First Verdict in the Crime the National Press Refuses to Cover

The sordid tale of a former "reality"-TV "star" who murdered his wife and stuffed her body in a suitcase, and then committed suicide while running from the authorities continues to dominate the mainstream media. Yet, the horrendous double rape and murder of a young, innocent Tennessee couple at the hands of a gang of thugs goes almost unnoticed, save for the local Tennessee media, who cannot find - try as they might - an excuse to bury it.

Fortunately, the legal system does seem to be serving up the first small measures of justice in the case. One of the accused murderers/rapists has been found guity of his crimes by a mixed race jury.

KNOXVILLE — Jurors this morning convicted Letalvis Cobbins of first-degree murder in the torture-slayings of Knox County couple Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.

The verdicts, after being reviewed by Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner, were announced before a packed courtroom.

Jurors on Wednesday will begin a penalty phase in which they will consider evidence about whether Cobbins, 26, of Kentucky, should be executed for the January 2007 kidnapping and murders.

The jury concluded that Cobbins had responsibility in all the crimes committed against Christian, 21, including first-degree murder. That conviction carries the death penalty.

The same panel, however, convicted him of the lesser charge of facilitating the murder of Newsom and acquitted him of charges involving the rape of Newsom, 23.

The details of the rape and murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom are too terrible to contemplate and the animal nature of the perpetrators almost impossible to comprehend, but the reason that the editors at major newspapers and television networks don't want to report the story is not: the victims were white and the murderers/rapists are black.