Jury finds Eric Boyd guilty of grisly 2007 Knoxville murders
KNOXVILLE — A Knox County jury on Tuesday declared Eric Boyd guilty in the 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.
The seven- woman, fiveman jury had deliberated since Monday before returning its verdict of first-degree murder in the Knox County Criminal Court trial on Tuesday afternoon.
The verdict carries an automatic life sentence for each of the two slayings. Judge Bob McGee will decide at a Sept. 18 sentencing hearing whether those two life sentences should be stacked one onto the other and what, if any, extra punishment Boyd should receive for the related crimes, including kidnapping and rape.
Boyd is the fifth defendant to stand trial in the slayings of Christian, 21, and Newsom, 23.
‘WE MADE A PROMISE TO CHRIS’
The Knox County couple were preparing to go on a date when they were carjacked and kidnapped and taken to the house of Lemaricus Davidson. Both were bound, gagged and blindfolded.
Newsom was raped, shot three times and his body set afire alongside nearby railroad tracks within hours of the kidnapping. Christian was held captive inside the Chipman Street house for 36 hours, repeatedly raped, forced to swallow bleach in a bid to destroy DNA evidence of those rapes and then stuffed — alive — inside a trash can in the kitchen. She slowly suffocated to death.
“We said we would not stop until Eric Boyd was prosecuted,” Newsom’s father, Hugh Newsom, said after the verdict. “There were times we wanted to give up … He’ll never be back on the streets of Knoxville to commit more crimes.”
His wife, Mary Newsom, added, “I would never want anybody else to go through this. Twelve years ago, we made a promise to Chris that we would get whoever did this and today we got that. Justice was served.”
Davidson and three others — Letalvis Cobbins, Davidson’s brother; Vanessa Coleman, Cobbins’ girlfriend; and George Thomas, Cobbins’ friend — each admitted they were inside the Chipman Street house while the couple was being held captive but all denied any active role in the crimes.
All four were indicted in the slayings and underlying crimes, including rape and kidnapping. Davidson, Cobbins and Thomas were convicted of all crimes committed against the couple, while Coleman was acquitted of crimes involving Newsom and deemed a facilitator only in the crimes committed against Christian.
Davidson is now on death row. Cobbins is serving life without parole. Coleman is serving 35 years.
Thomas was serving a 127year sentence in the case until he secretly agreed last year to testify against Boyd in return for a 50-year sentence. State prosecutors then sought an indictment against Boyd in the slayings. His trial began last week.
KEY WITNESS TESTIMONY
Prosecutors TaKisha Fitzgerald and Phil Morton staked their case against Boyd on testimony from three people — Adrienne Nicole Mathis, Xavier Jenkins and Thomas.
Mathis testified in Boyd’s federal trial that she loaned Boyd her white Pontiac Sunbird on the weekend of the slayings. Jenkins said he saw that Sunbird outside the Chipman Street house on the night of the kidnapping, and Thomas implicated Boyd in the couple’s kidnapping and Newsom’s slaying.
“He provided the transportation for these other guys to steal a car,” Morton told jurors in closing arguments. “Somewhere along the line, the plan changed from stealing a car to using force to steal the car … They took not only the car but the individuals in it.
“This case comes down to choices — what choices this defendant made, what choices these other defendants made,” Morton said. “[ Boyd] had a choice. He could have said, ‘No thanks. I don’t want any part of it.’ … If you let your friends talk you into doing something, you suffer the same consequences as they do.”
Boyd’s attorney, Clinton Frazer, insisted in his closing arguments Monday that the couple’s attackers are already in prison.
“These are the acts of Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, Vanessa Coleman and George Thomas,” Frazier said. “We’ve heard from many, many [ experts]. There is no physical evidence Eric Boyd raped or murdered [Christian and Newsom]. The state’s case is a lot of speculation.”
Frazier branded Thomas and Jenkins as liars. He made no mention of Mathis, though. There’s good reason: Mathis had repeatedly testified in prior trials that she loaned her Sunbird to Boyd. But when called to testify against Boyd last week, Mathis said she didn’t remember.
Her claim of memory loss left prosecutors Fitzgerald and Morton with nothing tying Boyd to the Sunbird. But Judge Bob McGee later ruled the prosecutors could use Mathis’ previous testimony in the federal trial as evidence in the slaying case.
Despite his plea deal, Thomas kept mum about many details of the crimes.
He claimed he didn’t see anyone rape Newsom or Christian. He claimed he only saw the “muzzle flashes” from the gun used to kill Newsom and not the killing itself. He claimed he didn’t see Christian being stuffed into the trash can nor Newsom’s body being set afire.