Voices from Death Row

by Kelly Banaski

  She testified to the three men leaving together on the night of the carjacking and returning with their victims and Boyd. She testified that Channon was taken to the bedroom and tied up by Davidson and she could hear her crying and begging him to stop. He appeared a moment later and asked George Thomas to help him ‘so he could trust him’. They tore the bedspread into shreds, grabbed a gas can and headed out with a bound, half nude Christopher. All throughout Saturday night, the men took turns raping and sodomizing Channon, ten to fifteen minutes apiece.

  Coleman went to sleep and woke in the night to hear Davidson asking for Channon’s password to something. She also said she heard Boyd come in and although she couldn’t see him, she recognized his voice. Coleman testified that she woke at noon on Sunday and cooked breakfast before going into the bedroom to give Channon some water. She said Channon was dressed but blindfolded at the time. When Daphne Sutton arrived on Sunday, Channon was hidden in a closet. Davidson had called Sutton over to give her a gift of Channon’s belongings. Once she left, the rest of them went to run errands in Channon’s Toyota. They left Channon behind alone, tied to the bed.

  According to Coleman, when they returned from their errands is when hell unleashed on Channon. Davidson and George Thomas raped her again. She was beaten repeatedly and bleach was poured into her private parts and down her throat. Davidson attempted to snap her neck and, when he failed, he tied her into a fetal position, covered her in plastic bags and squashed her into the garbage can where she remained in the kitchen of the home for several days, eventually dying of positional asphyxiation. Davidson’s fingerprints were the only prints found on the garbage bags she was stuffed inside.

  On the day Vanessa Coleman gave her last statement in Kentucky, indictments were returned for LeMaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman. No charges were brought against Eric Boyd. There were 46 counts on the indictment directed toward the men. They were charged with first-degree murder, rape, robbery, and kidnapping of both victims. Coleman faced all the same charges other than first-degree murder, punishable by death. Neither did she face any of the robbery charges from the carjacking as she wasn’t present.

  When court proceedings began, it was unlike any the area had ever seen. The horror of what these young people had to endure in the final hours of their lives reverberated throughout the courtroom. Some trial participants fainted at the sight of some of the evidence and photos. [xxii]

  Davidson’s legal team made the only attempt to besmirch the character of the victims. Christopher’s autopsy reports showed the presence of small amounts of marijuana and methamphetamines. The defense jumped on this information and put forth that it may have been a drug deal gone wrong. They also claimed the sex between Channon and Davidson was consensual and could be assumed it was payment for a drug debt despite the fact that she had nothing but a small amount of alcohol in her system.

  Because of the legalities involved in the immunity process and the particulars in her case, much of Vanessa Coleman’s testimony to the Grand Jury could not be heard in trial.

  The trials were peppered with witnesses and evidence that showed lies and deceit on the part of the defendants time and again. An employee of the waste depot, which sat adjacent to the Chipman Street home, testified that he saw Channon’s Toyota parked in front of the horror house as well as four black men leaving the premises in it. They passed him, throwing evil glares and menacing stares. He also testified to seeing an older model white car sitting in the drive which was the car Eric Boyd had borrowed from his cousin, Nicole Mathis, three days earlier. She also testified, saying she had loaned him the car and had found a bag of bullets in it upon its return. [xxiii]

  The two brothers' trials were harrowing tales, not just of Channon and Christopher’s final days, but also the abuse and neglect suffered by LeMaricus Davidson and his siblings. Their mother had been a drug addict of every sort. More than once she had abandoned her children to the streets when her housing or money ran out. Before he ever hit his teen years, Davidson was tasked with keeping his family intact and providing for them. As a street kid, his most viable talent was stealing and robbing and taking whatever he needed, regardless of whom it belonged to. He learned skills that made it possible for him to make a nice living. Everything he needed to know, he learned on the street. His whole life was spent in and out of custody for his various criminal activities. What began as a way to survive and support siblings, turned into a lifelong criminal enterprise.

