MURDERED: Jessica Chambers

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Six years ago, when we did our very first Crime Junkie tour, we told a story about a young girl who was murdered. Well, within that story, the killer had Googled Dana Ireland autopsy photos.
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I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt.
And the story I have for you today is of a young woman whose life was not only taken too soon, but in a way that can only be described as cruel and truly downright evil. In a small town in Mississippi

where everyone knows each other, it is a mystery how no one knows a thing about this girl's murder.

Or maybe the real mystery is why no one is coming forward with what they know.

This is the story of Jessica Chambers. At 8 p.m.
in December, Heron Road in Cortland, Mississippi, is dark and desolate. There aren't any other cars coming or going.
So when two guys in the lone car on that stretch of road drive up to the scene of a fire on the side of the road, they know it's up to them to tell someone. And this isn't just like a little thing.
They could see flames from far off. And when they get closer, they understand why.
There is an entire car just straight up engulfed in flames. Now, luckily for them, this story takes place in 2014, so they can just call 911 on their cell phones.
And a few minutes later, the Cortland Volunteer Fire Department arrives on the scene. Now, they get to work putting out the fire, trying to get it out quickly so it doesn't spread to the nearby woods.
The car is kind of up this like small embankment and it is, like I said, blazing. But that is not what the craziest part is.
All of a sudden, a woman comes walking out of the woods on fire. Or at least that's what some of the reporting claimed.
I mean, some later suggest that she's just badly burned. And when I say badly burned, I mean like fully charred.
But either way, she is in a bad state. She looks like she's naked except for a pair of underwear.
Her hair is singed and she is like walking towards first responders with her arms stretched out front. But they can tell every move is a struggle for her as she calls out what sounds like, help me, help me.
I mean, it is an awful sight. And something that's going to haunt them forever, I'm sure.
A hundred percent. But what's even more shocking is that some of these first responders know who this girl is.
I mean, they don't recognize her, obviously. I mean, truly, she is so bad that they wouldn't have known if they were related to this victim.
But once they get to her and they ask her her name, she says what sounds like Jessica Tambers. And immediately, first responders know that they're talking to 19-year-old Jessica Chambers.
How, though? Cortland, Mississippi is like, when I say small, 500 people small. Plus, she'd recently graduated from high school and she was known as a former popular cheerleader.
So reporting by Therese Abel, who extensively covered Jessica's case, says that they are like, they're with her. They know who she is now.
They're trying to keep her awake. They're like rubbing her sternum.
They're trying to keep her talking, even though it's hard to hear what she's saying, not only from her extensive burns. I mean, like literally flesh has been burnt away, But also because of the noises that are being made trying to put out the car fire around them.
I mean, there's equipment, there's hoses. Right.
But the one thing they ask her is probably the most important question, like, who did this to you? And she is able to give a single first name, Eric. Or maybe it was Derek.
But many of the first responders who were around her are so convinced that what they heard her say was the name Eric. Again, it's hard to hear.
So they go get her a pen and a paper. They're like, hey, can you write this down so we can be sure? Only she can't write.
Her skin is so badly burned, she can't even move it. I mean, forget holding a pencil.
She can't move her hands or arms at all. At this point Jessica is losing consciousness and they can only press so much.
Their main focus has to be like keeping her alive until this helicopter gets there to airlift her to a hospital that has a burn unit. And it is then in the middle of this chaotic scene that a man walks up.
Aren't they in like the middle the middle of nowhere? Yeah, this is a very rural road, so I can't imagine first responders are, like, expecting foot traffic. Now, apparently, this guy that walks up doesn't say a word.
He's just, like, staring in the direction of Jessica's car and the woods. And first responders ask this guy to leave because they're obviously, like, this is an active crime scene.
Like, please get the heck out of here. And he can even see Jessica nearby, like on the ground.
And so then the man just kind of like walks off. Did they bother to ask him if his name rhymed with Eric before they sent him off? No.
And this is just like a blip in the reporting, but people bring it up. And I thought that crime junkies would want to know about it because to me, it's just so weird that he walked up on this road.
but you know the the fire the scene around it's causing a scene maybe that's why but they send him off things are moving so fast that first responders don't really have the time to worry about this guy much less his name like they're probably just thinking like he's some nosy passerby trying to get a better look at the scene and to your point about asking him his name i don't know like who heard her say the name versus who sent this guy packing. Right.
There's a bunch of people on the scene. Right.
I mean, in fact, source material doesn't even say if he walks down the dark road. I don't know if he gets in a car.
Like they don't make mention of a car, which is why I'm saying he walked up. But it doesn't matter.
Everyone's preoccupied. I think the only thing first responders can focus on is Jessica herself in that moment.
Now, she holds on long enough to be flown to the hospital and for her family to come see her.

