The Anderson County jury returned Wednesday with the sentence for Sean Shannon Finnegan for the killing of Jennifer Gail Paxton of Knoxville.
Death b
On Monday, the same 12 jurors found Finnegan, who had lived on Fairview Road in Oak Ridge for several years, guilty of:
-
Two counts of first-degree murder
-
Criminally negligent homicide (instead of another count of first-degree murder charge)
-
Attempted aggravated rape
-
Aggravated rape
-
Aggravated kidnapping
-
Especially aggravated kidnapping
-
Conspiracy to commit aggravated rape
-
Conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping
-
Abuse of a corpse
-
Tampering with evidence
He was found not guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and another count of aggravated rape.
A hearing will be held Nov. 7 to decide upon sentencing for the lesser charges – anything other than the murder charges – that Finnegan was convicted of on Monday.
Assistant District Attorneys Sarah Winningham Keith and Kevin Allen said Paxton’s body had been kept for about eight months in a freezer in the bedroom, but quickly moved by Finnegan to a place under his bed before police arrived to search for the body, that was found in early August 2020. They believe she was strangled to death in December 2019. Finnegan’s girlfriend or fiance, 26-year-old Rebecca Dishman, told officers that Finnegan killed Paxton, strangling her with string over a lengthy period of time, taking breaks, and stopping to smoke.
Dishman reached a plea agreement with the district attorney general’s office last year, pleading guilty to first-degree murder and agreeing to testify against Finnegan in return for a life sentence. She testified against him last week.
The sentencing hearing for Finnegan began Tuesday morning, with attorneys for both sides making opening and closing statements, allowing Paxton’s relatives to read statements on how her death had negatively impacted their family, and bringing in two character witnesses for Finnegan – a co-worker and his former sister-in-law, who painted a dark picture of his childhood.
Finnegan is never going to be free again, attorney Forrest Wallace assured Anderson County jurors on Tuesday morning at the beginning of the sentencing hearing. He said the minimum sentence they could give him for the first-degree murder of Jennifer Gail Paxton is 51 years. Finnegan turns 57 next month.
“Do the math,” he said.
Arguing for the death sentence, Anderson County Assistant District Attorney General Kevin Allen said, “Sean Finnegan must be given the same amount of mercy they (he and Rebecca Dishman) gave Jennifer Paxton.”
The early life of Sean Finnegan
Wallace brought two witnesses before the jurors, which he described as showing Finnegan’s humanity. The first was the manager who had worked with him at the bar in Knoxville, who testified during the trial he worked most of the time and was reliable.
His former sister-in-law painted a darker picture of Finnegan’s early life.
Roxanne Mundy of Indiana testified about his home life when she married into the family. Finnegan was in his early to middle teen years. He had two younger brothers and a sister, and two older brothers, including John Finnegan Jr., who Mundy married. They are now divorced.
“I was terrified of the man,” she said of her former father-in-law, Sean’s father. She described the man known as John Sr. or “Big John” as an abusive alcoholic and gambler who frequently abused his wife, Sean’s mother, both verbally and physically, including at least once “beyond recognition,” and causing the children to run for their rooms when he came home. The violence continued to the point that she got the wife to get an order of protection against him, she said, which he violated. She said she and John Jr. helped her get an apartment in their building for her, Sean and his younger brother and sister, the older brothers having moved out of the home in Florida by that time.
Mundy said before she met her husband, the family had fled Ohio, leaving behind their home and belongings, and were living in a car parked in a rest area in Florida until they had enough money for a home. Sean and one of the brothers were sent to live with uncles. She said she didn’t know if they were actually relatives or not. The younger siblings stayed with their mother in the car.
The subject of the uncles came up later. She said when a truancy officer showed up at the Finnegan home to report that Sean Finnegan and a brother weren’t coming to school, it was discovered that the uncles were picking them up. She recalled Sean coming home one day in a “hot mess,” very upset, and revealing he was being sexually and physically abused by the uncles and others.
As Mundy testified, Finnegan wiped tears from his eyes.
She said when the father found out Sean had been missing that much school, he beat him so bad that he was unable to go to school for about a week because of the bruises. Attorney Williams presented school records that he said indicated Sean essentially only went to school through the eighth grade.
The former sister-in-law jumped forward in the timeline to tell of an adult Sean Finnegan getting a job at a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, where he was the master chef and general manager, enjoying the job that included dressing in a white coat and chef’s hat and mingling with the guests and food critics.
“He was a great cook,” she said.
That restaurant would eventually close and he’d go to another, she said. He moved to East Tennessee when the restaurant wanted to expand to Knoxville. When his siblings couldn’t take care of his mother, she said, he offered to allow her to come stay with him. During the trial it came out that she had been in hospice at the time the offenses occurred and has since died.
Mundy said she hadn’t seen him in about 34 years, but she had known the adult Sean Finnegan to be someone that no one would guess was different, with a beautiful wife, pet dogs he loved, nice homes and clothes, and cordial to people. In response to questions, she said she knew he drank alcohol at night and smoke pot, getting drunk a lot.
On the state’s side, Paxton’s cousins gave statements previously reported on about how her death had impacted their lives. A new statement was given from Paxton’s grandmother, who relatives said she called her mom. It was read on the stand by Paxton’s cousin Brittany Payne. In the printed statement, the grandmother said, “Losing her destroyed my heart. She was my everything.” She added that the nightmares she had on earth would never end and that she knew she’d be with her granddaughter again in Heaven.
The Oak Ridger’s News Editor Donna Smith covers Oak Ridge area news. Email her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter@ridgernewsed.
Support The Oak Ridger by subscribing. Offers available at https://subscribe.oakridger.com/offers.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Sean Finnegan gets death penalty for murder of Jennifer Gail Paxton
Source Agencies
