191. Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom: 36 Hours in Hell (Part II)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Reverie True Crime, your gateway to the
darkest corners of human nature, where we expose the hidden
truths of human depravity. These harrowing stories serve as a
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sharp for predator's lurk in unexpected places, patiently waiting and observing.

(00:24):
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Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hello, and welcome to Reverie True Crime. I'm your host page.
Before we begin, I want you to know that this
is the most difficult part of the series. The crimes
committed against Shannon Christian and Christopher Newssom were extraordinary, narrowly brutal.

(01:02):
What follows is based on court testimony, medical examiner reports,
autopsy bindings, and confessions from the perpetrators. If you are
a survivor of sexual violence, please consider skipping this episode
if you feel you need to proceed only if you

(01:23):
are prepared for extremely traumatic content. In Part one, we
learned about Shannon Christian and Christopher Newsom, who they were,
what they meant to their families and the futures they
should have had. We covered their abduction from Washington Ridge

(01:45):
Apartments on the evening of January sixth, two thousand and seven,
and how they were forced into Shannon's Forerunner and driven
to two three one six Chipman Street. Now we must
document what happened next. This is not sensationalism. This is

(02:07):
the truth. This is what Shannon and Chris endured. Their
families have spent nearly two decades ensuring the world knows
what was done to their children. We owe it to
them and to Shannon and Chris to tell the truth,
no matter how painful. Let's get started. The house at

(02:35):
two three one six Chipman Street was a small, run
down rental property in North Knoxville. It wasn't in a
good neighborhood. Chipman Street was known for drug activity, prostitution,
and violence. It was the kind of place where people
minded their own business because asking questions could get you hurt.

(03:00):
The house was rented to the girlfriend of LaMarcus Deval
Slim Davidson, though she rarely stayed there. By early January
of two thousand and seven, the house had essentially become
Davidson's crash pad, A place where he dealt drugs, where

(03:20):
his friends hung out, and where anything could happen without witnesses.
LaMarcus Davidson was twenty five years old. He had a
lengthy criminal record, including carjacking and aggravated robbery. He had
just been released from a five year prison sentence in

(03:42):
August of two thousand and six, barely four months of
freedom before he orchestrated the kidnapping and murder of Shannon
and Chris. LaMarcus was the ringleader, and everyone who testified
agreed on that point. He made the decisions, gave orders,

(04:03):
and he was in control. With LaMarcus that weekend were
four other people. Latalvas Darnell Rome Cobbins, aged twenty four.
He is Lamarcus's half brother. Latalvas had traveled from Lebanon, Kentucky,

(04:24):
to visit LaMarcus, bringing his girlfriend along with him. He
had a prior conviction for attempted robbery in New York.
According to his family, Latalvas was afraid of his older
brother and wanted to impress him to prove he wasn't

(04:45):
a coward or a punk. George Giovanni Detroit Thomas was
twenty four years old. A friend of both Latalvas and LaMarcus.
Thomas had a lengthy criminal history with multiple prior felony convictions.

(05:06):
He was described as willing to go along with whatever
LaMarcus wanted. Vanessa Lynn coleman age eighteen, was Latalvas's girlfriend.
She was the youngest, the only woman in the group.
She had traveled from Kentucky with la Talvas, Cobbins, and

(05:28):
George Thomas. Vanessa's role would be debated throughout the trials.
Was she a willing participant or a frightened girl who
didn't know how to escape? Eric Dwayne Boyd thirty four
years old and an ex convict who had met LaMarcus

(05:50):
in prison. Eric Boyd had convictions for robbery and theft.
He would later claim he was not present during the
worst of the crimes, but testimony would place him at
the scene, and ultimately a jury would convict him of murder.

(06:11):
These five people, four men and one woman, had Shannon,
Christian and Christopher Newsom completely at their mercy, and they
showed no mercy at all. When Shannon and Chris were
brought into the house, they were bound, blindfolded, and terrified.

