EP. 108 TENNESSEE - The Rape, Torture & Murder of Channon Christian & Christopher Newsom

While the entire city of Knoxville was on the lookout for Shannon and Chris, they were tied up in a house. Facing unimaginable rape and torture. At the hands of five people who we will call the Knox County five. And at the end of it all, one of the victims would be found shot and burned near a train track, and the other would be found suffocated to death in a trash can. Making this one of the most horrific cases Knoxville, Tennessee, has ever seen. This is the story of the rape, torture and murder of Shannon, Christian and Chris Newsome in the Knox County Five.

Shannon Gail Christian was born on April 29, 1985, in Nacogdoches, Texas. But eventually, she and her family would settle down in Knoxville, Tennessee, where they lived a very comfortable upper middle class lifestyle. Shannon had a great upbringing with very loving and supportive parents. She was beautiful, with pretty blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a daddy's girl, according to her family. Here is her mother, Dina.

I was told I might never be able to have kids. So when Chase was born, we were ecstatic. Then, when Shannon was born, we had the perfect family. She was a precious child and a very special young woman, and she loved her family.

She had her daddy wrapped around her little finger and all she had to do was look at him with those big, beautiful blue eyes, and he would melt in her arms.

As we all know, college is expensive, so instead of living on campus, Shannon decided to save up her money and stay at home with her family. At the time of our story, she was a 21-year-old senior at UT studying sociology. Her mom said she wasn't sure exactly what job she wanted after college, but she knew she wanted to help children in need. On top of being a full-time college student, Shannon also had two part-time jobs, so she was a hardworking and busy girl.

But she seemed to balance everything pretty well, she made good grades, she was making money, and she always made time for her friends. And over the last few years of her college experience, Shannon was really branching out, meeting new people, finding lifelong friends, and also meeting boys like many college students do.

Or Chris, as everyone called him. Chris was born on September 21, 1983, and he was raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. And like Shannon, Chris came from a great family. Here's his mom, Mary, describing her son.

He was everybody's friend and had a huge smile that everybody loved. We were proud to be his parents.

And Shannon liked him a lot, too. He was handsome, charming, hardworking, and he had a good head on his shoulders. And soon enough, the two were spending all of their time together. They officially started dating around November of 2006, about two months before everything came crashing down.

That night, Shannon drove over to the Washington Ridge apartments to visit her best friend, Kara Soward. The two were just hanging out there, having a few drinks, and Chris was actually supposed to meet Shannon there later that night so they could go to a party together. But at around 7.30, he calls Shannon to let her know he's running a bit late, but he will be there shortly.

Now Kara was ready to go to this party, so Shannon tells her to go ahead and go, and she and Chris will meet up with her later. So with that, Kara leaves expecting to see them shortly after. But eventually the party starts, and Shannon and Chris still aren't there. Kara tries to call Shannon to see where she is, but she doesn't answer the phone, which was strange because she always answered the phone.

But again, this is college, so no one was really worried just yet. After all, Shannon and Chris were still in the new stages of their relationship, so everyone thought that maybe they just made other plans. But after a few hours, Shannon's parents start to get worried. Like we mentioned earlier, she still lived with them, and earlier that night she called them to let them know that she would be home later.

So she should have been home by now.

He, too, lived with his mom and dad, but he was 23 years old and very responsible. He was at the age where he didn't have to check in all the time with them. So, according to them, there were no red flags. But by the time the next day rolls around, Shannon missed her shift at work.

Her employers actually called her parents to let them know she was a no-show, and immediately their hearts dropped. Shannon was very responsible and she would have never missed work without calling in. So that's when her parents called Chris's parents to let them know what's going on.

Kara also tells her parents that, strangely enough, Shannon's silver 4runner wasn't in her apartment's parking lot, but Chris's truck was, and it had been there the last couple of days.

