The Knoxville Nightmare

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, it's kJ You're back with another episode of Unspeakable. How's your day going. I am actually on cloud nine right now.

1:05 I've had some really big things happening lately and some projects that I'm working on. Pretty stoked about that. So I hope that your work week, I hope something great happens to you as well, or that you have a project that you're looking forward to that really means something to you. And I do want to take this time. I know I normally do my shout outs and I thank all my listeners and everybody, but I'm gonna just take a second real quick, and I would like to genuinely say thank you to Jimothy because you know, we started this venture a few years ago and he convinced me that I could do this podcasting thing, when honestly I didn't think I could. And I bet the farm, you know, on on he and I and so Jim I know you're over there doing your production things, but I'm gonna tell you thank you right here on the air for all that you do for me and how much I appreciate you. Now that said, I also want to tell you this quarterly gifts. It's coming up. It's almost time for your next quarterly gift. But hear me, people, heed what I'm telling you. You've got to be in the crime family level to get the quarterly gifts. Okay, so if you are a vigilante or you're a gang member, that is so appreciated and I appreciate you so much, but you got to be at the crime family level for me to mail you the gifts. So don't make that mistake. I'm not trying to short you. If for some reason you don't get yours, let a girl know.

2:19 We'll figure it out. I'll find out what happened. I'm not gonna ever not send you on if you are entitled to getting one, so please make sure, like I said, one more time, you're in the crime family if you're expecting to get those quarterly gifts. So moving on. Also, if you go to unspeakable dot com, there is a merch tab there. People keep emailing me asking, hey, where can I get merch? Like right now I'm wearing my unspeakable sweater and it's puff black on black. But you can make any combination you want. You go to unspeakable dot com, you click that merch tab and then there's a link that will take you straight to my website. If there's something you want and you don't see it, all you gotta do is email me and I will make it happen. I am seriously going to be that invested in you getting the merch that you want. All right, So let's start this episode today in the beautiful Knoxville, Tennessee.

3:07 And everyone knows that when you talk about Knoxville, that this is the land where dreams are made of There's a reason that people love to go there to vacation because it's just one of the most like when you think salt of the earth people, when you hear that term, I think of Knoxville, Tennessee, and if you're someone who likes the country life, if you like music and the country ways, Knoxville is where it's at. So from that country music roots, you know, to the gateway of the Great Smoky Mountains, there is something for everyone in that part of our country. And while this may sound like literally a commercial for like their economy and tourism, I can assure you it's not. I am not benefiting in any way by telling you that. I truly believe that.

3:52 And the amazing University of Tennessee, with its well known orange and white, stands tall right there in the middle of that landscape. Alongside a thriving art scene, there's outdoor recreation, and there's this growing food and craft beer scene also that people are really taking a liking to there. It's a perfect place for young people who want to build a life worth living, to lay down their roots and to grow right there in this place that they love so much. And this is exactly what twenty three year old Christopher, who is known as Chris Christopher knew some junior was doing. Now. He had been a standout baseball player for the Red Devils at Hall's High school, And I'm gonna just say, could it be that he got his skill from his daddy? Did he get it from his daddy? Because I don't know if this is the case or not, but I can tell you that is.

4:49 Daddy's nickname is Hugh Knuckleball k Newsome Senior. So you do with that what you will. But when we talk about Chris, he was a believer in Jesus and he was a member of the beaver Dam Baptist Church. So a little bit to his character and his disposition. This guy, when you say, happy, go lucky, always smiling, someone who you just knew was going places. He just had that temperament of success. You would be you'd be correct if that is what you were thinking. As I describe him. His parents were just wonderful people who had raised a boy into a man and a man that any parent would be proud of. So after graduation from high school in two thousand and two, which by the way, is the same year I graduated, he let go of that baseball dream and he changed course. He went more business minded and he wanted to really work on these goals by attending Pelissippi State Community College. And during this time, Chris developed a skill set that made him good money while working with his hands, because he was found to be a very talented trim carpenter and his professional crown molding work was getting him noticed. He was that meticulous and good at it. People appreciated his attention to detail in their homes. And I could totally see this guy becoming a contractor in years to come as he matured

6:20 and he got more experience, and looking at him, he kind of gives you this young Kevin Bacon look. Okay, kind of gives that a little bit but much cooler sporty vibe with these big, bright blue green eyes. And I'm gonna just tell you, very handsome, very cool, athletic dude. And I'm guessing, based on that explanation and description I just gave you, that is precisely why he caught the eye of twenty one year old miss Shannon Christian. If ever there were a new love match made in heaven, you're hearing about it right now. And Shannon too, I'm gonna tell you was a beautiful girl and most attractive about her though. And I know someone might roll their eyes when I say this, but I truly believe beauty is it can be shown externally, but it's what's on the inside that absolutely counts. And Shannon was not only beautiful, but she was incredibly humble. That is the term used by so many people when speaking about her. And in terms of similarity, Shannon too was a believer in Jesus.