But early the next day, which would have been Sunday, December 7th, 2014, Jessica passes away.

Now, in the fresh throes of grief, Jessica's mom, Lisa, still has to go talk to police as a witness

to help them try and piece together Jessica's whereabouts the day before. And what she ends up telling detectives is that yesterday, this would have been Saturday, Jessica got a call or a text sometime between like 5 or 5 30.
She got up and told her mom that she was going to go grab some food, clean out her car, and she left. And when she wasn't back after a little while, Lisa texted her asking her, you know, where did you go? Like, where did you go wash your car? Because, like, it was taking longer than she expected.
But she doesn't get a response. So Lisa calls her.
And then Jessica doesn't pick up. But a little before 7, Lisa finally does get a call back from Jessica.
And it's kind of strange. Like, Jessica says she'll be home soon.
And she's like, I promise I'm going to clean my room, which is something she said she was going to do for a while. But Lisa couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, like something was off about the call.
It had been super, almost eerily quiet when she was on the phone. Like there's no road noise.
There's no one in the background, no music, nothing, which was very out of the ordinary for Jessica. She always had something going on in the background.
But this call she has, it lasts a little over a minute. And by 8.07, that's when detectives know 911 got the call about the car fire.
Could they tell when the car had been set on fire? Like, was it right before the 911 call or? I mean, at this point, they're not sure. It's looking like it was pretty close to when the call was made.
So obviously there is this gap. There's more to fill in.
Like, well, first of all, who texted her? Like, who did she encounter? Where did she go? Right. And because evidence was probably contaminated or even fully destroyed in the fire, local police know that they're going to need all the help they can get.
So while they start pulling records, they're sending off what little evidence they can pull from her car. They decide to also call in the big guns.
By Monday, a full task force is set up to investigate Jessica's murder. The FBI is there, ATF, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, along with the U.S.
Attorney's Office. They're all helping Panola County Sheriff's Office.
And on the same day, there is a new discovery in the case. Jessica's

car keys have been found on the side of the road. Now, they're found in a yard a little ways down

the road from Jessica's car, which is great news because it means that they aren't totally burnt

to a crisp. And if someone touched those keys, they might be able to get DNA off of them.

So they send those off to be analyzed with the rest of the stuff.

What is the rest of the stuff?

What all did they initially find, send off?

Not much, no.

So they had Jessica's phone in like pieces near her car.

I think they're hoping to get like some data, maybe a better read on her exact movements from nearby cell towers.