(06:34):
They were still dressed in the clothes they'd been wearing
for their date, Chris in his genes and favorite Carhart jacket,
Shannon and jeans and a sweater. They had no idea
what was about to happen to them. Christopher Newsom was
only twenty three years old. He was a carpenter who

(06:58):
loved baseball, and he was falling in love with a
girl named Shannon. On the night of January sixth, two
thousand and seven, he was dragged into hell. According to
testimony from the perpetrators themselves, particularly George Thomas, who eventually

(07:20):
agreed to testify in exchange for a reduced sentence, what
happened to Chris Newsome began almost immediately after he was
brought into the house. Chris was kept in a separate
room from Shannon. He could hear her crying. He knew

(07:41):
she was terrified. He was probably terrified too, but trying
to stay calm, trying to think of a way out,
and trying to figure out how to protect her and himself. Unfortunately,
there was no way out. The medical examiner, doctor Drinka

(08:04):
Melusenic Pulchin, would later testify about Christopher Newsom's injuries. Her
testimony delivered in a calm, clinical voice described violations almost
too brutal to comprehend. Chris was anally raped multiple times.

(08:25):
Medical evidence showed he had been violently sadomized with an object,
something hard, something that caused severe internal injuries. The attack
was slow, prolonged, and it was meant to hurt, It
was meant to humiliate, and it was meant to break him.

(08:49):
But that wasn't the end of his suffering. At some point,
likely in the early morning hours of Sunday, January seventh,
Boyd and George Thomas forced Chris to walk out of
the house barefooted. It was January in Tennessee, cold, maybe

(09:11):
near freezing. Chris had been stripped of all of his
clothing and stripped of his dignity. They walked him to
a set of railroad tracks near the Chipman Street House,
a desolate area behind the tracks where trains occasionally passed,
but where no one would notice a man being murdered

(09:35):
in the dark. Chris's hands were still bound behind his
back with a shoelace. His ankles were tied with a belt.
He had a sock stepped in his mouth and held
in place by another shoelace wrapped tightly around his head.
A sweatshirt had been pulled over his head, covering his face.

(10:00):
He was blindfolded, gagged, bound and helpless, and then they
shot him. The first shot hit him in the back,
It was not immediately fatal. Chris was still alive, still
breathing and likely in agony. The second shot hit him

(10:23):
in the neck. Still he lived. And then Eric Boyd,
according to George Thomas's testimony, pressed the barrel of a
gun against Chris's head, just above his right ear, and
pulled the trigger. That shot severed Chris's brainstem and killed

(10:45):
him instantly. But they were not done yet. After Christopher
Newsom was dead, his killers poured gasolene all over his
body and set it on fire. The flame consumed his remains,
destroying much of the DNA evidence that might have been recovered.

(11:08):
The fire was still smoldering hours later when a Norfolk
Southern Railroad employee found the body around twelve thirty in
the afternoon on Sunday, January seventh, two thousand and seven.
When police arrived, they found a young man's burned corpse

(11:29):
lying beside the tracks. His body was positioned in a
way that suggested he had been restrained, hands bound, legs
tied and face covered. The medical examiner would later determine
that he had been shot three times, raped and burned,

(11:49):
but at that moment, the police had no idea who
he even was. They had no idea that his girlfriend
was still alive, being held captive less than a quarter
mile away, and enduring horrors that would last for another
day and a half. Christopher Newsom died alone in the

(12:13):
cold beside railroad tracks and murdered by strangers for no
reason other than evil. His parents, Hugh and Mary Newsom,
would have to identify their son's burned body. They would
have to hear the details of what was done to him.

