KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The ringleader in the 2007 Christian-Newsom torture-slayings is challenging a 2023 state law that made way for the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office to step into post-conviction capital cases.
Lemaricus Davidson is awaiting execution for killing Chris Newsom and Channon Christian in January 2007. He led a group that carjacked the couple and brought them back to his Chipman Street rental home.
The killers raped and murdered both. Newsom’s body was set on fire and left by nearby railroad tracks; Christian slowly suffocated to death in a trash bin in Davidson’s kitchen…