XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: dotnc@4ax.com   
      
   Sound familiar?   
      
   Six years and seven trials later, one question remains — what   
   happened on Chipman Street?   
      
   In one of Knoxville's most horrific crimes, Channon Christian,   
   21, and boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, were carjacked,   
   kidnapped, raped and slain in January 2007. Five suspects were   
   identified. One was tried federally as an accessory. Four others   
   were tried in Knox County Criminal Court.   
      
   A drug scandal involving the judge in those state court   
   proceedings would upend the convictions against two of those   
   suspects. New trials were held, the most recent of which   
   occurred last week.   
      
   Through it all, details of the horrors this young couple   
   suffered have eked out. But with each suspect pointing the   
   finger of blame at the other and jurors limited by law in what   
   they are allowed to know, the real story of what happened when   
   the couple were taken hostage and ultimately slain has proved   
   just as elusive as the court cases convoluted.   
      
   The News Sentinel has covered this case since its beginning.   
   With the aid of interviews, trial coverage and transcripts of   
   each defendant's statement to authorities, the newspaper can now   
   offer up a snapshot of not only what happened to these two   
   innocents but exactly who did what to them.   
      
   Setting the stage   
      
   Chipman Street resident Lemaricus Davidson was broke and angry.   
   His girlfriend, Daphne Sutton, had left him. He had no car and   
   no way to earn money.   
      
   "Selling dope, that's what I do," Davidson would later tell law   
   enforcement.   
      
   Law enforcers knew, however, that Davidson was not simply a drug   
   dealer. He was on parole for carjacking and, in the days leading   
   up to the abduction of Christian and Newsom, was suspected in a   
   series of robberies.   
      
   In the days before the couple's abduction, Davidson's brother   
   Letalvis Cobbins came to Knoxville from Kentucky to stay with   
   him. He brought along friend George Thomas and girlfriend   
   Vanessa Coleman.   
      
   None of the three had jobs, money or vehicles. Cobbins and   
   Thomas were homeless. Coleman had a salt-of-the-earth family to   
   turn to for help but chose not to.   
      
   Davidson grew increasingly angry over what he viewed as the   
   freeloading of his brother and his guests. He turned that anger   
   on Sutton. She left him on Jan. 5, 2007.   
      
   A day later, Davidson had concocted a plan to solve all his   
   woes. He, with help from Cobbins and a buddy, Eric Boyd, would   
   carjack someone. Cobbins insisted that he wasn't happy with the   
   idea.   
      
   "Me and my brother got to arguing because he said he was going   
   to do some crazy (expletive)," Cobbins said in an interview with   
   law enforcement. "He like, man, I'm fixing to go carjack   
   somebody, man, try and get me some money."   
      
   Savaging the victims   
      
   Christian and Newsom disappeared Jan. 6, 2007, from the   
   Washington Ridge apartment complex where Christian's best friend   
   lived.   
      
   Hours later, Newsom's body was found alongside railroad tracks   
   near Chipman Street in East Knoxville. He had been raped with an   
   object and then shot three times. The final shot was delivered   
   execution style.   
      
   He had been gagged with a sock stuffed in his mouth. His ankles   
   were bound with his own belt. His hands were secured behind his   
   back. His face was wrapped in a bandanna. His head was covered   
   with a sweatshirt tied around his neck with shoestrings.   
      
   Forensic evidence showed that he had been raped in the final   
   hours of his life. He was forced to walk barefoot to the   
   railroad tracks that ran parallel to Chipman Street and shot in   
   the neck and back. As Newsom lay paralyzed on the ground, the   
   muzzle of a .22-caliber gun was placed against his covered head   
   and fired. His body would later be wrapped up in a comforter,   
   doused in gasoline and set afire.   
      
   Christian, meanwhile, was tied up inside the Chipman Street   
   house of Davidson, a stranger to her. She was repeatedly raped   
   orally, vaginally and rectally. At some point, she was savagely   
   attacked in her genital region, either kicked or beaten with an   
   object.   
      
   She suffered two blows to the head and was dragged into the   
   carpeted living room of Davidson's Chipman Street home. Bleach   
   was sprayed down her throat, an apparent effort to destroy DNA   
   evidence.   
      
   She was hogtied with strips of fabric from a bedding set. Still   
   alive, her body was encased in black garbage bags and her head   
   wrapped in a white plastic grocery bag. Christian was then   
   stuffed inside a trash can and left to die, slowly suffocating.   
      
   Sneaking a preview   
      
   Suspect Boyd has long denied any role in the couple's abduction.   
   With no forensic proof tying him to the crimes, authorities were   
   left to prosecute him for hiding out Davidson after the   
   slayings. He is serving an 18-year federal prison sentence as a   
   result.   
      
   But his statement to authorities provides striking details of   
   the carjacking — details he insisted came from Davidson, not his   
   own memory.   
      
   Christian was angry with Newsom because he had tarried in   
   picking her up for the birthday party of a friend. As she sat in   
   the front seat of her Toyota 4-Runner parked outside, Newsom   
   sought to set things right, hugging and kissing her as he stood   
   just outside the driver's side door.   
      
   The couple never saw Boyd cruise into the parking lot at   
   Washington Ridge with passengers Davidson and Cobbins. An armed   
   Boyd and Davidson jumped from the car, leaving Cobbins behind.   
   At that point, the pair intended only to rob Christian and   
   Newsom of the SUV. But as they approached the couple, guns   
   drawn, headlights from another vehicle spooked them. They pushed   
   the couple into the SUV.   
      
   Testimony has shown that Christian and Newsom were bound in the   
   SUV with whatever cords the assailants could find. Newsom was   
   forced facedown in the vehicle. A bound Christian was dumped   
   onto his back.   
      
   With Davidson behind the wheel of Christian's SUV and Cobbins   
   trailing behind in a car Boyd had borrowed from his cousin, the   
   crew headed back to Davidson's Chipman Street home.   
      
   There was no doubt then that the couple would die.   
      
   "Two white people, white kids, this (expletive) fixing to get   
   crazy, man, you know what I mean?" Cobbins said.   
      
   Davidson and his cohorts are black, the victims white. Racial   
   differences have never been suggested as a motivator for what   
   authorities view as a random carjacking.   
      
   Spilling the beans   
      
   Back at Davidson's Chipman Street house with their bound and   
   blindfolded victims in tow, an argument broke out among   
   Davidson, Boyd, Cobbins, Thomas and Coleman. Thomas and Davidson   
   barely knew each other and neither liked the other.   
      
   "Lemaricus told (Thomas) that he was gonna need him to do   
   something so he could trust him," Coleman told law enforcers.   
      
   The suspects admit that they curried Christian's cooperation by   
   promising her she would be let go if she went along with their   
   demands. She even called home — at gunpoint — to create a false   
   alibi to buy the suspects time in their murderous plans.   
      
   None of the suspects concede involvement in Newsom's death. But   
   trial testimony, statements and forensic evidence suggest that   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)