Читать книгу Crimes That Shocked The World - The Most Chilling True-Life Stories From the Last 40 Years - Danny Collins - Страница 11

‘I’ve just got to take out the trash’

– Lemaricus Davidson, after placing his victim’s body in a garbage bin.

Hugh Christopher (Chris) Newsom Jr and Channon Christian were a wholesome couple. He was a 23-year-old former baseball player for the Halls High School Red Devils who had graduated in 2002 and was currently working as a trim carpenter in Knoxville, Tennessee, the town where he had grown up. He met his girlfriend Channon Christian – a graduate of Farragut High School and a senior majoring in sociology at the University of Tennessee – when the Christian family moved to Knoxville from their native Louisiana in 1997.

The couple had met as teenagers on a social evening and Channon had fallen in love with the slender youth, admiring his prowess on the baseball pitch and responding to his ready smile. Her feelings were reciprocated and both sets of parents felt that an engagement might ensue, not too far in the future, perhaps when Channon had completed her sociology degree. There was no doubt that the attractive blue-eyed blonde had captured Chris Newsom’s heart.

On 6 January the couple drove in Channon’s almost new Toyota 4 Runner to watch an outdoor movie at Market Square – a common distraction in Knoxville provided courtesy of the Knox County Library. Afterwards they had dinner in a local restaurant before visiting friends in the town’s Washington Heights Apartments, saying their farewells just after midnight for the drive home. They never arrived.

Despite being the largest city in East Tennessee and ranking third largest in the state, Knoxville’s population is slightly less than 180,000 souls. Outside the city nucleus the area is mostly agricultural. People usually get where they’re going and the incidence of road traffic accidents is minimal.

Chris’s and Channon’s parents – Gary and Deena Christian and Hugh and Mary Newsom – were puzzled to find their respective offsprings’ beds un-slept in the next morning and hurriedly rang each other to confirm whether the couple had slept at each other’s parents’ home. But it was clear that the couple had never returned to either property. Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom had disappeared within minutes of leaving the house of the friends they had visited the previous evening. Their worried parents called the police and immediate checks were carried out at hospitals and with local traffic police. Chief of Police Sterling Owen directed the search for the young couple and speculation was rife about their disappearance. Both Channon and Christopher were known as level-headed individuals with their lives and future clearly mapped out. A runaway elopement was discounted and anxiety grew for their safety.

Later that afternoon, that anxiety became reality when the brutalised and burned body of a young white male was found in East Knoxville near a section of railway tracks between the Cherry Street and Ninth Avenue bridges. It was identified by a police officer who knew the family of Christopher Newsom Jr. ‘I recognised him by his eyes,’ the officer told Chris’s father. The 23-year-old baseball star had been shot in the head, spine, and lower body. His hands were bound behind him. An examination of the bloodied corpse in situ revealed even more horrifying details. Christopher’s penis had been savagely hacked off and his body showed signs of repeated anal rape, later confirmed by autopsy. Whoever had dumped him near the tracks had soaked his body in gasoline and set it on fire before leaving the scene.

The search for Channon grew in intensity. Meanwhile, her parents returned to the police with her cellphone number and a trace run by the service providers led to the discovery of her abandoned vehicle in the rural neighbourhood of Chipman Street the next day. The vehicle was searched and fingerprints sent for comparison to the National Index. When the results arrived a few days later, prints found on an envelope containing Channon’s bank statement found inside the Toyota SUV led police to 2316 Chipman Street, a clapboard single storey home not far from where the vehicle was found. It was the residence of 25-year-old Lemaricus Devall ‘Slim’ Davidson, a local black petty criminal with a long rap sheet of violent robbery and carjacking offences. Davidson was nowhere to be seen and the house appeared to be unoccupied.

