Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Who Killed Jessica Chambers? - full transcript
As the trial unfolds, shocking testimony from first responders reveals that Jessica uttered a dying declaration that may spawn new leads.
♪♪♪
- Jessica Chambers was found
walking on the side of the road
near her burning car.
- According to investigators,
Chambers may have been
doused in gasoline
and then set on fire.
- Her hair was fried...
out like she had stuck it
in a light socket.
- What could a 19-year-old
girl do to somebody
to make you do that?
- The first responders
begin asking her,
"Who did this to you?"
- What she said was that,
"Eric did this to me."
- I held her hand
as she took her last breath.
- Less than 24 hours
after Jessica was killed,
this social media
firestorm began.
- The white people was sayin'
the black people did it,
or black people was sayin'
that a white people did it,
and it started bein' a race war.
- She's on the cover
of "People" magazine,
and I dang sure don't want it
on there as a murder victim.
- After 14 months,
investigators in Panola County
have charged 27-year-old
Quinton Tellis
with capital murder.
- I know my son didn't do this.
They're just lookin' for
someone to put this murder on.
- I absolutely believe
he did it, 100%.
- We want justice for Jessica
but for whoever did it!
- Ladies and gentlemen,
this investigation
was flawed from
the very beginning.
- You had to be
a real dumb black man
to burn up a white girl
in the state of Mississippi.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
Courtland, pretty small town,
population of around 500,
in Panola County.
The mix would be probably
more African American
than Caucasian.
Being in the Mississippi Delta,
farming is a huge thing.
We do have lower wage earning,
the blue collar,
hardworking people here.
- Most of everybody
knows everybody.
Drive down a road,
and the stranger on the street
was wavin' at you
as he mowed the yard.
- You went to the
football games on Saturday,
you had your fun,
and then on Sunday morning,
you were in church.
- A frightening mystery
in North Mississippi.
- Officials say they
got a call last night.
The caller saw a burning vehicle
and a person
standing badly burned
on the side of the road.
- The volunteer fire department
shows up on the scene.
She staggers towards them,
collapses.
- Jessica Chambers
is described by friends
as a popular former cheerleader.
She was found barely alive.
- The brutality of it,
what I call cold and calculated,
kinda grabbed me
on the inside, and said,
okay, this is--
this is way abnormal.
- Her whole life was just taken
from her in a blink of an eye.
[train horn blowing]
♪♪♪
- The picture of Jessica
in my mind is blue eyes,
always smilin',
the biggest dimples,
the littlest body,
and probably her
little sign thrown up,
which is the
"I love you."
I love you.
- Jessica was a blonde-haired,
cotton top little girl.
Jessica's smile would
just light up a room
when she came in.
- Jessica loved to cheer
at the football games.
- She was a flier.
They'd throw her up in the air.
Oh, God, I was so afraid
they was gonna drop her.
♪♪♪
- Jessica was full of life.
Jessica was stubborn as a mule.
[laughing]
Jessica was just a joy.
At one time,
she wanted to be a teacher.
At one time, she wanted
to be a book writer.
And the major thing
she always said was,
she wanted to be an RN.
♪♪♪
- I knew Jessica Chambers
from high school.
If you needed a laugh or smile,
she was the one to go to.
- She was that type of person where
you would love to be around her
because she would
do the craziest things.
- Jessica and I were neighbors,
and then when I heard about it,
I was just--
I was really shocked.
No one deserves,
you know, being burned alive.
She was just such a good person.
Everybody wanted to know, like,
who did this to her and why?
♪♪♪
- When that happened,
on the 6th,
it did not seem out of
the ordinary at all.
Jessica had left home,
went to the store,
come back about
12:30-1:00.
She got her pajama pants
and piled up in the chair
in the living room
and went to sleep.
Sometime between
4:45 and 5:15,
she got a phone call, a text,
whichever one it was.
I'm not sure.
And then she went out the door
and said she'd be back
to clean up her room.
She was goin' to get her
somethin' to eat.
I called her, and she said,
"I'll be home in a
little while, mama.
"Bye.
I love you."
I told her I loved her, too.
She said,
"See ya in a little bit",
and that's the last
I heard from her.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- We pulled up, and Jessica
was layin' right here,
and I remember the heat
comin' off the truck.
We started rendering
medical aid for Jessica,
and-and, um,
I remember looking down,
and she was laid on her side,
and they had this
old Army blanket coverin',
and the only thing she had on
was a pair of panties.
[sniffles, exhales]
Uh, just seeing her
layin' on that ground,
that piece of skin,
every time she breathed,
go in and out her nose.
Ain't a damn thing
you can do about it.
[voice cracking]
♪♪♪
The burn spots were red.
Looked like, in some places,
maybe a little like somebody
had smeared charcoal on her.
She wasn't complainin'
about pain or nothin'.
You know, she was shakin'.
Somebody asked her
was she cold or somethin',
and it-it seemed like
she nodded her head.
You know, she wasn't
real talkative.
And then a firefighter,
Randy Davis,
was kinda back over toward
her feet, and, uh, he said,
"Well, hon, who-who
done this to you?"
Kinda just looked up,
turned her head
just a little bit,
and plain as day,
she said, "Eric did this."
She didn't call no last name.
You know, she just--
she said, "Eric did this."
We was all kinda stunned.
I thought whoever did this
may still be out there.
Seeing her the way she was
and then still alive,
and I don't wish this
on my worst enemy.
Here, the ambulance
had pulled up over here.
They unloaded a stretcher,
and they loaded her up on it,
and that was the last
I seen of her.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- The Sheriff's
Department, he said,
"There's been an accident.
"Jessica has been burned."
You know, and I couldn't fathom
what he was really
talkin' about, you know?
I sent my wife, Debbie, down
there to get Lisa right then.
- Debbie, Ben's wife,
had come down
and pulled in the driveway,
screaming,
"They set her on fire."
And I'm like,
"They set who on fire?"
And she said,
"They set Jessica on fire."
And I said, "Uh-uh, I just
got off the phone with her."
I was panicked, angry, scared.
If there was an emotion,
I felt it.
- Doctor come out there
and told us there wasn't nothin'
they could do to Jessica,
and it just broke my heart, man.
You know, I begged him,
"Please," you know?
[sighs]
- They told us
it was 93% of her body.
I just hit my knees.
I wanted to go to her.
I was scared to go back there.
Mm-hmm.
I peeped in the room.
I don't know what they saw,
but I saw my child.
Maybe a rosy cheek...
but I saw my baby.
♪♪♪
I held her hand as
she took her last breath
and told her it was okay.
She could go.
The pain and guilt I feel
for telling her she can go,
but I know I couldn't
a kept her here.
There was no way.
♪♪♪
- Authorities are trying
to track down the person
who lit a teenager on fire
in Panola County.
Investigators are reviewing
cell phone records
and talking to witnesses.
♪♪♪
- You had a group of the
best investigators in the world
sittin' around this table
to help get this case solved.
- The FBI, and the DEA, and ATF.
- We probably interviewed
30 or 40 different suspects
that night.
You had several of the firemen
initially that said
they heard her say--
- Derrick.
- Eric or Derrick.
So, man, we interviewed
everybody in the town
of Courtland
and the surrounding area
by the name of Eric or Derrick.
- We did. We did.
- Everybody, I mean--
- Yeah.
- Every Eric and Derrick
in Panola County.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- One of the people
investigators questioned
is Eric Bibbs.
- They came by here
about 9:30.
He said, "There was
a-a accident, I think,
"down the road, and, uh,
your name was mentioned."
And I was like,
"Well, no, I've been here."
- I was just called
in to, you know, uh, in--
for a interview about
a situation I didn't know
nothin' about.
They was just askin' me,
you know, did I know her?
Was I sleeping with her?
So, I seen her around at
the stores and everything,
but I don't just
know her like that.
♪♪♪
- Everybody was on edge.
I mean, we-we all
were-were totin' guns.
- And people just was scared
to even talk about it.
They didn't wanna say
anything about the murder,
or who it could be,
or who it couldn't be
because you might be next.
- She was terrified
there for a while
'cause he threatened
to kill her.
- She didn't want nobody
tellin' her what she could
or could not do.
- One step closer to justice
for Jessica Chambers.
A man is now charged
with killing her.
♪♪♪
- This is a post
that I had made.
"Today is your birthday,
again, 22 years. Wow."
Jessica is my little sister.
We are six years apart,
but, growin' up,
that was my shadow.
She was my best friend.
I have a voicemail on my phone.
She wanted to know
what my three daughters
wanted for Christmas.
She wanted me to know
that the "Frozen" movie
had just came out.
I replay that voicemail
over and over.
My husband is in the military,
and we were stationed
about 1,200 miles away,
and my mom called and told me
that Jessica had been
set on fire.
There was absolutely no words.
I had set up a Justice for
Jessica page on Facebook
so that anyone that wanted to
follow Jessica's story could,
and within 24 hours,
Justice for Jessica
had 150,000 followers.
Justice for Jessica
means that this person
will get what they deserve,
but I still have to live
the rest of my life
without Jessica,
and, for me,
there's no justice for that.
♪♪♪
- I'm Katie Baker, and I am
an investigative reporter
for BuzzFeed news.
I came across Jessica's
story really randomly
just looking online.
It struck me immediately
because being burned alive
is such a horrific
and personal way to die.
And because she was this young,
beautiful, blonde cheerleader,
that's why her story took off.
After Jessica was killed,
this social media
firestorm began.
There was the Jessica Chambers
Mystery Facebook page.
There were five or six others.
It was almost as if people
wanted to binge watch
Jessica's murder investigation.
Jessica was a teenager from
a tiny town in Mississippi
that most Americans
haven't even heard of,
but somehow these people
from all over the country,
these wannabe detectives,
thought that they could
investigate Jessica's murder
more thoroughly than
local law enforcement,
even though they were
just sitting on their couch
in Canada or on
a houseboat in Florida.
They thought they
could do it better.
It wasn't just this
horrific murder mystery.
It was more a story to me
about a small town
and what happens when
the Internet descends
on this town
and causes problems.
- We're hearing much
about some of the rumors
that have been on social media,
very disturbing things.
- There were rumors
that it was a gang thing
or it had something
to do with drugs.
- Jessica was not
labeled a gang member.
She was just what you call
the girlfriend of a gang member.
- Gang activity was really
a focus of social media.
It was a focus
that we looked at.
We actually had gang members
helping us find out who it was
because of the
increased police presence
that was in the community.
Did she know kids that
were in the gang? Yeah.
But when we looked
at her activities
and everything
that was going on,
it just didn't point
that way at all.
- While the crime itself probably
wasn't racially motivated,
these commenters
out on social media
turned it into a race thing.
- Because she had black friends
and she dated black guys,
it started bein' a race war.
- The social media situation,
it made me mad.
Jessica loved everybody.
She'd never seen
a color in a person.
She would probably be really mad
about the fact of how people
became so separated.
- Tonight, the mother
of another young man
who's been accused
on the Internet
says it's time for the focus
to go off of her son
and onto the effort
to find the real killer.
- There were lots
of Internet rumors
that Jessica had been murdered
by one of her ex-boyfriends.
For example, Bryan Rudd.
- They put Bryan's picture on
the web all over the world.
- I know she started datin'
Bryan Rudd her senior year.
Jessica was crazy over Bryan.
She thought Bryan hung the moon.
They did have
a volatile relationship.
- We alibied Bryan Rudd
out very early.
We knew he was in lowa.
- Bryan Rudd says he has nothing
to do with Jessica's murder
and is heartbroken to hear
about what happened
to his old girlfriend.
- Soon as her and Bryan
were over and everything,
she started datin'
Travis Sanford.
- She was in love with that boy.
I don't know what
it was about Travis.
She was in love with him.
- Early on,
there were speculations
that it could be a hit
because her boyfriend was
in prison at that time,
and because he had found out
that she might have been
seeing other people.
- Obviously, Travis Sanford
had a good alibi.
He was behind bars.
If he had been out,
I would imagine that would've
been a big problem for him.
- She was dating Travis,
to my knowledge,
the day she passed.
- It looked like everyone
in Courtland was a suspect.
It was such a small town.
Even Jessica Chambers'
father was a suspect.
Ben Chambers does
have some issues.
He has a drug conviction
in his past.
♪♪♪
- The Internet
commenters decided
that-that he must be involved
in Jessica's murder.
[dog barking]
- Yeah, they questioned me.
I had to prove where I was
or whatever, you know?
They knew I didn't do that.
I mean, you know, they know me.
I mean, I wouldn't harm a hair
on one of my child's heads
for no reason.
- People said that
her daddy did it
because he didn't want her to be
with a black guy.
- It bothered me
a lot, you know,
but they don't
say it to my face.
I know, in my heart,
I didn't hurt nobody.
I'm not a racist.
I got just as many black
friends and Mexican friends
I do white.
I don't believe
in mixed relationship.
There ain't nothin'
wrong with 'em.
Don't get me wrong.
They're more than welcome
to come to my house anytime,
but that's just the way I feel.
That's the way I was growed up.
I don't believe in that.
- People make
some awful comments.
I'm always on here lookin'
to see what I can take off.
It's like I can feel
Jessica over my shoulder,
"Delete that. Delete that."
- They said my mom
was a drug addict,
and Jessica wouldn't
get her drugs.
- I'm very upset
about that, very, very.