7:30 She was a member of the West Park Baptist Church and she was also a student, a full time student. She was attending the University of Tennessee, and she was so excited to almost be done. She was in her senior year and she could just see that diploma right there. It was coming very very soon. If you've ever gone to college, man, that last year feels like got drugs on. I've been here forever, man, just give me the piece of paper. Well, she was almost there, and she was so exc to almost be finally done. And with her long brown hair and those typical early remember the early two thousand swooped bangs that that girls were doing. They were kind of heavier swooped. She had that going on.

8:12 She looked the part of a girl who had her life together. She was trendy and she was just a special, special girl. Well, we're going to go to a Saturday in January of two thousand and seven, and Chris and his best buddy Josh decided that they were going to get up and they were going to go play some golf on this Saturday. Now, when I say play some golf golf, I play golf, by the way, My daddy taught me how to play, and I love it. I love hate it if you play, you know what I'm talking about. But they decided to go play. But it wasn't just going to be like nine holes or something. I think they played thirty six holes. So they played two full rounds of golf. It was a beautiful day for it, and the buddies wanted to make the most of it. They loved to play. Also, by the way, Shannon liked to go play golf too. That was another thing that they hadn't common well. Afterwards, they had plans for the evening and Chris's buddy's parents were out of town, so it was one of their birthdays and so they were going to have a party at the buddy's house and a lot of people were expected to stay the night.

9:17 It seemed like one of those things like we did in college. You know, everybody's going to be drinking. You know, we're going to be having a good time. Everybody's old enough, and so why go drive when y'all can all crash at the house and the parents are gone. So when they finished their rounds of golf, Chris rushed home and he wanted to take a shower and shave and get good looking because he had to go pick up miss Shannon. Now, his mama tried to stop him as he ran downstairs and was going out the front door, and she said, wait, Chris, wait, let me feed you. Man. You know I've cooked. Why don't you eat? And Chris was like, Mama, no, I can't. He threw on his baseball cap and he's like, look, I'm going out to eat with Shannon. I don't want to eat at home. We have these plans, but I gotta go. And he said, I love you, mama, and he was out the door. Be careful. She yelled it to him as he went out the door, and he knew, you're right. He's in his twenties. So the door shut and the night continued on. Now, as mentioned, the relationship he had with Shannon, I want you to know was newer.

10:13 By newer, I mean they had settled in. They were at the three month mark of this relationship, so the honeymoon period I would stay was still on, and he was in a hurry to go get to his boo. He couldn't wait to get her. But he had one air and he had a run before he went to go pick her up. First, he had to go pick up Josh, the buddy he was playing, he had played golf with, and he was going to drop him at the party house, but they also had to swing by the bank and pick up some cash before they did that. One hundred dollars. That should do, right, That's what his thoughts were, And so he throw a hundred bucks pop that in his wallet and then he went and he dropped off Josh at the party house around nine pm before he returned back to go get Shannon where she was now. Shannon didn't get to play golf with him that day. She had work, but she had gotten off a little bit early, and so she was heading to her bestie's house. Her bestie's name was Kara, and Caara lived at the Washington Ridge Apartments where they were gonna go get ready together. And you know, girls do we like to talk and giggle and do our makeup and all that while we're getting ready for the night. The girls had been friends literally forever, the last fourteen years of their lives. They had been friends and they were so much in sync. Just so you understand this, that not only did they both go to the University of Tennessee, but they also had the same class schedule. So when we say attached at the hip, these two girls were absolute besties. So they were super excited when Shannon got off early, and so after they ran an errand together

11:47 at Target, they had to go return. I think it was like a TV shell for amount or something. After they made that return, they went back to the apartment to start getting ready, but as luck would have it, Kara had run out of shampoo, the tragedy of a lifetime before a party going out, and so Shannon said, no problem, I can pick you up some at the Walgreens. Thank God for besties, tragedy averted and Shannon brought that shampoo back for Kara. So as Kara was taking her shower, Shannon decided to play on the computer. But when Kara got out of the shower, she could tell that Shannon was a bit agitated. So still wrapped up in her towel, she kind of walked over to the computer and said, hey, what's going on? What's up? You know, what's where? Are you upset? And it wasn't like she was crying or anything, but Shannon had been sick for the last few days and so she really wasn't that hungry. But Chris was insisting that they go out to eat and get a snack, and Shannon honestly just didn't want to go. She wanted to just get to the party, and so she said, you know, I wish I could just go with you.

12:49 Kara said, well, come with me and y'all can meet up there, and She's like, no, I can't. Chris wants to pick me up and I'm going to go eat with them, but then we'll be there to the party. So what happened was she was going to just wait at the apartment for Chris to get there and pick her up. They would go eat, and then they would go meet up at the party house afterwards. There was kind of a they didn't really know. It was up in the air. Either Shannon and Kara would stay at the house with everybody, or the two girls were going to come back and spend the night at the apartment together. At Kara's apartment, the girls had already picked out their outfits for the night too. They were so excited to get dulled up. It was just going to be epic, okay, huge party, and Shannon was feeling super confident in these nice blue jeans that she had. She had these pink high heels that she was totally stoked to be rocking, topped off with this striped sweater of multiple colors, including that hot pink, and these pink earrings. It was very two thousands, but very on point with the fashion of the time. And as Shannon was just about ready for the night, Kara was already ready to leave, and so she said, look, I'm going to jet out. She said, why don't you just ride with me? Come on, let's just go now, but Shannon said, no, I'm gonna wait for Chris. He'll be here shortly. So Shannon and walked Kara out to her car. They talked it over a few other details for the evening, and then it was like, okay, no worries, I'll see you there girl. They hug each other, Kara jumped in her car and she left for the party.

