CLINTON, Tenn. — An Anderson County jury has convicted Sean Finnegan in a capital murder case a week after the trial started.
Finnegan was found guilty of first-degree felony murder in the death of 35-year-old Jennifer Paxton, which means he will potentially face the death penalty. The jury will return Tuesday at 10 a.m., which will kick off phase two of the trial to determine if Finnegan will be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.
Finnegan was also found guilty of criminally negligent homicide, multiple aggravated kidnapping charges, attempted aggravated rape, aggravated rape, two conspiracy charges, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. He was found not guilty on two charges of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and aggravated rape with bodily injury.
It took the jury about three hours on Saturday and nearly eight hours on Monday to come to this decision.
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An Anderson County jury returns to court Monday morning to resume deliberations in the capital murder case of Sean Finnegan.
Jurors pondered the case for several hours Saturday afternoon before Senior Judge Don Ash relieved them for the rest of the weekend. They are sequestered.
Twelve people are considering the charges against the 56-year-old Finnegan. Four alternates also have been retained and are on hand in case any of the 12 becomes incapacitated.
The trial started Aug. 12 in Clinton with jury selection. Lawyers in the case and the judge had screened hundreds of potential panelists in the lead-up to the death penalty trial, a rare event in Tennessee.
Finnegan is accused of kidnapping Jennifer Paxton, 35, of Knoxville, in December 2019, holding her captive in his Oak Ridge apartment, raping her repeatedly, abusing her, beating her and ultimately strangling her to death. His live-in girlfriend and co-defendant, Rebecca Dishman, has already pleaded guilty to murder and testified at his trial last week.
The jury has to sort through more than a dozen counts, from murder to abuse of a corpse. Within the counts are alternative offenses they can consider.
If they convict Finnegan of first-degree murder, they'll shift to a second, punishment phase of the trial at which they'll consider if he should be put to death.
The prosecution argues Finnegan should be executed for what he did to Paxton. After killing her, he put her body in a freezer he rented and stored it in the closet of his bedroom.
He kept her there for months, according to the prosecution, viewing her body for his sexual pleasure. Dishman knew what he'd done to her and was present during the rapes and abuse, according to court testimony.
By the summer of 2020, Dishman wanted to get away from the apartment and Finnegan, according to testimony. As she fled Aug. 5, 2020, with a neighbor, she confided about Paxton in the freezer, leading to a call to the authorities.
Finnegan confronted the neighbor's husband about stepping in to help Dishman. Oak Ridge police responded, and alerted about a body in the freezer, questioned Finnegan.
He denied it.
Realizing he was about to be discovered, Finnegan removed the body from the freezer and hid it under the bed, according to the prosecution. Oak Ridge police still found it during a search of his home.
The trial has featured graphic and disturbing testimony about how the killers treated Paxton in life and death. For Finnegan, she was the perfect victim, prosecutor Kevin Allen told jurors on Friday. She was addicted to drugs, homeless and had to sell her body to get money.
Defense attorney Kit Rodgers throughout the trial has pushed the jury to remember Dishman and her role in Paxton's abuse and death. It was Dishman who spent the most time with the victim, he said. It was Dishman who controlled the relationship with Finnegan, he argued Friday.
And it was Dishman, he said, who made Finnegan the fall guy when she was ready to end the relationship.