But can you guess what? They tell them? That's right, they tell them to wait it out in their minds. These are two college lovers who aren't answering their parents phone calls and that they're probably just shacking up somewhere and will come home soon. Which is always so frustrating when police departments do this. But Shannon's parents aren't going to waste any time.

If the police didn't want to help them find their daughter, they gather everyone they can and take to the streets to look for them. And they're also keeping an eye out for Shannon's car, but it's kind of hard to even know where to look. Knoxville is a pretty big place and they could be anywhere by now. So Shannon's parents call their phone company to see if they can ping her last known location.

And luckily they can. But when they ping her phone and see its location, their fears grow even more.

In fact, that week alone, the police had been called to Cherry Street on multiple occasions because a group of people had been robbing businesses at gunpoint.

They eventually turn onto the corner of Chipman Street and Glider Avenue, and as soon as they do, their headlights shine onto a silver 4runner parked at the end of the street. It was Shannon's 4runner. The Christians immediately called their cop friend and soon enough Chipman Street was filled with police presence. And the first thing they do is look through her car to see if they can find any clues as to what happened to them. With the help of her parents, they find that Shannon's phone was missing, along with her iPod and wallet.

They also found Newport cigarettes, and neither Shannon nor Chris smoked. But even more concerning was that the driver's seat was pushed all the way back. Whoever had been driving her car clearly had very long legs, way longer than Shannon's would have been. Even further, it was clear that someone had recently cleaned the car.

All of Shannon's CDs were missing, the pictures she kept on her visor were gone, and there were circular white marks all over the windows. Shannon's University of Tennessee stickers had also been torn off the back, and they were actually found thrown in the grass near the car. So although Shannon and Chris are still nowhere to be found, it's clear that Shannon's car had been stolen by someone.

They impound it so they can look for prints. And, in the meantime, they tell Shannon's parents to go home and try and get some rest. But how could they? Their daughter had been missing for over 24 hours and her car was found wiped down in a bad part of town. They surely wouldn't be getting any rest that night, but they took the cop's advice and went home.

The police presence along Chipman Street would fade out. But what they didn't realize was that Shannon and Chris had been inside of a home just yards away from where Shannon's car was found. And throughout the entire time, they had been missing. The couple had faced unimaginable torture and rape at the hands of the Knoxville County FI. And soon enough, this case was about to change Knoxville, Tennessee, forever. And it all started with a discovery along a train track.

But seeing that it was clearly a body, the engineer immediately calls it in and the police make their way over. As it turns out, the location of where the body was found was not far from Chipman Street, where Shannon's car was the night before. As the police approached, they came upon a scene that they'll never forget. The male victim was dead, with burns covering about 80 of their body. They were also bound and gagged.

The body was quickly taken to the medical examiner, where they found three bullet wounds to the head, neck and back. It was clear that he was kneeling down when he was shot because the bullets traveled downward, and sadly, the first two bullets didn't kill him. The first was to his neck and the second severed his spinal cord, paralyzing him, and finally, the third shot was to his head.

Evidence showed that it was pressed right up to his head when they pulled the trigger, and that's what killed him. Following this, they burned his body, likely to try to conceal evidence. The medical examiner also found severe bruising and swelling around the victim's anus, indicating that he had been brutally raped before he was murdered.

Everything fell apart at that moment.

That morning end quote Here is Chris's mom describing that day.

I thought, you know, here's all his friends and he's not here, and it was that was one of the hardest moments.

And he, along with their entire search party, went back to Cherry Street to look for her. They were looking along train tracks, going through all of the neighborhoods, there were helicopters overhead, they even went into a number of abandoned houses in the area. But again, after hours and hours of searching, there was still no sign of Shannon Christian.

But they were about to get some answers by now. Shannon's vehicle had been thoroughly searched, and although it was wiped down pretty well, they were able to find one single piece of evidence. In the back seat. On an envelope, crime scene technicians found a thumbprint so they run it through their database.