14:20 Now about nine pm, Okay, nine pm rolls around and Kara has an h oh moment because she's already at the party. And while she's there, there's this big bay window and she's looking out of it and she sees Chris pull up and drop Josh off at the party. And the reason I say it's an uh oh moment because she's like, oh no, she was already supposed to go get Shannon. It's been like an hour. You know, she's gonna be pissed. Shan is gonna be pissed that he's just now dropping Josh off. So, being the good friend that she was, she picked up her phone and she made a call to Shannon and saying, look, Josh just left here, but he is on his way to you.

15:00 Don't be mad. I know you've been waiting almost an hour. And Shannon was like, are you fricking serious? I mean she was almost in tears, like, God, you know, I've been waiting forever for him. But minutes later, her prince arrived at the apartment complex to pick her up. All was well again, and she was back being giddy with excitement, and she jumped in the car and they were ready to head out, but first maybe they should just sneak a little kiss or two just to say hello. But when another hour passed and the two never showed up at the party, people were really starting to wonder what was taking so long. Caro was blowing up Shannon's phone, Josh was blowing up Chris's phone, and no matter how many times they called or whether they texted, neither one of the couple would answer the calls. And after another hour went by with no calls or texts back, the guys were genuinely now kind of worried about what may have happened to Josh and Shannon. So around eleven PM, with all of these twenty somethings kind of confused by this failure to respond because it was very out of character, they kind of started talking and no matter what, you need to know this about these friends. You know your friends, don't you You know their I like to say you know their algorithm, but you know what they do, you know their temperament, you know the things that get them going, and you know their behaviors. Well, no matter what, I don't care good, bad, or indifferent. Whenever Kara called Shannon,

16:32 Shannon would always answer or text her, and if she was in the middle of something, she'd say I'll call you right back or something. But Shannon wasn't saying anything. But you know, Chris wasn't either. So the guys decided to load up in the car and head over to the Washington Ridge apartments to check on them. And honestly, they were figuring that maybe the couple might have slightly gotten off task and maybe we're spending some alone time together and had lost track of time. But when the guys got there, they see Chris's truck It's still parked there, but Shannon's SUV was missing. She drove a silver Forerunner. Well, this stood out as very odd because if there was anything about this couple that anyone knew that, it was that if they went somewhere, Chris was always the one driving them around. Not sometimes, not usually, this is a all the time thing. It was. It was chivalrous. He believed in driving his girl around and they would always take his truck. Now, I don't have information on this, but I will tell you that when I was that age, I was still on my mama and daddy's car insurance, and you know they paid the bill. They bought the car, and so nobody else was allowed to drive my car.

17:52 I kind of got the feeling that was the situation here, but as young college kids do, they kind of shrugged it off. Okay. They went over to the truck and they started messing with Chris's truck. They turned the mirrors the wrong way, they got them jacked up. They walked up and they pulled out the windshel wipers and had them sticking out, like should I would do to people? Still today I do that to people's cars. I probably wouldn't do it to Jimithyszou because he would probably jump me. But I still today do that to people's cars just because I like to be annoying. So they messed with the car, and then as they were leaving, they also did him a solid. They did Chris a huge solid because they noticed that his golf clubs were still in the bed of the truck and it had begun to drizzle.

18:33 So they got those out of the back of the truck and they put them in their vehicle because they didn't want them to get rained on, and they knew that that wouldn't be something Chris would be happy about. So they left and the party that night continued on throughout the night without Shannon and Chris, which was weird as hell. I'm not gonna lie, but they're twenty somethings and they're you know, twenty somethings are known to do spontaneous things and they don't need their friend's approval for it either. They can do what they want. And the overall consensus was pretty much that, well, maybe they needed some alone time together, maybe they got an argument. Hell they didn't know, although that wasn't likely. That was kind of the feeling throughout the evening. Now, at the same time, across town, there was another group of friends that were getting together as well. Okay, so this group that I'm talking about is rather large, so I'm gonna try to introduce them periodically and give you a lot of clarification so that as I'm telling the story, I wanted to flow easily and you'd be able to keep up with everybody.

19:35 So let's start at another address in Knoxville, and this is going to be twenty three sixteen Chipman Street. Now you don't have to remember that address, obviously, but this is the home of LaMarcus Davidson. Now, this home in reference to the apartments where Kara and Shannon had gotten Ready was just about an nine to ten minute drive roughly three and a half miles for geographical reference, so that in your mind you can kind of figure out what I'm saying when I go through the story. So, LaMarcus shared this home with his girlfriend Daphne, and they didn't own it. It was a rental, but that was where they were living. Now. The relationship between these two was a bit rocky, and at times they would fight and they would go through periods of makeup and break up. Well, the same night that we've been discussing that Chris and Shannon and their friends were supposed to be partying, this was the exact situation for this couple. At that same time, they were fighting and it was nowhere near being resolved that evening, and things would eventually get so bad that Daphne was like, screw this, I don't even be here anymore.

