Pod Insights Criminology Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom About this episode On Saturday, January 6th, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom had planned to go on a date. The couple had only been dating for about two months. Their night ended in an unspeakable double murder. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. The pair were carjacked by a group of people who then systematically tortured and murdered them. The details that emerged were horrific and shocking. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
0:37 Speaker 01 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 337 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.
0:43 Speaker 02 And this is Mike Morford.
0:45 Speaker 01 Mr. Morford, how you doing, buddy?
0:47 Speaker 02 I'm doing good. I'm wrapping up my holiday shopping and just making sure all the Ts are crossed and Is are dotted and everything's ready to go. What are you doing?
0:56 Speaker 01 Well, you know, that's gotta be done. I didn't have a lot of shopping this year. My family made it very easy for me. They basically said, here's what I want. And so, uh, my wife is actually already wearing hers. She found a ring that she wanted while she was out looking for something for my daughters. And she called me on the phone. She said, hey, this is what I want for Christmas. And I said, well, buy it.
1:21 Speaker 02 Makes it easy. You know, I, they say, don't get gift cards for people. I love gift cards and I can just, you know, give me gift cards. I'll just stack them up and use them as I need them.
1:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, get whatever you want, right? All right, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Bridget Alexandria Koverick and Renaya Hilton jump out at our highest level. So that's, uh, some great new support. We really appreciate it.
1:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to do that. It really helps out the show. For anyone else that would like to support Criminology, head over to patreon.com/criminology to sign up.
1:59 Speaker 01 All right, it's time to jump into this week's case. And in this episode, we're going to talk about one of those cases that is truly terrifying. While all the cases we discuss are tragic, unfortunate, and heartbreaking, some are especially heinous and disturbing. And this is one of those cases. Many that we cover have clear motives, like financial gain, or avoiding a loss of reputation, or their so-called crimes of passion. You know, those in where it's in the heat of the moment between people who know each other well, when emotions are raging. Most of the time, the victim knows their killer. There are some crimes, though, that are completely random,
2:42 Speaker 01 where victims cross paths with very bad people with unthinkable results. And this is one of those cases. We're talking about the January 2007 abduction and murders of Shannon Christian and Christopher Newsom.
2:57 Speaker 02 By January 2007, Shannon Christian and Christopher Newsom had been dating for about two months. They were still very much in that honeymoon phase of new relationships, where they seemed infatuated with one another, and they seemed to be hanging it off really well. Shannon was 21 years old. She was living in the Knoxville area while studying sociology at the University of Tennessee. This was her senior year in college, as she was set to graduate that December. Christopher Newsom's birth name was Hugh, but he went by Chris to all who knew him. He was 23 years old that January. After high school, he went to Pelosi State Technical Community College, where he learned the skills he needed to become a carpenter.
3:39 Speaker 01 On Saturday, January 6, Shannon and Chris had planned to go on a date. Of course, they were completely unaware that this would be their last night alive. For them, it was just any other night. Most articles and reports say that they went to a restaurant in Knoxville for their dinner, and then when they weren't ready to end the night, they decided to head to a friend's apartment to hang out and watch movies. Most timelines also state that everything was fine. At 12:35 a.m. on the 7th because Shannon spoke with either her mother or her father on the phone. However, as we look through the timeline put together in court documents,
4:21 Speaker 01 this is not at all how their night went. On Saturday, the 6th, Chris was out golfing with his friends and Shannon was at her friend's apartment getting ready for their date. The plan was for Chris to drop his friend off and pick Shannon up from the Washington Ridge Apartments in Knoxville. They would go out for a nice dinner and then stop by a friend's to hang out. Around 8 p.m., Shannon's friend Cara left to go to a party. At about 8:45, Chris used an ATM to withdraw $100 and then he dropped his friend Josh off at the same party around 9 and told friends there that he and Shannon would be there later.
5:05 Speaker 02 From there, Chris headed to the Washington Ridge Apartments to meet Shannon. It looks like they may have decided to take her vehicle, a Toyota 4Runner SUV, possibly because it was easier to park in busier areas than his truck was, but they never even got to leave the parking lot. That night, Shannon was sitting in the driver's seat of the 4Runner and Chris was standing next to the car and they were kissing. And that's when, without warning, they were attacked by a group of men. The couple was ambushed at gunpoint and forced into the backseat of the 4Runner. Two of the perpetrators also got inside the 4Runner, one to drive and one to keep the couple under control. Following Shannon's SUV was a third perpetrator in the car they used to hunt for their victims. Both vehicles
5:49 Speaker 02 drove to a small rented home on Chipman Street in Knoxville.
5:53 Speaker 01 Friends of Shannon and Chris were curious. When they didn't show up to hang out like they had planned, they started texting them around 10 p.m. And at first, when they didn't reply, they figured they either changed their mind or were busy and they were a little later than they expected to be. But when neither of them replied to anyone's texts or calls by 11 p.m., Josh headed to Cara's apartment complex to see what was going Chris's pickup truck was there, but Shannon's forerunner wasn't. At around the same time, a waste connections employee working on Chipman Street at 1230 noticed that the house at 2316 Chipman was lit up and there was activity going on.
