ANDERSON COUNTY, Tenn. – A Tennessee couple accused of raping, torturing and killing a woman has admitted to their crimes, authorities say.
Fox News reports Elizabeth Dishman, 22, and Sean Finnegan, 52, were arrested Aug. 6 in connection with the death of Jennifer Gail Paxton, according to records from the Anderson County’s Sheriff’s Department.
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According to warrants for the couple’s arrest, Paxton, 36, was allegedly “lured” to the couple’s home after offering her a place to stay on or around Dec. 23, 2019.
Fox News reports the warrants further allege that Paxton was “held against her will, physically attacked with a baseball bat, tortured, raped, deprived of food and medical care, strangled with a ligature and then left for dead.”
According to the report, documents show that Finnegan and Dishman attacked the woman with a baseball bat, “violently” striking her in her head and arm,” and chained her to the bed, bound her hands with zip ties and “shackled” her using a dog collar, the warrants state.
The police report adds that even after Paxton was incapacitated, the couple allegedly repeatedly raped the woman.
Finnegan and Dishman forced sexual acts on Paxton while she had been “previously incapacitated so that she not resist or try to get away,” the warrants state according to Fox News.
According to the report, the couple dismembered Paxton’s body before storing it in a freezer until Finnegan moved her body to under his bed, the warrants state.
Fox News reports Finnegan attempted to clean the freezer while Dishman used “bleach and a Swiffer” to clean the living room and bedroom floors and the “bathroom shower to clean the victim’s lifeless body of evidence,” the police report states.
According to Fox News, police recovered Paxton’s body while searching the couple’s home on Aug. 6.
Police said Dishman and Finnegan later admitted to their crimes.
According to Fox News, Finnegan was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated rape, abuse of a corpse, aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence. Dishman was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual battery, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.