Rebecca Dishman and Sean Finnegan (Anderson County Sheriff’s Office)
A 25-year-old woman in Tennessee will spend the rest of her life behind bars after admitting to her role in the 2019 torture, rape, murder, and dismemberment of a 36-year-old woman.
Rebecca E. Dishman on Tuesday pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder in the horrific death of Jennifer Gail Paxton and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison, authorities announced.
Dishman also pleaded guilty to two counts of rape of a child, charges stemming from evidence uncovered during the murder investigation. Senior Judge Don R. Ash ordered 50 additional years in prison, to be served consecutively and at 100% — amounting to decades tacked onto Dishman’s life sentence.
As part of a deal negotiated with prosecutors in the Anderson County District Attorney’s Office, Dishman also agreed to testify in the upcoming death penalty case against her co-defendant, 55-year-old Sean S. Finnegan.
Finnegan is also facing child rape charges.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, the couple allegedly lured Paxton to their home located in the 2100 block of East Fairview Road in Oak Ridge by offering her money and a place to stay in December 2019. But once Paxton entered the residence, authorities said Finnegan and Dishman never let her leave, instead subjecting her to a torturous and gruesome death.
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During a preliminary hearing in 2021, Oak Ridge Police Department Sergeant Marvell Moore testified that the couple confessed to the heinous acts following their arrest.
Moore testified that Dishman and Finnegan told investigators that after luring Paxton to the home, Finnegan first beat her with a baseball bat. The couple then tortured, raped, and starved her for a period of three or four days. Paxton was allegedly locked in a single room and forced to use a bucket instead of a bathroom. Finnegan and Dishman then allegedly strangled Paxton to death and mutilated her body, breaking her bones so they could fit her remains in a stand-up freezer.
Authorities allege that Finnegan eventually took Paxton’s mutilated body out of the freezer and hid it under his bed. Paxton’s body was not discovered until police executed a search warrant on the couple’s home on Aug. 6, 2020. Investigators then discovered Paxton’s body stuffed in the freezer inside the home — Finnegan had apparently moved it back from under his bed — and arrested the couple.
During court proceedings, Anderson County District Attorney General Dave Clark asserted that the state would be seeking the death penalty in the case because of the “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel” manner in which Finnegan and Dishman allegedly killed Paxton. He also contended that the slaying was perpetrated “for the purpose of avoiding or interfering with or preventing arrest or prosecution for Aggravated Kidnapping,” and said that the couple “knowingly mutilated the body of the victim after death.”
In a press release, the DA’s office noted that the victims’ families were present during Tuesday’s court proceedings and were “pleased” with the plea deal that would send Dishman to prison for the remainder of her natural life.
“I am grateful to the officers and prosecutors who have worked so hard on this case,” Clark said in a statement following the plea hearing. “This is a huge step in achieving justice in this case and for these victims.”
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