And what do you know? There's a hit. It belonged to a 25-year-old man named Lamarcus Davidson, who had just recently got out of prison a few months back. And he had a pretty long rap sheet, including armed robbery. But his most recent time in prison was for carjacking, so seeing this, the detectives are wondering if maybe this was a carjacking gone wrong. So they place a call to his parole officer, who tells them that LaMarcus lives at 2316 Chipman Street, the very street where Shannon's car was found.

This was enough for them to get a search warrant for his home. And on January 9th, 2007, SWAT teams descended upon the home. They make their way through clearing each room. The house is empty, but it's clear someone had been living there. Video footage shows a small TV playing in the living room, with porno tapes lined on the shelf above. They also found a rifle and ammunition in one of the bedrooms.

And in the kitchen, there was food everywhere. It seemed like someone had just recently made a meal. Also in that kitchen was a black trash can. Surely the perpetrator left evidence in there, so they put on their gloves and lift the lid.

Inside, they see a figure of sorts wrapped in trash bags. Immediately they begin to prepare themselves for what could be inside. They peel back the trash bags to find another trash bag, then another and another. Whatever was in this trash was heavily wrapped. And once they peeled back the fifth trash bag, they saw Shannon Christian's body.

She was bound nude from the waist down, and she had a white shopping bag wrapped around her head. The medical examiner would later say that she was, in a quote, forced fetal position. Someone had bound her thighs to her chest using a pink curtain, and she was stuffed so deeply in the trash. Her head was forced down onto her knees.

And on the trash bag that concealed her body, there was a fingerprint and a palm print belonging to LaMarcus Davidson.

Her dad would later say A very big portion of me died right then. As a parent, the thought of your child being murdered is just about the worst news you'd think you could get. But the Christian and Newsom family had no idea just how horrific their children's deaths had been. Like we mentioned earlier, Chris had been tortured and raped before his murder. As for Shannon, she had severe injuries as well.

The medical examiner found deep bruising around her arms and shoulders, likely from someone forcibly grabbing and holding her down. She had carpet burns and multiple blows to her head. There was semen found both in and on her body. And her autopsy revealed that she had been raped orally, vaginally and anally. The oral rape had been so brutal. Her upper lip was torn.

And there was severe vaginal trauma, indicating that someone had kicked her there numerous times throughout the torture.

There were two young adults with their entire lives ahead of them, and they were good people who spent the last moments of their lives in pain, fear and agony. And more than anything, everyone wanted to catch the people responsible. But LaMarcus Davidson had clearly gotten word about the discovery at his home and he was on the run. But soon enough, someone would come forward.

Like we mentioned earlier, LaMarcus Davidson was a drug dealer, and one of his clients, named Darren Williams, had some information about something he witnessed. Darren told detectives that around the time of the murders, he went by Davidson's home to pick up some drugs. And when he arrived, a silver forerunner was idling in front of the house. He pulls up behind it, and Lamarcus, along with two other men, came out of the forerunner. To tell them that he didn't have any drugs at the time.

Darren also said that it looked like another person was still in the car. So hearing this, the detectives can now confirm that LaMarcus likely did not act alone. There were at least three other people in Shannon's vehicle at the time, but they had no way of identifying who these people were. So the police take a different approach. As it turns out, LaMarcus Davidson wasn't the only person renting the house on Chipman Street.

A 22-year-old named Daphne Sutton was staying there as well, so they immediately bring her in for questioning. But Daphne claims that she has no idea someone was murdered inside of her home. And she said she had actually moved out several days before this all went down.

And she had an alibi. Apparently, she and Lamarcus had been sexually involved. But at the time of the murders, she said, she was actually at another man's house and was sleeping with him. And although she didn't have any information about the murders themselves, she did offer up some interesting information. She said that Lamarcus half-brother and a few of his friends had been staying at the house that week.

So, again, this was confirmation that LaMarcus didn't act alone.