20:53 I'm done. I'm leaving, bye bye. So when she said that, it almost gave the air of like she was done forever, Like I want to break up with you, I'm over it, I'm out, And she left, But LaMarcus wouldn't be left alone to cry or to be bitter about it, because matter of fact, he had company over who witnessed all of this drama. But they kind of just ducked their heads and steered clear of the couple during the fight because they didn't want to get it was awkward. You don't want to get in the middle of another couple fighting. And Lamarcus's half brother was one of those people that was there. Now, I'm just going to refer to him as his brother, but I know someone will come at me and say it wasn't. His brother was his half brother, so I'm being very clear. But Lamarcus's brother, his name was Latalvias, and Latalvis was in town visiting LaMarcus. He had come in from Kentucky, and as he came in, he didn't come alone. He came with his girlfriend, Vanessa, and there were also two other people with them. Okay, so there was a houseload of people there and they were coming in to visit together for a few days in Knoxville and just kind of have a good time.

22:02 So after Daphne leaves, LaMarcus, Latalvis, Vanessa, and these two other people are hanging out. Now the additional people that were in the car that came in from Kentucky. Their names were George Thomas and Stacy Lawson. Now I know you're like, damn, Kelly, you just threw a bunch of people at me. It's cool, calm down. I'm gonna work us through this as I tell this story. So when Daphne left the house, she was in a huff. She was pissed off. Latalvis LaMarcus, Vanessa, and George all continued to chill together and hang out. Now this is somewhat of a motley crew in that out of all of them, every one of these adults, only one of them held a job, and that person happened to be Daphne, who was the one who had just left the house. So this left the rest of them to hang out and to sleep all day with no responsibilities, so to speak. Of.

23:00 The only hobby really that they had and that they spent time doing was smoking weed, and then they would go play a pickup basketball game every now and then, But their main schedule consisted of sleeping until late afternoon, waking up, smoking weed, and then partying together all night. Well, the Saturday that we're talking about would be no different. That was what they were gonna do. So they all partied throughout the night, and then early Sunday morning, the parties were coming to an end. So it was around three point thirty am when Kara arrived back at her apartment and she noticed that Shannon still wasn't back yet. It's like, what is the deal? You know? She goes inside, She's looking around. Nothing is a miss. Shannon's not there.

23:45 Her bag that she had brought with all of her stuff to get ready was gone, So Kara is still a bit confused. She gets ready for bed, brushes her teeth, and then she goes and she actually dozes off to sleep while waiting for Shannon to call her back. So time passes and both of the two separate parties that I've mentioned their parties had died down. Everybody was asleep, all of their bodies now attempting to metabolize the food and the alcohol and the weed consumed throughout those nighttime hours. Now, while most of the people mentioned thus far in the story would get to sleep in, Shannon was not one of them. Because Shannon was employed. She worked at the local shoe show and she was doing this while she was going to college and she was scheduled to work one Sunday and to open the store. But management was really upset with her whenever she never showed up. But that was until they realized, wait a minute, this is Shannon that no showed absolutely not. I mean, she had been an employee there for a long time. It wasn't like she was just this little part timer or something.

24:56 She had worked there a while, she was prompt, she was a dependable employee, and although young, she was actually classified as a keyholder, so she had duties above that of just the entry level employment. This was completely out of character for her, and Shannon's work was so concerned that she wouldn't answer the phone when they were calling her that they decided to pull her personnel file and call her mama to make sure that everything was okay. Now, that call made to her mama wasn't made until around three pm on that Monday, So when Shannon's mama got the call, everything in her felt like there's got to be something very wrong. Now. Why well, number one, because that's her daughter, okay, and she knows her daughter. But number two, she was already worried when she had fallen asleep the night before, because Shannon had called her and laid out her plans for the evening. She said, Mama, I'm going to come home around three am, whenever this party wraps up, I'm going to head back to the house. Well, because it was already late when she got the phone call, Mama decided to stay up and wait for Shannon to get home. But Shannon never walked in the door. So as the alarm bells are initially signaling that, you know, this call from the manager that is very concerning, there was also another person who was very worried to at the same time, and it was Kara, Shannon's bestie. Because when Kara woke up that following morning, she had continued to try to reach Shannon, but she would not answer

26:26 the phone. So Kara jumped in the shower, got cleaned up, and then she decided to go back over to the house where the original friends were from the party from the night before. And when she got there, still no one at that home had heard from Chris or Shannon either, And by now it's early afternoon and the friends are legitimately concerned that this is too out of character now to ignore. Now they discussed what did you say, what did Shannon say the last time you saw her? And Kara knew that Shannon was fine when she left the apartment the night before, but when she had gotten home, she still wasn't there. Nothing was out of place, nothing was amiss, except that Shannon wasn't there. But that morning, when Kara woke up, she noted Chris's truck was still parked there, and it now occurred to her that the couple never seemed to ever even return to the apartment complex like at all, because the SUV of Shannon's was still gone. Now to most people that wouldn't raise an eyebrow, but again, Shannon never drove when the couple went somewhere, and Chris would never drive her vehicle. So Kara knew, Okay, this isn't right. I have got to call Shannon's mama.

