The Most Horrific Story You Will Ever Read
Don’t read this.
Hollywood super-producer Bob Evans said “Luck is when timing meets preparation.” If we follow Bob’s logic, then what is the recipe for profound misfortune? Is it still about timing, or is it about chaos? Is it that last moment when set plans change? What do we even call it? Broken lives converging on the unexpected. The torture and murder of Channon (pronounced “Shannon”) Christian (21) and Christopher Newsom (23) is the most horrific story I have ever read. This crime not only has some of the most brutal details I have read, but it also has this senselessness about it that makes the fact that it happened, almost unbearable.
Before we hop into the case. I want to say a few words of sensitivity (I know, look at me, being all human and shit). I grappled with whether or not to write about this case for you ghouls. The crime took place in 2007 and the victims’ families are still very much alive and suffering. I want to be respectful to these victims who have lived through a series of severe traumas (Including 7 criminal trials partially because one of the judges was on drugs. Can’t make this shit up guys). What convinced me to write about the case, is the participation of the families in multiple taped interviews, including an Investigation Discovery (AKA Mah-Bible) docuseries that delves into the crime. Both Christian and Newsom’s parents were interviewed, and have a strong voice in the show. It is their story to tell, and I have used the ID piece and their other interviews as primary source material for this writing (ah-hem).
I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t a racial component to this story. The perpetrators were black and the totally innocent victims were white. I’m also not going to pretend that there aren’t systems in this country that have perpetuated the cradle to prison pipeline, and perpetuate the oppression and poverty that certain voiceless people find themselves in. (ah hem hem)That being said, all defendants were judged guilty.
Ok, last warning. Turn back now.
A shining new Toyota 4Runner was gifted to a pretty girl from a good family. All agreed that the SUV was a head turner. Channon decorated it with her own style, placing photos and other accoutrements in the car. She drove it back and forth from University of TN, Knoxville to her upper-middle-class home in West Knoxville where she lived with her parents . Her boyfriend Christopher was a noted “good” boy. He was a talented baseball player, from the more middle-class North Knoxville.
The night of the murders, Channon and Christopher were supposed to leave the North Knoxville apartment of Channon’s best friend Kara Sowards to attend a party.
Christopher was running late, and Channon told Kara to go, and she would wait for Christopher to show up. Chris and Channon were both standing on the driver’s side of the SUV, chatting and kissing, oblivious to the marauding gang of carjackers that were descending upon them. Suddenly there is a gun in their faces, and lots of commotion. They want the car. An unknown 3rd set of headlights came through the apartment parking lot. The gang freaks, and with guns to their heads, shoves the young couple in the 4Runner and takes off with them.
So much promise, so much pain, converging in chaos, barreling toward a waste management plant.
LeMaricus Davidson had recently been let out of prison and was on parole for a carjacking conviction. Living with him, were his brother Letalvis Cobbins, and two friends visiting from Kentucky, Vanessa Coleman and George Thomas. Also in tow was friend Eric Boyd. The crew who largely came from rough upbringings, were described as “unstable” and always “into something.” Broke and angry LeMaricus decides that he is going to carjack someone. With Boyd at the wheel of his own vehicle they set out into the night and stumble upon the gleaming silver SUV.
The couple, still held at gunpoint, are taken to a house on Chipman Street adjacent to Knoxville Waste Connection, a waste management and recycling plant. Newsom is murdered first. At some point he is anally raped and badly beaten. Barefoot and bound with a sweatshirt around his head secured with shoe strings, he is led to the railroad tracks behind the home. Newsom is gagged with his own sock and his ankles are bound with his own belt. At the railroad tracks the killers still show no mercy. Egged on by Davidson, Thomas shoots Christopher Newsom, member of Beaver Dam Baptist Church, in the neck. Thomas then shoots Newsom in the back. Still alive, the 23-year-old carpenter bleeds, paralyzed on the ground near the railroad tracks. Davidson shoots Newsom in the head, execution style. The cold blooded, and drawn out savagery only escalates from there. Possibly in an attempt to conceal evidence the body is then wrapped in a comforter, doused with gasoline and torched.
