Eric Boyd: Knox County Jurors too Bloodthirsty to be Fair in Christian/Newsom Case (Knoxville Horror News)

By David in TN

Eric Boyd: Knox County jurors too bloodthirsty to be fair in Christian/Newsom case
Jamie Satterfield, Knoxville News Sentinel Published 5:00 a.m. ET June 26, 2019 | Updated 5:34 a.m. ET June 26, 2019

Eric Dewayne Boyd says Knox Countians are too bloodthirsty to give him a fair trial in the now 12-year-old case of a young couple carjacked, kidnapped, raped, tortured and slain.

Boyd, 47, is set to stand trial in August in Knox County Criminal Court in the 2007 slayings of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23.

Boyd’s attorney, Clinton Frazier, this week will try to convince Judge Bob McGee that potential jurors in Knox County have been fed a “steady diet of media coverage” since the couple was found slain and have grown increasingly vengeful in the 12 years since.

“This case has drawn more ‘excitement’ against the parties, witnesses and participants than any other case in modern history,” Frazier wrote in a motion filed earlier this month.

He wants McGee to either move the entire trial out of Knox County or choose a pool of jurors from another locale and bus them back to Knox County for the trial. Prosecutors oppose the move.

Slayings spur fear, outrage

Christian and Newsom were heading out on a date in January 2007 when they were confronted at gunpoint in the parking lot of the Washington Ridge apartment complex in Northeast Knoxville and forced into Christian’s vehicle.

The couple were bound, gagged and blindfolded and taken to the Chipman Street home of Lemaricus Davidson — Boyd’s pal and occasional robbery partner, according to prior testimony.

Christian was held captive inside the house for hours — repeatedly raped, beaten, had bleach poured down her throat to destroy DNA evidence, was wrapped in trash bags and stuffed alive inside a trash can, where she slowly suffocated.

Newsom was raped with an object and later forced to walk barefoot to nearby railroad tracks, where he was fatally shot execution-style and his body — wrapped in a comforter from Davidson’s house — set afire in another bid to destroy DNA evidence.

Christian and Newsom were strangers to their killers, and the case sparked fear and outrage in the community and drew the attention of racist hate groups from outside the community.

Boyd was the first suspect to be arrested in the case, charged federally with hiding out Davidson in the days following the slayings, and the first to stand trial.

Parents press for charges

Although Boyd was charged with harboring a fugitive, federal prosecutors David Jennings and Tracy Stone presented evidence suggesting Boyd didn’t just hide out Davidson but helped carry out the couple’s kidnapping, raped Newsom and took part in his killing.

Boyd was convicted of harboring and sentenced to 18 years.

When the Knox County District Attorney General’s office next sought murder charges in the case from a Knox County grand jury, Boyd’s name wasn’t on the resulting presentment, though.

Instead, Davidson and three others — Davidson’s brother, Letalvis Cobbins; Cobbins’ girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman; and Cobbins’ friend, George Thomas — were charged and each tried separately.

With the ink still wet on their respective convictions, the judge presiding over those trials — the late Richard Baumgartner — wound up in trouble himself for addiction-related crimes. Thomas and Coleman were awarded new trials.

Thomas was again convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms, ensuring he will never go free alive. Coleman was convicted of lesser charges and was sentenced to 35 years.

Newsom’s parents, Hugh and Mary Newsom, continued to push state prosecutors to charge Boyd, enlisted the help of a retired investigator to reexamine evidence and even met with Cobbins behind bars in hopes he would testify against Boyd. He refused — without a deal setting him free.


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'Steady diet of media coverage'

Knox County District Attorney General Charme Allen, who had inherited the case from her predecessor, finally sought murder charges against Boyd last year.

Frazier contends Knox County residents have intently followed every arrest, every trial and every news story about the case throughout that 12-year history.

“On Jan. 7, 2007, a horrendous crime was committed,” he wrote. “With the discovery of Christopher Newsom’s body, the citizens of Knox County began to consume the steady diet of media coverage that would be served dutifully for the next 12 years.

“They sat attentive to the sickening facts of the crime as the details emerged and were reported on,” Frazier continued in his motion. “They followed the search, apprehensions, trials, convictions and sentencings of the killers … At each ugly stage of the proceedings, the media were present and ensured that every detail was reported.”
 


Eric Boyd is led out of the courtroom following a hearing in Knox County Criminal Court in Knoxville on Thursday, April 18, 2019.
 

Frazier insists it would be a grave injustice to force Boyd to face a jury box filled with those same Knox County residents. His argument mirrors that advanced by co-defendants Cobbins, Thomas and Coleman. In each of their cases, a judge decided to pick juries from outside Knox County and bus them to Knox County Criminal Court for trial — known as a “change of venire” in legal parlance.

Davidson specifically sought a pool of Knox County jurors in what his attorney would later say was a strategic decision made in hopes of garnering a delay if no jury could be seated. The move backfired. A jury of Knox Countians who insisted they could be fair was seated and ultimately sentenced Davidson to die.

State prosecutors, though, say Davidson’s case is proof a jury free of bias can be seated in Knox County.

“While (Boyd’s) is not a capital trial, it is significant to note that a Knox County jury was seated in the capital trial of co-defendant Lemaricus Davidson,” prosecutors TaKisha Fitzgerald and Phil Morton wrote in a response to Frazier’s motion.

McGee will hold a hearing on Frazier’s motion, as well as other pending motions in the case, on Thursday.

More: Christian-Newsom murders: Coverage over the years