6:38 Speaker 01 It stood out to him because all of the nearby homes were dark and quiet. Parked in front of the home was an empty Toyota forerunner with its headlights on. And behind it was parked a white sedan. Later, this witness would have a frightening encounter with a group of men driving that forerunner. We'll talk about that encounter shortly.
7:01 Speaker 02 We know that this forerunner witnessed by the waste worker was Shannon's. And the car parked behind it was driven by one of the perpetrators. It's very likely that Shannon and Chris were likely already inside the home. When the waste connections worker was outside. Their abductors fashioned makeshift blindfolds out of bandanas for both Shannon and Chris. And they both had their hands tied behind their back before they were taken into the home. Maybe their abductors had forgotten to turn off the Toyota's headlights due to the chaos of the kidnapping. At 1233 a.m., Shannon called her father and told him she would be home by 2 or 3 a.m. The call lasted just 31 seconds. It seems this call was made under duress. Later, it was determined that this call pinged on the tower closest to Cherry Street,
7:46 Speaker 02 which covers this home on Chipman Street. She and Chris had already been kidnapped when this call was made. And it seems she was forced to make that call. What happened after Shannon made that call is truly frightening and gruesome.
7:59 Speaker 01 So obviously more, you know, this is a very scary scenario. And we're getting ready to talk about what happened to Shannon and Chris.
8:13 Speaker 01 But you know, I want to kind of go back and talk about what people associated with them would have been thinking at this point. You know, we've all been in that situation where, you know, you were supposed to meet up somewhere. Someone doesn't show, you know, maybe there's a, a party going on like it was described here. Or, you know, a bunch of people hanging out. One couple doesn't show up. I think it's very easy in that scenario to jump to the conclusion that, you know, they're, they're running late or they just decided they were tired and decided to skip the party.
8:55 Speaker 01 And then the other thing is that, you know, one point Shannon placed a call to her father, telling him about what time she would be home. And that really struck a chord with me because, you know, both of my girls are in college. Even from home, I track their movements a lot of times on the weekends. Now, today we have apps to do that and that's what I use. But I want to make sure that they get home safely.
9:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's, it's not clear if she made any kind of signals to her dad in that call, whether she tried to give him a hint that something wasn't okay. But in his mind, I would think that hearing from her that she's okay and coming home, unless he picked up on something else she said, he'd probably think, okay, she's out having fun. She'll be home later. And unfortunately that wasn't the case.
9:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, my thought is he would have probably thought this was a pretty routine call and a good call. Right? She's calling, she's letting me know what time she's going to be home. I think for me at that point, I feel a little bit better as a father. My daughter has checked in and she's giving me an approximate time of when she's going to be home. Now, there's no way that he could have known unless like you said, he had picked up on some type of signal, which I don't believe happened, that something was wrong. Inside the home, Shannon and Chris were tortured by their captors.
10:38 Speaker 01 And what was done to them was truly horrific. Some of what we're going to get into is graphic and explicit, but we're sharing these details so that listeners can fully appreciate how depraved the people who committed this crime were. Shannon was taken into a bedroom on the north side of the home. Chris was kept in an enclosed porch near the front door. He was almost immediately sexually assaulted. We don't know the exact order of things, but he was sodomized with at least one foreign object, as well as by at least one male. Later semen was found inside of his rectum during his autopsy,
11:22 Speaker 01 but no DNA profile could be extracted. And we'll get into just why there was no usable DNA in just a minute. Chris was kept with his arms bound at the wrists with a shoelace behind his back and his legs were tied together at the ankles with a belt and a strip of torn floral fabric. He was gagged with a sock, secured with another shoelace, still blindfolded, and now barefoot with no pants. The perpetrators then took him back out to Shannon's SUV and forced him inside. A dog leash was placed around his neck to help the suspects control him, and a sweater was wrapped around his head, probably just to act like a very
12:07 Speaker 01 large blindfold. The Waste Connections worker, who was an eyewitness, was still waiting in the gravel parking lot that was diagonally across the street from the home on Chipman Avenue.
12:18 Speaker 02 He was in the parking lot for quite a while because he was in training to become a driver. And the person who was going to train him that day was more than 45 minutes late. He took the time to go to a nearby store and grab a soda and some candy while he waited. When he got back to the parking lot, which was a little after 1 a.m. The forerunner, which he had seen earlier parked in front of the house with its lights on, now was driving by him. The SUV slowed down as they passed him and four male adults inside seemed to stare him down. Except for the passenger who seemed to be leaning back and slouching so they couldn't be seen. The worker couldn't see much in the way of details, other than the fact that men all appeared to be African American. When the car made a U-turn, this worker began to worry for his safety.
13:04 Speaker 02 He called his father to report the situation. Luckily for the witness, the forerunner drove by him.
13:10 Speaker 01 And this waste connections worker more, you know, witnesses something that you know, later on is going to be very important. But what is it at the time that it's happening? It wasn't nothing because he said he was worried for his safety. But he couldn't have had any idea what exactly was going on. Now, when he finds out later, I'm sure that would be a real shock. And I think there's a lot of people who have had brushes like this. And maybe they know about them because the details come out later.
