CLINTON, Tennessee — Sixteen people were chosen to determine the fate of an Oak Ridge man accused of abducting and torturing a woman, killing her and keeping her body in a freezer for months.
Sean Finnegan, 56, is charged with murder and is now facing the death penalty. On Monday, the jury was selected for his trial.
The state alleges that Finnegan worked with his then-girlfriend Rebecca Dishman in the “gruesome” torture-slaying. Investigators said the couple lured 35-year-old Jennifer Paxton into their home in 2019.
An Oak Ridge Police warrant said, "Once at the home, the victim was held against her will, physically attacked with a baseball bat, tortured, raped, deprived of food and medical care, strangled…and then left for dead.”
Investigators said at their home on Fairview Road, Paxton was chained to the bed and shackled with a dog collar.
"The kidnapping was used to facilitate ongoing sex acts against the victim," according to the warrant.
The warrant also said her body was mutilated with a sharp instrument. Police found her body in the house about nine months after the killing.
In court on Monday, the prosecution and the defense directed questions to roughly 70 potential jurors. The state began its questioning around 9:30 a.m., asking jurors if they could be “stone-cold decision-makers” who could act with “no sympathy, prejudice and bias” when it comes to the verdict and potential punishment.
The state asked if the jury would have any issue hearing and seeing the “very graphic, unsettling” pictures of the victim’s body and hearing about the hypersexualized nature of the case.
Assistant District Attorney General Kevin Allen told the jury that they will hear from Dishman when she testifies against Finnegan as part of her plea deal to avoid the death penalty. The state also characterized the victim as a woman who was working in prostitution to fund her drug addiction and asked if the jury could see her as deserving of protection.
The defense began questioning around 10:45 a.m., making the jury laugh several times during questioning. The defense attorney, Kit Rodgers, reminded jurors that their duty is to assume Finnegan is innocent despite the line of questioning about the death sentence – unless the state proves otherwise.
Rogers spoke directly to jurors saying, “I have to know you can sit as jurors, not just as punishers.”
Sixteen jurors were chosen just before 2 p.m. Senior Judge Don Ash is presiding and said jurors will all be sequestered and will sit in the courtroom for the duration of the trial. Judge Ash said after closing statements, he would randomly draw 12 names to decide the jurors. The four remaining names will be alternates.
Along with Allen, Sarah Keith is working with the state to prosecute. Defense attorney Forrest Wallace is working with Rodgers to defend Finnegan.
The jury appears to be made up of eight white men, seven white women and one woman of color. Jurors will be sequestered for the entirety of the trial.
Court resumes Tuesday at 9 a.m. and 10News will have continuous coverage throughout the trial, expected to take just over two weeks.