Now, directly next to Chipman Street, is a waste company, and an employee there had also seen the silver 4-runner on the night of the murders. His name was Xavier Jenkins. He worked the night shift at the waste company. And while he was sitting in his car waiting for his shift to start, he saw the 4-runner parked in front of Lamarcus House.

Shortly after, he said that he saw four Black males get inside of the 4-runner. And they were slouching down in the seats like they didn't want to be seen. Xavier saw another vehicle at LaMarcus House as well, and that car led them to a woman named Nicole Mathis. Police brought her in for questioning and she told them that she lended her car to her cousin, Eric Boyd. But she said that Eric didn't return the car in time, telling her that it had broken down.

Eventually, Nicole gets her vehicle back, and inside she finds a bag filled with bullets, and she didn't want that in her car, so she just threw them away. Nicole also said that around this time, she overheard her cousin Eric on the phone saying.

But after a while, she told them they had to leave, and following that, Eric and Lamarcus went to hide out in some nearby woods. Eric started calling everyone he knew trying to get someone to drive them out of town, but no one was willing to. So they eventually just broke into an abandoned house and stayed there for a while.

Well, Lamarcus did. Eric was actually still staying at his mother's house, but he would go by the abandoned home several times a day to bring Lamarcus food and water. And on January 11th, Eric started driving over to the abandoned house. When the police spotted him, they quickly pulled him over and placed him under arrest.

But when asked about LaMarcus's whereabouts, Eric said he didn't know a LaMarcus Davidson. So they say, Well, that's weird, because you've been calling him almost every day. And with that, Eric gives the police the address to the abandoned house. Once they had the location, the police immediately made their way over and upon entry, they found LaMarcus Davidson and placed him under arrest.

They also find a revolver, which is against his parole since he just got out of prison, and they find Chris Newsome's shoes.

They then ask him to give up his accomplices, but he's not willing to rat.

The detectives aren't really getting anywhere with Lamarcus, so they turn to Eric, who's adamant that she was not involved in the murders. But he does know how everything went down because Lamarcus told him all about it. According to Eric, the only part he played in this story was helping Lamarcus find a place to stay and bringing him food and water. Now, investigators didn't believe this story at all, but they played along and eventually got Eric to drop. The names of the other suspects involved, which were George Thomas, Batalvis Cobbins and Vanessa Coleman.

And investigators would eventually track them down in Lebanon, Kentucky, following the murders, it seemed like they wanted to distance themselves from the crime. A friend of theirs would later visit them and say that the three were acting very strange. They didn't seem like their normal selves, likely haunted by their disgusting actions. And this friend would eventually give the police.

The location of where these three were staying in Kentucky, turns out they were hiding at a friend's house. The Knoxville detectives investigating this crime immediately made their way to Lebanon, Kentucky, and placed the three under arrest. In the home they found a .22 revolver, and in Vanessa's possession, they found Shannon's perfume and wallet.

So that New Year, Batalvis, his friend George Thomas and his girlfriend Vanessa Coleman all left Kentucky and made their way to Knoxville to stay with him. Here is Batalvis himself.

It's the first New Year's that he's been out since we were young teenagers.

And LaMarcus gets his friend Eric Boyd in on it, too, so Eric borrows his cousin's car. And they were all going to use that car to drive around Knoxville and look for their carjacking victim. According to them, they weren't looking to kill anyone, they just wanted to steal a car. But that's not how the night would end. So on January 6th, 2007, Vanessa stays back at the house, while the men get in Eric's car and begin driving around.

According to LaTalvis, they smoked a wet blunt as they drove around the city. If you don't know what a wet blunt is, don't worry. I didn't either, but apparently it is weed mixed with embalming fluid, and they were just smoking it. Driving around, looking for a car to Jack. And as they're looking, they want to find a place where there isn't a lot of foot traffic, and somewhere where they can easily escape.

