Coleman is the last of the defendants charged with her involvement in the January 2007 torture-slayings of 23-year-old Chris Newsom and 21-year-old Channon Christian to stand trial. The rest were convicted last year. DNA testing of cloth strips found near the bodies is under way and were approved on Friday.
Parents of torture-slaying victim Christian seek lawyer penalties
KNOXVILLE – The parents of torture-slaying victim Channon Christian said today they plan to push for laws that would hold defense lawyers criminally liable for any unproven insinuations made during a trial.
“They’re technically supposed to be under oath,” said Christian’s father, Gary. “But the oath they take ain’t good enough.”
The parents have sat through four trials so far in the death of their daughter and her boyfriend Chris Newsom. Christian, 21, and Newsom, 22, were carjacked, kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed in January 2007.
The trial in October 2009 for the alleged ringleader in the killings, Lemaricus Davidson, ended in the death penalty. That trial also included hints by defense lawyers Doug Trant and David Eldridge at drug use by the victims and suggestions they might have known Davidson and the other suspects before the killing.
“If they can’t prove it, they better not say it,” Gary Christian said.
On April 16, 2008, Eric DeWayne “E” Boyd was found guilty in Federal court of being an accessory to a fatal carjacking and for failing to report the location of a known fugitive. Boyd’s case was the first to go to trial, and he was the only suspect not charged with murder. He was sentenced to the maximum of 18 years in Federal prison, and is incarcerated at Beckley FCI.
On August 25, 2009, Letalvis “Rome” Cobbins was found guilty of the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Cobbins faced the possibility of the death penalty because he was convicted of first degree felony murder in the murder of Christian. He was found guilty of facilitation of murder for Newsom but he was acquitted of Newsom’s rape. On August 26, Cobbins was sentenced to life without parole. He is incarcerated at a West Tennessee Prison.
On October 28, 2009, Lemaricus Devall Davidson was found guilty on all counts. He was found not guilty on three counts of the aggravated rape of Christopher Newsom but was found guilty of the lesser included charges of facilitation of rape. The sentencing hearing began on October 29, 2009 at 9am EST. The sentence hearing ended the next day October 30, 2009 at approx 3pm EST when a jury, after deliberating approx 3 hours, sentenced Lemaricus Davidson to death on 4 of the conviction counts. He is now at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on death row.
On December 8, 2009, George Geovonni “Detroit” Thomas was found guilty on all counts, including the ones the other defendants were acquitted of. The sentencing hearing began December 8th, 2009 and ended on December 10th, 2009 at approx 10:45 am EST when the jury, after approx 3 hours of deliberation, returned a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole on each of the 4 capital convictions.
The convictions of Boyd, Cobbins, Davidson and Thomas left Vanessa Coleman as the last defendant to face trial. Coleman’s case is complicated by the fact that, while she was granted immunity by federal authorities for testimony in the federal case on the car-jacking, the state courts have ruled that the federal grant of immunity does not extend to the state charges on murder and rape.
Her trial date is scheduled for some time in May of 2010.
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