13:51 Speaker 01 Maybe they never know that they had, you know, some type of brush with a a killer or killers, or maybe even a serial killer. It's kind of a scary thought if you, you know, if you think about it that way.
14:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think in this instance, he had that gut feeling that something was wrong. And I think a lot of people should pay attention to that feeling when they get it. Cause sometimes there is something wrong, especially if it's, you know, you're alone. It's late at night and you've got a car slowly going by with a bunch of people in it. Looking at you, it's hard not to blame him for feeling like something was off.
14:29 Speaker 01 Well, I'm a big believer in trust your gut. The four suspects ended up driving Shannon's forerunner to a spot next to the railroad tracks, which was behind an industrial building, but technically just across the street from the home. The area would be basically empty at that time of the morning. Probably using the dog leash to help drag and force him. Chris was taken to the tracks. His bare feet tracked through the mud. Chris was then executed. He was shot twice, once in the back while he was bent over, which would have paralyzed his legs. And then once in the neck. Neither of these shots killed him.
15:08 Speaker 01 So one of the suspects placed a gun right up against his head and fired another round. This time, he was killed instantly when his brain stem was severed. The suspects then rolled his body into an old blanket, which they doused in gasoline and lit on fire. And I can't even begin to imagine what was going on in Christopher Newsom's mind. The fear, he had to have known that this situation most likely was not going to end well. And obviously, we know it ended with him being killed, executed.
15:51 Speaker 01 It's really just, you know, a horrific set of details and kind of hard to think about.
16:00 Speaker 02 It seems pretty clear that the setting of the fire was likely to try and get rid of evidence so that it wouldn't be linked back to the people that did this. And as we're going to get into, they did a lot more to try and make sure they eliminated evidence.
16:17 Speaker 01 Shannon remained at the house the entire time captive. Once the group of men returned home, they horrifically sexually assaulted her.
16:25 Speaker 02 According to later court documents, when her autopsy was performed, she was found to have had extensive bruising and hemorrhaging to her genital area as well as lacerations, showing she had been assaulted vaginally and sodomized, likely with a blunt object, as well as by at least two males. There was blood found on the vaginal area of her clothing, which had been taken off at some point during the assault. The damage was described as tremendous and grave. The medical examiner could also tell that she had been orally assaulted, because her frenulum, the membrane that connects the lip to the gum, was torn, and she had bruising and abrasions around her mouth. Shannon had bruises on her arms, the front of her legs, her upper back near the neck, and the top of her head,
17:09 Speaker 02 and there were scratches and carpet burns on her lower back and her buttocks. The bruise on top of her head had extensive hemorrhaging, and she had a cut on her right hand. It's not clear whether Shannon fought back and received these injuries during the struggle.
17:23 Speaker 01 After she was assaulted, but while she was still alive, the suspects tried to cover their tracks. Bleach was used in an attempt to destroy DNA evidence left on and inside of Shannon. The suspects forced it into her mouth and down her throat, and it was on the camisole she would be found wearing, and had been applied to her genitals. Her body still had a chemical odor during the autopsy due to the bleach. All of her clothing, besides a sweater and camisole, had been removed. She was eventually found in what has been described as a tight fetal position. The suspects used strips of torn floral fabric to bind her thighs to her chest.
18:08 Speaker 01 Her knee was pressed into her cheek. Her ankles were tied together with the torn fabric, and a long strip was wrapped around her neck. A trash bag was tied around her head and face. She was then put into five different trash bags and shoved into a large household trashcan. Sheets and other bedding items were piled on top of her body. She was still alive when this happened to her, and- Some court documents specify that she died from suffocation with her eyes still open. It's been estimated that it would have taken 10 to 30 minutes for her to run out of air. And then another three to five minutes for her to die due to the lack of oxygen.
18:54 Speaker 01 Shannon clearly suffered undoubtedly during the last minutes of her life. Shannon's time of death was narrowed down to sometime between Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon. She lived long enough after the assault for bruises to form and blood to start clotting around injury. And just as we said more about Chris, there's no doubt what Shannon went through is something that you might see in, in some type of horror movie. I mean, it's actually hard to go through some of these details because for me, it's impossible
19:37 Speaker 01 not to put yourself in the, in the position of a victim. And in this case, you know, what kept running through my mind is how horrible this was for her, how scared she must've been, hurting, and the fact that, you know, she suffered greatly. When you think about the estimation that it would have taken 10 to 30 minutes for her to run out of air and then another three to five for her to die due to lack of oxygen. I mean, that's heartbreaking.
20:13 Speaker 02 Yeah. And you had to feel bad for her family. And once all these details later emerged to hear what she went through, to hear what Chris went through, both of them, just a terrible ending to their lives.
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21:43 Speaker 02 From an ear witness who is still up watching TV, we get the time of about 1:45 that morning when shots were fired near the train tracks into Chris. The neighbor, living about a block away, didn't call in any report of the noises because to him, the three popping sounds he heard did not register as gunshots. He thought they were just some young people out playing with firecrackers. The Waste Connections worker witness saw the forerunner still parked outside the home at 6:45 that morning, when he was getting off of work. We don't know exactly how long the fire was burning, but at 7:45 that morning, smoke could be seen coming from the train tracks. It was around the same time that Shannon wasn't answering calls from her mom, or her friend Cara. Shannon's boss called her mom
22:28 Speaker 02 to report that she didn't show up for work. This worried her, so she started calling Shannon's friends, and even local hospitals. Finally, she looked up the number for Chris's parents in the phone book, and called them to inform them she was going to file a missing persons report. His family, who had also been calling friends in local hospitals, also tried to file a missing persons report. It was clear at this point to these two families that they suspected something was very wrong.