27:39 But in lies another issue. At the moment, Kara had just gotten a new cell phone and so she hadn't saved Shannon's mama. Her name was Miss Dina. She hadn't saved Miss Dina's number, so calling her was out of the question in that exact moment because she didn't have her number. She would have to physically go over to the house to talk to her. But that wouldn't have to happen because very shortly as all of this is unraveling, Kara's phone rings and it's Miss Dina calling her. Now, Miss Dina is pretty upset with her because she's kind of like another daughter, and she's like, look, I've been calling you, I've been calling Shannon. Neither of y'all or answering the phone. What the hell is going on? Why is Kara not at work? Because remember, Kara's a good person.

28:21 Excuse me, Shannon's a good person, she's a good employee, and this is just not acceptable behavior. But when Kara explained to her miss Dina, I haven't seen her either. I haven't been able to find her all night, Miss Dina instantly went sick. I mean she could feel it in her gut that this is huge, this is bad. And so Shannon's family didn't waste one second trying to hunt Shannon's location down. Not a start, and I have to give huge kudos to this family. They weren't playing around, they didn't pass go, they didn't collect two hundred dollars. Those parents immediately wanted to talk to Chris's pay parents. Why because they wanted to locate Chris. But the young friends were hesitant to give Chris's parents numbers number to Shannon's parents because they were afraid that they were going to get their friends in trouble, even though they didn't quite know what was going on. You know what if they went to a hotel and they stayed the night together.

29:16 You know, they're not supposed to do that. They didn't want to get him in trouble, but their gut over ran their minds on this one, and they did give the phone number to Shannon's parents. So as for Chris in this moment, his parents were none the wiser that he was even missing. They had expected him to spend the night with his buddies at the party, so him not being home yet wasn't even an issue. They were just going about their day as usual, completely unaware that something was a miss. And that was until Shannon's parents called them. When they realized that both of their kids were missing, everyone sprung into action, and this is starting by Shannon's family calling the cell phone provider for Shannon's phone. I thought that was genius. A lot of people wouldn't go that director, but that is what her mama did, and obviously they had tried to call them and they couldn't get a hold of the kids. So that's when they contacted the provider. Now, Shannon's mom luckily was the account holder for that account, and so the provider was willing to give her the information of the physical location of the cell phone. And this proved very, very useful because the last phone call that had been made from Shannon's cell phone the night before didn't use the tower near Kara's apartment, which is what they fully expected. It actually hit a cell phone tower near a street called Cherry Street when that call was made, and that call was said to be made around twelve thirty three PM.

30:47 Now this was concerning because twelve thirty three she had called and spoken to her mama and her daddy. Why was it not pinging off of the tower near the apartment complex where she was supposed to be. So this meant that either Shannon, or at least her cell phone was in unfamiliar territory. So both sets of parents and friends and everyone that they could get together met at Kara's apartment to make a plan and they were all going to set out and search for that phone based on its physical location, because the cell phone company told them that where the phone was pinging from it should be within I think they said three they could get within like six hundred eight hundred feet of where they thought the cell phone would be. That seems kind of small, that's just based on what the family had said. But Chris's parents they took his truck home while Shannon's dad, Kara, and all these friends jumped in the cars and they set out running over to Cherry Street. And once they got there, they dispersed and they started searching. Now what their plan was was to do that find my phone feature, basically to ping that phone, and they were all listening for it to see if they could hear that phone pinging somewhere. So as they're going up and down the streets, they had only been down one or two streets when Shannon's brother alerted, oh my god, here is her car.

32:14 So Kara and mister Gary that Shannon's dad, they pull up and they notice immediately that it didn't it looked like Shannon's car, but there was something amiss because Shannon had stickers all over her windows. But as they're looking at the front of the car, they realized, wait a minute, there is one sticker still there. And the thing was it was the power te of Tennessee, the orange and white tea, I think that's what they call it. But it was in a precarious spot because if you were sitting in the car, you would never see it. But from the outside it was on the windshield behind where the rear view mirror would be, and it was still there.

32:56 They knew by that sticker this had to be her car. But when they're looking in the windows of the car, there was another thing odd. Shannon had just cleaned out her closet and her car. The trunk of the suv had been packed to the brim with trash bags full of clothing that she was going to bring to the good will. But none of those bags, nor any of that clothing or anything was there. The car was nearly empty. But there was another thing that was standing out as well. Shannon's parents were extremely strict that if we buy you this car, and this is the one that you want, if we get this for you, you will maintain it and that will include keeping it clean. You're not going to trash this vehicle. She upheld that end of the deal.

