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Tennessee Jury Lets Torturer-Murderer-Rapist Live, to Prey on Others August 28, 12:24 PMDC SCOTUS ExaminerHans BaderPrevious Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe Subscribe Get alerts when there is a new article from the DC SCOTUS Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use. Email Address Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use Some juries are indulgent towards even the most vicious and plainly-guilty criminals. A Nashville jury just let a nightmarishly-evil torturer-murderer-rapist, Letalvis Cobbins, escape the death penalty in the rapes, torture, mutilation, and murders of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian. Now, he can spend the rest of his life raping...

The first of four defendants in the carjacking, rape and murder of a young Tennessee couple has been sentenced to life in prison without parole by the same jury that convicted him of murder. The sentence for 26-year-old Letalvis Cobbins of Lebanon, Ky., was announced in Knoxville after less than three hours of jury deliberation Wednesday. Cobbins took a deep breath and then sat down after the jury foreman finished delivering the sentence. The jury convicted Cobbins on Tuesday in the January 2007 attack on 21-year-old Channon Christian and her 23-year-old boyfriend Christopher Newsom, both of Knoxville Earlier Wednesday Christian's...

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...

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,...

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:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Trial is under way in Knoxville for the first of four people charged in the kidnapping, rape and killing of a young couple more than two years ago. As court convened Monday, the judge read each of the 38 counts against 26-year-old Letalvis Cobbins. His attorney, Scott Green, responded by entering pleas. Green said his client pleaded guilty to five counts of facilitating robbery or theft in the carjacking that set the crimes into motion in 2007. He also pleaded guilty to one count of rape. To the remaining counts, Green responded "not guilty." Cobbins — of...

KNOXVILLE - Letalvis Cobbins is already confessing guilt to facilitating the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. During the routine reading of the indictment this morning, defense attorney Scott Green declared Cobbins guilty of the lesser charge of facilitating the January 2007 slayings. The move comes as no surprise. That's part of the plan by Cobbins' defenders to try not to spare him a prison term. They're trying to save his life.

Horror in Knoxville update: Trial stalled for one year By Michelle Malkin • July 14, 2008 02:56 PM It must be maddening for the families of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. I know you haven’t forgotten the young couple brutally murdered in a racially-charged case in Knoxville, TN. I haven’t, either. The latest? Justice delayed in the trial of suspect George Thomas:

The parents of a young couple brutally murdered after a January 2007 carjacking expressed relief this afternoon, while the attorney for Eric Dewayne "E" Boyd said he would appeal the verdict of a federal jury that found Boyd guilty of being an accessory to the carjacking. "One down. Four to go," said Gary Christian, father of Channon Christian, referring to the four suspects who face trials in state court for the killings of Channon, then 21, and her boyfriend, 23-year-old Christopher Newsom. "We do this for Channon," said Channon's mother, Deena. "We've been through the worst. We and the Newsoms...

Accused accessory to carjacking suspect Eric Dewayne "E" Boyd claims he has no personal knowledge of the slayings of a young couple, but he offered up details of the crime anyway in a videotaped statement to police. In the interview with Knoxville Police Department Investigators Patty Tipton and Greg McKnight played today in U.S. District Court, Boyd insisted everything he knew about the fatal carjacking came from Lemaricus "Slim" Davidson, the alleged carjacking ringleader whom he is accused of helping to hide out. According to Boyd, Davidson, his brother and a friend needed a vehicle because they were being pursued...

Raise your hand if you are a racist. The question put to potential jurors today in U.S. District Court likely won't be that blunt, but the aim is the same: Ferret out anyone who cannot be color-blind when deciding the fate of accessory to fatal carjacking suspect Eric "E" Boyd. It is an unusual inquiry in what U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan is already foreseeing as an uncommon method to seat an impartial jury in an inflammatory case involving a headline-grabbing crime and a resulting racial firestorm. Boyd is standing trial beginning today on charges he helped hide Lemaricus "Slim"...

If you're like I am, you've heard scores of media reports about the 2006 Duke University rape case, in which three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black stripper at a wild party at the home of one of the team members. These guys, convicted by the news media and Duke faculty, were later found innocent. It turned out that Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was running for re-election. In seeking the black vote, he concealed DNA evidence that would have exonerated the lacrosse players. You might remember hearing scores of stories about the 1998 murder...

OK, so let's create a level playing field here. I have not even heard of this on CBS, ABC, NBC or any of the cable news services, even FOX NEWS. OR in any of the Newsrags or other publications. Read this and weep. Bet you $20 you did not hear this on the national news. The animals pictured below car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her! Channon Christian, was beaten...

A man accused of helping hide out the alleged ringleader of a fatal carjacking is asking a federal judge to move his trial out of Knox County.Attorney Phil Lomonaco filed late Tuesday a motion on behalf of Eric Dewayne "E" Boyd asking that his upcoming trial on federal accessory to carjacking charges be held in another county.Boyd is accused of helping hide out Lemaricus Davidson in the days following the carjacking, kidnapping, rape, torture and deaths of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom in January.Davidson is charged with three other suspects in Knox County Criminal Court with the slayings and related...

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- New charges have been filed against a man connected to the carjacking, rapes and murders of a young Knoxville couple earlier this year. Eric Boyd is now charged with being an accessory to a carjacking that resulted in death. Boyd was previously charged with being an accessory after the fact. The new indictment accuses Boyd of knowing about the deaths of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom before aiding one of the suspected killers and not reporting the murders. The couple was murdered in early January. A woman and three men, Vanessa Coleman, Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins and...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- What happened to Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a young Knoxville couple out on an ordinary Saturday night date, was undeniably brutal. The two were carjacked, kidnapped, raped and finally murdered during an ordeal of unimaginable terror in January. < snip > But whether the attack was a racial hate crime worthy of national media attention is another question, one that has now ignited a fierce dispute over the definition of hate crimes and how the mainstream media choose to cover America's most discomfiting interracial attacks. < snip >Country music star Charlie Daniels, who lives 150 miles...

What happened to Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, is almost too horrible to contemplate. The Knoxville, Tenn., couple fell victim to four crazed young criminals during a carjacking. The perpetrators allegedly kidnapped Christian and Newsome and brutally raped both of them before killing them. Newsom was shot, his body burned and dumped beside the railroad tracks. Christian was strangled and left in garbage bags. This heinous crime occurred in January. But it wasn't until recently that the tragedy has been talked about outside of blog posts on the Internet. Maybe that wouldn't have been the case had people...

Consider three criminal cases. No. 1: Christopher Newsom and his girlfriend, Channon Christian, both students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, were carjacked while on a dinner date in January, repeatedly raped (both of them), tortured, and killed. His burned body was found near a railroad track. Hers was stuffed into a trash can. Five suspects have been charged. The crimes were interracial. No. 2: Three white Duke lacrosse players were accused in March 2006 of beating, kicking, choking, and gang-raping an African-American stripper, while pelting her with racial epithets, during a team party. No. 3: Sam Hays bumped...

The balance between "repugnant" speech and First Amendment rights divided a Knox County Commission committee Monday. Commissioners split 6-2, with one abstention, on a resolution asking the ABC Group to cancel its proposed June 16 rally, which will protest black-on-white crime in the wake of the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Five black suspects have been charged in connection with the death of the young white couple. "We have had a carjacking, kidnapping and horrendous double murder," Commissioner Greg "Lumpy" Lambert said at Monday's Intergovernmental Committee meeting, and he said racially charged protests don't need to be added...