nature … and will long be felt by the families of Channon Christian...

Horror in Knoxville update: Trial stalled for one year By Michelle Malkin • July 14, 2008 02:56 PM It must be maddening for the families of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. I know you haven’t forgotten the young couple brutally murdered in a racially-charged case in Knoxville, TN. I haven’t, either. The latest? Justice delayed in the trial of suspect George Thomas:

The parents of a young couple brutally murdered after a January 2007 carjacking expressed relief this afternoon, while the attorney for Eric Dewayne "E" Boyd said he would appeal the verdict of a federal jury that found Boyd guilty of being an accessory to the carjacking. "One down. Four to go," said Gary Christian, father of Channon Christian, referring to the four suspects who face trials in state court for the killings of Channon, then 21, and her boyfriend, 23-year-old Christopher Newsom. "We do this for Channon," said Channon's mother, Deena. "We've been through the worst. We and the Newsoms...

Accused accessory to carjacking suspect Eric Dewayne "E" Boyd claims he has no personal knowledge of the slayings of a young couple, but he offered up details of the crime anyway in a videotaped statement to police. In the interview with Knoxville Police Department Investigators Patty Tipton and Greg McKnight played today in U.S. District Court, Boyd insisted everything he knew about the fatal carjacking came from Lemaricus "Slim" Davidson, the alleged carjacking ringleader whom he is accused of helping to hide out. According to Boyd, Davidson, his brother and a friend needed a vehicle because they were being pursued...

Raise your hand if you are a racist. The question put to potential jurors today in U.S. District Court likely won't be that blunt, but the aim is the same: Ferret out anyone who cannot be color-blind when deciding the fate of accessory to fatal carjacking suspect Eric "E" Boyd. It is an unusual inquiry in what U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan is already foreseeing as an uncommon method to seat an impartial jury in an inflammatory case involving a headline-grabbing crime and a resulting racial firestorm. Boyd is standing trial beginning today on charges he helped hide Lemaricus "Slim"...

If you're like I am, you've heard scores of media reports about the 2006 Duke University rape case, in which three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black stripper at a wild party at the home of one of the team members. These guys, convicted by the news media and Duke faculty, were later found innocent. It turned out that Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was running for re-election. In seeking the black vote, he concealed DNA evidence that would have exonerated the lacrosse players. You might remember hearing scores of stories about the 1998 murder...

A man accused of helping hide out the alleged ringleader of a fatal carjacking is asking a federal judge to move his trial out of Knox County.Attorney Phil Lomonaco filed late Tuesday a motion on behalf of Eric Dewayne "E" Boyd asking that his upcoming trial on federal accessory to carjacking charges be held in another county.Boyd is accused of helping hide out Lemaricus Davidson in the days following the carjacking, kidnapping, rape, torture and deaths of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom in January.Davidson is charged with three other suspects in Knox County Criminal Court with the slayings and related...

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- New charges have been filed against a man connected to the carjacking, rapes and murders of a young Knoxville couple earlier this year. Eric Boyd is now charged with being an accessory to a carjacking that resulted in death. Boyd was previously charged with being an accessory after the fact. The new indictment accuses Boyd of knowing about the deaths of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom before aiding one of the suspected killers and not reporting the murders. The couple was murdered in early January. A woman and three men, Vanessa Coleman, Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins and...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- What happened to Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a young Knoxville couple out on an ordinary Saturday night date, was undeniably brutal. The two were carjacked, kidnapped, raped and finally murdered during an ordeal of unimaginable terror in January. < snip > But whether the attack was a racial hate crime worthy of national media attention is another question, one that has now ignited a fierce dispute over the definition of hate crimes and how the mainstream media choose to cover America's most discomfiting interracial attacks. < snip >Country music star Charlie Daniels, who lives 150 miles...

What happened to Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, is almost too horrible to contemplate. The Knoxville, Tenn., couple fell victim to four crazed young criminals during a carjacking. The perpetrators allegedly kidnapped Christian and Newsome and brutally raped both of them before killing them. Newsom was shot, his body burned and dumped beside the railroad tracks. Christian was strangled and left in garbage bags. This heinous crime occurred in January. But it wasn't until recently that the tragedy has been talked about outside of blog posts on the Internet. Maybe that wouldn't have been the case had people...