33:43 To a t thing was looking in the in the windows. The car had mud on the floorboards, on the rugs, you know, the carpeting of the vehicle. And Shannon would have never allowed that, never she knew better. Also, it was pretty obvious that the driver's seat was pushed all the way back, way too far for Shannon to have been comfortably driving, or reached the steering wheel to be driving. It obviously massive issue. And they go ahead and they place the call to police. So when police arrive, they obviously take possession of the vehicle. And after they talked to the family and they get some questions answered, the family was released to go home. And basically, just wait, what are they waiting for? I don't know. And when I say this, it made me think about the movie Titanic, whenever they talk about what people were waiting for in those boats after it sank, and it's like, were they waiting for a savior? Were they waiting for an absolution that would never come? Were they waiting what they had no idea? What they were waiting for just was complete sorrow.

34:58 That's kind of how I feel. This was very empty feeling. So they had to just wait for a phone call with God knows what information to come, and they didn't know when. So the following morning, which would have been a Monday, all of the family and friends decided to meet back up at Kara's apartment to make a plan for the day. They needed to find Chris and Shannon. They knew the police were working on it, but they could not stand idle. They needed to find their kids. Well, Chris's best friend, the one that went and played golf with him, this is going to be Josh Anderson. He was there and Chris and Josh's friendship. I gotta tell you this real quick. It's kind of cute. It started off kind of funny. They met in sixth grade. How did these two meet. It's well, not what you think.

35:44 They actually got in a fight with one another. That was how they met. And after the dust settled, they shook on it. They dusted themselves off, and from that moment forward best friends. I think that's really cool. That's a cool young guys story about how they became best friends. But they had been best friends in sixth grade, and so Josh was there. He was gonna go find his buddy. He was gonna go find his buddy's girlfriend, And just as they were making the plans to go set out and search for the missing couple, Josh received a phone call from Chris's brother. And everyone's looking at his face and it quickly shifted. And while they did not know what was being said to him, they could tell whatever was being said to him must have been nothing short of shocking. Everyone around him sat there, They leaned in.

36:33 They're looking at him, stressed and full of anxiousness. What is happening? What what tell us? But the news that was about to be shared was gut wrenching, and the information he was hearing was actually based on the finding the police had found the day before, on that very Sunday, January the seventh, when they had been out looking and they fell Shannon's car. So let's back up to that day. It was about eight fifteen am on that Sunday when a locomotive engineer, his name was Jay Ford. He was arriving to the Norfolk Southern Core Corporation's train yard and he had plans that day to take his train on a trip between Knoxville and Chattanooga. He got to the train station around eight fifteen am and once they got everything settled. He was supposed to set out around noon, and this should have been a four hour trip from point A to point B. Now they got the train of going, got it up to speed, and it's chuggle lugging along. When he came across a cross street with that very cherry street where Shannon's cell phone was expected to be. Now in that area there was an industrial business.

37:58 It was a waste management type building business that was right there, like a warehouse. And as the train's a chuggin, he notices in the distance, about fifty or seventy five yards ahead, that there was something smoldering very close to the track. Obviously, this caught his eye because he wanted to know what it was, and he believed it to be a big like a tree trunk or something that was on fire. But as they got closer, it just didn't look like a tree anymore, and so he leaned out of the window of his locomotive, and as he got closer and closer, it looked less and less like a trunk of wood and much more like a human body.

38:40 But not believing his own eyes, even though he was looking at it, not believing his own eyes, he leaned out and he kind of like looked down as the plane, excuse me, as the train passed by, and he thought, for a second, what did I just see? Before he went up to talk to the conductor and he said, dude, that that seriously looked like a human body on fire next to the track. And he said, what do you mean. He's like, dude, I mean I could see the less burnt parts of the body, and he's like, that's thighs and that's legs. Dude, that's not a mannequin. He was so upset by it that they actually decided to stop the train, get out and walk back to be one hundred percent certain surely his eyes had just deceived him.

39:22 That's not something you see on the daily. So he jumps off the train and he starts walking backwards, and as he gets closer, nothing short of of a bolt of terror like struck his body because he realized, oh my god, this is a person and this person has been burned to a charcoal. Horrific injuries. So he ran back to the train. He jumped on, he grabbed his radio, he radioed the chief dispatcher, oh my god, I just found a body, and he was directed through dispatch, you stay there. Authorities are on the way. When the police arrived, the shock and realization really settled in with this conductor that he had just seen a nude person burned horrifically right there in front of his eyes, and just became very emotional at the shock of it all. Well, police on scene, they were very certain they had just come upon something extremely nefarious. They documented the scene, they took photographs before that body was collected and was sent to the morgue for autopsy. The identification of this person would obviously have to wait because he was burned, his head was wrapped up in something completely covering the head, and so no immediate facial idea was possible. He had no clothing, so obviously no documentation, no wallet or anything like that, so he would have to just be checked in as John Doe until they could identify this person well once at the medical Examiner's office the following day, which was

40:55 this very Monday. Now that Josh is getting this phone call, the autopsy had been conducted and what this body had been through, I do want to warn you is horrifying and it's going to be beyond any reasoning or understanding of what a person's body should ever go through. But when the body was removed from the holding fridge and it was laid out on the examination table, experience alone told the medical examiner that this person had been burned inside of something before the body was exposed the way it was, and she knew this because there were still remnants all around the body and melted to it. And it was determined that he must have been wrapped in a comforter before set on fire. Greater than eighty percent of this body was burned until charring, meaning blackened. The thighs, the shins, the feet, and some portion of the back of the body were spared. But other than that total destruction, the body was that of a male. Now, he was barefoot, and they knew that he must have walked to his final resting place because the bottoms of his bare feet were caked in mud. His legs were bound with a leather belt around his ankles. Now, I do have crime

