The murders of Christopher Newsom, age 23 and Channon Gail Christian, age 21, are a horrible example of how depraved humanity can be. They were tortured, raped and murdered in a cold blooded fashion. And now the first defendant to face justice has been sentenced. He was convicted last August of being an accessory to murder after the fact and failing to notify police of the whereabouts of someone he knew had committed a crime.
His sentence?
18 years.
Local station reports: Knoxville News-Sentinel, WVLT Channel 8, WATE Channel 6, and WBIR Channel 10
From our first post on this crime:
On Saturday January 6, 2007 Hugh Christopher Newsom, age 23 and Channon Gail Christian, age 21, both students at the University of Tennessee went out on a date.
They were driving in Channon’s Toyota 4-Runner when they were carjacked at gunpoint. Suddenly the
crime turned far more savage than an armed car theft. Chris and Channon were kidnapped and driven to 2316 Chipman Street where they were forced into the home at gunpoint. While Channon was forced to watch, her boyfriend was raped prison style and then his penis was cut off. He was later driven to nearby railroad tracks where he was shot and set afire. But Channon’s hell was just beginning. She was beaten; gang raped repeatedly in many ways, had one of her breasts cut off and bleach poured down her throat to destroy DNA evidence—all while she was still alive. To add to Channon’s degradation the suspects took turns urinating on her. They too set her body afire, apparently inside the residence, but for some reason left her body there—in five separate trash bags.
Eric Dewayne Boyd helped Davidson escape the scene and evade the law.
Christian’s father stood and faced the accused and his family:
Christian’s father, Gary Christian, did not initially address either the judge or Boyd. Instead, he directly addressed friends and family by name, recalling specific acts of kindness to them by his daughter. Then, he turned to Boyd. “I hate you,” he told Boyd. “My son hates you. My wife hates you. I’ve not prayed since the day you were arrested. Today, I’m going to pray. Don’t you think for a second I’m praying for you.”
Was Boyd a guy just caught up in the heat of the moment?
Boyd’s criminal career started at age 14 with a breaking-and-entering and vandalism charge. Boyd also admitted in police interrogation to involvement in 9 armed robberies in 1994, between March and May. In a transcript, he told police he was trying to raise $2500 to pay off money he owed a drug dealer, for drugs. In some of those robberies, Boyd admitted to being an armed robber. In others, he said a co-defendant robbed the store, and Boyd drove the get-away car.
Nope. He deserved to be placed behind bars long ago and now it comes at after the brutal murders of two young people.
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18 years?
18?
Reading about what this group of sub-humans did will make you physically sick.
To think that this behavior only warrants 18 years is incredible.
From the cradle to the grave we have totally devalued human life to the point that it just doesn’t seem to garner any attention anymore when someone commits a heinous murder like this.
Perhaps Mr. Boyd will encounter someone in the corrections facility who is more justice oriented.
The type of crime usually limited (committed by) to Islamist and blacks in Afica has came to America with the Islamist and blacks. Animals who haven’t evolved beyond the animal stage. Few animals eat their own and some humans are still in that class of animal.
Good.
18 Years is total BS… God bless the victims’ families and may these thugs rot in Hell for what they did. I am sure some bleeding heart is out there with a bag full of excuses, but there are none to be found for this type of crime.
Scrappy,
At the risk of dignifying your racist rant with a response:
Was John Wayne Gacy an Islamist or a black?
Was Ted Bundy an Islamist or a black?
Was the BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) Killer an Islamist or a black? (Clue, he was a white suburban church-goer and Scout leader)
Were the guys who dragged a black man to his death behind a truck Islamists or blacks?
There are sick, evil individuals in every race and nation. Racist generalizations add nothing to the conversation. I have to believe you are better than that. Or are you trying to be ironic?
If so, try some straight talk.
I want to let you all know, that this guy did not participate in the car-jacking or rape. He was convicted on helping clean up after the fact, and basically lying to police and withholding testimony and evidence. The people who commited the heinous acts are still to be tried. And, knowing the conservative nature to East TN and Knoxville, will be a death penalty trial. This same jurisdiction also tried a man on a death penalty trial for killing a guy for $2 and a cheap watch.
This would probably elicit a Nevada Smith plan from me if that had been my sister-I don’t think I’ve ever read of a more heinous crime. You can be 5,000% sure if this had been 5 white men doing this to a black couple, it would have been above the fold to this day
oh wait, don’t judge him, he and his friends were probably raised on welfare and had to eat foodbank cheese, they are the victims of “the man”. bullshit, he should be given life on a chain gang, and gang raped. every stinking one of those pieces of garbage shoul have the same treatment given to them as they gave to their victims. what is our justice system coming too? they behaved no better than animals and their families should be ashamed to even show up and support them. i hope that they burn in hell for what they ahve done, i truelly do. where is the national attention to this crime? you can bet if it were reversed all of the rev. wrights of the world would come out swinging.
@Phil:
Phil,
He helped with the aftermath.
He attempted to help the perpetrators get away with it.
How is what he did much different than the driver for a group of bank robbers?
Someone get the wood chipper.
Poor scrapiron must not have studied history, or he would realize that there have been European societies that practiced cannibalism. I’m not the blogger, only a guest, but I hope Curt and Co will allow me to suggest that you take it elsewhere.
Obama, reacting to the news that a teenage gang member was going to be tried as an adult after he murdered another teen for refusing to join a gang, lectured America that we must “understand” such monsters instead of harshly punishing them. No, we must understand how best to remove them from society–quickly, efficiently, and permanently.
