A judge has set separate trials for four defendants charged with the carjacking, rape and murder of a young couple

Associated Press:

More than a dozen family members and friends of the victims - Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, 23 - listened from two rows in a Tennesee courtroom as Judge Richard Baumgartner set the dates.

Christian and Newsom were on a date when they were last seen back in January.

Authorities have refused to say where they were carjacked, but Newsom's burned body was found the next day along some railroad tracks and Christian's body was found two days later in a trash can.

Both were sexually assaulted.

Lemaricus Davidson, 25; his brother, Letalvis Cobbins, 24, and George Thomas, 24, were indicted on 46 counts, including first-degree murder. Vanessa Coleman, 18, was indicted on 40 counts, also including murder.

Baumgartner anticipated two-week trials for each of them in 2008, beginning with Cobbins on May 12, Coleman on June 16, Davidson on July 14 and Thomas on Aug. 11.

Prosecutors have yet to say if they will seek the death penalty.

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