22:55 Speaker 01 Chris's body was not discovered until around 12:30 that afternoon. Approximately 80% of his skin had been burnt. Though semen was recovered from his body, it was badly damaged by the fire, rendering it useless for identification purposes. Three 22 caliber bullets were recovered from Chris's body. Because authorities had told the families that adults were not technically missing. After just a few hours, Shannon's father called their cellphone carrier and asked them for more information about her device. He was told that the last ping was in the area of Cherry Street, which was somewhere they knew that Shannon would never go
23:40 Speaker 01 because it was a rough area that she was afraid to be in. They decided to search for the SUV on their own. Around 1:30 a.m. on Monday, January 8th, Shannon's family found her car. The forerunner was parked on Glider Street, just around the corner from the house on Chipman Street. It was extremely obvious that something had happened to the couple, and they called police.
24:07 Speaker 02 We talked a little bit about earlier how this was really before apps and things. There weren't a lot of them online, I don't think, back in 2007. Definitely not like they are today. Today, you can track somebody right down to, you know, an address. But back then, they didn't have that, those tools at their disposal. So I gave Shannon's dad credit for thinking enough to call the phone company and asking him if they could ping the last location. And for back then, that was a pretty big accomplishment, I think, on his part, to be able to get that information and have a general idea. Of where to start looking and it ultimately paid off.
24:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm with you. He definitely kind of spearheaded things, but I don't think that he really had any choice. No, they went to the police. The police said, hey, these people are adults. They've only been missing for, you know, a short amount of time. They're allowed to do that, right? Adults are allowed to go missing. And that is what is tough in these types of cases. You know, obviously more of the police can't check out everything. If somebody calls and says, hey, I'm worried about my friend, they're two hours late. There's not going to be a task force set up to try to locate this person.
25:33 Speaker 01 There's only so many resources to go around. But then obviously, once all the facts become known, you would have love for the police to have sprung into action. Because maybe there was something that could have been done, maybe not.
25:52 Speaker 02 From the outside of the vehicle, it looked different. Multiple stickers that Shannon had placed on the windows had been removed. Why would she have done this to her car in the middle of the night before abandoning it? Obviously, it made no sense because it wasn't something she would do. Inside the car, more things were off. There was mud all over the floor mats of the car when Shannon was known to keep her vehicle pretty clean. The seat had been pushed back so far, it wouldn't have been possible for her to reach the pedals. So it seemed obvious that she was not the one who had gotten mud inside the car or last driven it. There were items missing too. A phone charger that Shannon kept inside the vehicle, as well as an iPod were gone. Multiple pictures that she kept inside the car were also gone along with the teddy bear that should have been there.
26:37 Speaker 02 A few bags of clothing that she had in the back of the car, ready to be dropped off as a donation, were gone too. One crystal clear clue that someone else had driven the forerunner was a pack of Newport cigarettes. Either Shannon or Christopher smokers. While authorities searched the vehicle, they found an envelope from a bank in the backseat. It was processed for fingerprints and they hit pay dirt. It turned out they belonged to a convicted felon named Lamarcus Davidson.
27:05 Speaker 01 When investigators looked into Davidson, they found that he had rented a home on Chipman Street, just blocks away from where Chris had been left by the train tracks and just around the corner from where Shannon's car had been abandoned. The house on Chipman Street was pretty isolated. For a home in a city, there were no homes across the street, just a large, empty field, a lot full of used tires, and then the train tracks. There were also no neighbors to one side of the home, just the waste connections facility. Behind the home was another industrial building. That day, investigators obtained a search warrant for a home on Chipman Street rented
27:48 Speaker 01 by Lamericus Davidson. As officers approached the home, they found the door to the home was slightly open. A TV inside the house was on, but it appeared no one was inside the 805 square foot home. Once inside, officers found every single item from Shannon's forerunner. Chris's cell phone and driver's license were both inside the home. They had been burned. There was even a note one of Shannon's friends had written to her and a photo of her mother when she was younger. Shannon's social security card and pay stubs, her iPod that had her name engraved on it,
28:30 Speaker 01 and a University of Tennessee commuter parking pass were also found. Even one of Chris's hats was found in the home. And it seems to me, Morf, as though police discovered a wealth of evidence, probably much more than, you know, they were used to finding in a situation like this. I mean, you have essentially everything from Shannon's forerunner found in the home, identification, her iPod, and it was definitely hers because it had her name engraved on
29:08 Speaker 01 it, her Tennessee commuter parking pass, and there was some stuff of Chris's as well. I mean, this was really a goldmine of evidence.
29:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, it would be hard to explain how they have all that stuff in their possession. You know, maybe they come up with a story, you know, if they had time to put one together that they found it out while they were walking or something like that. But, uh, you know, having that link, having the physical evidence in that home was crucial. As police moved slowly around the home, they spotted three gasoline cans on the kitchen floor. There was also a bottle of bleach in the room. As they lifted the lid off the trash can, they discovered Shannon's body. The bedding inside it did not conceal her body very well. One officer initially believed that it was a suspect hiding from them in the can, and he actually drew his weapon. After he removed the top layer of bedding,
30:03 Speaker 02 Shannon's arm was sticking out of one of the garbage bags. Strips of torn fabric used as restraints that had been recovered from both of the bodies matched. Their tear patterns lined up. It was clear at this point, it wasn't a suspect in the trash can, rather a very unfortunate victim, Shannon Christian.
30:22 Speaker 01 Lamerikus Davidson's palm print was recovered from one of the trash bags Shannon's body was found in, and it was consistent with him shoving her into the trash can in the kitchen. Police immediately put out a BOLO for Davidson in connection with the murders of Shannon and Chris. Police also learned that Lamerikus Davidson's brother, LaTalvis Cobbins, a man named George Thomas, and a woman named Vanessa Coleman, had been staying at the rented home since very early that month. Police wanted to talk to them to see if they had anything to do with the murders. A woman named Daphne Sutton, who was Lamerikus Davidson's
31:05 Speaker 01 girlfriend, had also been living in the house as recently as December, but they had broken up and she moved out. So, police had some names, uh, potential suspects, or at the very least witnesses, but the problem was, all of these people had dropped out of sight. And we just got done talking more about, you know, police finding a wealth of evidence inside the home, when here you have them recovering a palm print from one of the trash bags that Shannon's body was found in. You know, when you think about a trial later down the road.
31:45 Speaker 01 I would think for the defense, that would be pretty hard to explain. Now, they always have their ways of trying to do so, but you think of a jury hearing that information, it's going to be pretty tough to overcome, I would think. But police also have, in addition to all this evidence, now, a bunch of different names of people who, you know, were either living there, thought to have been there, that they have to check out. I guess my point is, you know, we cover a lot of cases where the information comes
32:30 Speaker 01 in slowly, in drips and drabs, or it takes quite a while for police to put things together. This case, as horrific as it is, it seems as though police found a mountain of evidence very, very quickly.
32:51 Speaker 02 I think having all these names of these potential suspects or witnesses, whatever they turn out to be, definitely sped up the process in this case, along with the evidence they had. It seemed like, as you mentioned, they had a mountain of things go in their favor early on.
33:10 Speaker 01 And it happens in some cases, but I don't think it's the norm, right? That police are able to gather so much information so quickly. Early on Monday morning, but after her family had discovered Shannon's car, and before police entered the home, Lamerikus Davidson called his ex-girlfriend Daphne and claimed that the house was locked and his brother Cobbins had the key. She picked Lamerikus up and he stayed with her at her friend's apartment. The next day, Tuesday, Daphne's mother called her to inform her that a body had been found in Lamerikus's home. She wanted him to leave the apartment immediately, but since she had picked him up.
33:55 Speaker 01 She dropped him off at the Ridgebrook Apartments where his friend Eric Boyd's mother lived. On Tuesday, Davidson and Boyd went to the apartment of Danielle Lightfoot and stayed the night. The next day on Wednesday, Lamarcus Davidson was on the news. And when she saw he was sought by police, she kicked the men out.
34:16 Speaker 02 On Thursday, Eric Boyd was stopped by police leaving his mother's apartment. He led them to a vacant house that he and Lamarcus Davidson had broken into and were lying low in. Police entered the abandoned home and took Lamarcus Davidson into custody without incident. When police searched his belongings, the pair of Nikes that had been stolen right off Chris Newsom's feet before his murder, along with a 22 caliber revolver were found. So police finally had the one person that they were certain was connected to the murders, Lamarcus Davidson. After all, he was running the home and his print was found on the garbage bag Shannon's body had been stored in. As police would soon learn, they didn't have everyone connected to the murder. And Davidson was about to roll on his partners in crime.
35:02 Speaker 01 And I know I've talked about this before, Morph, but it does come up in a lot of cases. You know, when you have multiple individuals involved in a crime, you know, it's, it can start out as, you know, hey, we're all in this together. If one person gets caught, nobody talk. But it seems in most cases that pretty quickly, it becomes about self-preservation. You know, when faced with the police having all of this evidence, I get the feeling that most of these people start to think pretty quickly, how can I save myself? And if that
35:47 Speaker 01 involves me pointing the finger at someone else, so be it.
35:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, and it's, it's lucky in cases like this that people do turn on each other. So more details can be learned about what exactly happened and who did what.
36:03 Speaker 01 Lamerikus Davidson told investigators about three other people who were involved in the murders. Latalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, and a woman named Vanessa Coleman. But he left out his friend Eric Boyd. Boyd was the driver in the car following Shannon's Toyota 4Runner. After the carjacking, he had driven the other attackers in his cousin's car, which he borrowed, and followed them home after they forced Shannon and Chris into the backseat of the Toyota. Although they had all scattered, police were able to round up the other four suspects in the murders. They all faced a slew of charges, including felony murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated
36:48 Speaker 01 robbery, and aggravated rape.
