On 6 January 2007, Knoxville, Tennessee,residents Christopher Newsom, Jr., 23, and Channon Christian, 21, went out for a dinner date at a local restaurant, then headed to a friend's house to watch a movie.
They never came back. When the couple had failed to return by the following morning, their parents notified police. Christopher Newsom's body was found near some railroad tracks in East Knoxville that afternoon, but Channon Christian remained missing.
A trace run on Christian's cell phone helped authorities locate her abandoned vehicle the next day, and fingerprints raised from an envelope inside the automobile led police to the residence of 25-year-old Lemaricus Devall "Slim" Davidson, where they discovered Christian's body stashed inside a trash disposal bin and covered with sheets. The details of the crime as later revealed by court testimony were horrific: Christopher Newsom was repeatedly sodomized with a foreign object; he was bound, gagged and blindfolded; he was dragged outside and shot in the back of his head, neck and back; and his body was set on fire.
Channon Christian was tortured for several hours, beaten about the head, and raped; afterwards, bleach was poured over her body and down her throat, then she was covered with several plastic garbage bags, dumped in a disposal bin,and left to suffocate.
