Jessica Chambers

On the evening of December 6, 2014, 19-year-old Jessica Chambers was found badly burned on a rural road near Courtland, in Panola County, Mississippi, roughly 70 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. Her car had been set on fire nearby. According to reporting by CBS News and Oxygen, first responders described catastrophic burns covering the great majority of her body. Chambers was airlifted to a hospital in the Memphis area, where she died early the next morning, December 7, 2014, from her injuries.

The case drew national attention, in part because of the brutality of the crime and because of accounts, later disputed in court, of what Chambers may have said to firefighters at the scene. Investigators from local, state, and federal agencies conducted a lengthy inquiry. In February 2016, more than a year after her death, a Panola County grand jury indicted Quinton Tellis, a Courtland-area man, on a charge of capital murder in connection with Chambers's death, according to CBS News and other outlets. Tellis pleaded not guilty. It is important to note that Tellis was accused, not convicted; the allegations against him were never proven in court.

The first trial took place in Panola County in October 2017. Prosecutors argued that Tellis had a connection to Chambers and pointed to circumstantial and forensic evidence. The defense contended the wrong man had been charged, emphasizing testimony from several first responders who said they heard the dying Chambers name someone who sounded like 'Eric' or 'Derek' as the person who set her on fire. Prosecutors countered with expert testimony that Chambers's severe burns would have made clear speech difficult. On October 16, 2017, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict and the judge declared a mistrial, as reported by CNN and CBS News.

Prosecutors elected to try Tellis a second time. That retrial began September 24, 2018, and was heard by a jury before Panola County Circuit Judge Gerald Chatham. After roughly two days of deliberation, the second jury also deadlocked. On October 1, 2018, Judge Chatham declared a second mistrial. Defense attorney Darla Palmer told reporters the jurors were split 6-6, according to CBS News and Oxygen. In both trials, Tellis was never found guilty; each ended in a hung jury.

Following the second mistrial, District Attorney John Champion indicated prosecutors had not decided whether to bring the case a third time. As of reporting through 2021 and later, no third trial had been scheduled and the murder charge against Tellis in Chambers's death was not pursued further; some coverage described the case as effectively unresolved, or, in the words of one Mississippi outlet, 'possibly solved, possibly not' but 'definitely unfinished.' No one has been convicted in Jessica Chambers's death, and the case remains without a legal resolution.

Separately, Tellis has faced a murder charge in Louisiana in the 2015 stabbing death of Meing-Chen (Mandy) Hsiao, a former graduate student in Monroe; that case has its own protracted history and is unrelated to any finding of guilt in the Chambers matter. Any reference to the Louisiana case should not be read as evidence in the Chambers case. In sum, while Quinton Tellis was twice tried for Jessica Chambers's death, both trials ended in mistrials, he was never convicted, and the case is effectively unsolved.