(12:34):
They would have to live with those images for the
rest of their lives. But Chris wasn't the only victim
that weekend. While he was being tortured and killed, Shannon
Christian was still alive, held captive in that house, waiting
for her turn to die. While Christopher was being walked

(12:57):
to the railroad tracks to be executed, Shannon Christian was
held in a bedroom at the two three one six
Chipman Street home. She was bound, blindfolded, and she was
surrounded by people who had already proven they were capable
of rape and murder. She knew Chris was gone. She

(13:21):
must have heard him being taken out of the house.
She must have known on some level that he wasn't
coming back, and she must have known as well what
was coming for her. According to testimony from the perpetrators
and evidence collected at the scene, Shannon was held prisoner

(13:44):
in the north bedroom of the house. Vanessa Coleman was
assigned to watch her while the men were killing Chris.
Vanessa would later claim that she was terrified herself, that
she did didn't know what was happening, and that she
was just doing what LaMarcus told her to do. But

(14:07):
she didn't call the police, She didn't let Shannon go,
she didn't try to help. When the men returned from
murdering Chris, they turned their full attention to Shannon. What
happened next, according to the medical examiner's testimony and evidence

(14:28):
presented at trial, was a campaign of sexual torture that
lasted approximately thirty six hours. Shannon Christian was raped repeatedly
by multiple assailants. She was beaten, kicked, and was degraded
in ways almost too horrific to put into words. The

(14:53):
medical examiner, who performed Shannon's autopsy testified that Shannon's death
came after hours, possibly more than a full day, of
sustained sexual torture. Shannon suffered severe injuries to her vagina, anus,

(15:13):
and mouth. The medical examiner stated that she had been
raped vaginally, anally, and orally. The injuries were consistent with
being raped not just by men, but also with an object,
possibly a broken chair, leg or something similar. The penetration

(15:36):
was so violent it caused extensive internal damage. She was
beaten in the head repeatedly. She had bruises all over
her body, on her face, torso, and her limbs. She
had carpet burns consistent with being dragged or held down

(15:57):
on a floor. She was kicked in the vagina and
growing area repeatedly, causing massive hemorrhaging. Forensic evidence showed that
LaMarcus Davidson's sperm was found in Shannon's vagina and anus,
latalvis Cobbins sperm was found in her mouth. DNA evidence

(16:23):
linked both men directly to the sexual assault. According to
George Thomas's later testimony, Shannon was tied to a chair
while being raped. She was unable to move, unable to
fight back, and unable to escape, she could only endure.

(16:48):
At some point during her captivity, Shannon spoke to LaMarcus
Davidson directly. In his own statement to police, LaMarcus admitted this.
He said, Shannon grabbed his arm and said, I don't
want to die. Think about that for a moment, a

(17:09):
twenty one year old college student, bound and brutalized, looking
at the man who was orchestrating her torture, begging for
her life. I don't want to die. But LaMarcus didn't care.
None of them cared, and so the torture continued. At

(17:34):
some point, likely on Monday, January eighth, two thousand and seven,
after Shannon had been held captive for more than twenty
four hours, her captors made a decision. They were going
to kill her, but first they wanted to destroy evidence.

(17:55):
Bleach was poured down Shannon's throat. Think about what that meant. Bleach,
a caustic chemical that burns tissue on contact, forced down
the throat of a living, conscious woman. The medical examiner
testified that Shannon was alive when this happened. She would

(18:18):
have felt it burning in her mouth, her esophagus, and
her stomach. She would have gagged choked and tried to
spit it out, but they held her down and made
her swallow it. Then they scrubbed her body with bleach,
particularly her damaged genital area, in an attempt to destroy

(18:42):
DNA evidence. Again, Shannon was alive during this. The pain
must have been excruciating. After they had tried to erase
their crimes, they prepared to dispose of her body. Shannon
was hog tied, her wrists and ankles bound together behind

(19:06):
her back with strips of bedding and curtains. This position
is not just restraint, it is torture. You can't move,
you can't get comfortable, and you cannot breathe deeply. Then
a small plastic bag was pulled over her head and