I don't even take pills.
- These two parents
just buried their child.
These are all people
that don't know us.
They've never met Ben.
They've never met my mom.
It was disgusting.
- Nobody knew who did this,
and with people on social media
accusing everybody,
it tore this town apart.
♪♪♪
- A heinous crime has been
committed in Panola County,
where I'm sheriff, where I
put my heart and soul into
to protect people.
I'm Dennis Darby.
I was the sheriff during the
murder of Jessica Chambers.
This one, it was personal
because Ben Chambers,
the father of Jessica,
was an employee here
at the sheriff's office,
workin' as a mechanic.
- We just left
the Batesville area.
This is Courtland.
Courtland is a-a
lot smaller town.
Jessica was from Courtland.
[siren wailing]
We have gang affiliations
here like everywhere else.
A lotta killings,
crack cocaine, and meth,
and heroin-- we have
our fair share of it.
I hear so many negative
comments about Mississippi.
We're illiterate.
We can't read and write.
We don't even have
running water down here,
and we eat
fried chicken every day.
People don't like
to hear the good.
They wanna hear the bad.
[dogs barking]
We've got a lotta good
going on around here, too.
We do have really good
fried chicken, though.
♪♪♪
[dog barking]
♪♪♪
- My name is Ben Chambers.
I am Jessica's father.
Jessica was probably
about three years old
when me and her mother split up
when, uh, moved down here.
We're right down the road.
We don't live, you know,
an eighth of a mile apart.
I've been livin'
here on this road,
uh, probably 25 years.
Real hard livin' here.
I-- when I first moved here,
this was a good neighborhood.
Really, the last
four or five years,
it's so much crime and gangs
that moved in here
and took over.
Just things done got so bad.
[gunshots firing]
Like that right there.
Hear that?
That was a-- that was a pistol.
They shoot all the time.
I know they wouldn't,
uh, shoot me intentionally,
but, you know,
y'all, a bullet don't
have no eyes, you know?
I just don't trust
people no more.
I see people, and I think,
well, you know,
are you the person that
did that to my daughter?
You know, are you the person
that did that to my daughter,
you know?
♪♪♪
How somebody could burn
a-a-a-a beautiful young girl
like that for no reason--
nobody deserve
what he did to Jessica
for no reason.
Any color,
any nation-- anything,
no animal deserves that.
And, uh, whoever done that,
I don't even wish that on him,
but I wish he could feel
the pain he's caused me,
you know?
I really do.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- When you look at it,
the car was up on an embankment.
It's like, was it an accident?
It was an older car.
But investigators kept
saying, no, it wasn't.
- There were no markings
on the fence.
There were no
markings on the car.
Everyone out there, uh, that was
part of the investigation
said absolutely not.
There's no way this was
an accident.
♪♪♪
- Now, right down here
is-is the scene of the murder,
you know, of Jessica Chambers.
♪♪♪
- Sheriff, do you remember
the car took a-a hard left
comin' up this hill?
- It's grown up a lot.
- Car was nose just-just as
tight in here as it could--
where her driver's door
would've been lodged.
- This was kind of a
muddy slope at the time.
The firemen gave
a statement that,
"Do you know who did this?"
And it sounded like she said,
"Eric," or, "Derrick."
The first responders
kept sayin' they heard
"Eric" or "Derrick."
- Her cell phone was found
right about here.
I mean, the car,
it was completely burned.
The only thing that was
left was solid metal.
We came back and brought a team
back the-the following day,
so we could check the immediate
area for any more evidence.
- We was adamant about
finding who did this.
But when you get on a trail,
when you get to information,
you go to numerous states,
you go to numerous interviews,
and you come to a dead end,
you gotta turn around
and come back,
and you have to
follow another lead.
- This was a bizarre case
because we had several
what we thought to be really,
really, really good leads.
We interviewed both black
and white suspects,
who, uh, persons of interest.
A reporter who had actually
gotten a call from a lady
in lowa telling us that
there was a guy up there
talking about killing Jessica.
[siren wailing]
So, officers
immediately went up there,
and we realized that this had
absolutely nothing to do
with Jessica.
[siren wailing]
And we had a young man
supposedly confess
to a family member
in another part of the state
that he had killed her.
He was alibied out.
♪♪♪
- I honestly thought Roger
Lynn had did it, 100%...
'cause I knew Roger
was mad at my daughter.
She was terrified
there for a while
because he threatened
to kill her.
♪♪♪
I know she smoked
weed some. Yeah.
- Roger Lynn is dead now.
He was a drug addict
that's been around here forever
that people suspected.
He was one we interviewed
and had no evidence.
- We were taking DNA samples
from just about everybody
we interviewed.
Quinton Tellis was
interviewed very early on
in the investigation.
We had witnesses
confirm he was with,
uh, Jessica in the mornin'
on the day that
she was murdered.
So, Quinton was brought in.
He was talked to
about where he was
and what he did that day.
You know, seemed
very believable.
He was interviewed a second
time about three weeks later.
He even gave us an alibi
of where he was
some 30 minutes
after the fire was set,
and officers went to
where he said he was
and confirmed that
he was down there.
So, at that time, he kinda
went off of our radar.
- Our business is to
find out who the killer is.
There was over 150 people
interviewed in this case,
and, uh, that takes a while.
- We followed up every possible
lead that we could follow up,
and it just did not
lead us anywhere.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Jessica was a
loving child, you know?
I mean, she-- Jessica had
her faults as anybody does.
She could be stubborn
when she wanted to be.
- Probably six-- 15, 16,
that's-that's when things
sorta started goin' downhill.
- She stopped wantin' to
be a cheerleader, you know?
I knew somethin' was wrong then.
- She was a rebellious teenager.
She didn't want
nobody tellin' her
what she could or could not do.
♪♪♪
- Allen's passing was
horrible on Jessica.
It was probably
the breaking point of her.
- It was like she
lost part of herself.
- She started hanging with
a totally different group
of friends, and school wasn't
the first priority to them,
you know?
Hanging out and,
you know, smokin' weed
was first priority to them.
- Jessica went to South Panola
High School her freshman,
sophomore, junior,
and part of her senior year.
It was after Christmas
that she dropped out.
- I took her car away from her
to try to stop her
from runnin' around
with the people she was
runnin' around with.
When I tried to do somethin'
with Jessica, you know,
I was the bad guy, you know?
Now, you deal with her now.
- She kept goin'
deeper and deeper,
but my family loved Jessica
no matter what she did.
♪♪♪
[dog barking]
♪♪♪
- This is Jessica's room.
Oh...
[sighs]
♪♪♪
Um, those are stuffed
animals people had sent
on her bed, and that was hers.
That's hers.
That's her makeup, whatever.
That's hers.
This is one of her
cheerleader outfits.
I believe this-- oh...
junior high...
high school...
and this was her
letterman jacket.
♪♪♪
I keep all that.
Nobody is to ever remove it.
I don't think
I could handle that.
Uh-uh.
Everything in this room
is special to me.
She's everywhere,
and as long as I'm here,
I feel she's here with me.
Jessica was my best friend.
We would fight
like best friends.
We would make up the same way.
I can just sit here,
and I feel here.
Nothin' has been taken out.
When I die, they can remove it.
Until then,
they better not touch it.
I don't care
who likes it or don't.
I'll only be happy
when I'm with her again,
and I apologize
to both my other kids,
but that's how I feel.
♪♪♪
- Still, no word on who lit
the Panola County teenager
on fire and left her
to die on a county road.
- It's baffling to us that we're
not getting more information.
Nobody wants to solve this
case any more than we do.
♪♪♪
- I kept thinkin' at first
that they would find
whoever done it quickly,
but, as time went on,
I started losin' hope.
- The reward for information in
the Jessica Chambers case
is now at $16,000.
- Thirty thousand dollars.
- Forty-three thousand dollars.
- The streets were quiet.
Could've been because
all you hear outta people
is snitches end up in ditches.
- There is a $54,000 reward
if you can help solve the case.
- Who wouldn't speak
for $54,000?
I prayed morning, noon,
and night for an arrest.
- A lotta people around here,
you know, it's hush-hush.
If you think that somebody
is out to get you,
you're not gonna
say nothin' at all.
- I don't think that law
enforcement was prepared
for the spotlight
that was put on them.
- She's on the cover
of "People" magazine,
and I dang sure don't want it
on there as a murder victim.
- None of the informants
that the officers had
could get us any information.
The reward got us
absolutely nowhere.
- One year after the
Mississippi girl's murder,
the Chambers family is still
waiting for her killer
to be caught.
- I'm not pleased that
I wasn't informed of things
all through this.
I've been upset since day one.
- I wasn't happy with
the investigation--
not happy at all.
- If you can help us,
please help us find justice
for my sister.
Please?
- Breaking
♪♪ and caught on camera,
the final hour of
Jessica Chambers' life.
WMC Action News 5 has uncovered
new surveillance video
that could help provide
clues in her killing.
- A gas station clerk
showed me video
of what appears to be
Jessica Chambers'
last few moments alive.
♪♪♪
- The clerk at the store,
Ali Alsani,
said that he released
surveillance footage
to the police in an
attempt to be helpful
to the investigation,
but by putting himself
out there like that,
the wannabe internet sleuths
were convinced he had something
to do with her death.
- He had posted some
pictures on Facebook
that kind of made it
look like thug life.
So, are you a member of a gang?
- No, I'm-I'm sure not.
You can-- I never had
a problem with no police.
- The information that people
were putting out on social media
did have some serious
consequences for Ali Alsani,
and he finally ended up
having to leave town.
- I was just trying to help,
and, at the end,
everything turns against me.
It's really sad 'cause
I really don't feel--
I don't feel free no more.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- It's been almost two weeks.
Mystery still surrounds
the 19-year-old's death.
George Mister and Rachel Tutor
say they're the latest
to be questioned in
Jessica Chambers' murder.
- I took a lie detector test.
I took a-a swab test.
- Jessica into any trouble?
- We don't know, you know?
We don't know what the problem
was that got her killed.
♪♪♪
- My name is George Mister,
and people call me "Boone".
I did 21 years in prison.
I paid for them mistakes.
♪♪♪
Jessica, she was
a cool girl, man.
She just-- she was
lookin' for love.
She ran to us.
We embraced-ed her.
Jessica and her daddy,
they didn't have
no good relationship
because he didn't agree with it,
you know, her datin' black guys,
and he feel like they had her--
I had her on the drugs
and stuff, but it wasn't
like that.
When she was a cheerleader,
she got addicted to drugs.
It's my friend, really.
Yeah, I-- we messed off, but,
I mean, she was my friend.
♪♪♪
I seen her that morning.
I didn't have no cocaine,
so she left,
uh, which I think
we seen her again
on the back road later on.
That's the last
time we seen her.
That's the last
time we seen her.
♪♪♪
[indistinct chatter]
We pull up at the store.
All kinda police jump out on us.
Throw the guns on us.
Slam us on the ground.
The police told me,
he was like, "Man,
"they think you killed
that girl, man."
I'm like,
"Who? Jessica?"
He's like, "Yeah."
I said,
"Man, you're crazy."
I ain't did nothin', you know?
It was just-- they wanted
to pin it on somebody
to get it off them, you know?
♪♪♪
The black community,
if they knew who killed her,
they would have told you.
I'm telling you.
We knew her.
We knew the real
Jessica Chambers.
She was a cheerleader,
true enough,
but she wasn't no saint, man.
♪♪♪
I'm gonna get away from here
one day, one of the years,
if they don't kill me first.
♪♪♪
- This was a lengthy
investigation.
It went on for months,
and months, and months.
When it gets quiet, they think
there's not anything going on.
Well, that's when
we do our best work.
- One step closer to justice
for Jessica Chambers--
14 months after
she was burned to death,
a man is now charged
with killing her.
♪♪♪
- I would like to
announce the indictment
of Quinton Verdell Tellis,
uh, in the death of
Jessica Chambers.
He's 27 years old.
He is from Courtland.
The best I can classify it
is, they knew each other,
and they were friends.
We tried to retrace
Jessica's steps
on the day that she was burned.
We knew that she was with
Quinton Tellis that morning.
He was adamant that
the last time he saw her
was roughly 11 o'clock
that morning.
He popped back up in September
when we were rerunning
a lot of the cell phone data,
and his cell phone
was on the exact same spot
that Jessica's cell phone
was pinging the night
that she died,
and we realized that Quinton
had not been honest with us.
- Uh, who-who is Quinton Tellis?
I don't know.
[laughing]
I was just in shock.
I mean, I'd never heard of him.
- I didn't know Quinton Tellis
from Barney Fife.
I mean, uh, never heard
of Quinton Tellis.
- She never really
commented about him.
Only thing that
she's ever said about him
is, he's real cool,
and he's quiet.
- I have never known him to do
nothin' like this all my life,
and for people to go around
and just say he did
somethin' like this,
kinda hard to believe.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- The State of Mississippi
versus Quinton Verdell Tellis.
What says the state?
- The State of
Mississippi present
that Quinton Verdell Tellis
did willfully and
unlawfully kill and murder
Jessica Lane Chambers.
- All right. Uh,
how does Mr. Tellis plead?
- Mr. Tellis enters a plea
of not guilty, Your Honor.
- They had questioned him--
gave him a lie detector test.
He cleared.
He ain't got nothin'
to do with it.
Folks just wanna judge him,
but I don't understand it.
My brother is not a killer.
- But being a mother,
you know what your child
are capable of doin'
and what they are
not capable of doin',
and I know my son
didn't do this.
- Did his hand like this.
And his mom, he love us.
He can't take a fall for it
because he didn't commit it,
and I understand that, and
I'm gonna be behind him 100%.
♪♪♪
- The only gratifying
thing of this is,
this is the first step toward
the resolution of the case.
Yeah, we'll be ready to go
when it's time for, uh, trial.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
[dog barking]
♪♪♪
- Say the blessing, Anabelle.
- God, thank you for this day.
Thank you for Jessica being safe
and everyone
is having a great time.
The way that we pray, amen.
- Amen.
- I didn't wanna take nobody's.
- Shoo, fly, shoo.
- I'm gonna go get some ranch.
- Okay.
- What time does
the trial start?
- It's supposed to be,
like, 9 to 5 every day,
even on Saturdays.
- Ben, me and mama was talkin',
and I'm sure there's gonna be
a lotta pictures and stuff.
If you don't think you can
stand seein' pictures,
just close your eyes.
- 'Cause that memory
will stick in your mind.
- The hurt's there.
I mean, can't nothin'
take that hurt away.
He took somethin'
that God gave me
and can't nobody replace,
you know? And it just--
the longer it goes,
the worse it gets on me.
- You got a lotta
anger built up,
and you gotta let go of it.
♪♪♪
- Hard to believe, you
know, they live that close.
If you go straight
to the end of the road,
you'd dead-end to the house.
- I mean, it gets hard knowin'
they live right there.
- Oh, yeah, it--
yeah, I know. You--
- 'Cause it's
a constant reminder.
- It sure is.
So many people, you know,
they think, man, damn, Ben,
why ain't you killed
that guy yet, you know?
- Yeah.
- How can I get to
him to kill him?
I ain't gonna say
I wouldn't kill him
if I get my hands
on him, you know?
If you kill my dog,
I'm gonna kill your dog and cat.
You do somethin' to me--
I'm gonna do
somethin' back to you.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- First time I heard
of Quinton Tellis,
he was in a gang called
Gangster Disciples.
- Investigators think he's
tied to a murder right here
in Northeast Louisiana.
- The answer we've
all been waiting to hear
for the last three years--
the explosive allegations
from the state on what
happened to 19-year-old
Jessica Chambers the night
she was burned alive.
- All rise.
♪♪♪
- I think he suffocated her
and thought he had killed her.
He wanted sex.
- She said,
"Eric set me on fire."
- Cannot find the guilty person
by convicting a innocent one.
- Quinton?
- Yes, ma'am.
- Did you kill Jessica Chambers?
♪♪♪
- Well, this investigation
is stepping up considerably.
A 19-year-old girl trying
to get her life together
ends up burned almost to death
on the side of a rural road,
and it took 14 months
just to find a suspect.
- Quinton Tellis is
a resident of Courtland,
and Jessica was a resident
of the Courtland area.
They were introduced
through friends.
We will not have
any other charges
against any other suspect.
- Quinton and Jessica had
a relationship prior to this.
It was only about two weeks,
but they were involved
in some way or another.
♪♪♪
- When I got the first
phone call about Jessica,
we had just come in
from our day.
My mom called, and I thought,
"Let me relax,
"and I'm gonna call
her right back."
And then she called, again.
Before I could even
listen to the voicemail,
she was callin' a third time,
and I thought,
"Let me just answer
this phone."
"Hello."
And it was a sound that just...
goes straight through you.
She told me that Jessica
had been set on fire.
I thought she burnt her arm.
What do you mean
she's been set on fire?
She told me Jessica was
being flown to the hospital.
That's when I knew it was
more than just her arm.
I just-- I fell...
I fell to my knees...
and I remember just silence.
She'd finally choked up
enough to say,
"They don't think
she'll make it."
♪♪♪
- Hundreds of friends
and family showed up
for the visitation
for Jessica Chambers.
- There's really no words to
describe how I feel right now
for somebody that you never
woulda thought would be gone.
- Following
Jessica Chambers' funeral,
a candlelight vigil
as people signed banners
and released balloons
in her memory.
♪ how sweet the sound ♪
- East Coast to West Coast,
people I've never even
heard or dreamed called me,
you know, and light
a candle for my daughter.
♪♪♪
[whistle blowing]
- Never in a million years
would I have ever thought
that I couldn't come out
of my door and see Jessica
walking down the street
to my house.
- I could see her smile,
right now.
- Yeah.
- We were best friends.
We'd go to the movies together.
We'd drink together.
- When Jessica died,
I felt like there was
a huge hole inside of me.
I was heartbroken.
- They just kept sayin'
a boyfriend did it, at first.
- Yeah.
Whether it's Quinton Tellis
or not, we want that person,
whoever did it, or people,
to be caught and
get what they deserve.
♪♪♪
- What got me was the
Jessica Chambers Mystery page.
Everybody was tryin'
to be little detectives.
She had a boyfriend
that was in a gang.
She had another boyfriend
that was in a gang.
Jessica was what you call
a wild child.
She had her little rebel streak,
but she had gotten out of that.
She had gotten a job.
Talked about college.
She was done with the gangs.
♪♪♪
- I'm Jimmy Anthony.
Here at Panola County,
I document gang intelligence,
who the gang members are,
which organizations.
First time I heard of
Quinton Tellis,
he was in A gang called
Gangster Disciples.
He got caught
breaking into things.
Gangs organize burglaries.
All of 'em dabble in narcotics,
and when you've got drugs,
you're gonna have violence.
You got a Gangster Disciples
symbol down there.
You got your six-point star
over here, here, here.
Each point represents
a meaning to them.
This is somethin'
about strike again.
Vice Lords strike again.
The gang culture
is nothing but violent.
These kids is throwin'
their life away doin' this.
- Unfortunately, we have
violent crime everywhere,
but the nature of how
Jessica died was very brutal.
It just kinda grabbed me
on the inside.
- As an attorney
and a former prosecutor,
I was drawn to the case
not just because of the
horrific nature of the crime.
It's a murder mystery
in a small town.
There are all these
racial overtones,
a social media explosion,
and they couldn't find a suspect
for more than a year.
I also wondered if
they had the right guy.
- I was very surprised when
they said Quinton was the one
who did this to Jessica.
I mean, I never got any
weird vibes from him.
- Knowing Quinton's family,
I wouldn't think
that he would be capable
of murder.
He was just another little boy
runnin' around there playin'.
- This is a family picture.
This is me.
This is my sister,
Shaneeka, right here,
and this is Quint.
I think he's about eight.
As you see, he's just smilin'.
[laughing]
This is me and him at church.
This is me, and this is him.
We were always together.
He was protector of me.
I'm older than him,
but he always acted like
he was the oldest.
He was like a daddy to me.
We would always go to
the park and to the beach,
and play foosball, and wrestle.
We were always close, always.
♪♪♪
- Hello.
All right.
How you doin'?
Oh.
- Quint.
My brother, he's more
than a brother to me.
he's my best friend.
He's that shoulder to lean on.
All right, love you.
- Love you, too.
- But when he gets mad,
he can be a bulldog.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Quinton Tellis spent most of
his life from that point on
in and out of prison.
♪♪♪
- He also wasn't a model inmate.
He had lots of infractions--
contraband and not
obeying the rules.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Jessica were cool.
She had a problem
with her family,
she'd talk to my brother.
So, why would he wanna hurt her?
- Plenty of nights she'd
come over here cryin',
and he was that shoulder
to lean on.
- Quinton.
- Hey.
- Hey, my name is Beth Karas.
What was your relationship
with Jessica like?
Did you like her more
than-- romantically,
or did she like
you romantically,
but you weren't both
on the same page?
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
NO.
- His name is Quinton Tellis,
and investigators think
he's tied to another murder
right here in
Northeast Louisiana.
- The tragic death
of Meing-Chen Hsiao.
Her friends knew her as Mandy.
- All rise.
- Who killed Jessica Chambers?
It's the answer we've
all been waiting to hear.
- If you want
justice for Jessica,
first you gotta do
justice for Quinton.
- Very nervous about testifying.
I actually hope
just to make it through it.
♪
- Jessica was last seen
at the end of this road.
I used to come here a lot.
It just felt like
you could feel her here.
I know that sounds crazy.
Okay.
[sighs]
[door ajar dinging]
All this was burnt.
I don't even know how
the car was parked in here.
I've heard so many
different stories,
that gas was put on top of
the car and all over her,
and I've heard that gas was
poured all over the car
and not her.
What actually happened,
I have no clue.
This would have to
be done by a heartless,
soulless person.
Demonic in my opinion.
♪♪♪
I hope, in the trial,
that they can shed some light
as to what actually
took place here
because, right now,
my heart hurts.
It's just a sick feelin'.
I need to know.
I need to know what was done.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- The praise and the
satisfaction we get
is when we hear
a jury say, "Guilty,"
knowing that the family
sitting there behind us
is getting justice
for their loved one.
I'm John Champion.
I've been the D.A. since
I was appointed in 2001.
I've been preparing
for this case
since the day Jessica died,
so I'm ready to go forward
on it, and so is Jay.
- We have been workin'
on this for three years.
I'm talkin' about
every day, all day,
just on this one case,
uh, which is-is unusual.
This has probably
been the most trying,
most difficult case
we've ever had to work with.
Just the process involved
given all the data we have,
the cell phone records.
- Our break in the case
came when we began looking
at Jessica's cell phone data
and realized that
Jessica and Quinton,
the two of them, were
right on top of each other.
Once we had this cell phone data
confirming Quinton
was with Jessica
on the day that
she was murdered,
we went to look for Quinton,
and we didn't know where he was.
We learned that Quinton
was in jail in Louisiana.
- His name is Quinton Tellis,
and investigators think
he's tied to a murder
right here
in Northeast Louisiana.
- The death is currently being
investigated as a homicide.
- Her name is Meing-Chen Hsiao,
but her friends
knew her as Mandy.
♪♪♪
- Her body was discovered
after neighbors called
the landlord for this complex
and reported that they
were smelling a foul odor.
- There were superficial
puncture wounds, uh,
about her neck
and-and chest area,
which seemed to suggest
that she was being tortured.
- This was the street Mandy
would ride her bike down.
This is also where she
would meet Quinton Tellis.
♪♪♪
- Police said that the neighbor
was coming downstairs one day
and met Quinton Tellis
at the bottom of the stairs.
He asked several questions
about Mandy, where she was at,
when the woman had saw her
last, and the questions
kind of creeped the woman out
and raised her-her attention.
♪♪♪
- He was quick to
come up with alibis,
and it never panned out.
After her death,
Mr. Tellis was
seen on a ATM camera
using her card to make
a withdrawal from an ATM.
- They arrested
Quinton Tellis...
...and he was booked
on the unauthorized use
of a debit card.
♪♪♪
- There was no DNA
or physical evidence
anywhere in that apartment
linking Quinton Tellis
to this homicide.
Soon as he was arrested,
that's when Panola County
got in touch with us
and let us know
that he was a suspect
in that case, also.
- It really piqued our interest.
We felt like we needed
to get on down there
as quick as we could
to talk to Quinton.
♪♪♪
- Quinton, did you
kill Jessica Chambers?
And what about the
woman in Louisiana?
Did you kill Mandy?
- The D.A. eventually takes the
death penalty off the table,
but all that Quinton knew during
the interrogation that day
was that he was in
big trouble for a murder
he insisted he did not commit.
♪♪♪
- This is my wedding day.
Jessica was my maid of honor.
We were really close.
She was always who I talked
to about my boy problems.
[chuckles]
Even though there was
six years difference,
I still told her
so-and-so broke my heart,
and we would always go eat
a big tub of frosting.
That was our thing.
Now, I live about
1,000 miles from home.
With the trial right
around the corner,
I don't wanna not be there,
so I came up with a way
to earn money to get home.
When everything first happened,
there was a lot of people
that wanted to show support
by wearing T-shirts
or car decals.
So, I started my own business.
These are some of
the things I've made.
This one was a car decal.
Pink is Jessica's
favorite color.
The keychains, they say
justice for Jessica.
And this is Jessica's actual
handwriting from a letter
that she had written me,
so it's almost like
I'm actually touching
what she wrote.
It's about as close
as I can get.
This is just a "for me" piece.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- What we need to do,
is get all of our
lay witnesses together.
- All the subpoenas
were issued yesterday.
- So, we're gonna
serve 'em individually.
- We're gonna serve
'em individually,
but this-this letter
is actually going out
with each individual subpoena.
- All right.
Two weeks from Monday,
we go to trial,
and I think we've got a really
good game plan in place.
♪♪♪
When we do the field trip,
they're gonna be able
to see Quinton's residence,
and then we come on down
on Main Street,
and we show 'em
where the keys were found.
We found a set of keys
that belonged to Jessica
that were down the road
from where the car was found.
- It's two-tenths of a mile
from where they found her keys
on the side of the road
to the crime scene.
- The keys came back with
a-a mixture, uh, of DNA,
but it had our suspect,
Quinton Tellis',
DNA in the keys.
What I suspect happened,
is somethin' occurred
at Quinton's house when they
were in the car together
that he felt like
he probably had killed her
and had to get her away
from his house.
He drives the car down the road.