And they eventually make their way over to the Washington Ridge apartments. LaTalvis says that they're circling the parking lot when they suddenly see Shannon and Chris coming out of Kara's apartment. The couple walks over to Shannon's silver 4runner, where they share a few kisses. And immediately the men know that they have found their target, according to LaTalvis. LaMarcus and Eric jump out of the car and run up to the couple with their guns drawn.

And from here, they force them into the back seat, where they are bound, gagged and blindfolded. LaMarcus and Eric then hop in the front seat of Shannon's car, and they tell Latalvis to follow behind in the other car. And I can't imagine what was going through Chris and Shannon's minds on the way over. But they truly had no idea just how horrible things would turn. Once. At the Chipman Street house, the men look around, making sure there were no witnesses nearby.

And once the coast was clear, they pull Shannon and Chris out of the back seat and lead them into the home.

The girl has got a bandana around her eyes and her hands bound in front of her. He comes in with the guy holding his arm. I notice the guy has a bandana around his eyes and his hands are tied behind him.

Nah, I ain't gonna kill you, but I'll shoot your ass, but I ain't gonna kill you, George. You know, I don't like you anyway, I'll shoot you.

And Vanessa, don't make me shoot your little pretty butt.

He takes the blunt. He said, Matter of fact, come here, I need to holler at you anyway, I look up.

He said, Not you, I'm talking to G. Come here, G, let me holler at you, right? quick. G look at me.

He gets up, they go into the living room. I can hear my brother saying, Look, you know, I don't trust you. So you got to do something for me to trust you. You got to do something, you know what I mean, so I can trust you.

You got to earn my trust. Him and George had got into it previously, about a few days before that.

And he had pushed G up against the wall or whatnot, so I could tell G was kind of scared of him.

So G was like, All right, all right, all right. So about five, ten minutes later, G and my brother leave.

But, according to LaTalvis, Eric Boyd brought Chris into a room where he was then raped and repeatedly sodomized with an object. Now we don't know for sure that it was Eric, because the semen found inside of Chris couldn't be identified. And again, there are conflicting accounts. But what we do know is that Chris's last moments were filled with an incredible amount of pain and now they are finished with him.

He was a pretty big and strong guy and keeping him around was a liability. So, according to George Thomas, he and Eric Boyd then forced Chris outside. He was nude from the waist down, barefoot, bound at the wrist and ankles. There was a sock in his mouth, which was secured with a shoelace, and, lastly, a hoodie was wrapped around his head.

The men walk him over to the railroad tracks, just a few hundred yards away. Once there, they make him kneel down. Where he was shot, execution style, first in the neck, then his back, and then the final and lethal shot to his head. Following this, they wrap his body in a comforter and doused it in gasoline, and then finally, they lit a match and set his body on fire.

And again, all of the men point the finger at each other, so it's unknown who exactly pulled the trigger or who set him on fire. But following this, they go back to the house and update the group.

He said that while the men were out with Chris, Vanessa had gone to the bathroom, so he went to check on Shannon.

She's laying on her back, her hands are tied, still tied like this, and tied to a duffel bag full of free weights and books and stuff. Same thing with her feet, her ankles are tied. And it's tied to a duffel bag, it's tied to a duffel bag with weights and books in it.

So I untied her hands, well, I didn't untie her hands. I untied the string that was going to the duffel bag. I untied it so she could sit up and drink the water, I gave her the water.

She drank the water like that.

She asked me, what's going on?

She asked me where her boyfriend is, I said, I don't know.

She asked me, Why were we doing this? I told her, It's not me, I don't, it's not me, it's not me. I don't have anything to do with this.

Matter of fact, we're being held here against our will. Just like you are, the only difference is that you're tied up and we're not.

So she started asking me, Would I convince him to let her go? I said, I'll try, she said. Just please, just please.

She said Please can you just convince him to let me go?

I said, I'll try.