  One overlying factor in the trials was racism. Because the victims were white and the perpetrators black, the press and media began to report the crimes were racially motivated. Officials denied this. Daphne Sutton, Davidson’s girlfriend, is white. This fact alone seemed enough to prove to authorities that the crimes weren’t racial. They claimed no evidence supported it was a racially motivated hate crime and it was an act of random violence. Investigations showed all of the perpetrators had friendships, romantic relationships and other associations with white people and were not racist. Some of the crime talk shows began to speculate that the crime did not get large national attention because it wasn’t a useful crime, or one that would spur big riots and news reports as it would have had the perpetrators been white and the victims black.

  The trials of all four defendants were assigned to Judge Richard Baumgartner, a big deal in Knoxville. He had been an early advocate of courtroom cameras and organized the first drug court in Knox County. Judge Baumgartner was an important man who had done a lot of good in Knox County, but he was also a longtime alcoholic and drug addict, a fact many of his contemporaries knew and kept under wraps. His drug of choice was hydrocodone and oxycodone. Later investigations would reveal he had garnered over 2,500 pain pills between 2006 and 2010. That doesn’t count the thousands more he obtained from two specific local drug dealers – two people he had seen in his courtroom and handed down punishment to for drug dealing. In an interview with the TBI, Baumgartner’s doctor reported he had developed pancreatitis from his incessant drinking. The pain pill addiction came about when he was prescribed them for the pain of pancreatitis. Records from Kroger Pharmacy revealed the judge was under the treatment of this doctor and had received 90 narcotic pain pills during the first two weeks of the Newsom/Christian murders. The doctor reported knowing the judge was addicted and failed to report him although he was aware he was presiding over the biggest and most heinous murder trial the area had seen to date, a fact that would later turn the trial upside-down.

  Eric Boyd was charged with accessory after the fact in federal court. He was not charged with any active participation in the carjacking, rapes, kidnapping or murders. Boyd’s trial was not presided over by Judge Baumgartner as were the others in state court. Several of the jurors were dismissed early on for prejudging the case with some making bold comments about his guilt before the trial ever started. The entire courtroom was hostile. Some reports have Gary, Channon’s father, taunting Boyd by making a shooting gesture which Boyd returned by mouthing bring it on. Eric Boyd was convicted and sentenced to 15 years on accessory and three years for a charge of misprision in April of 2008.

  The state trials of the other four began in August of 2009. Letalvis Cobbins was first. Davidson, Thomas and Coleman were to follow. A litany of witnesses were called throughout the four trials, consisting of everyone from friends and family to eye- witnesses, expert witnesses and medical personnel.

  In July 2008, Judge Baumgartner entered an addiction treatment center. His secretary, later interviewed by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, advised that she had seen him taking pills, smelling of alcohol and visibly addled by both during work hours, work hours that included, if not governed by, the Newsom/Christian murders.

  In Cobbins's trial, the jury was out for 10 hours over a two-day period. He was convicted on all counts concerning Channon but only of facilitating the murder of Christopher. He was acquitted of any role in the rape of Christopher. He received a life sentence without paro
le.

  October of 2009 brought LeMaricus Davidson’s trial. He wanted a jury from Knoxville, despite the constant media coverage of the crimes there, which proved to be a grave mistake. Another mistake was his attempt to characterize the crime as a drug deal gone wrong. His lawyers received death threats and public harassment following this decision – so badly, in fact, that the judge chastised the families of the victims for their disparaging remarks and let them know they would not be allowed in the courtroom should it continue. The jury convicted him of 35 of the 38 counts brought against him, including the first-degree murder and first-degree felony murder charges. He was acquitted of three counts of rape against Christopher and charged with facilitating. He was sentenced to death after a four-hour jury deliberation.

  In December 2009, George Thomas went to trial. Judge Baumgartner had presided over the previous trial in this case with his addictions relatively well hidden, but by the time Thomas’s trial rolled around, he had been seen visiting his drug contact, a prostitute and former drug court recipient, while she was in the hospital. Things only got worse for him. Hotel receipts and his secretary's eyewitness accounts showed he had brought his drug dealer and sex partner to Chattanooga to choose Thomas’s jury. Several times during jury selection, he received phone calls which he left the bench to take and made the legal error of commenting on evidence, causing the dismissal of a juror.