I think they had some charred clothing that they sent off for analysis. Maybe like a piece of a bra, but they can't even say for certain.
Like, again, they're just like collecting maybe things and sending them off. Right.
Anyways, this DNA stuff is going to take a minute. So in the meantime, detectives go look through surveillance footage from the gas station that Jessica's mom said she went to after leaving her house.
And she did go there, just like she said she was going to. I have seen the footage online.
And this seems like a small little setup. We're talking like just a couple of little pumps.
I'm actually going to send you the video so you can see what I'm talking about as I kind of walk you through it. I've got mine too.
So if you see, she like pulls up and she starts walking towards the door to go inside of the store. But then before she even gets to the door, all of a sudden she turns to the side like something or someone caught her attention.
Like, I don't know if you can see it's a little fuzzy, but it looks like maybe she like waves. She puts her arm up.
I don't know if she's waving. Yeah.
I don't know if I'm like actually seeing this or if my mind just kind of like putting it there, but it almost looks like she smiles too. I know it's hard to tell and there's no sound on these.
So we're missing that piece. But right after she, you know, puts her hand up, waves, maybe smiles, whatever, she walks out of frame in the direction of the person or whatever caught her attention.
She's off camera for a few minutes before she comes back in from the same way. And then she goes inside to the store to pay for gas.
And luckily there's a camera in there too. And there are a couple of guys that we see inside, but they don't really even interact with her, like much less even like talk to her.
They don't seem to even be looking in her direction. She pays, no biggie.
Then she goes back to her car alone and then drives off. And I assume we have no other cameras that pick up that area that had the person she was waving to.
No, of course not. I mean, there are actually other cameras.
There's another one outside and another one inside from what I gather, but we don't have the actual area that she walked to. So lucky or intentional? That's the right question.
And they won't know until they find the person that she talked to that night, which should be easy, right? In a town of 500 people, it wouldn't be hard to get word out. Like, hey, were you the one she chatted with? Come forward.
Help us fill in the gaps. So what detectives do next is they literally start tracking down every Eric and or Derek in Panola County.
Oh, yeah. And they even the surrounding counties, they're trying to build a database of people who have those names.
And they do find two Erics that are directly connected to Jessica through her Facebook page. But just as quickly as they find them, they say neither guy is the one that they're looking for.
Like one they rule out, but don't specify how. The other they rule out by looking at, I guess, his cell phone records.
I don't know what exactly they're looking at. I'm hoping it's location data.
Stuff like that saying like, you know, all it says is using cell data. They can't connect him to Jessica on the night of the murder.
I'm hoping they're not like, he just didn't call her. But, you know, whatever.
Right. But either way, ruling these two out doesn't deter detectives.
Because shortly after, a Derek pops up on their radar. And he has an interesting connection to Jessica.
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As these drops keep coming in, they tell her to kill her date or her son dies. From the producers of Megan and producers of A Quiet Place, audiences will be on the edge of their seats.
Don't miss Drop hitting theaters on April 11th. Derek Holmes is a 22-year-old man from Cortland who was first brought to their attention by one of the initial people they interviewed.
Now, this person says that Derek was acting strange with Jessica, always trying to contact her, almost like saying they were harassing her and just overall doesn't seem like a good dude. And when detectives look him up, they see he's been to prison for exploitation of a minor and is a registered sex offender in Cortland.
So this guy's checking all the boxes. So-hmm.
So they bring Derek in for an interview. And when they ask him where he was and what he was doing Saturday night, December 6th, he tells them he was at home rubbing his mom's feet.
Yeah, like we all do on Saturday night, Ashley. Yeah.
And listen, he says his mom has a diabetic condition that requires him to rub her feet every night. He's actually maybe being a good son.
And when detectives go talk to his family, they vouch for him. Of course.
And there were apparently some other people around the house that day to confirm that he never left the house. Okay, cool.
So show me the cell data. Right.
So they go, they do. They pull his cell phone data from that night.
And he might be telling the truth because there is nothing that can connect Jessica and Derek to the same place and the same time of her murder. So while a promising lead at first, for the time being, Derek is off their potential suspects list.
And if they're doing all this comparison, they have her records back by now, right? Yeah, it's fuzzy. I don't know exactly when the cell phone records come back, but at this point, detectives have interviewed a ton of people

and gotten reports.

And so here's what

they're piecing together.

So it turns out that Jessica

had spent some of the morning

with her friend Keisha

and a guy named Quentin.

And they just kind of like

rode around together

doing I don't know what

until about noon

when the two girls

dropped Quentin off at his house.

At some point,

they split up.