She said, I'll do anything, just please, just let me go. She even offered oral sex.

As I started to ejaculate, I heard a noise outside and I heard Vanessa flushing the toilet.

So I got spooked, I jumped up, fixed my clothes.

As I ejaculated, it got on her shirt and some of her pants.

But from here, the men get back from the train tracks.

Slim, My brother, George, both of them come back, they come back in. George was looking crazy when they come back. They both had on dark clothes, so you can't really tell what it is, but you can see a dark stain on George's clothes and dark stains on my brother's clothes.

My brother keeps the back door. He got a deadbolt lock that you can only open with a key. He keeps that lock at all times. And the windows, he got nails in the windows where you can open it, but it only open like that far.

At some point, Shannon was beaten with several hard blows to her head, and, according to the autopsy, she was also repeatedly kicked in her vagina. And many believe that it was Vanessa Coleman who did this. But it's here where LaMarcus decided she needed to die. So he brought her out into the living room, where bleach was poured all over her body and down her throat.

They were hoping to kill off their DNA, but she had been raped so many times it didn't even do the job.

Me and Vanessa and George. He make all of us come in the kitchen, in the back, utility room, make us stand there for a minute. So as we're all standing there, he puts his arm around the girl's neck, tries to kill her, tries to choke her, he lets her go and she falls.

From here, they began to hogtie her with strips of fabric. Now, Vanessa Coleman will say that she had nothing to do with any of this, but her DNA was found on that fabric. So take with that what you will. But after Shannon was all tied up, they put a white shopping bag around her head and then they wrapped her in five large trash bags.

Once she was concealed and all wrapped up, they put her in the trash can. She was forced into it so that her body was curled up in the fetal position and she wasn't able to move or escape. And with the bags over her head, she slowly suffocated to death. Another disturbing fact was that she died with her eyes wide open.

Since it happened, you know, you always got to be leery everywhere you go anyway, so you know, you got to be leery about people you meet and stuff that you do.

And the Christian and Newsom families would go through a lot of heartbreak over the next few years. With there being five perpetrators in this crime, that means they had to go through all of their individual trials, which would start in October of 2009..

Eric's trial would actually come first, and all of the suspects said that he definitely was involved in the rape and murders. But because there was no evidence, they couldn't use any of that at trial. But they did bring up the fact that he specifically borrowed his cousin's car that night for the carjacking. And after he was arrested, he gave very detailed accounts on what happened. Eric also admitted to being in the house when Shannon was tied up in the back room and that he knew she was back there. And Boyd's behavior at his trial was repulsive.

At times he would turn towards the Christian family, smiling, and at one point he even mouthed. And at the end of it all, he would only be sentenced to 18 years in prison, which is the maximum sentence for the charges he faced.

You begins, and, unlike someone else said, I don't think you're going to enjoy your days in prison, not at all. And I hope I'm standing next to God when He makes his judgment on you and sentences you to hell.

His attorney brought his sisters to the stand to testify about his horrible upbringing, saying that he had an absent father and drug-addicted mother. And he did seem remorseful about what happened, telling the families.

In the closing arguments, his attorney called him a coward, rapist and liar. However, the jury wasn't convinced. On August 25th, 2009, Letalvis Cobbins was found guilty of their murders as well. He was eligible for the death penalty, but would ultimately be spared, sentenced to life without parole.

I'm a convicted felon. I had a gun in my house. Selling dope, that's what I do, I sell dope.

I ain't gonna lie, I'm a gang member and all, that dude, I don't kill people, though.

But after everyone got arrested, his story starts to change. Now he's saying that he was there, but he wasn't a part of it, telling detectives.

Then he said, once they were home, he left his house and he went to get high with a neighbor. He even said that he tried to save, Shannon, saying.

I didn't think my brother was going to kill that girl, man, that's all she said. She ain't wanna die, and I just couldn't take that shit I left.