  Despite the judge’s malfunctions and the lack of physical evidence tying Thomas to the crimes, he was convicted on all 38 counts, including the rape of Christopher, although Davidson and Cobbins were not. He was sentenced to life without parole.

  Vanessa Coleman’s trial began in May of 2010. She was acquitted of all charges of murder but guilty of one count of facilitation. The jury found Coleman not guilty on 14 counts, but guilty on 17 counts which tied Coleman to the murder, rape, and robbery of Channon Christian. She was sentenced to 53 years in prison.

  In December of 2011, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation presented evidence that Judge Baumgartner was impaired during the trials of the four defendants and allowed them a retrial. It was seven weeks after the judge’s disbarment. Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood granted the new trials. Coleman was the only one whose sentence could be paroled, and so he set her a one-million-dollar bail.

  In May 2012, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Judge Blackwood's ruling ordering new trials for Thomas, Cobbins, and Davidson. By June, prosecutors filed for his recusal and Senior Judge Walter Kurtz was named to oversee the retrials. George Thomas was the only one granted a retrial and Vanessa’s was not affected by the motion. In November of 2012, Vanessa Coleman received a conviction by jury for facilitation of rape and aggravated kidnapping, and facilitation of the murder of Channon only. She received a 35-year sentence minus her time served. She is eligible for parole in 2020.

  In May of 2013, George Thomas received his retrial presided over by Judge Walter Kurtz. He was again convicted and sentenced to life without possibility for parole.

  LeMaricus Davidson appealed his conviction and was denied in 2015.

  In 2016, Hugh Newsom met with the Knox County District Attorney with a large compendium of circumstantial evidence against Eric Boyd in the murders of Channon and Christopher. She refused to present it to the Grand Jury for consideration.

  I hesitated for a while before finally deciding to include LeMaricus in this book. I had read the sordid horror story of the Christian/Newsom murders years ago, and the case had never left my mind. The brutality involved is something that isn’t present in every death row case. It is beyond. I was afraid of LeMaricus. Even to just receive a letter in his handwriting was intimidating. I told myself, however, that my fear was standing in the way of possibly learning something that could help someone, that could change someone, that could make a difference. [xxiv]

  I live in Tennessee and the reputation of Riverbend Maximum Security Prison, where LeMaricus lives, precedes it. It has been the subject of more than one documentary and reality TV show for its violent population. Tennessee’s worst of the worst live there, and it is where the men sentenced to death go to be killed.

  I wrote to Davidson in June of 2016 in preparation for this book. His response was quick but short and full of questions. I had asked him why he’d made no public statements about his case, and I admitted I was so frightened of him, I almost hadn’t included his case in the book. He told me that he would not answer specific questions about his case but would only tell me that the media can make or break a case, with or without the truth. When I returned correspondence with a second letter, his response was much slower. He now knew I was a writer wanting his story. He once again told me he had no intention of speaking on his case due to his lawyer’s advice and his post-conviction relief attempts. Although he wouldn’t talk directly about his case, I learned a lot about him over the next few months.

  In my first letter to LeMaricus, I introduced myself and explained the work I have done with inmates across the country and in Canada, sending self-help books, correspondence classes and other information. I told him a bit about my childhood and background. Before I closed the letter, I told him the truth about my feelings. I told him I was afraid of him. I asked why he had never spoken publicly about his case and if he would consider it with me.

  When he wrote back, his curly, almost elegant script surprised me. I wondered if he had somehow transcribed his letter to a female friend or relative. It was short, less than a full page. He thanked me for my letter and taking the time to write but said he wasn’t sure of my motives. He told me he had no intention of writing to me about his case “because that is what I think or thought was best.”

  “And the only thing I will say now is – (he put this next part in quotes in the middle of the page, indented on both sides) “The media is the most powerful entity on Earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

  He closed this short missive with “I hope you get whatever you’re looking for in writing to me. You said you’re scared, huh? Well maybe I’ll show you that there is nothing to be scared of.”

