Fourteen people - a 12-member jury and four alternates - were chosen Monday for the trial of Oak Ridge resident Sean Finnegan , who faces first-degree murder and rape charges.
The trial will begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton. It comes four years after the body of 36-year-old Jennifer Gail Paxton was found in the Fairview Road home Finnegan is believed to have shared with Rebecca Dishman.
The process of selecting a jury began in May with a pool of 1,000 people, according to information from the Anderson County Circuit Court Clerk's office. That jury pool was narrowed again in June and 90 people showed up at the Anderson County Courthouse Monday morning. The jurors selected Monday, including alternates, are now sequestered for the duration of the trial, which is expected to last about two weeks.
Finnegan is represented by Knoxville attorneys Christopher "Kit" Rodgers and Forrest Wallace. Don R. Ash is the special judge assigned to the case.
Anderson County District Attorney General Dave Clark is seeing the death penalty against Finnegan. Prosecuting Finnegan will be Assistant District Attorney General Sarah Winningham Keith, according to the circuit court clerk office.
Dishman pleaded guilty Sept. 5, 2023, to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. As was previously reported by The Oak Ridger, Dishman - as a condition of her plea - is required to cooperate with Clark's office in its case against Finnegan.
Finnegan and Dishman were arrested Aug. 6, 2020, and charged in Paxton's death. Police said she had been living with the two in the home the duo shared in Oak Ridge. At that time, they were arrested on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Legal documents filed in the case indicate the offenses occurred in December 2019.
Bond for each was set at $1 million.
Dishman also entered a guilty plea of two counts of child rape in a separate case. Fifty years were added to her life sentence because of those two charges. She and Finnegan were indicted in 2021 by an Anderson County grand jury on multiple charges of rape and exploitation of a child , reportedly in May 2020.
The Oak Ridge Police Department and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation investigated the suspects at the time of their arrest in August 2020. When officers executed a search warrant at the home, they said they found Paxton's body in a freezer.
In warrants, an Oak Ridge police sergeant said Finnegan and Dishman “lured the victim (Paxton) to the home with the promise of giving her a place to stay.”
In the warrants, Oak Ridge Police Sgt. A. Marvell Moore said Paxton was “held against her will,” struck with a baseball bat and raped.
The Oak Ridger's News Editor Donna Smith covers Oak Ridge area news. Email her at dsmith@oakridger.com and follow her on Twitter@ridgernewsed.
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This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Jury chosen: Trial begins Tuesday in Oak Ridge man's first-degree murder trial
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