But as we know, Lamarcus semen was found in her vagina and anus, and his fingerprints were everywhere, including the trash can she was in now. His attorneys would later say that, of course, his fingerprints are going to be on that trash can, because it's his trash can, which is believable. But what about the semen? It's kind of hard to explain that away.

Well, at LaMarcus trial, his attorneys pulled a card that no one was expecting. They claimed that Shannon and Chris actually drove to the house themselves, wanting to buy drugs.

LaMarcus tried to convince the jury that they were there voluntarily. Oh, and the semen that was found inside of her, well, that was from consensual sex, he said. And this entire part of the trial is just disgusting. Because they were trying to make Shannon out to be this drug addict who was willing to have sex for drugs. When her boyfriend was there, as you can imagine, Sharon's parents were livid having to sit through the trial listening to this.

Here is her father.

Can attempt to drag our children through the mud, make them into dope dealers and hookers.

And in a court of law, my wife does not have the right to say that our children should not have been put on trial. If the next person that says out of their mouth that my daughter had consensual sex with him, ain't got but one person in this world to deal with. And that's me over my dead body.

What is the decision of the jury as to what the punishment should be with regard to those counts?

We should take our hats off to them and we should give them a round of applause, thank you.

You cops come into our neighborhood and kill us. So why should I get involved with some things that are none of my business? But again, the other perpetrators all said that he was involved, and on December 8, 2009, Thomas was found guilty and sentenced to life without parole.

What's really going on? I don't have a clue, or at least I used to be able to say I don't. But as much as I've seen and observed and learned, I know exactly what's going on. Although a lot of this is new to me, life's a trip, but it's amazing how things play its own role. Life is interesting and full of surprises. Even very unexpected things happen that you don't expect.

Signed Nessa the following day. She wrote Last night was one of a kind. We stayed with a crackhead that was cool as hell. It snowed a little bit, but it's already melted. Let's talk about adventures.

I've had one hell of an adventure since I've been in the Big TN. It's a crazy world these days, but I love the fun and adventure and lessons that I've learned. It's going to be a long and interesting year, ha ha. So, to me, that's not the words of someone who's innocent.

And the jury didn't think so either. Vanessa was acquitted of the murder charges, but for her parts in the crime, she was sentenced to 53 years.

Apparently he was a huge drinker, and it eventually led to him having pancreatitis, and to cope with the pain, he started abusing painkillers. It got so bad. His doctor actually recommended that he retire, but he didn't take their advice. And, according to his colleagues, he started showing up to work so high that he could barely even carry a conversation. Judge Baumgartner was seeing multiple doctors to keep up with his addiction.

And when they couldn't give him the medicine, he would ask his court staff.

In fact, his assistant would monitor him every single day, and if he was too drunk or hopped up on painkillers, she would have to reschedule his appointments for him. Now, in late 2009, is where Judge Baumgartner really starts to decline. That fall, he stole money from the Knox County Drug Court and used it to buy drugs. Then, during George Thomas jury selection, he was having Dina Castleman come stay with him at his hotel room and bring him pills.

He would even use his connections to help Dina out every time she got in trouble. Like at one point, he helped her lie on a drug test she had to take.

His government vehicle was actually parked right in the driveway.

And just a few years ago, in January of 2018, he was found deceased by his family. There was no foul play involved, so it seemed like everything just kind of caught up with him. But back when this was all happening, this was a huge scandal, as you can imagine when word got out about it. Pretty much everyone that had him as a judge was motioning to have new trials. And understandably so, because in some of these trials he was literally nodding off.

So it all got very, very messy. And ultimately, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman were granted new trials. The news of this, however, was devastating for Shannon and Chris families. I mean, it was already hard enough for them to sit through the first set of trials, but now they have to do it all over again. So in November of 2012, Vanessa got her new trial.