36:51 Speaker 02 Prosecutors announced that they were seeking the death penalty against some, but not all of the five suspects if they were convicted. Some only faced life sentences. Randy Nichols, who was Knox County District Attorney General at the time of the trials, told WCNC that this was a wicked crime and added that it was one of the most horrific crimes that the district attorney's office had ever endured. He added, "You start to wonder how someone could do this kind of stuff. What kind of person could do this to another human?" Now, there are endless arguments for and against the death penalty, but this is certainly the kind of case in which prosecutors typically seek the death penalty due to the gruesome nature of the murders and the torture and pain inflicted on the victims.
37:35 Speaker 01 During trials, additional information came out. A woman named Ethel Freeman testified that the floral fabric used to bind Shannon and Chris had once belonged to her. She sold it to Lamerikus Davidson, along with some used furniture that he never paid her for. Davidson was supposed to pay Ethel between $75 and $100 every other Saturday in exchange for the furniture he purchased but never paid for. On January 6th, a payment was due. Ethel was expecting Davidson to come to her apartment at the Washington Ridge Apartments where Shannon's friend Kara lived between 10 and 10:30 that
38:18 Speaker 01 night to pay her. He obviously didn't have it or didn't feel like paying it. Instead, he drove to the same apartment complex and chose random victims to abduct in murder. It was also revealed that on Sunday, the 7th, an employee working for the landlord of Davidson's house, visited to try and collect the rent. Davidson didn't have it. Of course, when they came back a few days later to try to collect again, the house would be a crime scene. So, Davidson, who was known to do cocaine, was broke and feeling a lot of financial pressure.
38:58 Speaker 01 His girlfriend had moved out, adding even more pressure. Perhaps financial gain or a simple carjacking was the reason for the attack on Shannon and Chris. But it quickly went sideways and into something much, much darker.
39:16 Speaker 02 Lamerikus Davidson's ex-girlfriend, Daphne Sutton, also provided damning details. She said that on Sunday, just hours after the abduction, and possibly while Shannon was still alive, Lamerikus Davidson told her that he wanted to give her some clothes. These included the clothes Shannon had prepared to donate, as well as the jeans she had been wearing when she was abducted. At trial, Daphne broke down on the stand when she was shown the jeans. At the time Daphne was given the clothes, she had no idea they belonged to someone who had been inside the home and was being assaulted. She did, however, suspect that Davidson had another woman over and he was trying to hide her. He told Daphne he would have clothes for her in about 30 minutes, but she headed straight over. She
40:01 Speaker 02 noticed that a chair had moved from the kitchen into the bedroom and was placed in front of an air mattress she had left behind. Daphne said that no one was in the bedroom, but Lamerikus's brother, Latalvis Cobbins, and acquaintance George Thomas were in the living room.
40:16 Speaker 01 It was at this point where Daphne grew a little suspicious. So she tried to get into the bathroom, saying she wanted her makeup back. The door was locked. Lamerikas told her at the time that Vanessa Coleman was in the bathroom, but Daphne didn't believe it. He tried to give her a Sears bag full of clothes, money and a ring. She only accepted the clothes, not realizing they were used. She tried to go through the bathroom's second door, which was through the kitchen, but Davidson stopped her. He grabbed her and yelled at her, telling her it wasn't her house, and she didn't live there anymore, and he threw her out.
40:58 Speaker 01 At the time, all she was thinking was that Lamerikas had a woman over. Later that day, Daphne realized that the bag of Sears clothes was just used clothes in a Sears bag. She kept a pair of jeans and a few other items, and then called Davidson and told him to come get the rest of them. He drove Shannon's Toyota 4Runner to pick up the clothes. The stickers were still on the car at that point.
41:25 Speaker 02 So some of the witness statements were damaging to the defendants. But as far as physical evidence, there was no DNA, and there were no fingerprints from Eric Boyd or George Thomas at the crime scene. However, Davidson and Cobbins were definitively linked to the murders, because despite the attempts to destroy evidence with bleach, a DNA profile from semen found in Shannon's mouth was a match to Cobbins, and DNA elsewhere in her body matched Davidson. A written journal entry detailing the attack that matched Vanessa Coleman's handwriting was found in the home. It detailed what an adventure it had been and how much she had enjoyed it, as well as how much she had learned.
42:05 Speaker 02 It came out at trial that from the time the suspects got back from dumping Chris's body near the train tracks, and until Shannon was placed into the trash can, the group sat around the house, smoking weed, sleeping, and going back and forth into the bedroom where Shannon was being held.
42:22 Speaker 01 So you said it more, there were some witness statements that were damaging. But then you have to talk about this DNA. The group had gone to some lengths to try to destroy potential evidence. But DNA found in Shannon's mouth and on her body matched two of the suspects. I mean, I think from a jury standpoint, that's about as damaging as it gets. And then you have to talk about this, this journal.
42:58 Speaker 01 You have a woman, Vanessa Coleman, who is essentially transcribing the events that took place. And it also sounds as though she was doing so in a way that made it seem like she was enjoying what was going on. And that caused a real sickening feeling inside of me.
43:25 Speaker 02 I think it really proves just how depraved this group of people were and what they did to Shannon and Chris.
43:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, we knew from the state that Shannon and Chris were founded, that what happened to them was horrific. But then to find out that such pleasure was taken in inflicting this type of torture and abuse. That adds an entirely different element to the crime, in my opinion. The first to be tried, Eric Boyd, was found guilty in federal court in April 2008. A jury agreed that he assisted Lamerikus Davidson after the murders. He was sentenced to serve 18 years in prison.
44:15 Speaker 01 Later that year in October, the home at 2316 Chipman Street, where unthinkable horrors unfolded, was purchased by Waste Connections and demolished. A tree in honor of Shannon and Chris was planted on the street, and a memorial was placed outside of the former side of the home. The Waste Connections parking area has been expanded onto part of the land.
44:42 Speaker 02 The following year in August 2009, Talvis Cobbins was found guilty of murder and the facilitation of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Two months later, in October 2009, Lamarcus Davidson was found guilty of 35 counts, including murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, and robbery. The jury recommended a sentence of death. Two months after that, George Thomas was found guilty of 38 counts, including murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, and robbery. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Finally, Vanessa Coleman was found guilty of sexual assault, kidnapping, and facilitation in Shannon's murder.
45:26 Speaker 02 She was sentenced to serve 53 years in prison. It was believed that while the men left the house to take Chris to the train tracks where they killed him, Vanessa Coleman watched over Shannon and held her against her will until the men returned. Out of all five participants, only Lamarcus Davidson was sentenced to death.
45:44 Speaker 01 So, five people were held accountable for these awful crimes, and while that could never bring back Shannon and Chris to their families, it hopefully gave them some sense of justice or peace. But if it did, it didn't last long. Unfortunately, all of these sentences and convictions were put in jeopardy after Judge Richard Baumgartner stepped down due to misconduct. It was revealed that he was having an intimate relationship with a woman who was going through the drug court program that he supervised, and during that relationship, he was actually getting pills from her for his own addiction.
46:25 Speaker 01 He received a diversionary sentence, but it put all of his cases under scrutiny, including the five people convicted in this case.
46:35 Speaker 02 The request of George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman for new trials were granted. Both were convicted again by a second jury, but received lighter sentences. In November 2012, Coleman was sentenced to serve 35 years in prison, and in May 2013, Thomas was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 51 years. Requests from Latalvus Cobbins and Lamericus Davidson for new trials were eventually denied and their convictions were upheld. Cobbins will spend the rest of his life behind bars and Davidson remains on death row. In 2019, Eric Boyd was found guilty again, this time in state court. He was convicted of first degree felony murder, first degree premeditated murder, especially
47:20 Speaker 02 aggravated robbery, especially aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated rape, and he was given two life sentences. At the end of the day, all of the people responsible for abducting and murdering Shannon and Chris have been held accountable and punished, but that doesn't bring them back to their families, and it can never erase the details from their minds of what happened to Shannon and Chris.
47:42 Speaker 01 Shannon and Chris's families hope to focus on their memory and not dwell on the monsters that took their lives. Shannon's mother, Deana Christian, told WCNC.com, "I don't ever want anybody to forget Shannon and Chris. Those were two wonderful kids with great bright futures who did nothing wrong." In 2014, the Chris Newsom Act was passed in Tennessee. This act eliminated what is called the 13th juror rule that requires a judge to sign off on a jury's verdict before it is official when it is a unanimous verdict.
48:23 Speaker 01 This is because when Judge Richard Baumgartner's addiction became public, he had not yet signed the verdict forms, and the judge replacing him could not be a 13th juror at a trial he was not there to see, leading to all of those retrials.
48:42 Speaker 02 The Shannon Christian Act has also been passed. This stems from the defense's assertion at Davidson's trial that Shannon and Chris willingly went to his house to buy drugs in an attempt to paint them in a negative light and also explain why his DNA would be in her car. The jury heard the victims be disparaged, but due to laws that protect the rights of defendants, Davidson's prior conviction for carjacking was not allowed into the trial. Now, the Shannon Christian Act protects the rights of victims who are no longer here to speak for themselves. Every year, the Chris Newsom Memorial Baseball Tournament raises funds for a scholarship fund given to students at Hall's High School, where Chris was on the baseball team.
49:25 Speaker 02 There's also an annual Shannon Gao Christian Foundation Memorial Golf Tournament that raises funds for scholarships. This year, the scholarship was designated for a young lady that has or will be graduating from a local high school in 2024 and will be attending the University of Tennessee as a freshman. I think it's safe to say that the memory of Shannon and Chris lives on, as does their legacy, while the group of people who ended their lives are all but forgotten as a rotten prison where they belong.