The lease for the tiny house on Chipman street belonged to LeMaricus Davidson. His girlfriend Daphne had recently moved out after he had roughed her up. The house was a mess, with the houseguests from Kentucky overstaying their welcome. Porn dvd’s surrounded the TV, fast food wrappers, spent shell casings and empty liquor bottles littered the pad.
Channon Christian was left with Vanessa Coleman in the home. When Davidson and Thomas came back from the railroad tracks they descend upon Christian. She was tied up, brutally raped (anally, orally and vaginally). She was so savagely brutalized, a membrane in her mouth was damaged. She was told that if she complied that they would let her go. She had significant blood “pooling” in her genital region. Testimony shows that her vagina had been mutilated, possibly using a detached table leg. (Has your stomach turned yet? Mine too. Let’s hold hands through the rest of this). According to her own grand jury testimony, which you can read here, Coleman is fully aware of what is happening to Christian throughout her almost 24 hour ordeal, but makes no attempt to help her other than bringing her water. At more than one point the two women are alone in the house together.
Finally, Christian is strangled and beaten unconscious in the kitchen, then dragged into the living room, and tied-up in a fetal position. In a feeble attempt to rid the very much alive Channon Christian of DNA, Davidson pours a bleach-based cleaner down her throat (THEY SPRAY BLEACH DOWN HER THROAT), and douse her body in it. Then she is wrapped in 5 trash-bags, encased alive in plastic. (On a forensic note the finger prints that led investigators to Davidson and Cobbins were lifted from these trash bags). There was a white shopping bag placed over her head. She was stuffed into a large Rubbermaid style trashcan. Channon Christian slowly suffocated to death. Her eyes were open when she died (I need a hug. Let’s hug.).
Here is where the young couple’s substantial suffering ends, but their families’ suffering is only beginning. The families are alarmed after the couple is a no show at the party, at home or at work on January 7th. Tipped off by Channon’s cell pinging a tower near the waste management plant, the couples friends and families start to scour east Knoxville. Channon’s father comes across the 4Runner, on Cherry Street, adjacent to Chipman Street. The car is eerily clean, fully wiped of prints. Channon’s things are missing from the car. On January 7th 2007, the partially burned body of Chis Newsom is found near the railroad tracks. Two days later Channon’s body is found by police, still in the garbage can on Chipman street.
On January 11th, LeMaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, and George Thomas were arrested and charged with the murders of the couple. Eric Boyd was arrested and charged as an accessory. Vanessa Coleman was located in Kentucky and arrested for murder.
The saga of the trials of the suspects is a book in itself. Long story short, four of the gang were eventually found guilty of committing or facilitating the couple’s rape, torture and murder. Two defendants had to be retried due to the Judge’s nasty little pill addiction and proclivity to buy drugs from felons in his jurisdiction. Davidson is now on death row.
So why did you read this? For me it’s probably an uncontrollable urge to feed the part of me that wants to feel pain. Its also to appease the part of me that wants to try to understand why our lives feel like a cosmic joke. This is by no measure victim blaming, but I want to point out all of the points of escalation: That gleaming 4Runner. What if her parents had never bought it and had opted for something dowdy? The late boyfriend. What if he just had his shit together and showed up on time? Channon choosing to wait for Christopher rather than going with her friend Kara to the party. The headlights coming through the parking lot that is the impetus for the gang to kidnap the couple. Vanessa Coleman’s lack of action when she could have saved Christian’s life. The fatefulness of it all is infuriating. If one thing had happened differently that night. Just. One. Thing. This is an astonishing crime and a profound misfortune, where generations of broken lives and bad decisions descend on momentary chaos, and life continues on.
If you’re completely fucked up and want to take a deeper dive into the investigation and the affect on the community, you can watch the ID show here. Photo credit: Knoxville Sentinel