(19:28):
tied tightly around her neck, a trash bag. Not even
a quick death. Suffocation, slow and terrifying, unable to see,
unable to breathe, and knowing you're going to die. Then
her bound body, still alive, still breathing, was stuffed into

(19:54):
five large trash bags, one inside the other five lay
of plastic between her and air, and then she was
placed inside a residential garbage can in the kitchen and
covered with sheets. The medical examiner testified that Shannon slowly

(20:17):
suffocated to death inside that trash can. The medical evidence
showed that she was alive when she was placed inside.
She tried to breathe. She struggled against the restraints, but
the bags, the hogtie position, the small space, there was

(20:39):
just no air. There was no escape. Shannon Christian died
alone in the dark inside of a trash can, after
enduring more than a day of unspeakable torture. While she
was dying slowly asphyxiating in that kitchen trash can, the

(21:01):
perpetrators were in the house. Some of them drove around
and Shannon's stolen fore Runner. They smoked weed and acted
as if nothing unusual was happening, as if a young
woman wasn't dying just a few feet away. On Tuesday,
January ninth, two thousand and seven, after Shannon's parents had

(21:25):
already found her abandoned fore runner and police had already
discovered Chris's body, investigators finally made it to two three
one six Chipman Street. There, in the kitchen, inside of
a garbage can, they found Shannon Christian's body. She had

(21:48):
been dead for hours, maybe a full day. The trash
bags were still intact. The hogtie restraints were still in place,
and the little tracks bag around her head was still
tied tight. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy was

(22:09):
a professional with decades of experience. She had seen terrible things,
but Shannon Christian's autopsy shook her. When asked in court
to describe the sexual assault, doctor Jurenka called it extreme
and stated that it was much more than a simple

(22:30):
sexual assault. The prosecutor asked, can you put into words
the magnitude of this assault? The medical examiner paused, then
said quietly, quote the best way I can describe the
victim's anal injuries is that the tissue was shredded. End

(22:51):
quote shredded. That is what they did to her. By
the time investigators found Shannon's body on Tuesday, January ninth,
her parents had been searching for her for three days.
Gary and Dina Christian had reported their daughter missing. They

(23:13):
had searched the streets. They had found her abandoned forerunner,
wiped down, cleaned of fingerprints, and left on the street
just two blocks from Chipman Street. Dina Christian had woken
up on Sunday morning, January seventh with a terrible feeling.

(23:34):
Shannon had not come home, She wasn't answering her phone.
Something was wrong, terribly wrong. By Tuesday, when investigators confirmed
that they had found a body at the Chipman Street house,
the Christian's worst fears were realized. The discovery of the

(23:59):
bodies Chris on Sunday Shannon on Tuesday launched one of
the most extensive criminal investigations in Knoxville Police Department history.
But even before investigators had identified the perpetrators, evidence was

(24:19):
already pointing them in the right direction. Inside Shannon's forerunner,
which had been recovered on Monday, January eighth, investigators found
an envelope. On that envelope was a fingerprint. That fingerprint
belonged to LaMarcus Davidson. That fingerprint would be the beginning

(24:45):
of the end for all five perpetrators. On Wednesday, January tenth,
two thousand and seven, Knoxville Police detectives and Knox County
Sheriff Department investigators obtained a search warrant for two three
one six Shipman Street. They had already had Shannon's body,

(25:10):
but now they were gathering evidence for prosecution. What they
found inside that house told a story of depravity. There
were multiple items belonging to Shannon like her gray purse,
her pink high heels, her iPod inscribed quote Shannon Christian

(25:34):
mom and dad, we love you, her camera, photographs from
her vehicle, her toiletry items, a pasteb from her work,
and her mother's blockbuster card. Christopher Newsom's belongings were two
baseball caps, including the one he was last seen wearing,

(25:57):
and his driver's license. Inside the home, the trash bags
that contained Shannon's body had LaMarcus Davidson's fingerprints on them.
A box of trash bags in the house also had
Lamarcus's prince. Forensic analysis of the house revealed blood evidence,

