ANDERSON COUNTY, Tenn. — A 25-year-old accused of first-degree murder and two counts raping a child pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Anderson County. Rebecca Dishman was sentenced to life in prison for the murder charge and an additional 50 years in prison for the rape charges, avoiding the death penalty.
Dishman is also required to cooperate with state prosecutors as they seek the death penalty for her co-defendant — Sean Finnegan.
Both were accused of torturing and killing Jennifer Paxton, 36, in 2020. According to a release from the Anderson County District Attorney General, the Oak Ridge Police Department and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation searched Finnegan's and Dishman's Fairview Rd. home in August 2020.
Officers said they found Paxton's frozen body, which had been stored in a freezer for months. Another investigation led to additional charges against both for the rape of two children, according to the DA's release.
Anderson County District Attorney Dave Clark said Dishman and Finnegan had murdered Paxton in December 2019.
The medical examiner's office said they found multiple wounds on Paxton's body, "all but one apparently postmortem." The report said some of the wounds included "the soft tissues of the nose" and it said, "the left ear have been cut away."
That medical examiner's report said Dishman told someone she and her boyfriend, Finnegan, had a body in their freezer. That person told the Campbell County Sheriff's Office who passed the information along to Anderson County Sheriff's Office and Oak Ridge police.
Senior Judge Don R. Ash set Finnegan's trial for Aug. 12, 2024, through Aug. 23, 2024. Both Finnegan and Dishman are being held in the Anderson County Detention Facility, and have been since their arrest in 2020.