42:28 scene photos which I will put on Patreon, and when you're listening to this and then you go look at the photos, it's not going to match. But I want to explain that to you so you don't think that I'm just saying something here. His ankles had been bound with the leather strap like I said, but underneath the ankle leather strap, there was also another binding there out of some type of material. It looked to be like maybe a floral sheet or something like that. So his legs had been bound or his ankles twice. His arms had also been bound behind him back, so he was completely immobilized. However, when you look at the crime scene photo, it's going to look a little bit different. But this is explained by the medical examiner that because the fire there was a flash fire and then he had burned.

43:13 Because of the intensity of the heat of that fire, it caused the bindings to come undone because the muscle spasticity combined with the heat that it popped it basically, and the arms drew up up around the front of the body. But you could see around pieces of the of the arms that there had been ligatures there. Plus they had remnants of ligature, so they knew that he had been bound behind his back. One arm remained behind his back. The other one, like I said, the heat had curled it up when the muscles were burned. So the medical examiner carefully removed the wrap from around this guy's head, which uncovered even more brutality because underneath that the man had a gag in his mouth. And this was a very primitive gag because it was a sock that was shoved completely in this guy's mouth. Now, the medical examiner carefully removed this sock out of the discedent's mouth and noted that it was soaked in blood. The cause of the blood, though, was not from the fire. Now, let me explain the sweatshirt that had been wrapped around his head. As they took it off, the examiner noticed that there was a hole in the sweatshirt. And it was not a hole that looked to have been worn into it or something like that. It looked like it had been created by a bullet. So whenever they took it off, sure enough, they were able to locate that this was a gunshot wound. It was a hole through

44:43 the sweatshirt, and there was a gunshot wound in the decedent's head right above his right ear and in a downward trajectory through his head. And so this explained why there was so much blood coming out of his mouth and absorbed into the sock. It also had blood coming out of his ears. Again, this is from the damage that was created from that bullet traveling through his brain and doing all that damage as it went downwards. Now, the wound itself had some stippling, and I know you're going wait, I thought he was burned. Well guess what. In a way, the sweatshirt wrapped around his head actually had preserved his head somewhat, and so they were able to see all of this, and there was stippling around that wound that indicated that whoever had shot this man had done it at point blank range. The sweatshirt had stopped the face from being completely melted away, but even with the sweatshirt removed, there was another partial covering over his face. So under the sweatshirt, the man also had a bandana tied over his eyes, acting as a blindfold.

45:55 When the blindfold was removed and the face was fully revealed, another painful shock hit one of the detectives who was there during this because he recognized him. He said, my god, it's Chris. That's Chris Newsom. He played baseball with my son. And you can't help but think in that moment he had to be looking at Chris Newsom going this could have been my son. That he played ball with, my son, and now he's laying here on this table burnt to Helen back, how does this happen? You know, this is not the type of people we are. This doesn't happen to us. But it had, and there Chris lay. So as the medical examiner made her way down Chris's body documenting all of the wounds, she located another gunshot wound, and this one was on Chris's right side, and it was right up where the neck and the shoulder meet.

46:57 And based on the location and the trajectory of this bullet hole, it would not have killed him immediately. It probably actually was survivable, but because of all of the nerve endings where it went through, it would have immediately made his right arm unusable, like it would have gone dead. So, continuing down his body as some more she found a third gunshot wound. Now this one was in the lower left flank area of the back, and based on the trajectory of that bullet, his spinal cord was severed and so that shot would have immediately paralyzed him from the waist down. But there was something even more disturbing about that bullet wound. And it had to be. It was based on the trajectory of the wound. Chris would have had to have been bent over like at the waist to be shot in the direction and trajectory that bullet traveled.

47:58 So it wasn't like he was standing in shit. It would have been like he was on his knees bent forward whenever he was shot. So she documents all of this very strange. But now even oddly more, there were remnants of his boxers and his undershirt and his dress shirt, but no remnants of his pants. And it wasn't like the fire had burned the pants off completely or anything. I mean, the boxers and stuff were still there. So the medical examiner came to the conclusion that he did not have pants on when he met his final resting place. But when the doctor rolled him over to review his backside, she found that his buttocks and portions of his back had been spared from the fire and had not burned because it was resting on the ground. And that said, she continued to do her examination, and she noticed that his rectal area had been through a great deal of trauma. Primarily, she noted that there was lots of swelling bruising and tearing alongside with bleeding of Chris's rectal area, and this was nothing that a fire would have ever caused. These wounds were indicative of the fact that Chris had been anally raped before he was set on fire. She could