He takes the keys
and throws the keys down
along the way back to his house.
I believe that's Quinton
getting the gasoline.
He drives back to the scene,
douses the car
and Jessica with gas,
sets it on fire.
- I like this.
It all makes sense.
- Mm-hmm.
- Well, we've got all
the prep work done.
- We just need to
finalize our game plan.
- We got our weeks
cut out for us.
- We ain't done this
much work in years.
♪♪♪
- It's gonna be complicated,
but I think the trial
is gonna flow very well.
The only problems
that I foresee there could be
would be between
the victim's family
and the suspect's family,
and I'm gonna request that
they sit on opposite sides
of the courtroom.
I will have a
plain clothes officer
within six or eight feet
of both of 'em.
If somethin' was to break out,
at least two people stay with
Quinton Tellis all the time.
- If you have to eject
somebody from the courtroom,
don't hesitate to get them out.
- No.
- Well, you know, we're gonna
prepare for the worst-case scenario
not only in the courtroom
but outside the premise
of the courthouse.
- If you see somebody gangin'
up, they need to move on.
- Move 'em.
- That's right.
- If you come in here and
start causin' problems,
we're not gonna tolerate it.
We're zero tolerant
for any nonsense.
It's gonna be a really,
really strong case.
We know it's him.
I think the evidence
will prove that.
- I don't believe John Champion
would prosecute it
if he didn't know 100%
that he could get
a conviction on it.
- Sure, but it takes
one juror to hang it up,
one person, and people do it
for various reasons.
They'll say, "Well, I think
that, yeah, he's guilty,
"but I just think the
penalty is too strong,
"so I find him
not guilty."
A jury will always be a concern.
You know, different people
perceive information differently,
and you don't have to give
a reason for votin' not guilty.
- But, now if you
sit on that jury,
and you follow the evidence--
- Yeah, we're not gonna
have any problems, zero.
- No problem.
- It's a wrapped up case.
- That's right.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Darla Palmer
is the lead attorney.
She's not court appointed.
Some of her work
is public defender work,
but not in this case.
My understanding is, she was
retained by the Tellis family
for Quinton's defense.
- In talking to
Quinton, you know,
when we started the case out,
he told us,
"Well, I took a polygraph,
"and the guy told me
that I passed."
And so, I thought, okay,
here we have a person
who's passed a polygraph.
From day one, he has
proclaimed his innocence.
- Even though this case
is not a case
where he is looking
at the death penalty,
he's looking at
a life without parole,
and this young man
is 29 years old.
Their case against Quinton was
flawed from the very beginning,
and I don't believe
he killed Jessica Chambers.
- I think he shoulda
still been in jail,
then he wouldn't have been
able to kill my daughter.
I will never forgive him.
I mean, I-I will never.
- He don't know how bad that--
that I wanna take his life.
All I wanna do, is hurt him.
I want him to feel
the pain I feel,
and I don't want
somebody else to do it.
I wanna do it.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
[dog barking]
♪♪♪
- The sheriff knows
where I lived?
♪♪♪
I have never had the
sheriff's department
at my house.
How are you?
Pretty good.
I sure will.
- I appreciate it.
- Thank you.
- Okay.
- "State of Mississippi
versus Quinton Tellis.
"You are hereby commanded
to summon Lisa Chambers
"on the 10th day of October 2017
at 8:00 a.m."
[sighs]
My heart is beatin' so fast.
It's doin' its own
stress test, right now.
I'm passin', so far.
It's not really a surprise
to get the subpoena,
but it's still crazy because...
[sighs]
it's my daughter.
It makes it real...
and I don't know
if I can handle that.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- This is the longest
investigation
I've ever been involved with.
- Well, you better enjoy today
'cause it's gonna be a while
before you can come back down
here because of the trial.
- A lot of people don't
understand the magnitude
of a case like this.
♪♪♪
The evidence in
the vehicle was burnt,
so we had to have
some other lead.
- We found the keys on
the side of the road.
- But you can't walk in there
and say, "You did it."
You've got to have the evidence.
Yeah, you know, it's kinda like
organizing a football game.
You know, you have to coach.
- Mm-hmm.
- And make sure all the
witnesses are prepared
for a conviction on a person
who did such a heinous crime.
We worked 24-7 to get
this thing solved,
and it finally come together.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
[siren wailing]
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- It's 8:45
on Monday mornin'.
We're beginning jury selection.
Tellis has been transported
to the courthouse here
at Pike County.
♪♪♪
- They wanted to get away
from Panola County,
as far as they could,
to make it more fair,
as fair as possible.
- We're going to have to bring
some folks about four hours
away from their homes
for up to two weeks
and house them, you know,
in a hotel with people
they probably don't know.
I mean, that's always
a challenge when we do that.
- In the local paper, they had
advertised that the jury
was being selected from
Pike County on Monday,
and I had received
a juror summons.
I did not know
very much about it.
The only thing that I had seen
was on the local news
and just thought,
oh, wow, how horrific,
but that's about it.
- Myself and Investigator Mills
are headed back to Panola County
to get our courthouse set up.
Everything here
is going as planned.
Hopefully, we'll have
a jury shortly after lunch.
♪♪♪
- The prosecuting attorney,
as well as
the defense attorneys,
asked several questions
about your background.
Did you think you could be fair?
Of course, I did think
that I could be fair.
I just didn't expect 'em
to choose me
because my husband works for
the local police department now.
Even went back to the office
and told the ladies
at the office,
I said, "Oh, no,
I'll be back after a while.
"They're not
gonna choose me."
But, oh, well, I was chosen.
[chuckles]
♪♪♪
- At around 3:30,
the jury was selected.
Of the 12, 7 are men,
5 women, 6 black, and 6 white.
Some jurors said they could
not pass judgment on Tellis.
Others said they had
followed the case closely.
Only one person said
they had any connection
to Jessica's family,
and no one knew Tellis.
- Once they'd chosen us
and told us that they were
gonna give us an hour,
we were to go home,
pack your clothes for
at least seven to ten days.
That was a little bit scary.
- Step one is done.
Everything we prepared
for, for three years,
is ready to go, now.
So, we'll start showin'
everything we got tomorrow.
♪♪♪
- It's goin' to be very
hard to sit in trial
with Quinton Tellis.
I'm pretty sure I'll have
to prepare myself for that.
For the jury to find him guilty,
that would be great.
Do I think he's responsible,
with what I know?
Yes.
♪♪♪
- I'm here to support my mom
'cause I know she needs it,
and I need it.
So...
- These have to
go on my car tomorrow.
- Then I made this one,
and I actually made one,
her signature.
Then...
- This is not an experience that
anybody wants to go through,
but since I have
to go through it,
I need her here by me.
I don't think I could
do it without her.
- That's the one I did
last night at, like,
3 o'clock in the mornin'
'cause I couldn't go to sleep.
[sighs]
- Yeah, I can imagine.
- I need to be here for my mom.
I need to be here for me.
And I need to be here
for Jessica.
It's important that I see
justice for my sister.
♪♪♪
- There's no way they can
vote him not guilty.
♪♪♪
I couldn't even sleep
a wink night before last
and last night, either.
- I was up, I think, every hour.
- Took me a while to go to
sleep, and once I did woke,
I couldn't go back to sleep.
- Said a prayer.
We all got together and prayed.
- I can't breathe.
- Anxiety-- there's not
been no closure yet, Ben,
not until after the trial.
- But we can't just sit around
and be sick over all this stuff.
We got little Annabelle,
and we got all these
grandchildren.
If justice is served,
we all got to look forward.
- No, justice won't never be
served for what he done to me.
And I pray, you know,
God give me strength.
- I feel like God's
got it in his hand.
He, you know, and
He's got our backs.
We got to be strong.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Three, two-- the answer
we've all been waiting to hear
for the last three years--
the explosive allegations
from the state
on what happened to
19-year-old Jessica Chambers
the night she was burned alive.
- Expected to take the
stand, Lisa Chambers.
Every time that
I've talked to her,
extremely emotional about
the death of her daughter.
- Jessica's family is finally
seeing justice for Jessica
play out.
I hope that they are starting
to feel some sense of closure.
I hope it's cathartic for them.
- We don't really know what
happened before Jessica Chambers
was found burning
on that rural road.
So, this trial will
reveal a lot of things.
- Our coverage will
have to be played by ear
as each day unfolds.
We'll try to look for
what are people asking about
that hasn't been answered.
- I'm a nervous wreck.
I don't even wanna
go to the trial.
My God, I don't even wanna go.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- The state is expected to
call at least 35 witnesses
to testify.
- Apparently, Quinton Tellis
said that he was with her,
but he said he
didn't murder her.
So, there's a lot that
needs to be put together.
It's an incredibly unusual
case and a horrible death.
Everyone is interested in this.
- We prayed.
You know, we know he innocent.
You know, I try not to worry
'cause I know the truth.
- If you want justice
for Jessica,
first, you gotta do
justice for Quinton
because you cannot
find the guilty person
by convictin' a innocent one.
- Stay seated.
The courtroom
will come to order.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
All rise.
The courtroom
will come to order.
Please be seated.
- The court will recognize
the State of Mississippi
for opening statement.
Mr. Champion.
- Thank you, Your Honor.
Good afternoon.
On December the 6th of 2014,
Jessica Chambers was a beautiful
blonde-haired 19-year-old.
About two weeks prior,
Jessica met a man that would
eventually end her life,
and that man is Quinton Tellis.
I'll tell you what
I think happened.
I think he suffocated her
and thought he had killed her
and that he had to get her
away from his house.
He wanted sex.
You'll see the text messages
where he wanted her.
Jessica was burned
over 93% of her body.
I would guess that if
all of us sitting here
were to know we're gonna die,
that the very last way we would
wanna die would be by fire,
but Jessica was set on fire.
And the first responders
begin asking her,
"Who did this to you?"
And it sounded like she said,
"Eric," or, "Derrick,"
okay?
That's not his name.
His name is Quinton.
The great weakness about
this case is what she said
on the scene as far as
the name Eric or Derrick,
but I think
we can overcome that.
Please do not make
a judgment at this point
until you've heard
every bit of this evidence
because it will
change your mind.
I can promise you that.
If you've got a problem,
face it head on.
Don't let a defense lawyer
bring it out
'cause it makes it look like
you're hiding something.
- Ms. Palmer for opening
statement by the defense.
- But I think that it's
certainly something
that a skilled attorney
will use to their advantage.
- This indeed was
a horrible crime,
a terrible thing that happened
to Jessica Chambers that day.
And what happened was,
Miss Chambers
came walking down Heron Road.
She was alert.
She was able to speak,
and many of the first
responders completed reports
where she said,
"Eric set me on fire."
A multiple amount
of individuals sayin'
this is what she said.
You have recorded information,
at least eight people
who personally heard
her say, "Eric."
- Their statements were clear,
and a lot of times
they were in quotes.
"Eric set me on fire."
End quotes.
"Eric did this to me."
Eric is not on trial here today.
He should be.
And for this reason,
we will ask that you find
Quinton Tellis not guilty
as a result.
- Mr. Champion, you may now
call your first witness.
- Raise your right hand.
Please solemnly swear
or affirm that the testimony
you're about to give
on this case
is the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth,
so help you God.
- I do.
I'm very nervous
about testifying.
I'm not a public speaker.
I actually hope just
to make it through it.
- Would you state
your name for me, please?
- Lisa Chambers.
- And, Miss Chambers,
I'm gonna ask you to speak up.
Speak into the microphone, okay?
- Okay.
- How are you related to
Jessica Lane Chambers?
- That's my baby girl.
- And how old was Jessica
at the time of her death?
- Nineteen.
- Can you describe the person
pictured in this photograph?
- That's my baby,
Jessica Chambers.
- This is Jessica Lane Chambers?
- Yes, it is.
- Growing up, did Jessica
always live around Courtland?
- Always.
- And did she play some sports
when she was growing up?
- She played softball a lot,
and she was a cheerleader.
- Ms. Chambers, I'm gonna take
you back to December the 6th
of 2014.
That is a day you'll
always remember.
Is that correct?
- That's correct.
- Who did Jessica live
with at that time?
- She lived with me.
- What did she do when she
returned home that day?
- She either received
a phone call or a text.
- Did you know
who she was talkin' to?
- I had no idea.
- After she got off the
phone, what did she do?
- She said she was fixing to go
get her somethin' to eat
and clean out her car,
and she'd be back
in a little bit.
- Is that the last time
you saw your daughter?
- Yes, it was.
Did I think that
would be the last time
that I talked to Jessica?
No.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Her hair was fried out
like she had stuck it
in a light socket.
- I said, "Honey,
who did this to you?"
And all I heard was, "Eric."
- Wasn't there a strange
man on the scene?
I would venture to say
that that's probably Eric.
- The police, they knew that
Jessica dealt with drugs.
- Jessica was threatened.
Her words were, "Mama,
these bitches think I'm snitchin'."
- We have been gettin'
threats, phone calls
and through Facebook.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Their case against
Quentin was flawed
from the very beginning.
- Who's gonna stand
up for Quinton?
They wanna pin it
to this young man.
- He said, "I've got a
five-gallon jug of gasoline
"back in the back
of the shed."
- Jury has reached a verdict.
- Give us strength, dear God.
- Amen.
- all: Amen.
- That's when the chaos started.
- My heart stopped.
