Vulnerable woman tortured and strangled after taking 'kind offer' from a friend

Jennifer Paxton had accepted an offer of food and a place to stay, but was never seen again.

A vulnerable woman was tortured and killed, and her body stuffed in a freezer, after taking up what appeared to be a kind offer of food and a place to stay from a friend.

Jennifer Paxton, 36, had been raised by her grandmother, before becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol, funding her habits by prostitution.

She had seven children in nine years, all of whom were taken into care. Although she kept in contact with some family members, she lived in homeless camps in Knoxville, Tennessee, the Mirror reports.

She tried to make a more stable life for herself, accepting offers of food and showers from others, and visiting her grandmother every month. However, she suddenly stopped going in December 2019.

Her concerned family shared posts on social media asking for sightings, but there was no trace of her, even though it wasn't uncommon for her to disappear occasionally.

She had last been seen near the Pint House bar in Knoxville, where she would often use the bathroom and speak to Sean Finnegan, the chef. Finnegan, now 57, would joke he had two girlfriends, Becky and Jenny - referring to his much younger partner, 22-year-old Rebecca Dishman - and Jennifer.

He likely offered Jennifer food and a place to stay, which she may have agreed to due to the fact he had a girlfriend. However, she went to his home in nearby Oak Ridge and never left.

She suffered horrific torture for around four days at the hands of the pair. She was chained to a bed and restrained with a dog collar and cable ties, and repeatedly raped, beaten and denied food.

She was slowly strangled to death, before her body was wrapped in bin bags and frozen. Her bones were broken to force her body into the tight space.

Her body was then mutilated, with her nose and part of a breast cut off. Finnegan would also view her body in the freezer for his own sexual pleasure for months after she died.

In August 2020, Dishman confided in a neighbour about what had happened, and said she wanted to leave Finnegan. The neighbour called police, who arrived with a warrant, prompting Finnegan to panic and hide Jennifer's body as he tried to clean the freezer.

Despite his efforts to conceal the crime, it was clear something had happened, and the couple were arrested.

During questioning, Finnegan blamed his girlfriend. He said he had brought Jennifer back for sex and Dishman had killed her: “I didn’t know what to do – I got scared. I did not kill that girl.”

He claimed that after having sex with Jennifer, she had gone for a shower then went downstairs. He said he had found Dishman had struck Jennifer with a baseball bat, adding: “I don’t know what got into her that day.”

He said they had cleaned up the blood from her injury before Dishman restrained her on the bed. He claimed to have found Jennifer dead upon returning from work one day.

Finnegan was charged with murder, aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping and abuse of a corpse, and faced being sentenced to death.

Dishman was also charged, but made a plea deal to avoid the death penalty in 2023. She admitted first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison, plus 50 years, in exchange for testifying against Finnegan.

At Finnegan’s trial in 2024, the defence said he was out at work until late at night and it was Dishman who was with Jennifer during the day. They claimed she had more of a motive to kill her.

Dishman took the stand and said Finnegan had strangled Jennifer with a string over an prolonged period of time – even taking breaks to smoke cigarettes. Finnegan was found guilty of first-degree murder in August last year.

Jennifer's grandmother said in a statement read to the court: “Losing her destroyed my heart. She was my everything.”

Her cousin Beverly Jeffers added: ”We didn’t just lose Jennifer, she was taken from us.”

The court was told Jennifer’s mother Patty had since died. Her final moments were upsetting as she questioned whether she could have done more to prevent what happened to her daughter.

Finnegan was sentenced to death. The judge said: “It is therefore ordered that you should be put to death by lethal injection.”