Free Republic

The tragedy that the mainstream media refuses to speak about. May they be with the Lord.

Knoxville's census office is facing a shortage of applicants despite part-time jobs that pay almost $13 an hour. More than 2,000 positions in a three-county area are available between now and the end of summer. Even with 22 full-time recruiters in Knox, Blount and Sevier counties, applications have been few and far between, said Marty Coffman, manager of the Knoxville census office.

KNOXVILLE - The gunshots that nearly killed Inskip Elementary School's principal and assistant principal came from a pistol bought last month at a local gun show, according to court records revealed today. Mark Stephen Foster, 48, fired at least five shots from the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver Wednesday at Principal Elisa Luna and Assistant Principal Amy Brace after learning he wouldn't have a job next year, officers wrote in search warrants for his car and his home in Anderson County.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Officials say a Tennessee elementary school principal is in critical condition after she and an assistant principal were shot and wounded by a co-worker at their office. The shooting at Inskip Elementary School in Knoxville happened Wednesday afternoon about an hour after all the children were dismissed for a snow day. Forty-eight-year-old Mark Stephen Foster is charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder. Police say Foster was a co-worker, but wouldn't say what his job was. The school's Web site identifies Foster as a fourth-grade teacher. University of Tennessee Medical Center officials said Principal Elisa...

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- A fourth grade teacher at Inskip Elementary School is charged Wednesday with the shootings of the principal and assistant principal at the school. The victims are Principal Elisa Luna and Assistant Principal Amy Brace. Officials at UT Medical Center say Luna is in critical condition and Brace is in stable condition. The suspect is Inskip teacher Mark Stephen Foster, 48, of Clinton. He's been charged with two counts of attempted first degree murder.

"Stop, stop, you're killing me: Knoxville Muslim says he was joking about carrying out jihad terror attack at shopping mall Ha ha! A real side splitter! Look out, Letterman!" SNIPPET: "...pushed for the detention pending trial of Hazam Ali Ahmed. The 35-year-old Ahmed was charged with being a felon in possession of firearms after authorities last week found two guns inside the Central Convenience Store on Keith Avenue that he operated. However, testimony at Monday's hearing shows Ahmed has been on the radar screen of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force since at least January 2006." SNIPPET: ""He referred to...

A Knox County jury delivered the death sentence this afternoon to the ringleader in the torture slayings of a young Knoxville couple following a carjacking. The same panel of seven men and five women who convicted Lemaricus Davidson, 28, in the 2007 attack on University of Tennessee student Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, decided his fate. Davidson was found guilty of more than 30 counts, including felony murder and premeditated murder of each victim. The jury had a choice of a life sentence mandating a minimum of 51 years in prison, life without parole with no...

Davidson found guilty Murder One all counts.

KNOXVILLE - While jurors watched for the second time torture-slaying alleged ringleader Lemaricus Davidson's account after his arrest in the January 2007 slayings of a Knox County couple, the parents of one victim lashed out at defense claims of drug use. Within a half hour of resuming deliberations this morning, jurors pondering Davidson's fate in the slayings of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom asked for a replay of a two-hour-long interrogation video of Davidson after his Jan. 11, 2007 arrest.

“I ain’t never seen the girl before in my life,” Davidson answered during the interrogation shortly after his Jan. 11, 2007, arrest. Defense attorneys David Eldridge and Doug Trant have been trying this week to sow seeds of doubt about whether Christian, 21, and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, 23, were victims of a carjacking turned kidnapping, rape and murder by suggesting the couple went to Davidson’s Chipman Street neighborhood in search of drugs. “I’m assuming my gun was used ‘cause the pistol, a bullet was missing out of it,” he said. “One of my bullets had been shot. (He told...

It was the kind of crime that strikes terror into the hearts of parents everywhere. A bright young couple were carjacked after a Saturday night date and murdered in the most brutal way imaginable. Christopher Newsom, 23, was tied up and raped, shot in the back of the head and then dragged to a railway track and set on fire. His girlfriend, 21-year-old University of Tennessee student Channon Christian’s fate was even more horrific. Her death came only after hours of torture, during which time she was raped and savaged with a broken chair leg. She was beaten in the...

"Please Pray for Justice for my baby girl and our angel, Channon" http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=10952439561&ref=nf

Torture-slayings trial, Day 9: Victim's families: Jury 'let us down' with Letalvis Cobbins verdict KNOXVILLE - The families of a young Knox County couple tortured and killed in January 2007 tonight sharply criticized a jury's decision to spare defendant Letalvis Cobbins the death penalty. "I think the jury has let us down," said Mary Newsom, mother of murder victim Chris Newsom. "I think they've let Channon and Chris down. We were hoping for the death penalty." After deliberating a little more than two hours, the jury delivered its verdict about 6:50 p.m. in Judge Richard Baumgartner's courtroom. The judge polled...

Jurors in Knoxville, Tenn., have begun hearing arguments in a trial over the grisly deaths of a white couple – allegedly at the hands of a gang of black men and one woman who tried to conceal DNA evidence by dousing one victim with bleach. According to court documents, the two were tied up, blindfolded and taken to one defendant's rental home. Shortly thereafter, Newsom was sexually assaulted, shot in the head, set on fire and his body was left beside railroad tracks. The attackers allegedly took 24 hours to kill Christian, raping her multiple times and spraying bleach in...

The first of four alleged members of a black gang scheduled to be tried for murder for the torture-slayings of a young white couple has been found guilty on multiple counts by jurors in Tennessee. WND reported just days ago when the trial was begun for Letalvis Cobbins on counts of first-degree murder and others for the 2007 deaths of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Carjacking victims Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom The brutalized bodies of the victims showed evidence that the attackers had tried to destroy DNA evidence by dousing Christian with bleach and Newsom's body was burned beyond...

In a case that's been widely ignored by the mainstream media, justice prevailed today as Letalvis Cobbins was found guilty of the vast majority of charges, including that of first-degree murder. Cobbins was one of a group of thugs who carjacked, then raped, tortured and murdered two Knoxville residents. For more on the story, see the Knoxville News-Sentinel. http://digg.com/d311xYc

KNOXVILLE — Jurors this morning convicted Letalvis Cobbins of first-degree murder in the torture-slaying of Knox County couple Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. -snip- Description of crime (Wikipedia); 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...

Davidson County jurors bused to Knox County Criminal Court last week to consider the fate of 26-year-old torture slaying suspect Letalvis Cobbins spent six days hearing testimony, viewing gruesome photographs and listening to hours of attorney arguments and legal instruction.Cobbins' defense team of Scott Green and Kim Parton and prosecutors Takisha Fitzgerald and Leland Price had one last chance Saturday afternoon to argue their respective cases. Despite the unexpected testimony of Cobbins against his defense team's advice, neither wavered from their original positions on Cobbins' alleged role. Neither paid much heed to Cobbins' claim that Christian volunteered oral sex in...

This bastard murdered this young woman, and is accompliced to the murder of her boyfriend. It is now in the hands of the jury. 3 more are involved. It is a sad place to acknowledge. I stayed quiet until this trial was over. The anger is real.

Longtime readers will remember Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, the young couple brutally murdered in a racially-charged case in Knoxville, TN in 2007. My archives on the case are here. The trial of the first defendant Letalvis Cobbins began yesterday. The Knoxville News Sentinel reports: