Nearly 14 years after the 2007 torture slayings of Knox County couple Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, the lone female convicted in the case continues to deny guilt.
"I never participated in helping (her co-defendants) kidnap, murder nor rape," Coleman told the Tennessee Board of Parole at a hearing Tuesday. "I was not present when they stuffed (Christian) in a trash can, and I was not present when they murdered Mr. Newsom."
Parole board member Zane Duncan scoffedat her claim.
"I'm finding it hard to believe you did not notice ... anything going on, the screams," Duncan said. "Did it never occur to you to leave the house and go ask for help?"
Coleman replied, "Honestly, I was scared to leave ... My fear paralyzed me."
After the hour-longhearing Tuesday, the board unanimously rejected Coleman's bid — her second in six years — for parole. She will not get another chance at parole for 10 years, the board ruled.
“I’m pleased,” said Christian’s father, Gary Christian, after the hearing. “Vanessa Coleman has been lying from day one. She never stopped. She’s gotten worse … She’s wanting a second chance. Channon and Chris neither one are never going to get a second chance.”
Newsom’s father, Hugh Newsom, thanked those who wrote letters to the parole board or signed a petition to keep her behind bars.
“We appreciate those people who stepped up and voiced their concern, and we appreciate the community of Knoxville that’s stood with us,” Hugh Newsom said.
An attack by strangers
Newsom and Christian were standing in a parking lot of a North Knoxville apartment complex in January 2007 when a group of armed men confronted them, pushed them inside Christian’s SUV, bound, gagged and blindfolded them, and forced them inside Lemaricus Davidson’s Chipman Street house.
Newsom’s burned, bullet-riddled body was found alongsidenearby railroad tracks the next day. Christian’s battered body was found inside a trash can in Davidson’s kitchen two days later.
Davidson is now on death row, convicted as a ringleader in the fatal attacks. His brother, Letalvis Cobbins, and Cobbins’ pal, George Thomas, were also convicted in both slayings.
Cobbins isserving a life sentence without possibility of parole. Thomas initially received life without parole but was later given a plea deal to testify against a fifth suspect —Eric Boyd. Thomas is now serving a 50-year sentence. Boyd, too, was convicted and ordered to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
More:Horror of Christian/Newsom killings in focus: What happened on Chipman Street
Coleman was initially treated as a witness in the case after she confessed she was inside — and, at times, alone — with Christian before she was stuffed alive inside the trash can and left to die. But state authorities later indicted her along with Davidson, Thomas and Cobbins, who was her boyfriend at the time, in the slayings.
Boyd wasn't indicted until 2018— after Thomas agreed to testify against him. He was convicted last year.
Coleman ultimately was acquitted of the crimes against Newsom and deemed a facilitator in the crimes against Christian. She was sentenced to 35 years. She’s served roughly 13years. Tuesday marked her second parole hearing since her convictions. The board turned her down the first time in 2014.
Coleman: I'm a victim, too
Coleman has repeatedly cast herself as a victim in the case, claiming Cobbins was abusive and that she was too afraid to intervene when she saw a bound and blindfolded Christian led into Davidson's bedroom.
She has steadfastly deniedever seeing Newsom, although evidence suggests he, too, was brought into Davidson's house before he was taken to nearby railroad tracks, executed and his body set afire to destroy DNA evidence.
She continued those denials at Tuesday's hearing.
"I never heard nor seen anything," she insisted. "I did not."
Asked why her DNA was found on Christian's bindings —strips of a bed sheet— Coleman responded, "I slept on those sheets."
Coleman admitted she was in a bedroom alone with Christian at one point but denied touching her.
"I seen her tied up," she said. "I knew something was way wrong. She didn't say anything. She was sitting on the mattress with her hands tied up ... She was blindfolded. I asked her if she was OK. She didn't answer me."
Pressed about a journal in which she wrote that her "time in Tennessee" was "one hell of an adventure," Coleman insisted she was referring to "the good times we had before" the slayings.
"I had a decent time," she said, adding that Cobbins was looking over her shoulder as she penned the journal entry at issue. "I had no hand in these people's murder and that journal has nothing to do with those crimes."
Asked why she didn't flee the Chipman Street house and seek help, Coleman claimed "all the phones in the house, all the batteries had been taken out of them." She said she wasn't familiar with Knoxville and was too fearful to seek help.
"My fear paralyzed me," she repeated. "That was my failure. I had everything to be afraid of. I was just in as much danger as (Christian) was."