What is happening?
- The 120 somethin' years
of law experience
had never in their life
seen anything like that.
- Jessica Chambers was found
walking on the side of the road
near her burning car.
- According to investigators,
Chambers may have been
doused in gasoline
and then set on fire.
- Her hair was fried...
out like she had stuck it
in a light socket.
- What could a 19-year-old
girl do to somebody
to make you do that?
- The first responders
begin asking her,
"Who did this to you?"
- What she said was that,
"Eric did this to me."
- I held her hand
as she took her last breath.
- Less than 24 hours
after Jessica was killed,
this social media
firestorm began.
- The white people was sayin'
the black people did it,
or black people was sayin'
that a white people did it,
and it started bein' a race war.
- She's on the cover
of "People" magazine,
and I dang sure don't want it
on there as a murder victim.
- After 14 months,
investigators in Panola County
have charged 27-year-old
Quinton Tellis
with capital murder.
- I know my son didn't do this.
They're just lookin' for
someone to put this murder on.
- I absolutely believe
he did it, 100%.
- We want justice for Jessica
but for whoever did it!
- Ladies and gentlemen,
this investigation
was flawed from
the very beginning.
- You had to be
a real dumb black man
to burn up a white girl
in the state of Mississippi.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
Courtland, pretty small town,
population of around 500,
in Panola County.
The mix would be probably
more African American
than Caucasian.
Being in the Mississippi Delta,
farming is a huge thing.
We do have lower wage earning,
the blue collar,
hardworking people here.
- Most of everybody
knows everybody.
Drive down a road,
and the stranger on the street
was wavin' at you
as he mowed the yard.
- You went to the
football games on Saturday,
you had your fun,
and then on Sunday morning,
you were in church.
- A frightening mystery
in North Mississippi.
- Officials say they
got a call last night.
The caller saw a burning vehicle
and a person
standing badly burned
on the side of the road.
- The volunteer fire department
shows up on the scene.
She staggers towards them,
collapses.
- Jessica Chambers
is described by friends
as a popular former cheerleader.
She was found barely alive.
- The brutality of it,
what I call cold and calculated,
kinda grabbed me
on the inside, and said,
okay, this is--
this is way abnormal.
- Her whole life was just taken
from her in a blink of an eye.
[train horn blowing]
♪♪♪
- The picture of Jessica
in my mind is blue eyes,
always smilin',
the biggest dimples,
the littlest body,
and probably her
little sign thrown up,
which is the
"I love you."
I love you.
- Jessica was a blonde-haired,
cotton top little girl.
Jessica's smile would
just light up a room
when she came in.
- Jessica loved to cheer
at the football games.
- She was a flier.
They'd throw her up in the air.
Oh, God, I was so afraid
they was gonna drop her.
♪♪♪
- Jessica was full of life.
Jessica was stubborn as a mule.
[laughing]
Jessica was just a joy.
At one time,
she wanted to be a teacher.
At one time, she wanted
to be a book writer.
And the major thing
she always said was,
she wanted to be an RN.
♪♪♪
- I knew Jessica Chambers
from high school.
If you needed a laugh or smile,
she was the one to go to.
- She was that type of person where
you would love to be around her
because she would
do the craziest things.
- Jessica and I were neighbors,
and then when I heard about it,
I was just--
I was really shocked.
No one deserves,
you know, being burned alive.
She was just such a good person.
Everybody wanted to know, like,
who did this to her and why?
♪♪♪
- When that happened,
on the 6th,
it did not seem out of
the ordinary at all.
Jessica had left home,
went to the store,
come back about
12:30-1:00.
She got her pajama pants
and piled up in the chair
in the living room
and went to sleep.
Sometime between
4:45 and 5:15,
she got a phone call, a text,
whichever one it was.
I'm not sure.
And then she went out the door
and said she'd be back
to clean up her room.
She was goin' to get her
somethin' to eat.
I called her, and she said,
"I'll be home in a
little while, mama.
"Bye.
I love you."
I told her I loved her, too.
She said,
"See ya in a little bit",
and that's the last
I heard from her.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- We pulled up, and Jessica
was layin' right here,
and I remember the heat
comin' off the truck.
We started rendering
medical aid for Jessica,
and-and, um,
I remember looking down,
and she was laid on her side,
and they had this
old Army blanket coverin',
and the only thing she had on
was a pair of panties.
[sniffles, exhales]
Uh, just seeing her
layin' on that ground,
that piece of skin,
every time she breathed,
go in and out her nose.
Ain't a damn thing
you can do about it.
[voice cracking]
♪♪♪
The burn spots were red.
Looked like, in some places,
maybe a little like somebody
had smeared charcoal on her.
She wasn't complainin'
about pain or nothin'.
You know, she was shakin'.
Somebody asked her
was she cold or somethin',
and it-it seemed like
she nodded her head.
You know, she wasn't
real talkative.
And then a firefighter,
Randy Davis,
was kinda back over toward
her feet, and, uh, he said,
"Well, hon, who-who
done this to you?"
Kinda just looked up,
turned her head
just a little bit,
and plain as day,
she said, "Eric did this."
She didn't call no last name.
You know, she just--
she said, "Eric did this."
We was all kinda stunned.
I thought whoever did this
may still be out there.
Seeing her the way she was
and then still alive,
and I don't wish this
on my worst enemy.
Here, the ambulance
had pulled up over here.
They unloaded a stretcher,
and they loaded her up on it,
and that was the last
I seen of her.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- The Sheriff's
Department, he said,
"There's been an accident.
"Jessica has been burned."
You know, and I couldn't fathom
what he was really
talkin' about, you know?
I sent my wife, Debbie, down
there to get Lisa right then.
- Debbie, Ben's wife,
had come down
and pulled in the driveway,
screaming,
"They set her on fire."
And I'm like,
"They set who on fire?"
And she said,
"They set Jessica on fire."
And I said, "Uh-uh, I just
got off the phone with her."
I was panicked, angry, scared.
If there was an emotion,
I felt it.
- Doctor come out there
and told us there wasn't nothin'
they could do to Jessica,
and it just broke my heart, man.
You know, I begged him,
"Please," you know?
[sighs]
- They told us
it was 93% of her body.
I just hit my knees.
I wanted to go to her.
I was scared to go back there.
Mm-hmm.
I peeped in the room.
I don't know what they saw,
but I saw my child.
Maybe a rosy cheek...
but I saw my baby.
♪♪♪
I held her hand as
she took her last breath
and told her it was okay.
She could go.
The pain and guilt I feel
for telling her she can go,
but I know I couldn't
a kept her here.
There was no way.
♪♪♪
- Authorities are trying
to track down the person
who lit a teenager on fire
in Panola County.
Investigators are reviewing
cell phone records
and talking to witnesses.
♪♪♪
- You had a group of the
best investigators in the world
sittin' around this table
to help get this case solved.
- The FBI, and the DEA, and ATF.
- We probably interviewed
30 or 40 different suspects
that night.
You had several of the firemen
initially that said
they heard her say--
- Derrick.
- Eric or Derrick.
So, man, we interviewed
everybody in the town
of Courtland
and the surrounding area
by the name of Eric or Derrick.
- We did. We did.
- Everybody, I mean--
- Yeah.
- Every Eric and Derrick
in Panola County.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- One of the people
investigators questioned
is Eric Bibbs.
- They came by here
about 9:30.
He said, "There was
a-a accident, I think,
"down the road, and, uh,
your name was mentioned."
And I was like,
"Well, no, I've been here."
- I was just called
in to, you know, uh, in--
for a interview about
a situation I didn't know
nothin' about.
They was just askin' me,
you know, did I know her?
Was I sleeping with her?
So, I seen her around at
the stores and everything,
but I don't just
know her like that.
♪♪♪
- Everybody was on edge.
I mean, we-we all
were-were totin' guns.
- And people just was scared
to even talk about it.
They didn't wanna say
anything about the murder,
or who it could be,
or who it couldn't be
because you might be next.
- She was terrified
there for a while
'cause he threatened
to kill her.
- She didn't want nobody
tellin' her what she could
or could not do.
- One step closer to justice
for Jessica Chambers.
A man is now charged
with killing her.
♪♪♪
- This is a post
that I had made.
"Today is your birthday,
again, 22 years. Wow."
Jessica is my little sister.
We are six years apart,
but, growin' up,
that was my shadow.
She was my best friend.
I have a voicemail on my phone.
She wanted to know
what my three daughters
wanted for Christmas.
She wanted me to know
that the "Frozen" movie
had just came out.
I replay that voicemail
over and over.
My husband is in the military,
and we were stationed
about 1,200 miles away,
and my mom called and told me
that Jessica had been
set on fire.
There was absolutely no words.
I had set up a Justice for
Jessica page on Facebook
so that anyone that wanted to
follow Jessica's story could,
and within 24 hours,
Justice for Jessica
had 150,000 followers.
Justice for Jessica
means that this person
will get what they deserve,
but I still have to live
the rest of my life
without Jessica,
and, for me,
there's no justice for that.
♪♪♪
- I'm Katie Baker, and I am
an investigative reporter
for BuzzFeed news.
I came across Jessica's
story really randomly
just looking online.
It struck me immediately
because being burned alive
is such a horrific
and personal way to die.
And because she was this young,
beautiful, blonde cheerleader,
that's why her story took off.
After Jessica was killed,
this social media
firestorm began.
There was the Jessica Chambers
Mystery Facebook page.
There were five or six others.
It was almost as if people
wanted to binge watch
Jessica's murder investigation.
Jessica was a teenager from
a tiny town in Mississippi
that most Americans
haven't even heard of,
but somehow these people
from all over the country,
these wannabe detectives,
thought that they could
investigate Jessica's murder
more thoroughly than
local law enforcement,
even though they were
just sitting on their couch
in Canada or on
a houseboat in Florida.
They thought they
could do it better.
It wasn't just this
horrific murder mystery.
It was more a story to me
about a small town
and what happens when
the Internet descends
on this town
and causes problems.
- We're hearing much
about some of the rumors
that have been on social media,
very disturbing things.
- There were rumors
that it was a gang thing
or it had something
to do with drugs.
- Jessica was not
labeled a gang member.
She was just what you call
the girlfriend of a gang member.
- Gang activity was really
a focus of social media.
It was a focus
that we looked at.
We actually had gang members
helping us find out who it was
because of the
increased police presence
that was in the community.
Did she know kids that
were in the gang? Yeah.
But when we looked
at her activities
and everything
that was going on,
it just didn't point
that way at all.
- While the crime itself probably
wasn't racially motivated,
these commenters
out on social media
turned it into a race thing.
- Because she had black friends
and she dated black guys,
it started bein' a race war.
- The social media situation,
it made me mad.
Jessica loved everybody.
She'd never seen
a color in a person.
She would probably be really mad
about the fact of how people
became so separated.
- Tonight, the mother
of another young man
who's been accused
on the Internet
says it's time for the focus
to go off of her son
and onto the effort
to find the real killer.
- There were lots
of Internet rumors
that Jessica had been murdered
by one of her ex-boyfriends.
For example, Bryan Rudd.
- They put Bryan's picture on
the web all over the world.
- I know she started datin'
Bryan Rudd her senior year.
Jessica was crazy over Bryan.
She thought Bryan hung the moon.
They did have
a volatile relationship.
- We alibied Bryan Rudd
out very early.
We knew he was in lowa.
- Bryan Rudd says he has nothing
to do with Jessica's murder
and is heartbroken to hear
about what happened
to his old girlfriend.
- Soon as her and Bryan
were over and everything,
she started datin'
Travis Sanford.
- She was in love with that boy.
I don't know what
it was about Travis.
She was in love with him.
- Early on,
there were speculations
that it could be a hit
because her boyfriend was
in prison at that time,
and because he had found out
that she might have been
seeing other people.
- Obviously, Travis Sanford
had a good alibi.
He was behind bars.
If he had been out,
I would imagine that would've
been a big problem for him.
- She was dating Travis,
to my knowledge,
the day she passed.
- It looked like everyone
in Courtland was a suspect.
It was such a small town.
Even Jessica Chambers'
father was a suspect.
Ben Chambers does
have some issues.
He has a drug conviction
in his past.
♪♪♪
- The Internet
commenters decided
that-that he must be involved
in Jessica's murder.
[dog barking]
- Yeah, they questioned me.
I had to prove where I was
or whatever, you know?
They knew I didn't do that.
I mean, you know, they know me.
I mean, I wouldn't harm a hair
on one of my child's heads
for no reason.
- People said that
her daddy did it
because he didn't want her to be
with a black guy.
- It bothered me
a lot, you know,
but they don't
say it to my face.
I know, in my heart,
I didn't hurt nobody.
I'm not a racist.
I got just as many black
friends and Mexican friends
I do white.
I don't believe
in mixed relationship.
There ain't nothin'
wrong with 'em.
Don't get me wrong.
They're more than welcome
to come to my house anytime,
but that's just the way I feel.
That's the way I was growed up.
I don't believe in that.
- People make
some awful comments.
I'm always on here lookin'
to see what I can take off.
It's like I can feel
Jessica over my shoulder,
"Delete that. Delete that."
- They said my mom
was a drug addict,
and Jessica wouldn't
get her drugs.
- I'm very upset
about that, very, very.
I don't even take pills.
- These two parents
just buried their child.
These are all people
that don't know us.