49:54 Speaker 01 And I think that's a very important point, Morf, that you make. You think about victims and some of the cases that we do, they are loved by so many people. And you often see these types of things after a tragedy. You know, families start scholarship funds or, you know, different types of things in that person's name, their legacy is going to live on. While you have this group of people who chose to commit what you would have to say were
50:37 Speaker 01 absolutely horrific crimes, yes, we had to say their names for the sake of telling the story, but few people are going to remember them. And if they do, it's not going to be a fond remembrance. As you said, these people are going to rot in prison, and they should. It's exactly where they belong. And as with every case, we don't have every single detail, but what we do have Paints a picture of two young people who, you know, were trying to have a good night
51:16 Speaker 01 out. They certainly didn't go over to that house to buy drugs as was painted by the defense. They were, you know, essentially carjacked by a group of people, you know, led by, I believe, Lamerikus, who, as we detailed, was facing some financial pressures. You know, was that the impetus for what happened? He needed money and he felt as though, you know, this was a quick way to get it. Even if that was the case, though, the thing that sticks with
51:52 Speaker 01 me is that there was no reason to do all of the terrible things that this group did to Shannon and Chris. If it was about money, you know, they could have taken everything they had, taken, you know, the Toyota 4Runner, and that would have been the end of it. But there were a lot of sadistic elements of what they did to these two young people that went, in my opinion, much further than just financial gain.
52:30 Speaker 02 And this makes me think about the same thing that I think about often when we talk about crimes where there's multiple people involved. How does somebody not come to their senses and say, "We can't do this. This is very serious." Not justifying that a carjacking isn't serious, but if it started out as a carjacking robbery or whatever, and changed to a kidnapping, rape and murder, double murder, then, you know, that's a whole different level of...
53:04 Speaker 02 Bad. And for not one person to stand up and say, I don't want to be part of this. I'm leaving or to talk to the other people and then not doing anything like that. It just, it's disturbing that nobody had the right state of mind to do that.
53:19 Speaker 01 Well, and I'll take it a step further. You have someone like Vanessa Coleman. Not only did she not step up and say, this is wrong, don't do this. She sat down and chronicled the events of the night as though they were on, you know, some type of once in a lifetime adventure. She took pleasure in what was going on to the point where she felt as though she needed to record it in written form. That really stands out to me.
53:55 Speaker 02 And the one thing that I take away from this case too, is the terrible things that were done in that house by this group of people. It, it makes me cognizant of, you know, a rule that I tend to follow. And I advise my wife and kids to follow if they ever find themselves in a, in a situation to not be taken away from an original location. If you're ever attacked, make your stand where it happens at, put up your fight there. Because if you're taken away, there's a great chance that things are going to get much worse for you. So, and it is easy for me to say that from behind a microphone without a gun pointed at me.
54:38 Speaker 02 But looking at it after the fact, I think it's clear that they may have had a chance to, to get away, to scare off the group had they ran, screamed, whatever, when they were initially attacked. But once they were in that house. And subdued, tied up, there was no chance of escape for them. And the result was a death that I wouldn't even want to imagine.
55:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's a good point you're making. I also think it can kind of be a double edged sword. Right? If they thought this was a carjacking. And like you said, I don't want to downplay that crime because it's not a good one. It's a far cry from what ultimately happened. But if they thought it was a carjacking and they thought their best chance was to comply. I could understand that, you know, hey, give up your car, give up your, your wallet, whatever it is. Just don't hurt us. And there are some criminals that would operate in that way.
55:44 Speaker 01 But at a certain point, there had to have been the knowledge that this wasn't just a carjacking. This was going further. And to your point, when does somebody make the decision to comply? Or to put up a fight? Because if you put up a fight, that can lead to serious consequences. When maybe none were going to happen. If you get my point there, I, it's, it's a tough one, you know, and you can look at it case by case. And, and obviously there's the heat of the moment, there's everything that's going on. Is everyone thinking clearly?
56:28 Speaker 01 But it is something to think about ahead of time. Don't wait till you're put in a scenario where you have to try to figure it out. I think it's important for people to think about these things ahead of time. So that in the unlikely event, something like this happened to you. Maybe it would be a little easier to think on your feet. Because you've thought about it ahead of time. What would I do in this situation? What would I do if this happened to me? Now, again, like you said, more, it's easy to talk about these things from behind a microphone. But I still think it's important to talk about.
57:11 Speaker 02 And hopefully, nobody listening ever finds themselves in a situation like Shannon and Chris found themselves in, but it doesn't hurt to have some kind of inkling of what you might do if you do find yourself in that situation. The one thing I'm very happy about this case is that these people did not get away with this and we're not talking about a unsolved cold case. They were all arrested, tried, convicted, and they are right where they belong, in my opinion.
57:42 Speaker 01 Well, and I think one of the big reasons for that is because they essentially did nothing other than trying to destroy some evidence, but for the most part, they didn't do a lot to try to get away with this. Or what they did do was sloppy. Like we said, police kind of were able to gather quite a bit of evidence pretty quickly. You know, the other thing that that I would say is that, you know, this is a very well-known case, especially in that part of the country, in the Tennessee area. But over the years, it has become a
58:25 Speaker 01 case that a lot of people have latched on to.
58:29 Speaker 02 And it goes to show you that this kind of crime can happen anywhere. If you happen to cross paths with the wrong person or persons.
58:38 Speaker 01 But that is it for our episode on Shannon Christian and Christopher Newsom. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, go out, give us a five star rating, leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way.
58:56 Speaker 02 If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with handle CriminologyPod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com/criminologypodcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.
59:11 Speaker 01 So that's it for this episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike.
59:21 Speaker 02 And Morph.
59:22 Speaker 01 We'll talk to you next week.
59:23 Speaker 02 Take care, everyone.
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