And her sentence was changed from 53 years to 35 years, and she got credit for time served. George Thomas new trial wasn't until May of 2013. And again he was convicted for all counts and sentenced to life. But this time he got life with the possibility of parole after serving 51 years.

So finally, after all of this, the Knox County Five trials were over. But then you have to consider parole meetings. Shannon and Chris families made sure to attend all of them, and they let the courts know their feelings on having these people walk the streets. In 2014, Vanessa Coleman was up for parole, but she was denied.

And then again, in 2020, she had another parole meeting. Here is Vanessa at that meeting.

But again, who really knows if that's the truth? Because George took a plea deal for his testimony and got his first-degree murder charge reduced to second-degree murder charges, and he now has the possibility of parole.

And I know Chris was scared to death knowing what was happening to him.

However, I know beyond any doubt that he drew his last few breaths, that cold mud caked on the bottoms of his feet. From having to walk through that field to his execution spot that his concern was for Shannon with a C. I know that hurt him far more than any of those three bullets that tore into his body.

Gary Chase and I think about Shannon and what happened to her each and every second of every day. The thought of what she had to endure haunts us each and every day.

We don't sleep, it's hard to concentrate on anything else.

You never think anything like this will happen to you. Well, it can, and it did.

If I could trade places with Shannon, I'd do it in a second. I'd be sitting in that chair and she would come, I bet, a thousand times, and slide right over the arm of that chair and sit in my lap.

She was a tall, long-legged, her feet still dragging the ground.

But she would sit in my lap, put her arm around me and look at me a certain way.

Daddy.

And I would get this feeling that would come over me like, this is going to cost me.

If I sit down in that chair and shut my eyes.

I can feel her do it.

And it sure feels good.

And when I open them?

I got a rage in me, you wouldn't believe.

A hate in me that ain't normal.

Following these trials, they also passed the Chris Newsome Act.

Which would invalidate a jury's verdict. So basically, if this would have been a thing back when these trials were going on, they could have avoided all these retrials.

So in September of 2008, the waste company next door bought the house, demolished it and built a memorial park in its place. But this truly is one of the most horrific cases we've covered, and it goes to show that it's a scary world out there. And you never know if you or someone you love will have to face the amount of violence that Shannon and Chris did, so we will leave you with a message from Shannon's parents.

Just always remember to tell your children that you love them, your family, that you love them. Because you never know when it's going to be the last time that you get to say those words. I was grateful enough to tell her that I loved her. The day she walked out that door and her daddy got to tell her he loved her that night, he talked to her.

Because that was one thing that we always did we let our kids know how much we love them. And to be careful, you just never know when it's the last time.

And yeah, I think it's going to stick with everybody out there who listens to this exact episode. But I want to shout out our new patrons this week Dana Hyde, M. Juliet Camacho, Evan Galloway, Lisa Francis, Venetia Sutterfield, Mary Miller, Zoe Grange, Allison Horcher, Eileen Whalen, Luke Dakota, Frary Lacey, Sergio Bravo and John Paul Burks. Every single week, guys, that list just grows bigger and bigger. And we are so happy to have so many of you people with us on Patreon.

If you don't know what Patreon is, you can go sign up on Patreon. just head to patreon.com. Type in Murder in America. And we post the ad-free versions of every episode on Patreon as soon as the episode goes live on all streaming platforms. So if you don't like the ads, go sign up to become a patron. It's really cool that we're about to launch on our Patreon too, so this is a good time to go join.

If you want to connect with Courtney and I, we love connecting with y'all and talking and hanging out. Come join our Facebook group Murder in America on Facebook or follow us on Instagram at Murder in America. On our Instagram, we post not only crime scene photos and photos from every case that we cover on the show, but also photos of Courtney and I. So, if you're curious as to what we look like in real life, head over to Instagram and maybe it'll shock you or surprise you. I don't know, but thank you guys again for listening.

You know how much we love y'all, and yeah, have a great weekend and we'll catch you next week.