They've never met Ben.
They've never met my mom.
It was disgusting.
- Nobody knew who did this,
and with people on social media
accusing everybody,
it tore this town apart.
♪♪♪
- A heinous crime has been
committed in Panola County,
where I'm sheriff, where I
put my heart and soul into
to protect people.
I'm Dennis Darby.
I was the sheriff during the
murder of Jessica Chambers.
This one, it was personal
because Ben Chambers,
the father of Jessica,
was an employee here
at the sheriff's office,
workin' as a mechanic.
- We just left
the Batesville area.
This is Courtland.
Courtland is a-a
lot smaller town.
Jessica was from Courtland.
[siren wailing]
We have gang affiliations
here like everywhere else.
A lotta killings,
crack cocaine, and meth,
and heroin-- we have
our fair share of it.
I hear so many negative
comments about Mississippi.
We're illiterate.
We can't read and write.
We don't even have
running water down here,
and we eat
fried chicken every day.
People don't like
to hear the good.
They wanna hear the bad.
[dogs barking]
We've got a lotta good
going on around here, too.
We do have really good
fried chicken, though.
♪♪♪
[dog barking]
♪♪♪
- My name is Ben Chambers.
I am Jessica's father.
Jessica was probably
about three years old
when me and her mother split up
when, uh, moved down here.
We're right down the road.
We don't live, you know,
an eighth of a mile apart.
I've been livin'
here on this road,
uh, probably 25 years.
Real hard livin' here.
I-- when I first moved here,
this was a good neighborhood.
Really, the last
four or five years,
it's so much crime and gangs
that moved in here
and took over.
Just things done got so bad.
[gunshots firing]
Like that right there.
Hear that?
That was a-- that was a pistol.
They shoot all the time.
I know they wouldn't,
uh, shoot me intentionally,
but, you know,
y'all, a bullet don't
have no eyes, you know?
I just don't trust
people no more.
I see people, and I think,
well, you know,
are you the person that
did that to my daughter?
You know, are you the person
that did that to my daughter,
you know?
♪♪♪
How somebody could burn
a-a-a-a beautiful young girl
like that for no reason--
nobody deserve
what he did to Jessica
for no reason.
Any color,
any nation-- anything,
no animal deserves that.
And, uh, whoever done that,
I don't even wish that on him,
but I wish he could feel
the pain he's caused me,
you know?
I really do.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- When you look at it,
the car was up on an embankment.
It's like, was it an accident?
It was an older car.
But investigators kept
saying, no, it wasn't.
- There were no markings
on the fence.
There were no
markings on the car.
Everyone out there, uh, that was
part of the investigation
said absolutely not.
There's no way this was
an accident.
♪♪♪
- Now, right down here
is-is the scene of the murder,
you know, of Jessica Chambers.
♪♪♪
- Sheriff, do you remember
the car took a-a hard left
comin' up this hill?
- It's grown up a lot.
- Car was nose just-just as
tight in here as it could--
where her driver's door
would've been lodged.
- This was kind of a
muddy slope at the time.
The firemen gave
a statement that,
"Do you know who did this?"
And it sounded like she said,
"Eric," or, "Derrick."
The first responders
kept sayin' they heard
"Eric" or "Derrick."
- Her cell phone was found
right about here.
I mean, the car,
it was completely burned.
The only thing that was
left was solid metal.
We came back and brought a team
back the-the following day,
so we could check the immediate
area for any more evidence.
- We was adamant about
finding who did this.
But when you get on a trail,
when you get to information,
you go to numerous states,
you go to numerous interviews,
and you come to a dead end,
you gotta turn around
and come back,
and you have to
follow another lead.
- This was a bizarre case
because we had several
what we thought to be really,
really, really good leads.
We interviewed both black
and white suspects,
who, uh, persons of interest.
A reporter who had actually
gotten a call from a lady
in lowa telling us that
there was a guy up there
talking about killing Jessica.
[siren wailing]
So, officers
immediately went up there,
and we realized that this had
absolutely nothing to do
with Jessica.
[siren wailing]
And we had a young man
supposedly confess
to a family member
in another part of the state
that he had killed her.
He was alibied out.
♪♪♪
- I honestly thought Roger
Lynn had did it, 100%...
'cause I knew Roger
was mad at my daughter.
She was terrified
there for a while
because he threatened
to kill her.
♪♪♪
I know she smoked
weed some. Yeah.
- Roger Lynn is dead now.
He was a drug addict
that's been around here forever
that people suspected.
He was one we interviewed
and had no evidence.
- We were taking DNA samples
from just about everybody
we interviewed.
Quinton Tellis was
interviewed very early on
in the investigation.
We had witnesses
confirm he was with,
uh, Jessica in the mornin'
on the day that
she was murdered.
So, Quinton was brought in.
He was talked to
about where he was
and what he did that day.
You know, seemed
very believable.
He was interviewed a second
time about three weeks later.
He even gave us an alibi
of where he was
some 30 minutes
after the fire was set,
and officers went to
where he said he was
and confirmed that
he was down there.
So, at that time, he kinda
went off of our radar.
- Our business is to
find out who the killer is.
There was over 150 people
interviewed in this case,
and, uh, that takes a while.
- We followed up every possible
lead that we could follow up,
and it just did not
lead us anywhere.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Jessica was a
loving child, you know?
I mean, she-- Jessica had
her faults as anybody does.
She could be stubborn
when she wanted to be.
- Probably six-- 15, 16,
that's-that's when things
sorta started goin' downhill.
- She stopped wantin' to
be a cheerleader, you know?
I knew somethin' was wrong then.
- She was a rebellious teenager.
She didn't want
nobody tellin' her
what she could or could not do.
♪♪♪
- Allen's passing was
horrible on Jessica.
It was probably
the breaking point of her.
- It was like she
lost part of herself.
- She started hanging with
a totally different group
of friends, and school wasn't
the first priority to them,
you know?
Hanging out and,
you know, smokin' weed
was first priority to them.
- Jessica went to South Panola
High School her freshman,
sophomore, junior,
and part of her senior year.
It was after Christmas
that she dropped out.
- I took her car away from her
to try to stop her
from runnin' around
with the people she was
runnin' around with.
When I tried to do somethin'
with Jessica, you know,
I was the bad guy, you know?
Now, you deal with her now.
- She kept goin'
deeper and deeper,
but my family loved Jessica
no matter what she did.
♪♪♪
[dog barking]
♪♪♪
- This is Jessica's room.
Oh...
[sighs]
♪♪♪
Um, those are stuffed
animals people had sent
on her bed, and that was hers.
That's hers.
That's her makeup, whatever.
That's hers.
This is one of her
cheerleader outfits.
I believe this-- oh...
junior high...
high school...
and this was her
letterman jacket.
♪♪♪
I keep all that.
Nobody is to ever remove it.
I don't think
I could handle that.
Uh-uh.
Everything in this room
is special to me.
She's everywhere,
and as long as I'm here,
I feel she's here with me.
Jessica was my best friend.
We would fight
like best friends.
We would make up the same way.
I can just sit here,
and I feel here.
Nothin' has been taken out.
When I die, they can remove it.
Until then,
they better not touch it.
I don't care
who likes it or don't.
I'll only be happy
when I'm with her again,
and I apologize
to both my other kids,
but that's how I feel.
♪♪♪
- Still, no word on who lit
the Panola County teenager
on fire and left her
to die on a county road.
- It's baffling to us that we're
not getting more information.
Nobody wants to solve this
case any more than we do.
♪♪♪
- I kept thinkin' at first
that they would find
whoever done it quickly,
but, as time went on,
I started losin' hope.
- The reward for information in
the Jessica Chambers case
is now at $16,000.
- Thirty thousand dollars.
- Forty-three thousand dollars.
- The streets were quiet.
Could've been because
all you hear outta people
is snitches end up in ditches.
- There is a $54,000 reward
if you can help solve the case.
- Who wouldn't speak
for $54,000?
I prayed morning, noon,
and night for an arrest.
- A lotta people around here,
you know, it's hush-hush.
If you think that somebody
is out to get you,
you're not gonna
say nothin' at all.
- I don't think that law
enforcement was prepared
for the spotlight
that was put on them.
- She's on the cover
of "People" magazine,
and I dang sure don't want it
on there as a murder victim.
- None of the informants
that the officers had
could get us any information.
The reward got us
absolutely nowhere.
- One year after the
Mississippi girl's murder,
the Chambers family is still
waiting for her killer
to be caught.
- I'm not pleased that
I wasn't informed of things
all through this.
I've been upset since day one.
- I wasn't happy with
the investigation--
not happy at all.
- If you can help us,
please help us find justice
for my sister.
Please?
- Breaking
♪♪ and caught on camera,
the final hour of
Jessica Chambers' life.
WMC Action News 5 has uncovered
new surveillance video
that could help provide
clues in her killing.
- A gas station clerk
showed me video
of what appears to be
Jessica Chambers'
last few moments alive.
♪♪♪
- The clerk at the store,
Ali Alsani,
said that he released
surveillance footage
to the police in an
attempt to be helpful
to the investigation,
but by putting himself
out there like that,
the wannabe internet sleuths
were convinced he had something
to do with her death.
- He had posted some
pictures on Facebook
that kind of made it
look like thug life.
So, are you a member of a gang?
- No, I'm-I'm sure not.
You can-- I never had
a problem with no police.
- The information that people
were putting out on social media
did have some serious
consequences for Ali Alsani,
and he finally ended up
having to leave town.
- I was just trying to help,
and, at the end,
everything turns against me.
It's really sad 'cause
I really don't feel--
I don't feel free no more.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- It's been almost two weeks.
Mystery still surrounds
the 19-year-old's death.
George Mister and Rachel Tutor
say they're the latest
to be questioned in
Jessica Chambers' murder.
- I took a lie detector test.
I took a-a swab test.
- Jessica into any trouble?
- We don't know, you know?
We don't know what the problem
was that got her killed.
♪♪♪
- My name is George Mister,
and people call me "Boone".
I did 21 years in prison.
I paid for them mistakes.
♪♪♪
Jessica, she was
a cool girl, man.
She just-- she was
lookin' for love.
She ran to us.
We embraced-ed her.
Jessica and her daddy,
they didn't have
no good relationship
because he didn't agree with it,
you know, her datin' black guys,
and he feel like they had her--
I had her on the drugs
and stuff, but it wasn't
like that.
When she was a cheerleader,
she got addicted to drugs.
It's my friend, really.
Yeah, I-- we messed off, but,
I mean, she was my friend.
♪♪♪
I seen her that morning.
I didn't have no cocaine,
so she left,
uh, which I think
we seen her again
on the back road later on.
That's the last
time we seen her.
That's the last
time we seen her.
♪♪♪
[indistinct chatter]
We pull up at the store.
All kinda police jump out on us.
Throw the guns on us.
Slam us on the ground.
The police told me,
he was like, "Man,
"they think you killed
that girl, man."
I'm like,
"Who? Jessica?"
He's like, "Yeah."
I said,
"Man, you're crazy."
I ain't did nothin', you know?
It was just-- they wanted
to pin it on somebody
to get it off them, you know?
♪♪♪
The black community,
if they knew who killed her,
they would have told you.
I'm telling you.
We knew her.
We knew the real
Jessica Chambers.
She was a cheerleader,
true enough,
but she wasn't no saint, man.
♪♪♪
I'm gonna get away from here
one day, one of the years,
if they don't kill me first.
♪♪♪
- This was a lengthy
investigation.
It went on for months,
and months, and months.
When it gets quiet, they think
there's not anything going on.
Well, that's when
we do our best work.
- One step closer to justice
for Jessica Chambers--
14 months after
she was burned to death,
a man is now charged
with killing her.
♪♪♪
- I would like to
announce the indictment
of Quinton Verdell Tellis,
uh, in the death of
Jessica Chambers.
He's 27 years old.
He is from Courtland.
The best I can classify it
is, they knew each other,
and they were friends.
We tried to retrace
Jessica's steps
on the day that she was burned.
We knew that she was with
Quinton Tellis that morning.
He was adamant that
the last time he saw her
was roughly 11 o'clock
that morning.
He popped back up in September
when we were rerunning
a lot of the cell phone data,
and his cell phone
was on the exact same spot
that Jessica's cell phone
was pinging the night
that she died,
and we realized that Quinton
had not been honest with us.
- Uh, who-who is Quinton Tellis?
I don't know.
[laughing]
I was just in shock.
I mean, I'd never heard of him.
- I didn't know Quinton Tellis
from Barney Fife.
I mean, uh, never heard
of Quinton Tellis.
- She never really
commented about him.
Only thing that
she's ever said about him
is, he's real cool,
and he's quiet.
- I have never known him to do
nothin' like this all my life,
and for people to go around
and just say he did
somethin' like this,
kinda hard to believe.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- The State of Mississippi
versus Quinton Verdell Tellis.
What says the state?
- The State of
Mississippi present
that Quinton Verdell Tellis
did willfully and
unlawfully kill and murder
Jessica Lane Chambers.
- All right. Uh,
how does Mr. Tellis plead?
- Mr. Tellis enters a plea
of not guilty, Your Honor.
- They had questioned him--
gave him a lie detector test.
He cleared.
He ain't got nothin'
to do with it.
Folks just wanna judge him,
but I don't understand it.
My brother is not a killer.