(26:20):
DNA evidence, and other materials linking the victims to the location,
But the most damning evidence was the DNA. Lamarcus's sperm
was found in Shannon's body, Latalvas's sperm was found in
her mouth. The forensic evidence was overwhelming and indisputable. On Thursday,

(26:46):
January eleventh, two thousand and seven, police arrested Eric Boyd
at a vacant house on Reynolds Avenue. Inside that house,
they found Christopher Newsom's size No. Nine and a half
Nike shocks, athletic shoes, and a twenty two caliber high

(27:07):
Standard Revolver, the gun that was used to kill Chris.
Eric Boyd was taken into custody under questioning, He initially
denied everything, then slowly his story changed five different versions

(27:28):
in one interview session. You can also hear these interrogations
on YouTube. First, he wasn't at Chipman Street at all.
Then maybe he was there, but he didn't know what happened.
Then he admitted seeing some things, but he didn't participate.

(27:50):
Eventually he admitted to being present during the crimes, but
claimed that he was not involved in the violence. Also
on January eleventh, La Talvis Cobbins, George Thomas, and Vanessa
Coleman were arrested at Natasha Hayes's house in Lebanon, Kentucky,

(28:12):
where they had fled after the murders. During the search,
officers found Shannon's red purse containing her documents and belongings.
They also seized a computer on which Latalvas and George
had been following news coverage of the murders. LaMarcus, the

(28:35):
ring leader, was still on the run, but on January eleventh,
Eric Boyd, possibly hoping for leniency, told investigators where to
find him. Police found LaMarcus hiding in a cross space
at a house in Knoxville and arrested him. All five

(28:57):
of the perpetrators were now in None of them were cooperating,
Each was blaming the others. Each was trying to minimize
their own role. But the evidence did not lie. The
forensic evidence, the eyewitness testimony, the belongings found in their possession,

(29:21):
and the DNA linking them to the sexual assaults. It
was overwhelming. By mid January two thousand and seven, prosecutors
knew they had solid cases against all five defendants. The
evidence was there, and the charges would be extensive. Kidnapping, rape, robbery, theft,

(29:48):
and murder, multiple counts, multiple victims, and multiple perpetrators. It
would take years to untangle it all in court, years
of trials and appeals. Eventually, a scandal involving the judge
himself would force retrials and extend the family's agony, but

(30:15):
that comes later. For now. In January two thousand and seven,
the focus was on the victims, on making sure the
world knew what happened to them, making sure justice would
be served. Shannon Christian and Christopher Newsom were dead. Their

(30:36):
families were shattered. The Knoxville community was horrified, and five
people were about to face the consequences of their evil.
Join me for Part three, where we will learn about
the five defendants, the initial trials that spanned from two

(30:58):
thousand and eight to ten, the judge's scandal, and the
re trials. If this episode has affected you, please reach
out for help. You can contact the RAIN National Sexual
Assault Hotline at one eight hundred sixty five six hope.

(31:21):
That's one eight hundred six five six four six seven three,
or you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at
one eight hundred seven nine nine seven two three three.
There's also the Crisis text line where you can text

(31:42):
ho MEE to seven four one seven four one, or
you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing
nine eight eight, or you can text nine eight eight.
Until next time, everyone, stay safe, take care of yourselves,

(32:05):
and take care of each other.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Thank you for listening to this episode. As we close out,
let us not forget. Awareness is our greatest defense in
a world that can be dark and grim. Vigilance is
our beacon of hope when it comes to the cases
we have explored together that have remained unsolved. If you
happen to hold a piece of the puzzle, there to
step forward. As Arthur Lois McMaster bouge Hold once said,

(32:33):
the dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a
duty of the living to do so for them. Until
we reconvene, my friends, stay vigilant and stay informed.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}191. Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom: 36 Hours in Hell (Part II)