Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a Knoxville couple, were on a date night on January 6, 2007, when they disappeared. An investigation revealed that multiple assailants carjacked, kidnapped, raped, tortured, and brutally murdered the duo. The events that followed involved multiple trials and convictions. The case remains one of the most horrific crimes Knoxville has ever seen.
WVLT-TV stated a worker found Newsom’s naked, raped, shot, and burned body alongside railroad tracks near Chipman. Police found Christian’s body two days later in a trash can near a rental property on Chipman Street. A medical examiner claimed that the 21-year-old was alive when the killers wrapped her in plastic bags and dumped her in a trash can, where she suffocated. She had also been sexually assaulted.
Investigation Discovery’s true-crime series Sins and Secrets previously revisited Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom’s cases. The series premiere episode titled “Knoxville” aired in 2011.
How were the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom solved?
According to the WVLT-TV report, before finding Channon Christian’s body, police found her abandoned vehicle near Chipman Street. While searching the vehicle, they found a set of fingerprints belonging to a suspect investigator, later identified as Lemaricus Davidson. On January 9, 2007, they found her body near Davidson’s rental property, two blocks away from where they located her vehicle.
Two days after the discovery, authorities found two suspects: Davidson’s brother Letalvis Cobbins and his friend George Thomas. That same day, they also found Davidson and then served a fourth suspect, Eric Boyd, with a federal warrant. Investigators named five suspects: Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, Vanessa Coleman (Cobbins’ girlfriend), and Eric Boyd.
Knox News reported that Boyd denied any role in Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom’s abductions and murders. Due to a lack of physical evidence linking him to the crimes, authorities could only prosecute him for being an accessory after the fact. He received an 18-year federal prison sentence for hiding out Davidson after the slayings after his 2008 conviction.
The outlet stated that none of the suspects conceded involvement in Newsom’s death. However, testimony, statements, and forensic evidence indicated that Davidson, Cobbins, Boyd, and Thomas took the 23-year-old to the railway tracks. There, Davidson made Thomas fire the first shot at the victim in the neck, after which he fell forward. A second shot then struck him in the back. Davidson delivered the final and fatal shot to his head. They later burned his body.
After returning, Cobbins orally raped Christian with great force, severing a membrane in her mouth. DNA evidence proved that Davidson raped her both vaginally and rectally. Furthermore, authorities suspected Coleman of delivering brutal blows to the victim’s vaginal region, which caused a massive pooling of blood. Reportedly, they then sprayed bleach into her mouth in an attempt to remove evidence.
In 2009, after multiple trials, Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, and George Thomas were convicted on separate charges. Davidson got the death penalty, while Cobbins and Thomas received their respective life sentences. The following year, Vanessa Coleman received 53 years in prison after a conviction on charges including facilitation of murder, kidnapping, and rape.
More than a decade after the killings, Eric Boyd was also charged with murder, kidnapping, and rape-related counts stemming from the case. Boyd’s trial included testimony from his accomplice and convicted murderer George Thomas, among others. A jury found him guilty on several charges after a week-long trial in August 2019, per WVLT-TV.
Over the years, the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom have stirred racial tensions. It remains a highly debated subject even now.