A search warrant for the house was executed on the following day and revealed some broken sticks of furniture, a .22 calibre revolver and a .22 rifle. In the kitchen a horrific discovery awaited. Police found Channon Christian’s body crammed inside a large domestic trash can, covered with plastic sheets. An autopsy would reveal that the young student had died of asphyxiation. An all-points, stop-and-detain warrant was issued for Davidson, who eventually surrendered to police. He was arrested on suspicion of murder and his subsequent questioning by investigators led to the arrests of three other black men and one woman: Davidson’s half brother Letalvis ‘Rome’ Cobbins (24), George Geovonni ‘Detroit’ Thomas (27), Eric DeWayne ‘E’ Boyd (34) and 18-year-old Vanessa Coleman who, Davidson told police, had all been visiting him from Kentucky on the day of the carjacking. All were eventually charged with various counts of rape, murder, and hijacking.

Lemaricus Davidson would later claim that his stepbrother, Cobbins, together with Thomas and Boyd had carjacked the couple after he had told Cobbins that he and his friends from Kentucky were freeloading on his hospitality. He claimed never to have seen Newsom and pointed his finger at Cobbins and Thomas for the victims’ rape and murder. He admitted seeing Channon Christian brought into the house and noted that she was wearing a ‘hoodie’ and had not been blindfolded. ‘That meant they’d have to kill her ’cos she’d seen faces,’ he told police and federal investigators. ‘I took the keys of the girl’s car from my brother and drove away. I didn’t want to see what was going to happen.’

He claimed never to have returned to the scene, although his testimony would change dramatically at trial. Although Davidson’s defence team would later offer up Cobbins as the ringleader and the chief protagonist in the multiple rape and murder of Channon, irrefutable DNA evidence pointed to Davidson’s fingerprints and semen as proof that he took an active part in her rape and death.

The details of the crime, together with the horrific injuries inflicted on the couple before death, drove the press into a feeding frenzy. The case had all the hallmarks of racial ferment. The murdered couple were white and middle class while their attackers and killers were known black criminals. As sensationalised press reports recorded the agonies of the victims, Tennessee reeled in shock. Gradually the full horror of the young lovers’ deaths was revealed under questioning as each suspect fought to lay the blame on each other. Seeking immunity from the public prosecutor, Vanessa Coleman told investigators that she was present when Davidson led Channon blindfolded with her hands tied behind her, into the room and snapped her neck from behind. He then wrapped the body in garbage bags and stuffed it into the bin, making a remark about ‘taking out the trash’. She also alleged that George Thomas had told her he ‘felt bad’ about the death of Chris Newsom, whom he had raped and mutilated along with Cobbins before the latter shot him to death after marching him to the railway tracks opposite the house. Thomas allegedly then poured gasoline over the corpse and set it ablaze.

The story finally put together by police was that after hijacking Channon Christian’s Toyota SUV from Washington Heights at gunpoint, the attackers had bound the couple in the back seat and taken them to Davidson’s residence in Chipman Street, where Channon was forced to watch as the men repeatedly raped Newsom – court records refer to 20 counts of rape committed on the couple – then hacked off his penis, shot him multiple times and dragged his corpse along to the nearby railway track between Cherry Street and Ninth Avenue, where they set it on fire.

With Newson out of the way, the perpetrators next focused their depraved sadism on the terrified Channon. While not clear whether the 21-year-old student was killed within hours or kept alive until the following day, it was evident that she suffered agonies as she was gang-raped numerous times, beaten almost to the point of death, had a breast cut from her conscious body, and urinated upon. At some time one of the gang, possibly Vanessa Coleman, raped her both vaginally and anally with a broken chair leg.

The sheer depravity of the attacks is difficult to comprehend. Why, with a woman victim in their power, did the men resort to the repeated anal rape of their male victim? The answer may lie in that all the men arrested had served prison sentences where male rape is common – Cobbins had finished serving a six-year sentence only five months before – and may have developed a taste for that particular depravity. Some psychologists interviewed for this book believed it possible that Newsom may have angered his attackers or provoked them to the point where they showed their contempt and dominance of a ‘little white boy’ by raping him in front of his girlfriend. Whatever the reasons, Christopher Newsom’s pain and torment were over, and now the gang turned its evil on the helpless Channon.

