Posted on 08/25/2009 7:40:09 AM PDT by jessduntno
Torture-slaying trial, Day 8: Jurors resume deliberations By News Sentinel staff Posted August 25, 2009 at 9:11 a.m.
KNOXVILLE — Jurors in the torture-slaying trial of Letalvis Cobbins resumed deliberations this morning.
The panel from Davidson County deliberated about seven and a half hours Monday, ending the day without a verdict before returning to the hotel where they have been sequestered for more than a week.
Testimony wrapped up Saturday with Cobbins, 26, taking the stand in his own defense.
Cobbins is accused of taking part in the January 2007 kidnapping, rape and slaying of Channon Christian, 21,and Christopher Newsom, 23. The young couple were carjacked while outside a Washington Pike apartment complex and then taken to a Chipman Street house where Cobbins’ brother Lemaricus Davidson lived.
Newsom was shot to death and left along railroad tracks near the house. Christian was left to suffocate to death in a trash can inside the home.
Cobbins has admitted raping Christian inside the house, although he testified Saturday that she offered him the oral sex if he could help ensure her freedom. Christian and Newsom did not know Cobbins, Davidson or their co-defendants, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman, who await trial.
If jurors convict Cobbins of first-degree murder, they will shift into a penalty phase in which they will consider evidence about whether he should be executed. Prosecutors will try to show his crimes are so heinous he deserves death, while defense attorneys will try to counter with mitigating facts.
Sixteen people were impaneled last week at the trial’s start. A woman juror, however, bowed out after Friday’s graphic photographic evidence of the couple’s rape injuries. Fifteen jurors remain, but only 12 are taking part in the deliberations.
More details as they develop online and in Wednesday’s News Sentinel.
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
38. Including 18 murder charges.
Multiple defendants, at least one of which is testifying against the others. The jury has to sort out who did what as best it can. If they don't dot every i and cross every t there'll be grounds for appeal and one of these people could walk because the jury didn't do its job.
I learned the races from those replies. My reply, however, pre-dates them, and in the body of the article it says nothing. Thus my confusion. Carry on without me. ‘bye.
There is only one defendant in this particular trial. They found him guilty this morning.
I'm going to guess we have a potential OJ jury, with at least several hold-outs for full acquittal.
“Don’t get your panties all bunched. I’m asking a simple question, and it requires a factual answer. What is your problem? This is the first I hear of the case, and nobody says in the article that it was black on white. OK?”
Learn a little about a topic before you jump on it..OK,Lumpy? My problem is getting slammed, having my reasoning attacked and being talked down to by an ill informed pseudo intellectual going off half cocked. OK? My panties aren’t bunched, as you so politely put it...is this your idea of an apology for being such a big mouth? By the way, your questions to me require nothing.
WBIR TV LOCAL. VERDICT IN. MURDER ONE GUILTY. ALL LOCAL STATIONS REPORTING GUILTY!
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.
Confirmed by www.wate.com www.wbir.com www.knoxnews.com
What idiot DA allowed this jury?
Have people lost their minds?
“The good, upstanding citizens in America no longer rule the roost, and their values and norms are being replaced.”
“It’s little social vignettes like this one, repeated over and over, that make social upheaval and Civil War more palatable to the common man on the street.”
####
..tick...tick...tick...
38 counts. Basically one full day of deliberation. That’s something like ten to fifteen minutes per count.
Worst I was ever on was felony assault, and that was bad enough. This had to be horrendous. My admiration for anyone who fulfilled their civic obligations by serving on the jury.
The lead prosecutor in this case was Takisha Fitzgerald and she must have done something right because the jury found the defendant guilty on almost all the counts except for the ones involving in the sexual assault on the young man.
“What ethnic or religious group did the victims belong to but the perpetrators did not, and where and why did the hate factor come in? Spare me the righteous indignation and give me some facts I can use to understand the issues.”
He wants facts AFTER weighing in...can’t get them by himself...now it seems to be our fault he was illinformed...
Your diminished capacity to remove me from your ping list is appalling. I stand by my previous “bite me,” and wonder if it’s possible to block certain people’s pingings on this forum. I do not want to communicate with you. I don’t want to read your oh-so-not-clever retorts, or your oh-so-non-responsive gibberish. Go away.
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