Consider three criminal cases. No. 1: Christopher Newsom and his girlfriend, Channon Christian, both students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, were carjacked while on a dinner date in January, repeatedly raped (both of them), tortured, and killed. His burned body was found near a railroad track. Hers was stuffed into a trash can. Five suspects have been charged. The crimes were interracial. No. 2: Three white Duke lacrosse players were accused in March 2006 of beating, kicking, choking, and gang-raping an African-American stripper, while pelting her with racial epithets, during a team party. No. 3: Sam Hays bumped...

(CNSNews.com) - The national news media demonstrates a double standard in covering "hate crimes," as evidenced by the lack of attention given to the murder of a white couple in Tennessee last January, a conservative columnist charged on Monday. However, a media analyst responded that a crime is not necessarily a hate crime simply because the victims are white and those accused of perpetrating it are black. Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, were out on a dinner date in Knoxville, Tenn. on Jan. 6, when they were carjacked, kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered. According to published news reports,...

Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, were out on a dinner date in Knoxville, Tenn., on January 6, when they were carjacked, kidnapped, raped, tortured, sexually mutilated, and killed. Despite the press's taste for dramatic crimes, even crimes that do not involve missing blondes in Aruba, the story got almost no publicity. Conservative bloggers, who are beginning to buzz about the case, think they know why: the couple was white and the five suspects arrested in the case are black. The mainstream press does not like to carry stories of black mayhem and white victims. First, there is the...

The balance between "repugnant" speech and First Amendment rights divided a Knox County Commission committee Monday. Commissioners split 6-2, with one abstention, on a resolution asking the ABC Group to cancel its proposed June 16 rally, which will protest black-on-white crime in the wake of the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Five black suspects have been charged in connection with the death of the young white couple. "We have had a carjacking, kidnapping and horrendous double murder," Commissioner Greg "Lumpy" Lambert said at Monday's Intergovernmental Committee meeting, and he said racially charged protests don't need to be added...

Murder in Black and White Mark Alexander From Patriot Post Vol. 07 No. 18; Published 4 May 2007 | Print Email PDF Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom "Equal and exact justice to all men..." --Thomas Jefferson Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom were described by family and friends as a "clean-cut and faithful couple -- good kids." Channon was a senior at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where she met Christopher. She and Chris went out on a Saturday dinner date, after which Channon called her mom and told her that they were on the way to visit friends. But...

State prosecutors today announced there would be separate trials for each of four suspects in the fatal double-carjacking case of a young couple in North Knoxville. Surprisingly, the suspect considered by federal authorities to be the ringleader, Lemaricus "Slim" Davidson, 25, will be third in line, not first. Assistant District Attorney General Leland Price told Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner that the state planned to try Davidson’s brother, Letalvis "Rome" Cobbins, 24, first. Baumgartner set a May 12, 2008, trial date after defense attorney Kim Parton said that the state has not yet turned over the bulk of...

Knoxville (WVLT) - The District Attorney General of Knox County announced the list of charges facing now five suspects in the double murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. The District Attorney General Randy Nichols is not saying whether or not he will seek the death penalty, but he does say the state will seek conviction for all charges filed in a 24-page indictment from the Knox County Grand Jury. Lemaricus Davidson, 25, faces a total of 46 charges. Davidson was indicted on 16 counts of Felony Murder growing out of rape, robbery kidnapping and theft of Channon Christian and...

The major media has ignored this. Why did the Duke case get major coverage and this not? Channon Christian and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom were out for a date in January 2007 when the couple were carjacked, brutally tortured, and raped before being murdered and dumped. Christopher was bound, stripped, and raped. While he was still alive his penis was cut off, then he was shot, and finally set on fire all while his girlfriend was made to watch. His body was dumped by a set of railroad tracks. Channon was kept alive and gang-raped repeatedly over the next four...

Murder in black and whiteBy Mark M. AlexanderFriday, May 4, 2007 "Equal and exact justice to all men..." --Thomas JeffersonChannon Christian and Christopher Newsom were described by family and friends as a "clean-cut and faithful couple -- good kids." Channon was a senior at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where she met Christopher. She and Chris went out on a Saturday dinner date, after which Channon called her mom and told her that they were on the way to visit friends. But Channon and Christopher never arrived at their friends' house -- or returned home. The next day, the...

  Female suspect arraigned in Channon Christian, Chris Newsom murders Katie Allison Granju, Producer   Last Updated: 4/18/2007 1:13:35 PM Vanessa Coleman was arraigned in Knox County Criminal Court Wednesday for the murders of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom. Coleman appeared before a grand jury on indictments that included aggravated rape and first degree murder. Coleman is the only woman charged in the case, and the last suspect to be arraigned. She was arrested in Kentucky, and unsuccessfully fought extradition. Coleman is charged in the murders, along with Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, and George Thomas. All four are scheduled...

NASHVILLE -- Spurred by violent crime in Memphis and elsewhere, Tennessee legislators have filed several bills to expand the legal rights of people to use deadly force when threatened by would-be attackers. One would specifically allow people in motor vehicles to kill or "cause serious bodily injury" to attackers -- both inside or outside the vehicle -- who they believe are threatening to murder, rape, kidnap, rob or carjack the car's occupants. That bill was filed Rep. Ulysses Jones and Sen. Reginald Tate, both Memphis Democrats. "I've heard a lot of support for this. It's time to give citizens the...

It may seem like ancient history now, but it was only a year ago that we were first subjected to the media circus that was the so-called and now-dropped Duke Rape Case. For months thereafter, you couldn’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the television or radio without learning some new tidbit about the accused lacrosse players, even as their accuser remained shrouded in mystery. Today we know there was no rape and now not even a case at all, but even in those early days it was apparent enough that there were glaring problems with the accuser’s story...

February 1, 2007KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- Four suspects, including a woman arrested in Kentucky Wednesday night, are now facing murder, rape and kidnapping charges in the double slaying of a young Knoxville couple.But the location of the carjacking that began the series of charges in the investigation and why it happened is still being kept quiet.The suspects were indicted Thursday in Knox County, separate from the federal charges some of the men already face relating to the carjacking. The rape charges involve both murder victims, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.Lemaricus Davidson faces 46 counts including felony murder, premeditated murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated rape and theft.Letalvis Cobbins faces 46 counts including...

Four men are charged in connection with the double murder of a young Knoxville couple who was carjacked on a date. A Knoxville police spokesman says all four suspects are being held on federal charges related to the deaths of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23. However, none of the four have been charged with the killings. click to enlarge All four men were arrested Thursday. They are: Lemaricus Davidson, 25, Eric DeWayne Boyd, Letalvis Cobbins, 24, and George Thomas. Lemaricus Davidson was in federal court in Knoxville Friday morning. He faces three charges in connection with the murders...

Four of the suspects in the deaths of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom are now facing state charges. Advertisement Knox County District Attorney General Randy Nichols released the 46-count indictment late Thursday. "We're about to embark on our best efforts to see that this case moves to trial on the first day that it is set," Nichols said. "We will be prepared, and we anticipate putting our best foot forward and seeking conviction on every count levied in this indictment." Last month, police say Christian and Newsom were carjacked, kidnapped and murdered. Newsom's shot and burned body was found near...

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Two suspects in a case in which a young couple out for a date were carjacked and killed pleaded not guilty in federal court as prosecutors described their long criminal history. Lemaricus Davidson, 25, and Eric Boyd, 34, were arraigned separately. Davidson was charged with carjacking and firearms charges, and Boyd with being an accessory after the fact to the carjacking. Family members of victims Channon Christian, a 21-year-old University of Tennessee student, and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, wept as details of the carjacking and killings less than two weeks ago were recounted. The couple...

Investigators believe Channon Christian was held hostage and raped repeatedly for several days before being killed, a federal marshal said today. The news came on the same day that authorities captured three men sought for questioning in her death and that of her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom. Authorities believe she and Newsom were abducted after a weekend carjacking in North Knoxville that ultimately led to both their deaths, said Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Rich Knighten of the Western District of Kentucky. "They did some really nasty things to this lady," Knighten said. Newsom was shot and his body burned, Knighten said....