Knoxville (WVLT) - One day after the end of the first trial connected with their daughter's death, Channon Christian's parents are sharing their thoughts in an exclusive interview you will see only on WVLT.

Eric Boyd's conviction as an accessory to one of the murder suspects in the deaths of Christian and Chris Newsom is just the first step in what will be a long journey.

Volunteer TV's Rob Pratt went to the Christian's home and brought back their story.

"I don't plan to go to hell. I plan to go see my daughter. I think, when I see God, I'm going to tell him, I'm glad I'm here, because I done spent my time in the other place. This is it. It don't get no worse," Gary Christian said.

Gary and Deana Christian say they live with pain that few can even understand. Though the last two weeks at Eric Boyd's trial have forced them to focus on the way their daughter Channon died, they say she lives on. The friends who always came to see Channon still make regular trips to the Christian home.

"We all sit around and we talk and we laugh, and we try to remember the good times, so we can get through the bad," Deana Christian said.

The good times...

"I remember the first day that I held her, just like it was yesterday," Gary said.

The child...

"She was a little spoiled. Her mother did it to her," Gary said.
"I didn't do it, we both did," Deana said.

But soon after their child became a beautiful woman she was gone, and it's the times they'll never share that haunt these parents.

"She would have gotten married one day, her daddy would gotten to walk her down the aisle, she wanted four children, I'd have had a house full of grandkids, they took that away from me," Deana said.

Though the family was happy about Eric Boyd's conviction yesterday as an accessory, Gary said outside courthouse that this is not the last Eric Boyd will hear from them. He declined to comment further. I asked him tonight if he meant Boyd should be charged with more crimes?

"We firmly believe so, yeah," Gary said.

What specific crimes, Gary would not say. There are four death penalty trials ahead, but Gary says there easily could have been more people charged with something.

"Was there a lot of people that knew things and didn't report it, yeah a whole bunch of them, we've only scratched the surface of them the way I understand it. But will they ever go to prison, I don't know? Will they be arrested, I don't know, a lot of them won't," Gary said.

Though he has previously been hesitant to call what happened to his daughter a hate crime, he says he's reconsidered.

"When they got ahold of my daughter, and Chris Newsom, they started to hate. At some point they started to hate. Because what they did, you don't do unless you hate," Gary said.

Hate was never a part of Channon's life. The love friends felt for her is apparent in page after page of the photo album friends lovingly made for her family just days after she died.

"Her smile would light up a room, she just had this way about her, she love life she loved her friends," Deana said. "She was beautiful on the inside and out."

The Christians say the Newsoms are a part of their family now too. They want to make it clear that they are happy with the way police and prosecutors have handled this difficult case.