49:34 also tell that these injuries to his rectum would have happened while he was still alive based on I know You're gonna wonder, well, how could she know that? Well, it was based on the body's changes and responses, and without going too deep, basically, you know you have blood cell response to any type of trauma that happens to your body. And because of the type of blood cells, red and white blood cells, and how the bodies swoll and the reactions and all that in his rectal area, she knew for a fact that he had to have been alive for at least a few hours after his rape before he was set on fire. And I don't think I have to put into words right now what that meant for him in terms of everything he experienced before his ultimate demise. She also noted that when she pulled back the scalp that he had extreme bruising on his forehead, so he had to have been alive, and she deduced that he must have fallen forward and hit his head, slammed his head straight on the ground before he was wrapped into that comforter and accelerant had been used, poured all over him, and set on fire. The three gunshot wounds she believed to be that of a twenty two caliber. She took rectal and oral swab during the autopsy, but those results had not come back yet. Remember it's

51:04 still Monday and we're pending to see if they could get any DNA from that. So going back to the apartment, this information, obviously not in that depth, is what was being relayed to Josh. Chris had been found, but it was in no way that anyone had hoped he was dead. He also had been set on fire. So everyone in the apartment starts screaming. They're crying, Oh my god, what what happened? Where is he? Do we know anything? But those questions would be left to be answered in the future. Right now, all they knew was he was dead. They did know that it would have to take dental records to one hundred percent identify him, but that would be eventually confirmed through the dental records. When that information was released, and those words passed over the ears of Shannon Christian's daddy.

52:04 He immediately jumped up. He threw open the door to the apartment, and he stormed out the door. And this was not a daddy that was falling apart. This was not a daddy that just wanted to leave. This was the action of a daddy who was now on a mission, a mission with a fucking purpose. Hear my words because everyone started yelling what do you do and where are you going? What's happening? And he yelled out, without even turning around, one foot in front of the other, I am going to find my child, and he meant it. He got in his vehicle. This daddy was on a mission, one that no daddy wants. But he did not have to hear anything else. He didn't care if he had to storm the gates of hell with only a glass of ice water for protection. He was going to go do whatever he had to do, go wherever he had to go. But he was going to find his baby girl.

53:05 And he was starting back in that very area where they had found her car. So everyone just tears off running after him. They jump into the cars. Wherever there is a seat available, and that vehicle tore out of that parking lot with people on a mission. It was freezing that day, by the way. It made it very difficult and uncomfortable to be out for extended periods of time in the wind chill. But they all got out of the cars near that Cherry Street stop sign and they started searching. They walked up and down the railroad tracks. They checked inside abandoned houses. They were looking in buildings anywhere where their precious Shannon may still behold up and may be in need of rescue. They were going to find him everything be damned. Her daddy was going to find her. But as he's on this mission, this search and destroy, do whatever he had to do. Over time, more people arrived, and more people arrived. The police came and they had to talk to her daddy and they said, look, we understand the distress that you are under right now.

54:13 We get it. We totally understand this, but there is too much commotion and there is too much disturbance in this area, and you have got to trust us. We understand, we understand that you want to find her now, but you've got to let us do this, and you have to let us do it methodically, and let us investigate under a controlled and tactical manner. You have to please. And while it took everything within him to take those words and do what they were saying, he understood what they were saying. And by that evening they all got back in their cars and they returned back home again, just waiting for word of Shannon has Can anybody find her?

55:07 Time is of the essence? Obviously Chris is dead? Where's my baby? So the police were out there, y'all working hard on this case, so so very diligent, But everything that they knew and that they were learning could not be revealed to the family at this time for obvious reasons. It's an open investigation. But the search was on, you can trust they knew Shannon needed to be found, it needed to be sooner than later. So they too were checking abandoned buildings, wooded areas, and even speaking with neighbors where Shannon's car was found. Now, when the mobile crime scene unit had been processing the vehicle Shannon's car when they were photographing, not only did they photograph those things that the family had said was out of place, but they also found when they got deeper into the car some crushed Newport cigarettes. Shannon didn't smoke, certainly didn't smoke Newports, so this would be a good clue as to the fact that Shannon likely did not drive this vehicle to this location. They noted that above her visor, the family and friends said there should be a bunch of pictures there where she had all of her buddies in her picture.

56:17 Those were gone. Shannon had an iPod, remember we're back in two thousand and seven. She had an iPod that she was very proud of. Her parents had given it to her for Christmas and it was even inscribed on the back with her name, love Mom and Dad. That too, was missing from that vehicle. So police had canvassed the area. They were knocking on doors and they were asking had anyone seen when that suv may have arrived. One neighbor had been awake in the midnightish hours, and it turns out that she did not know exactly the time, but she said she was outside smoking around midnight and that suv was not there at the midnight hour, So that in and of itself was giving the police now a more articulated timeline to work between. We know when Shannon was seen last and we know that that vehicle was not here at midnight, So this flexible timeframe started to kind of erupt. Now, while Chris's body discovery was proof that someone had tried to cover up his murder, there was still a ton of work here to be done.

57:28 There were still people to speak to. There was still more houses on the street that the police needed to try to talk to the people that lived there. Who did this, why did they do it? And where was Shannon? When I finished this story in part two, which I will this is going to unravel into something so unhinged that you could never guess this outcome, and this case will become far bigger and far darker than anyone from the state of Kentucky all the way to Knoxville could ever imagine