Investigators still remain unclear whether Channon Christian was held and tortured for two days following the murder of Christopher Newsom or whether she died the next day. Certainly, when her corpse was discovered it was apparent that raw bleach had been poured down her throat and used to scrub her mutilated body. This, forensic pathologists decided, could have taken place post mortem and was done to destroy DNA evidence. There is no doubt, however, that Channon Christian met her death by suffocation after being bound inside several plastic garbage bags and stuffed into the large garbage bin inside the house, where her body was discovered by police. A policeman remarked: ‘She died with her eyes open.’ If Coleman’s account is to be believed, Channon may have merely fainted when Davidson attempted to break her neck. She recalls Davidson asking her if the girl was dead, to which she claims to have retorted, ‘Look yourself, Bro, I ’ain’t no nurse.’

With the sensational press coverage, the case had now become a cause célèbre for black activists and white supremacists alike. In May 2007, 30 white supremacists demonstrated in downtown Knoxville in protest at the murders and questions were asked in the right wing press regarding the absence of comments on the case by the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both well known for their outspoken deliveries on the issues of race. Perhaps they felt there was no infringement of black civil rights involved, but their reluctance to speak to the press about the murders was noted.

All those arrested were charged with the murders of Hugh Christopher Newsom Jr and Channon Christian, and with other charges relative to the crime. Davidson, Cobbins, and Thomas were all indicted by a Grand Jury on a total of 46 counts each: these were 16 counts of felony murder, two counts of premeditated murder, two counts of especially aggravated robbery, four counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts of aggravated rape, and two counts of theft. Eric DeWayne ‘E’ Boyd was not indicted for murder and faced only federal charges as an accessory after the fact. He was eventually convicted in federal court of being an accessory to the carjacking and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. The prosecution reserved the right to bring him to trial on capital murder charges following evidence gathered in the trials of Cobbins, Davidson, and Coleman. Pre-trial proceedings were scheduled for July 2009.

It should be clarified that in each indictment the large number of counts of rape were not included to reflect the number of rapes that actually occurred, but to provide a range of options for the prosecutors, although without doubt the victims were both sexually abused a number of times before their murders.

On 25 August 2009, Letalvis ‘Rome’ Cobbins (24) was found guilty of multiple counts of first degree and felony murder in the death of Channon Christian but opted for lesser charges of facilitating murder in the killing of Newsom. He was also convicted of rape, kidnapping, and robbery, charges that carry the weight of 15 to 25 years’ imprisonment. Cobbins was found guilty on 33 of the 38 counts against him but the jury baulked at calling for his death and sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole. He narrowly escaped paying the ultimate price for his crimes. District Attorney Randy Nichols had announced that the state would be seeking the death penalty for Cobbins, Davidson and Coleman, if convicted.

Meanwhile, the defence attorneys of Lemaricus Devall ‘Slim’ Davidson pleaded that publicity against the accused would require a change of venue in order to ensure a fair trial. The motion was subsequently denied by the presiding judge as premature, although it was clear that Davidson’s eventual conviction following the denied request for a change of venue would lead, in the case of a guilty verdict, to the filing of an appeal on the grounds of jury prejudice.

That prejudice, if it had existed, wouldn’t have been enough for the families of the victims. Gary Christian, father of Channon, had to be physically restrained when Cobbins told the court that Channon had offered him oral sex in return for his help in escaping. Cobbins’s extraordinary statement was made when, against his attorneys’ advice, he took the stand to testify on his own behalf. Before Cobbins began his testimony, Judge Baumgartner dismissed a motion by his two reluctant court-appointed defence attorneys, Kim Parton and Scott Green, to withdraw from the case citing client/counsel differences.

Cobbins’s testimony was a blatant effort to place the blame for the crime on his fellow conspirators, referred to in court as the ‘Kentucky Crowd’, while making himself appear as a man struggling with a moral dilemma during the assaults on Newsom and Christian, unable to intervene for fear of his life. He told the court that he, his girlfriend Vanessa Coleman, and Thomas had come from Kentucky to spend the New Year 2007 with his brother Davidson, who he hadn’t seen for years due to regular spells of imprisonment. Davidson had been delighted to see him and suggested they go together to Washington Ridge Apartments to meet a girlfriend of Davidson. According to Cobbins, Eric Boyd – who had already been found guilty and sentenced as an accessory in the case, accompanied them.

