Christopher Newsom, left, and his girlfriend Channon Christian had been dating for about two months before they were kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed. (Source: Newsom family photo)
(RNN) – The Trayvon Martin shooting in February set off a wave of reactions in America that ranged from racial to political.
Events of similar magnitude have forever changed the lives of the people involved, altered public perception and in some cases, changed laws.
Ironically, the fewer words needed to describe an event, the bigger its impact.
For example: 9/11. Chernobyl. BP.
When names are attached, the magnitude grows: Rodney King. David Koresh. O.J. JFK.
All those words bring specific images into people's minds and almost always force them to think about some way they were connected. "I knew somebody who … I remember where I was when that happened… I'll never forget that because …"
Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom are names that probably do not sound that alarm of recognition in most people's heads.
It is probably safe to say most people do not remember the details of their story unless they live in or near Knoxville, TN.
Early on the morning of Jan. 7, 2007, Christian and Newsom, who had only been dating a few months, left a friend's apartment after spending most of the night out. They were carjacked, kidnapped, tortured for days and killed.
Three men and one woman were convicted of raping both Christian and Newsom inside a house just a few miles away from where they were kidnapped, and another man was convicted as an accessory to the crime. The group reportedly castrated Newsom while making his girlfriend watch, then burned his body and left him for dead on the railroad tracks near the house.
They allegedly raped Christian during the course of two days, poured chemicals down her throat and on her body to destroy DNA, wrapped her in garbage bags and stuffed her in a trash can inside the house, where she apparently suffocated.
Aside from the gruesome nature of these crimes, some things seem suspect.
First, it barely got play on national news, and second, there was no memorable mention of racial motivation in this crime.
All five of the defendants were black; the victims were white.
Some major networks picked it up, and thanks to YouTube, it's possible to see some of those stories. But it hardly got the lead story or break-into-a-live-broadcast treatment that the Trayvon shooting and other similar events did.
It didn't even get much play after the fact, aside from a few curious journalists wondering how this story got lost in the endless shuffle of news.
"We've heard from people all over the country," said Mary Newsom, Christopher's mother. "I guess there would have been national coverage if it hadn't been black on white. We're constantly reminded about it. We don't mind talking about it, but people know us wherever we go, so that keeps it fresh."
National media even had the chance at a do-over for this story.
Last year, Richard Baumgartner, the judge who oversaw the trials, stepped down and was later found to have been addicted to prescription drugs while on the bench and having sex during courtroom breaks.
The allegations threw into doubt his fitness during the last two years of his career, which included the Christian-Newsom trials.
Three of the defendants' convictions were thrown out - including one sentence of the death penalty - and a judge ordered new trials for them.
However, the Tennessee Supreme Court recently ruled to vacate the order for retrials and asked Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood to consider requesting retrials on grounds other than Baumgartner's misconduct.
Basically, the state's highest court acknowledged that the original trial judge violated the Code of Judicial Conduct, but there isn't enough evidence to support that he was doing so while presiding over these trials.
Both sets of parents have faithfully attended a series of trials during the past 5 1/2 years, and now they will have to wait even longer to see what happens to the accused murderers of their children.
"Nothing was wrong with the trials that Judge Baumgartner presided over," Newsom said. "There was no evidence that he did anything wrong. We were hoping to get justice for our kids, and that's what we thought we had. We wanted the death penalty for all of them, but a jury of people decided what they thought was the best punishment."
How did we miss that?
It arouses curiosity as to what was happening in early January 2007 that was so important the Christian-Newsom murders got overlooked.
The Knoxville News Sentinel covered the trials and produced a documentary on the murders.
Reporter Jamie Satterfield said during the 16-minute film there was some national coverage, but it was sparse.
That, however, was not an accurate indicator of the seriousness of the crimes.
"There has been some coverage," Satterfield said in the documentary. "CNN did a piece. Fox News did some reporting. Although this case is shocking to us and certainly unfamiliar territory to east Tennessee, it is not necessarily something that hasn't occurred similarly in other parts of the country."
Still, the lack of finger-pointing toward racial motivation in the crime is puzzling.
Five white cops beat a black man in Los Angeles. Hate crime.
Three white men in Texas drag a black man to death behind their truck. Hate crime.
A gay college student is beaten and tied to a fence in Laramie, WY. Hate crime.
High school students in Jena, LA, hang a noose from a tree. Hate crime.
What determines what constitutes a hate crime and what determines which stories make national news?
It happened again ... and then again
Police officers in White Plains, NY, shot and killed 68-year-old Marine veteran Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. inside his apartment in November 2011 after he mistakenly hit the button on his medical alert pendant.
Police officers arrived at Chamberlain's home and allegedly broke down his door, despite family members and Chamberlain himself telling the officers he was fine.
The medical alert device was equipped with two-way communication, and the standoff with police was recorded.
Chamberlain's son, Kenneth Jr., said he listened to the taped exchange and heard his father tell the officers he had a heart condition. The senior Chamberlain reportedly spoke directly into the medical device and said the officers were going to come in and kill him.
Kenneth Jr. also said he heard the officers using the N-word while subduing the man inside his home.
Less than two hours later, Chamberlain was dead.
"As far as our family - everyone is holding it together," Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. told the Pleasantville-Briarcliff Manor Patch. "It's very upsetting, all of the media and everything. It's definitely overwhelming, but we have to continue to push this and make the public aware of what's happening."
One of the officers involved, Steven Hart, had a lawsuit brought against him in early 2011 by a Hispanic man who claimed he was racially profiled, falsely arrested and beaten.
But again, Chamberlain wasn't a major national story, although the details seem similar to the Amadou Diallo shooting. Diallo's case exploded onto the national scene when police officers fired 41 shots at him and killed him after they mistook the wallet he was reaching for as a gun.
George Zimmerman, who is of mixed race, shot Martin, a black 17-year-old who was unarmed, while Martin was walking through a Twin Lakes neighborhood just outside Sanford, FL.
According to a Reuters report, a police officer advised Zimmerman to buy a gun in late 2009 because of several run-ins with dogs in the neighborhood.
Nearly two years later, a rash of burglaries reportedly broke out, and several residents of the neighborhood told police the suspects were black.
Almost six weeks passed between Martin's death and the filing of official charges against Zimmerman, and it was about a week after that when he was arrested.
Both those factors led to a public uproar that escaped no one's attention, including President Barack Obama.
Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman will be household names for a long time, even drawing the unique distinction of being recognized on a one-name basis.
But Christian, Newsom or Chamberlain won't make it into that circle by a long shot.
Source: WSFA12
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