- But being a mother,
you know what your child
are capable of doin'
and what they are
not capable of doin',
and I know my son
didn't do this.
- Did his hand like this.
And his mom, he love us.
He can't take a fall for it
because he didn't commit it,
and I understand that, and
I'm gonna be behind him 100%.
♪♪♪
- The only gratifying
thing of this is,
this is the first step toward
the resolution of the case.
Yeah, we'll be ready to go
when it's time for, uh, trial.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
[dog barking]
♪♪♪
- Say the blessing, Anabelle.
- God, thank you for this day.
Thank you for Jessica being safe
and everyone
is having a great time.
The way that we pray, amen.
- Amen.
- I didn't wanna take nobody's.
- Shoo, fly, shoo.
- I'm gonna go get some ranch.
- Okay.
- What time does
the trial start?
- It's supposed to be,
like, 9 to 5 every day,
even on Saturdays.
- Ben, me and mama was talkin',
and I'm sure there's gonna be
a lotta pictures and stuff.
If you don't think you can
stand seein' pictures,
just close your eyes.
- 'Cause that memory
will stick in your mind.
- The hurt's there.
I mean, can't nothin'
take that hurt away.
He took somethin'
that God gave me
and can't nobody replace,
you know? And it just--
the longer it goes,
the worse it gets on me.
- You got a lotta
anger built up,
and you gotta let go of it.
♪♪♪
- Hard to believe, you
know, they live that close.
If you go straight
to the end of the road,
you'd dead-end to the house.
- I mean, it gets hard knowin'
they live right there.
- Oh, yeah, it--
yeah, I know. You--
- 'Cause it's
a constant reminder.
- It sure is.
So many people, you know,
they think, man, damn, Ben,
why ain't you killed
that guy yet, you know?
- Yeah.
- How can I get to
him to kill him?
I ain't gonna say
I wouldn't kill him
if I get my hands
on him, you know?
If you kill my dog,
I'm gonna kill your dog and cat.
You do somethin' to me--
I'm gonna do
somethin' back to you.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- First time I heard
of Quinton Tellis,
he was in a gang called
Gangster Disciples.
- Investigators think he's
tied to a murder right here
in Northeast Louisiana.
- The answer we've
all been waiting to hear
for the last three years--
the explosive allegations
from the state on what
happened to 19-year-old
Jessica Chambers the night
she was burned alive.
- All rise.
♪♪♪
- I think he suffocated her
and thought he had killed her.
He wanted sex.
- She said,
"Eric set me on fire."
- Cannot find the guilty person
by convicting a innocent one.
- Quinton?
- Yes, ma'am.
- Did you kill Jessica Chambers?
♪♪♪
- Well, this investigation
is stepping up considerably.
A 19-year-old girl trying
to get her life together
ends up burned almost to death
on the side of a rural road,
and it took 14 months
just to find a suspect.
- Quinton Tellis is
a resident of Courtland,
and Jessica was a resident
of the Courtland area.
They were introduced
through friends.
We will not have
any other charges
against any other suspect.
- Quinton and Jessica had
a relationship prior to this.
It was only about two weeks,
but they were involved
in some way or another.
♪♪♪
- When I got the first
phone call about Jessica,
we had just come in
from our day.
My mom called, and I thought,
"Let me relax,
"and I'm gonna call
her right back."
And then she called, again.
Before I could even
listen to the voicemail,
she was callin' a third time,
and I thought,
"Let me just answer
this phone."
"Hello."
And it was a sound that just...
goes straight through you.
She told me that Jessica
had been set on fire.
I thought she burnt her arm.
What do you mean
she's been set on fire?
She told me Jessica was
being flown to the hospital.
That's when I knew it was
more than just her arm.
I just-- I fell...
I fell to my knees...
and I remember just silence.
She'd finally choked up
enough to say,
"They don't think
she'll make it."
♪♪♪
- Hundreds of friends
and family showed up
for the visitation
for Jessica Chambers.
- There's really no words to
describe how I feel right now
for somebody that you never
woulda thought would be gone.
- Following
Jessica Chambers' funeral,
a candlelight vigil
as people signed banners
and released balloons
in her memory.
♪ how sweet the sound ♪
- East Coast to West Coast,
people I've never even
heard or dreamed called me,
you know, and light
a candle for my daughter.
♪♪♪
[whistle blowing]
- Never in a million years
would I have ever thought
that I couldn't come out
of my door and see Jessica
walking down the street
to my house.
- I could see her smile,
right now.
- Yeah.
- We were best friends.
We'd go to the movies together.
We'd drink together.
- When Jessica died,
I felt like there was
a huge hole inside of me.
I was heartbroken.
- They just kept sayin'
a boyfriend did it, at first.
- Yeah.
Whether it's Quinton Tellis
or not, we want that person,
whoever did it, or people,
to be caught and
get what they deserve.
♪♪♪
- What got me was the
Jessica Chambers Mystery page.
Everybody was tryin'
to be little detectives.
She had a boyfriend
that was in a gang.
She had another boyfriend
that was in a gang.
Jessica was what you call
a wild child.
She had her little rebel streak,
but she had gotten out of that.
She had gotten a job.
Talked about college.
She was done with the gangs.
♪♪♪
- I'm Jimmy Anthony.
Here at Panola County,
I document gang intelligence,
who the gang members are,
which organizations.
First time I heard of
Quinton Tellis,
he was in A gang called
Gangster Disciples.
He got caught
breaking into things.
Gangs organize burglaries.
All of 'em dabble in narcotics,
and when you've got drugs,
you're gonna have violence.
You got a Gangster Disciples
symbol down there.
You got your six-point star
over here, here, here.
Each point represents
a meaning to them.
This is somethin'
about strike again.
Vice Lords strike again.
The gang culture
is nothing but violent.
These kids is throwin'
their life away doin' this.
- Unfortunately, we have
violent crime everywhere,
but the nature of how
Jessica died was very brutal.
It just kinda grabbed me
on the inside.
- As an attorney
and a former prosecutor,
I was drawn to the case
not just because of the
horrific nature of the crime.
It's a murder mystery
in a small town.
There are all these
racial overtones,
a social media explosion,
and they couldn't find a suspect
for more than a year.
I also wondered if
they had the right guy.
- I was very surprised when
they said Quinton was the one
who did this to Jessica.
I mean, I never got any
weird vibes from him.
- Knowing Quinton's family,
I wouldn't think
that he would be capable
of murder.
He was just another little boy
runnin' around there playin'.
- This is a family picture.
This is me.
This is my sister,
Shaneeka, right here,
and this is Quint.
I think he's about eight.
As you see, he's just smilin'.
[laughing]
This is me and him at church.
This is me, and this is him.
We were always together.
He was protector of me.
I'm older than him,
but he always acted like
he was the oldest.
He was like a daddy to me.
We would always go to
the park and to the beach,
and play foosball, and wrestle.
We were always close, always.
♪♪♪
- Hello.
All right.
How you doin'?
Oh.
- Quint.
My brother, he's more
than a brother to me.
he's my best friend.
He's that shoulder to lean on.
All right, love you.
- Love you, too.
- But when he gets mad,
he can be a bulldog.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Quinton Tellis spent most of
his life from that point on
in and out of prison.
♪♪♪
- He also wasn't a model inmate.
He had lots of infractions--
contraband and not
obeying the rules.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Jessica were cool.
She had a problem
with her family,
she'd talk to my brother.
So, why would he wanna hurt her?
- Plenty of nights she'd
come over here cryin',
and he was that shoulder
to lean on.
- Quinton.
- Hey.
- Hey, my name is Beth Karas.
What was your relationship
with Jessica like?
Did you like her more
than-- romantically,
or did she like
you romantically,
but you weren't both
on the same page?
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
NO.
- His name is Quinton Tellis,
and investigators think
he's tied to another murder
right here in
Northeast Louisiana.
- The tragic death
of Meing-Chen Hsiao.
Her friends knew her as Mandy.
- All rise.
- Who killed Jessica Chambers?
It's the answer we've
all been waiting to hear.
- If you want
justice for Jessica,
first you gotta do
justice for Quinton.
- Very nervous about testifying.
I actually hope
just to make it through it.
♪
- Jessica was last seen
at the end of this road.
I used to come here a lot.
It just felt like
you could feel her here.
I know that sounds crazy.
Okay.
[sighs]
[door ajar dinging]
All this was burnt.
I don't even know how
the car was parked in here.
I've heard so many
different stories,
that gas was put on top of
the car and all over her,
and I've heard that gas was
poured all over the car
and not her.
What actually happened,
I have no clue.
This would have to
be done by a heartless,
soulless person.
Demonic in my opinion.
♪♪♪
I hope, in the trial,
that they can shed some light
as to what actually
took place here
because, right now,
my heart hurts.
It's just a sick feelin'.
I need to know.
I need to know what was done.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- The praise and the
satisfaction we get
is when we hear
a jury say, "Guilty,"
knowing that the family
sitting there behind us
is getting justice
for their loved one.
I'm John Champion.
I've been the D.A. since
I was appointed in 2001.
I've been preparing
for this case
since the day Jessica died,
so I'm ready to go forward
on it, and so is Jay.
- We have been workin'
on this for three years.
I'm talkin' about
every day, all day,
just on this one case,
uh, which is-is unusual.
This has probably
been the most trying,
most difficult case
we've ever had to work with.
Just the process involved
given all the data we have,
the cell phone records.
- Our break in the case
came when we began looking
at Jessica's cell phone data
and realized that
Jessica and Quinton,
the two of them, were
right on top of each other.
Once we had this cell phone data
confirming Quinton
was with Jessica
on the day that
she was murdered,
we went to look for Quinton,
and we didn't know where he was.
We learned that Quinton
was in jail in Louisiana.
- His name is Quinton Tellis,
and investigators think
he's tied to a murder
right here
in Northeast Louisiana.
- The death is currently being
investigated as a homicide.
- Her name is Meing-Chen Hsiao,
but her friends
knew her as Mandy.
♪♪♪
- Her body was discovered
after neighbors called
the landlord for this complex
and reported that they
were smelling a foul odor.
- There were superficial
puncture wounds, uh,
about her neck
and-and chest area,
which seemed to suggest
that she was being tortured.
- This was the street Mandy
would ride her bike down.
This is also where she
would meet Quinton Tellis.
♪♪♪
- Police said that the neighbor
was coming downstairs one day
and met Quinton Tellis
at the bottom of the stairs.
He asked several questions
about Mandy, where she was at,
when the woman had saw her
last, and the questions
kind of creeped the woman out
and raised her-her attention.
♪♪♪
- He was quick to
come up with alibis,
and it never panned out.
After her death,
Mr. Tellis was
seen on a ATM camera
using her card to make
a withdrawal from an ATM.
- They arrested
Quinton Tellis...
...and he was booked
on the unauthorized use
of a debit card.
♪♪♪
- There was no DNA
or physical evidence
anywhere in that apartment
linking Quinton Tellis
to this homicide.
Soon as he was arrested,
that's when Panola County
got in touch with us
and let us know
that he was a suspect
in that case, also.
- It really piqued our interest.
We felt like we needed
to get on down there
as quick as we could
to talk to Quinton.
♪♪♪
- Quinton, did you
kill Jessica Chambers?
And what about the
woman in Louisiana?
Did you kill Mandy?
- The D.A. eventually takes the
death penalty off the table,
but all that Quinton knew during
the interrogation that day
was that he was in
big trouble for a murder
he insisted he did not commit.
♪♪♪
- This is my wedding day.
Jessica was my maid of honor.
We were really close.
She was always who I talked
to about my boy problems.
[chuckles]
Even though there was
six years difference,
I still told her
so-and-so broke my heart,
and we would always go eat
a big tub of frosting.
That was our thing.
Now, I live about
1,000 miles from home.
With the trial right
around the corner,
I don't wanna not be there,
so I came up with a way
to earn money to get home.
When everything first happened,
there was a lot of people
that wanted to show support
by wearing T-shirts
or car decals.
So, I started my own business.
These are some of
the things I've made.
This one was a car decal.
Pink is Jessica's
favorite color.
The keychains, they say
justice for Jessica.
And this is Jessica's actual
handwriting from a letter
that she had written me,
so it's almost like
I'm actually touching
what she wrote.
It's about as close
as I can get.
This is just a "for me" piece.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- What we need to do,
is get all of our
lay witnesses together.
- All the subpoenas
were issued yesterday.
- So, we're gonna
serve 'em individually.
- We're gonna serve
'em individually,
but this-this letter
is actually going out
with each individual subpoena.
- All right.
Two weeks from Monday,
we go to trial,
and I think we've got a really
good game plan in place.
♪♪♪
When we do the field trip,
they're gonna be able
to see Quinton's residence,
and then we come on down
on Main Street,
and we show 'em
where the keys were found.
We found a set of keys
that belonged to Jessica
that were down the road
from where the car was found.
- It's two-tenths of a mile
from where they found her keys
on the side of the road
to the crime scene.
- The keys came back with
a-a mixture, uh, of DNA,
but it had our suspect,
Quinton Tellis',
DNA in the keys.
What I suspect happened,
is somethin' occurred
at Quinton's house when they
were in the car together
that he felt like
he probably had killed her
and had to get her away
from his house.
He drives the car down the road.
He takes the keys
and throws the keys down
along the way back to his house.
I believe that's Quinton
getting the gasoline.