Let’s be honest. He helped clean up and also the instigators (that word sounds too sanitized) evade capture. He is an accessory after the fact.
Sorry, but when you help “clean up” that means you are destroying evidence. It means that you believe that the individuals that committed the crime are more worthy of respect, help, and being treated in a humane way than the victims.
That makes you a cold-blooded part of the process.
Now I do not know if he was convicted of the highest count against him. If he wasn’t, that is a sad statement about our society. If he was, that is a sad statement about those charging him.
Later,
Sam S.
Scrapiron,
I do not like agreeing with Noble as he is usually wrong, but this time I think he is right. Evil is not limited to one ethnic group.
@ Aye Chihuahua,
Look, I’m not defending this guy. The judge threw the book at him, and gave him the maximum sentence allowed. I applaude that.
But, the real criminals here are the persons that did the whole deed, from car-jacking to rape to mutliation to murder. They are the ones that truly deserve the ultimate punishment, the ones that deserve the ultimate suffering, and I wish there was a more fitting punishment than Death Row for these sub-human creatures that thought up and committted these deplorable and sick-beyond-words acts upon absolutely innocent victims.
I just think the real anger and disgust should be aimed at the hopefully-soon-to-be-fried pond scum below human definition that did this. Lamaricus Davidson, Letalvis Darnell Cobbins, George Geovonni Thomas, and Vanessa Coleman deserve the ultimate punishment and less mercy than they showed to Channon Christian and Chris Newsom.
This jerk, Boyd, is just background noise.
@Phil:
I didn’t mean to intimate that you were defending this guy.
Not at all.
I do, however, judge his behavior to be more closely aligned with those who performed the actual murders.
I agree with Aye. Phil, I understand what you are saying, but imagine this (i think I am being modest here, despite the harshness of the post.. all for effect). WARNING!!! Please understand, that this is all for effect and has a lot of wording that is offensive. I think what happened is horrible.
Anyway, maybe it went something like this (very hypothetical here) and why i have such a hard time with 18 years.
Your boy calls you up, says there a mess to clean up. You ask what kind of mess, and he just says “just get down here”. Boyde walks in to find a dead white girl, nude with a breast missing. Boyde being innocent asks, “why does she smell like bleach? And is that urine I smell?”. They tell him that first they made the b**** watch as her boyfriend was raped prison style, after they were done with him “we cut off his d*** and set him on fire at the tracks”. Boyde then motions to the girl, and they tell him, “yeah we did her and poured bleach down her throat so the 4-0 can’t connect us.” She was resisting, so we taught her a lesson and cut off her *****.
Boyde, starting to understand the severity of the situation says, “OK, lets do this”. At this point, someone (who knows… maybe boyde?) starts cutting off limbs. Maybe she is still alive? Maybe they set her on fire while she is still alive? Maybe he watches. Who cares, this now becomes the point: If you are in the same room as these people and do anything other than fight for her life, you are just as guilty of murder.
My mom always told me that bad company corrupts good character. Even if boyde was a good guy, being friends with people like this only speaks volumes of his own character. He decided at that point to help clean up the girl, he saw and probably got her burnt flesh on his clothes or hands. He had to smell the stench, he had to watch this girl being torn apart and ultimately witness the end of her life. All of those memories and experiences carried with her, snuffed out in one night. Her prom, her dad taking her out on dates, her mom taking her shopping, riding her first bicycle, the announcement that she was accepted to the University of Tennessee, her sick days, her glorious days. All ended in a house with several men pouring gasoline on her body and talking about how the bleach the poured down her throat will help keep the police from knowing it was them. Her boyfriend smolders on the train track, and this guy gets 18 years for being, “an accessory to murder after the fact and not notifying authorities”. This guy deserves what everyone else will get when they are caught.
This can be solved with a simple whisper to the general prison population……say he’s a child molester or a snitch (or both)….that will get you some street justice.
Let’s bring back public hangings. They committed the crime together–they should be hanged together to think about it…on their way to Hell.
I’m actually going to stick up for Phil on this one, guys, sorry. All those things that Aye and liam say are true – they’re truly horrific. But the number one thing they teach you in law school – nay, before you even take the LSATs is that you have to separate your emotions from your judgement – no matter how horrific the case may be, you have to keep your personal emotions out of it and approach it objectively. That’s the only way to truly bring the right amount of justice – to apply the law fairly, even to horrible criminals.
Now, I’m pretty sure that the prosecutor in this crime painted the same exact picture that liam painted – probably made it more gruesome since he/she’s got information that we don’t. But the fact of the matter is, you can be guilty by association – you can get jailtime for it, no doubt. But if he didn’t participate in the actual killings, then he’s not as liable for the murders as the actual murderers.
18 years, even in my opinion, is too light a punishment, especially given his criminal record – there’s no doubt that this man is a threat to society and should be kept away. We don’t know exactly what was argued inside that courtroom and what each side brought up. That, too, needs to be taken into consideration. But I think we can all be glad that this guy’s not getting off on some probation or getting 10 years for this, and that the murderers, once caught with solid presentable evidence, will get 2 life sentences to carry out.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Sedate all of these sex offenders, buckle them in, and SHIP THEM OFF TO THE MOON TO DO PHYSICAL LABOR. THEY OWE IT TO SOCIETY FOR THE CRIMES THEY’VE COMMITTED. We don’t owe them a comfortable cell block, tv, libraries, rehab, phys ed, food, etc., WE DON’T OWE THEM ANYTHING! And please don’t tell me it’s too expensive…can you put a price on this young womans’ head???!!!!