The trio smoked marijuana on the way to the apartments and there spotted Newsom and Christian hugging and kissing in a Toyota SUV. Davidson and Boyd jumped out and carjacked them at pistol point. At this point Cobbins insisted that he wanted nothing to do with the carjacking but Davidson insisted he follow them back to Davidson’s house on Chipman Street. He told the court that all four suspects were at the house when he, Davidson, and Boyd arrived with Newsom and Christian and that he had told Coleman and Thomas that the three of them should leave because of what was going on, but, in his words, ‘that never happened’. When he told Davidson of their intention, his brother produced a gun and threatened to shoot anyone who attempted to leave the house.

Throughout his testimony Cobbins made no mention of the rape and murder of Christopher Newsom, only recalling that Davidson and Thomas came back into the house for a while, left about half an hour later and returned with ‘dark stains’ on their shirts when they returned the second time. His inflammatory statement that so riled the father of Channon related to when he told the court that he had gone into the bedroom where Channon was bound on the bed and untied her bonds so that she could drink some of the water he had brought her.

At that point, according to Cobbins, the young woman offered him oral sex if he would convince Davidson to let her go. He claimed he accepted her offer and told the stunned jury he heard ‘noises that concerned him’ as he ejaculated. At that point the victim’s mother struggled to restrain her husband from attacking Cobbins. Cobbins was found guilty on 33 counts, including first degree felony murder, first degree premeditated murder, especially aggravated robbery, especially aggravated kidnapping with a weapon, aggravated rape with a weapon, aggravated rape with bodily injury, aggravated rape while aided by others, and theft of property.

He was found not guilty on five counts, including the murder of Newsom during his rape, the murder of Christian during Newsom’s rape, and three counts of aggravated rape of Newsom. The trial of Cobbins’s half brother Lemaricus Davidson began on 19 October 2009, with that of Vanessa Coleman and George Thomas to follow. Davidson’s defence strategy was to accuse Cobbins of lying about his and Davidson’s role with regard to the carjacking, rapes, and murders. However, his attorneys, Doug Trant and David Aldridge, presented a story very similar to that of Cobbins to explain the presence of their client’s semen on the dead girl.

According to Davidson, Christian had offered him vaginal sex in return for her life. It was a flawed tactic since, even if it had been believed, it could only have presented the picture of a terrified girl begging for her life and willing to make any sacrifice to escape death. It failed to save Davidson and on 28 October he was found guilty on all counts. On 30 October the jury imposed the death sentence for his role as ringleader in the killings.

Although no information was available at the time this book went to publication, there was no doubt in Davidson’s defence strategy that room had been left for the manoeuvre of appeal. Criminals sentenced to death in the USA may spend decades on Death Row while their anti-capital punishment lawyers, often working pro bono, bring repeated appeals for stays of executions to keep their clients away from lethal injection.

The appeal process in the United States is long, following a trail through various stages of hearings as far as the Federal Supreme Court, where an unfavourable decision leaves only a plea of clemency, seldom granted, to the state governor. Tennessee’s state governor is Phil Bredesen, a free-thinking Democrat hard on drugs and crime and a staunch supporter of family values. Of late, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), passed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, has severely constrained the time limit for appeal and the conditions under which an appeal can be heard.

The trial of George Geovonni Thomas was set for 1 December. The defence of Vanessa Coleman – who in her haste to condemn everyone but herself had made incriminating statements before counsel was appointed or a plea bargain arranged – had appealed a key ruling over immunity and no trial date had been set.

The murder house at 2316 Chipman Street was bought in October 2008 by Waste Collections Inc, the company that owned the adjoining land, and the house was demolished. In its place a memorial was erected to Channon Christian and Hugh Christopher Newsom Jr, victims of the horrors of a fatal carjacking one night in Knoxville, Tennessee, that went far beyond the limits of human understanding.