  He signed the letter, “From a friend.”

  I wrote him back with a two-page letter, explaining my surprise that he’d even written back. I described more about my relationships with women on death row and the fascinating cases I have come across. I explained that I knew how misleading the press can be and encouraged him to tell me the truth as he saw it.

  His next letter was much longer, two full pages written in green ink in his curly script on a white legal pad. He had taken longer to respond than the first time. The letter was full of niceties and compliments. He told me his name was spelled with a capital M – LeMaricus. He asked why I hadn’t been expecting a response and what made him so much more scary than other murderers I have spoken with over the years. He made jokes about what my postman must think of all my inmate mail and spoke of how good my letters smelled. He asked me what I looked like and if I would send him a photo to link with the words I write to him.

  He went on to tell me that he had received my letter several days earlier but was not initially going to return correspondence.

  “I wasn’t sure about you, but I think I will give writing you a shot. I don’t trust people because of my situation, but I don’t want to put that on you when you’ve taken the time to write me.”

  I was pleased that he had written me back and encouraged that he had found some slim light of trust he could place in me. I had so many questions for him. So many things I wanted to know. I knew he denied the murders and rapes, but so often, after a while on death row, people come to accept that they deserve it and want to right their wrongs in any way possible. I hoped that was where he was. I wanted him to tell me what causes a person to commit crimes like that and how we can stop it. That did not happen.

  “I want to tell you a little about myself, because I feel like the more you understand me the le
ss afraid of me you will be and who knows after that, you feel me?” he wrote.

  “I am an honest person with people who mean something to me. Since true honesty rarely strengthens friendships, I thought I would tell you that.”

  LeMaricus told me he believes true honesty offends people, and although there are many people who will tailor their words to meet people’s expectations or to say what they want to hear, he was not one of them. For that reason, he doesn’t say much. He said he didn’t want to just be my friend, because people use the word friend too much and don’t really know what it means. “But I’m not like those people, Kelly. I’m really not!”

  He closed the letter by asking me to tell him more about myself. He wanted to know my marital status, what I did for fun and if I had children. “Tell me about Kelly. Not that bullshit you tell other inmates, this is me, ma! Tell me what you like, your dislikes, and what makes you happy. You feel me?”

  I mailed him a third letter about a week later. I told him more about myself and the work I do and pressured him for more detailed information about his case. He refused. I sent him several more letters trying to talk him into it but he stopped answering. A woman wrote me a few weeks later threatening me on his behalf. She demanded I take down all blog posts pertaining to LeMaricus and his crimes. I responded that I would not and she eventually left me alone.

  When researching this case I became aware of how many people want to use it as a racial battleground. There are some members of the public who believe the crimes were racially motivated even though those closest to the investigation found no basis in that theory. The simple fact the predators were black and the victims white has spurred a plethora of racial theories spurring many to ask why this case wasn’t more featured national news. I consulted with Jamie Satterfield, lead crime reporter covering the case from beginning to end for the Knoxville News Sentinel. She sent me an email stating there was no evidence at all nor any testimony to suggest Davidson hated white people or targeted Channon and Chris because they were white. None of the defendants used the term "white" or "white girl or white boy" until the cops did in interrogating them. They copied the cops description because they did not learn the names of their victims. They were hardly human to the defendants, much less black or white. This crime was never racial. They needed a car. Davidson is a carjacker. It's what he does as a way to make a living. It is his job. They went to that apartment complex because Davidson needed money and Ethel Freeman owed Davidson money for drugs. It was just bad timing that as they drove into the complex to go to Ethel's place, they saw a couple standing next to a vehicle with the door open and the couple was making out and distracted. Perfect carjacking victims. As the gunmen rushed the couple, a car turned into the complex, its headlights shining in their direction. In a panic, the couple was pushed into the vehicle and they rushed from the scene. Why they opted to hold them hostage and kill them, we will never know but Davidson and Eric Boyd are skilled criminals and this couple could have easily put them in prison. There's not a shred of proof it was racial, in Satterfield’s opinion.