He drives back to the scene,
douses the car
and Jessica with gas,
sets it on fire.
- I like this.
It all makes sense.
- Mm-hmm.
- Well, we've got all
the prep work done.
- We just need to
finalize our game plan.
- We got our weeks
cut out for us.
- We ain't done this
much work in years.
♪♪♪
- It's gonna be complicated,
but I think the trial
is gonna flow very well.
The only problems
that I foresee there could be
would be between
the victim's family
and the suspect's family,
and I'm gonna request that
they sit on opposite sides
of the courtroom.
I will have a
plain clothes officer
within six or eight feet
of both of 'em.
If somethin' was to break out,
at least two people stay with
Quinton Tellis all the time.
- If you have to eject
somebody from the courtroom,
don't hesitate to get them out.
- No.
- Well, you know, we're gonna
prepare for the worst-case scenario
not only in the courtroom
but outside the premise
of the courthouse.
- If you see somebody gangin'
up, they need to move on.
- Move 'em.
- That's right.
- If you come in here and
start causin' problems,
we're not gonna tolerate it.
We're zero tolerant
for any nonsense.
It's gonna be a really,
really strong case.
We know it's him.
I think the evidence
will prove that.
- I don't believe John Champion
would prosecute it
if he didn't know 100%
that he could get
a conviction on it.
- Sure, but it takes
one juror to hang it up,
one person, and people do it
for various reasons.
They'll say, "Well, I think
that, yeah, he's guilty,
"but I just think the
penalty is too strong,
"so I find him
not guilty."
A jury will always be a concern.
You know, different people
perceive information differently,
and you don't have to give
a reason for votin' not guilty.
- But, now if you
sit on that jury,
and you follow the evidence--
- Yeah, we're not gonna
have any problems, zero.
- No problem.
- It's a wrapped up case.
- That's right.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Darla Palmer
is the lead attorney.
She's not court appointed.
Some of her work
is public defender work,
but not in this case.
My understanding is, she was
retained by the Tellis family
for Quinton's defense.
- In talking to
Quinton, you know,
when we started the case out,
he told us,
"Well, I took a polygraph,
"and the guy told me
that I passed."
And so, I thought, okay,
here we have a person
who's passed a polygraph.
From day one, he has
proclaimed his innocence.
- Even though this case
is not a case
where he is looking
at the death penalty,
he's looking at
a life without parole,
and this young man
is 29 years old.
Their case against Quinton was
flawed from the very beginning,
and I don't believe
he killed Jessica Chambers.
- I think he shoulda
still been in jail,
then he wouldn't have been
able to kill my daughter.
I will never forgive him.
I mean, I-I will never.
- He don't know how bad that--
that I wanna take his life.
All I wanna do, is hurt him.
I want him to feel
the pain I feel,
and I don't want
somebody else to do it.
I wanna do it.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
[dog barking]
♪♪♪
- The sheriff knows
where I lived?
♪♪♪
I have never had the
sheriff's department
at my house.
How are you?
Pretty good.
I sure will.
- I appreciate it.
- Thank you.
- Okay.
- "State of Mississippi
versus Quinton Tellis.
"You are hereby commanded
to summon Lisa Chambers
"on the 10th day of October 2017
at 8:00 a.m."
[sighs]
My heart is beatin' so fast.
It's doin' its own
stress test, right now.
I'm passin', so far.
It's not really a surprise
to get the subpoena,
but it's still crazy because...
[sighs]
it's my daughter.
It makes it real...
and I don't know
if I can handle that.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- This is the longest
investigation
I've ever been involved with.
- Well, you better enjoy today
'cause it's gonna be a while
before you can come back down
here because of the trial.
- A lot of people don't
understand the magnitude
of a case like this.
♪♪♪
The evidence in
the vehicle was burnt,
so we had to have
some other lead.
- We found the keys on
the side of the road.
- But you can't walk in there
and say, "You did it."
You've got to have the evidence.
Yeah, you know, it's kinda like
organizing a football game.
You know, you have to coach.
- Mm-hmm.
- And make sure all the
witnesses are prepared
for a conviction on a person
who did such a heinous crime.
We worked 24-7 to get
this thing solved,
and it finally come together.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
[siren wailing]
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- It's 8:45
on Monday mornin'.
We're beginning jury selection.
Tellis has been transported
to the courthouse here
at Pike County.
♪♪♪
- They wanted to get away
from Panola County,
as far as they could,
to make it more fair,
as fair as possible.
- We're going to have to bring
some folks about four hours
away from their homes
for up to two weeks
and house them, you know,
in a hotel with people
they probably don't know.
I mean, that's always
a challenge when we do that.
- In the local paper, they had
advertised that the jury
was being selected from
Pike County on Monday,
and I had received
a juror summons.
I did not know
very much about it.
The only thing that I had seen
was on the local news
and just thought,
oh, wow, how horrific,
but that's about it.
- Myself and Investigator Mills
are headed back to Panola County
to get our courthouse set up.
Everything here
is going as planned.
Hopefully, we'll have
a jury shortly after lunch.
♪♪♪
- The prosecuting attorney,
as well as
the defense attorneys,
asked several questions
about your background.
Did you think you could be fair?
Of course, I did think
that I could be fair.
I just didn't expect 'em
to choose me
because my husband works for
the local police department now.
Even went back to the office
and told the ladies
at the office,
I said, "Oh, no,
I'll be back after a while.
"They're not
gonna choose me."
But, oh, well, I was chosen.
[chuckles]
♪♪♪
- At around 3:30,
the jury was selected.
Of the 12, 7 are men,
5 women, 6 black, and 6 white.
Some jurors said they could
not pass judgment on Tellis.
Others said they had
followed the case closely.
Only one person said
they had any connection
to Jessica's family,
and no one knew Tellis.
- Once they'd chosen us
and told us that they were
gonna give us an hour,
we were to go home,
pack your clothes for
at least seven to ten days.
That was a little bit scary.
- Step one is done.
Everything we prepared
for, for three years,
is ready to go, now.
So, we'll start showin'
everything we got tomorrow.
♪♪♪
- It's goin' to be very
hard to sit in trial
with Quinton Tellis.
I'm pretty sure I'll have
to prepare myself for that.
For the jury to find him guilty,
that would be great.
Do I think he's responsible,
with what I know?
Yes.
♪♪♪
- I'm here to support my mom
'cause I know she needs it,
and I need it.
So...
- These have to
go on my car tomorrow.
- Then I made this one,
and I actually made one,
her signature.
Then...
- This is not an experience that
anybody wants to go through,
but since I have
to go through it,
I need her here by me.
I don't think I could
do it without her.
- That's the one I did
last night at, like,
3 o'clock in the mornin'
'cause I couldn't go to sleep.
[sighs]
- Yeah, I can imagine.
- I need to be here for my mom.
I need to be here for me.
And I need to be here
for Jessica.
It's important that I see
justice for my sister.
♪♪♪
- There's no way they can
vote him not guilty.
♪♪♪
I couldn't even sleep
a wink night before last
and last night, either.
- I was up, I think, every hour.
- Took me a while to go to
sleep, and once I did woke,
I couldn't go back to sleep.
- Said a prayer.
We all got together and prayed.
- I can't breathe.
- Anxiety-- there's not
been no closure yet, Ben,
not until after the trial.
- But we can't just sit around
and be sick over all this stuff.
We got little Annabelle,
and we got all these
grandchildren.
If justice is served,
we all got to look forward.
- No, justice won't never be
served for what he done to me.
And I pray, you know,
God give me strength.
- I feel like God's
got it in his hand.
He, you know, and
He's got our backs.
We got to be strong.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Three, two-- the answer
we've all been waiting to hear
for the last three years--
the explosive allegations
from the state
on what happened to
19-year-old Jessica Chambers
the night she was burned alive.
- Expected to take the
stand, Lisa Chambers.
Every time that
I've talked to her,
extremely emotional about
the death of her daughter.
- Jessica's family is finally
seeing justice for Jessica
play out.
I hope that they are starting
to feel some sense of closure.
I hope it's cathartic for them.
- We don't really know what
happened before Jessica Chambers
was found burning
on that rural road.
So, this trial will
reveal a lot of things.
- Our coverage will
have to be played by ear
as each day unfolds.
We'll try to look for
what are people asking about
that hasn't been answered.
- I'm a nervous wreck.
I don't even wanna
go to the trial.
My God, I don't even wanna go.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- The state is expected to
call at least 35 witnesses
to testify.
- Apparently, Quinton Tellis
said that he was with her,
but he said he
didn't murder her.
So, there's a lot that
needs to be put together.
It's an incredibly unusual
case and a horrible death.
Everyone is interested in this.
- We prayed.
You know, we know he innocent.
You know, I try not to worry
'cause I know the truth.
- If you want justice
for Jessica,
first, you gotta do
justice for Quinton
because you cannot
find the guilty person
by convictin' a innocent one.
- Stay seated.
The courtroom
will come to order.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
All rise.
The courtroom
will come to order.
Please be seated.
- The court will recognize
the State of Mississippi
for opening statement.
Mr. Champion.
- Thank you, Your Honor.
Good afternoon.
On December the 6th of 2014,
Jessica Chambers was a beautiful
blonde-haired 19-year-old.
About two weeks prior,
Jessica met a man that would
eventually end her life,
and that man is Quinton Tellis.
I'll tell you what
I think happened.
I think he suffocated her
and thought he had killed her
and that he had to get her
away from his house.
He wanted sex.
You'll see the text messages
where he wanted her.
Jessica was burned
over 93% of her body.
I would guess that if
all of us sitting here
were to know we're gonna die,
that the very last way we would
wanna die would be by fire,
but Jessica was set on fire.
And the first responders
begin asking her,
"Who did this to you?"
And it sounded like she said,
"Eric," or, "Derrick,"
okay?
That's not his name.
His name is Quinton.
The great weakness about
this case is what she said
on the scene as far as
the name Eric or Derrick,
but I think
we can overcome that.
Please do not make
a judgment at this point
until you've heard
every bit of this evidence
because it will
change your mind.
I can promise you that.
If you've got a problem,
face it head on.
Don't let a defense lawyer
bring it out
'cause it makes it look like
you're hiding something.
- Ms. Palmer for opening
statement by the defense.
- But I think that it's
certainly something
that a skilled attorney
will use to their advantage.
- This indeed was
a horrible crime,
a terrible thing that happened
to Jessica Chambers that day.
And what happened was,
Miss Chambers
came walking down Heron Road.
She was alert.
She was able to speak,
and many of the first
responders completed reports
where she said,
"Eric set me on fire."
A multiple amount
of individuals sayin'
this is what she said.
You have recorded information,
at least eight people
who personally heard
her say, "Eric."
- Their statements were clear,
and a lot of times
they were in quotes.
"Eric set me on fire."
End quotes.
"Eric did this to me."
Eric is not on trial here today.
He should be.
And for this reason,
we will ask that you find
Quinton Tellis not guilty
as a result.
- Mr. Champion, you may now
call your first witness.
- Raise your right hand.
Please solemnly swear
or affirm that the testimony
you're about to give
on this case
is the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth,
so help you God.
- I do.
I'm very nervous
about testifying.
I'm not a public speaker.
I actually hope just
to make it through it.
- Would you state
your name for me, please?
- Lisa Chambers.
- And, Miss Chambers,
I'm gonna ask you to speak up.
Speak into the microphone, okay?
- Okay.
- How are you related to
Jessica Lane Chambers?
- That's my baby girl.
- And how old was Jessica
at the time of her death?
- Nineteen.
- Can you describe the person
pictured in this photograph?
- That's my baby,
Jessica Chambers.
- This is Jessica Lane Chambers?
- Yes, it is.
- Growing up, did Jessica
always live around Courtland?
- Always.
- And did she play some sports
when she was growing up?
- She played softball a lot,
and she was a cheerleader.
- Ms. Chambers, I'm gonna take
you back to December the 6th
of 2014.
That is a day you'll
always remember.
Is that correct?
- That's correct.
- Who did Jessica live
with at that time?
- She lived with me.
- What did she do when she
returned home that day?
- She either received
a phone call or a text.
- Did you know
who she was talkin' to?
- I had no idea.
- After she got off the
phone, what did she do?
- She said she was fixing to go
get her somethin' to eat
and clean out her car,
and she'd be back
in a little bit.
- Is that the last time
you saw your daughter?
- Yes, it was.
Did I think that
would be the last time
that I talked to Jessica?
No.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Her hair was fried out
like she had stuck it
in a light socket.
- I said, "Honey,
who did this to you?"
And all I heard was, "Eric."
- Wasn't there a strange
man on the scene?
I would venture to say
that that's probably Eric.
- The police, they knew that
Jessica dealt with drugs.
- Jessica was threatened.
Her words were, "Mama,
these bitches think I'm snitchin'."
- We have been gettin'
threats, phone calls
and through Facebook.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
- Their case against
Quentin was flawed
from the very beginning.
- Who's gonna stand
up for Quinton?
They wanna pin it
to this young man.
- He said, "I've got a
five-gallon jug of gasoline
"back in the back
of the shed."
- Jury has reached a verdict.
- Give us strength, dear God.
- Amen.
- all: Amen.
- That's when the chaos started.
- My heart stopped.
What is happening?
- The 120 somethin' years
of law experience
had never in their life
seen anything like that.