Swing You Bastard!

We reported on this horrific story some time ago. Here's an update.

Background:

According to news reports, Christian and Newsom had gone on a date at a local restaurant on Saturday, January 6, 2007, but did not return home. During their night out, the couple was "hijacked, bound and blindfolded and taken back to Lemaricus Devall 'Slim' Davidson's rented house on Chipman Street."

Christian's parents found her abandoned Toyota 4-Runner two blocks away from the Chipman Street house the following Monday with the help of her mobile phone provider. An envelope recovered from the vehicle yielded fingerprint evidence that led police to Lemaricus Davidson and 2316 Chipman Street. When police went to the address on Tuesday, January 9, they found the home unoccupied and Christian's body in a trash can in the kitchen.

According to the testimony of the Knox County Acting Medical Examiner Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan at the subsequent trial of Eric Boyd, Newsom was repeatedly raped and then blindfolded, gagged, arms and feet bound and his head covered. Barefoot, he was either led or dragged outside the house to a set of nearby railroad tracks. He was shot in the back of the head, the neck, and the back, and his body then set on fire. Christian's death would come only after hours of sexual torture, medical examiner Mileusnic-Polchan testified. Christian suffered horrific injuries to her vagina, anus and mouth. She was not only raped but savaged with "an object," possibly a broken chair leg, the doctor testified. She was beaten in the head. Some type of chemical was poured down her throat, and her body, including her bleeding and battered genital area, likely scrubbed with the same solution - all while Christian was alive, the forensic expert said. She was then "hog-tied," with curtains and strips of bedding, her face covered tightly with a small trash bag and her body stashed inside five large trash bags before being placed inside a large trash can and covered with sheets. Christian died slowly, suffocating, the medical examiner said.

It ain't justice, but it's the best we can do in this crazy country:

Jurors this morning convicted Letalvis Cobbins of first-degree murder in the torture-slayings of Knox County couple Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.

The verdicts, after being reviewed by Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner, were announced before a packed courtroom.

Jurors on Wednesday will begin a penalty phase in which they will consider evidence about whether Cobbins, 26, of Kentucky, should be executed for the January 2007 kidnapping and murders.

The jury concluded that Cobbins had responsibility in all the crimes committed against Christian, 21, including first-degree murder. That conviction carries the death penalty.

The same panel, however, convicted him of the lesser charge of facilitating the murder of Newsom and acquitted him of charges involving the rape of Newsom, 23.

“I can’t even tell you what all those guilty verdicts were that he read,” Gary Christian said.