Clinton, TN (WOKI) – Today (Monday), convicted death penalty murderer Sean Shannon Finnegan entered a guilty plea to Rape of a Child regarding two children that were raped in Oak Ridge in 2019.
He also entered a guilty plea to 13 charges of Especially Aggravated Sexual Exploitation
of a Minor. For these convictions, Senior Judge Don Ash, appearing specially, sentenced
Finnegan to an additional fifty (50) years at 100% in prison along with his mandatory listing and
compliance with the requirements of the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry and Community
Supervision for Life.
His sentence will run consecutively to the death penalty sentence. The trial against Finnegan was scheduled to begin this morning before he entered his plea. In August 2024, Finnegan was convicted of the gruesome murder of Jennifer Paxton, whose body he stored in a freezer in his Oak Ridge apartment. Finnegan was convicted of eleven (11) counts following a jury trial in that case. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Jennifer Paxton and received an additional forty-five (45) years related to other crimes committed against Jennifer Paxton. Since that time, Finnegan has been housed on death row at Tennessee’s Riverbend Maximum Security Prison.
In all of these crimes, Finnegan had a co-defendant, Rebecca Dishman. Dishman earlier
entered a plea in the case of the murder of Jennifer Paxton as well as a plea involving the
separate case of raping the two children. She had agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of
Finnegan and testified against him in the murder trial. Dishman has since been housed in a
Tennessee Department of Correction prison.
Both Dishman and Finnegan had been transferred from the State prisons to the Anderson
County Detention Facility in anticipation of them both appearing in the rape trial that was
scheduled to start today. Both will be returned to their respective prisons.
In August, 2020, Rebecca Dishman fled the home she shared with Finnegan while
seeking domestic violence help and shelter. Her report triggered an investigation by the Oak
Ridge Police Department, the 7th Judicial Crime Task Force, the Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation and the District Attorney General’s Office. That investigation revealed Paxton’s
frozen body and ultimately the evidence that Finnegan and Dishman had raped the two children
and video recorded at least portions of the crime.
Upon the entry of today’s plea, District Attorney General Dave Clark remarked, “today’s
plea recognizes the additional crimes Sean Finnegan and Rebecca Dishman committed against
these young victims. They deserved justice just as Jennifer Paxton did. This also marks the end
of a long saga in investigating and prosecuting Finnegan and Dishman that has occupied our
office and law enforcement in our community for years.
We have dedicated our professional lives to making days like this happen; to hold the guilty responsible for what they have done and to prevent them from harming anyone else. I am grateful in this immediate case for the work of Assistant District Attorneys Sarah Keith and Meredith Slemp who led the prosecution in these rape cases along with all the police officers, investigators, agents and other staff who worked to bring Finnegan and Dishman to justice.