Jessica goes back home

where she spends the afternoon

napping, hanging out until she gets that call. Remember her mom said between 5 and 530? Yeah.
Well, it's actually at 520 from Quentin. Now, she doesn't answer, but she calls him back, which is when she leaves for the gas station.
She apparently tried calling and texting Keisha, presumably to meet Becca, but Keisha's phone had run out of minutes, so she couldn't get a hold of her. Ah, the good old days.
I know. So at 5.24, investigators say Jessica shows up on the surveillance footage at the gas station where I already kind of walked through.
She walks off screen, she buys her gas. And just like a quick aside, I kind of caught this when I was looking at it.
If you actually watch the surveillance footage, you can see the timestamp of 6.24. So like I got like deep in the weeds questioning the entire timeline.
But the more I actually looked into it, the more I think it could have just been a daylight savings thing because everyone was supposed to set their clocks back an hour, just the month before. And maybe this one just hadn't happened.
And everything I've seen in the court records, everyone says that happened at 524. So I have to think that that's what's up.
And I know that they observed daylight savings there. So anyways, we see her pump her gas and by 5.29 p.m., she's leaving the gas station and calling Quentin again, which I don't think he answers because then he calls her back at 5.34.
Now, her phone pings near a home in Cortland right before 6 p.m. Whose house? It's more of like an approximate area.
I don't know that they can pinpoint it to a specific house. Okay.
And they're still working on narrowing it down. But after that, she goes to Batesville, which is like five miles north of Cortland.
And she was only at that place for about 10 to 15 minutes. Now, detectives know this is more of a business area that she's at, but they don't go into detail about where she might have gone, nor do they share if she was with anyone during this time.
And in an article for the Clarion Ledger, detectives somehow get access to a, quote, privately owned video source. So like a ring camera type thing? Maybe.
But wherever this is or whatever this video is and wherever it's from, it shows Jessica in her car driving back to Cortland shortly before 6.30. Now, this is when we're getting closer to like her calling her mom.
So her phone records show that she's still trying to get a hold of Keisha during this time. Obviously, it's not working.
Shortly after 6.30, her phone pings back in the area close to the gas station that she was at before. And it seems to just be like sitting in this spot.
She tries one more time to get a hold of Keisha. And when she couldn't, that's when she calls her mom, Lisa.
That's exactly at 6.48 p.m. And that is the last call or text that went through on her phone.
Because a little after 7.30, her phone pings from the location that she was found at by first responders on Heron Road. And her phone officially turned off when investigators believe it got too hot from the fire.
And that would have been at 804. And I'm assuming detectives have already talked to and cleared Keisha and Quinton.
Essentially. So according to ID's murder mystery episode, Keisha and Quinton were interviewed by investigators and even then by the FBI.
The FBI at least talked to Quentin at his house. And it basically seems like they aren't too concerned that they were some of the last people to hang out with her.
I mean, Keisha was interviewed first. She pointed to Quentin being around too.
And he was the one who told detectives that they should look at that Derek Holmes guy. And during all this, have they gotten the forensic stuff back yet or are they still waiting on all that? Well, her autopsy is complete, which shows her cause of death was thermal injuries and soot and smoke inhalation.
It's also determined that her burns had a splash pattern to them, which indicates that she was, I guess the way they like could see everything, she was sitting in her car when someone poured some type of accelerant over her body and then set her on fire. Now, they're also able to find out what kind of accelerant was used thanks to the piece of what actually was bra or clothing that was collected.
So that has come back and they determined that it was gasoline. And can they tell if she was naked before she was set on fire or did her clothes burn away? You leaving just like her underwear yeah they don't explicitly

say and i don't know if that's because they don't know or if there's certain things they just don't talk about and i don't know if this is related but they also don't do a sexual assault kit during her autopsy i don't know physically like it was impossible or wouldn't have shown anything because of how badly she was burned but to me the way that she came walking out of the woods completely nude, except for having underwear, I feel like it's an immediate

red flag. Like why would everything else burn away except for underwear?

Exactly.

So there's this theory that starts to form among law enforcement at this point. They feel

very confident that whoever did this worked alone. Or if they had help, it was just from one other person.
How do they know that? I'm not sure. But they believe this person is local and they don't think it was someone random or like just some kind of random thing.
And considering how small this town is, it would make sense that it wasn't some random person just driving through town lighting girls on fire. Like the whole thing feels super personal and super thought out.
Plus, in another article in the Clarion Ledger, something her family said that they heard around town was that someone was in the car with Jessica. Wait, with her like the whole time at the gas station too or just later? No, after she left the gas station.
So they say that they think whoever this person is was the one that poured gas on her. And they even say down her throat and nose and then set her on fire.
And they also heard that she may have fought back before being knocked out because she had this huge cut on her head. Was that in the autopsy? Well, not that I saw.
Like, take it with a grain of salt, because this is what I'm saying. It's like, this is what they're hearing.
These are the rumors going around. And I never saw it brought up in any of the other reporting.
So I don't know, but it's what they're hearing. So while detectives don't get any reliable forensic evidence from the autopsy, they do get some DNA back from the keys.
Most of it's female, belonging most likely to Jessica. But there was some male DNA.
And actually, more than one profile. The problem is they just don't know who it belongs to.
Okay, but the natural person would be someone close to Jessica. Did she have a boyfriend? That depends on who you ask.
So her family says no, and they don't know who would be holding her keys. Now, is it possible that someone else would have? Like, sure, but there's no name that they're bringing up to them.
Which makes the DNA more promising. Yeah, if they can find out who it belongs to.
I mean, can they do a direct comparison? This is the problem. So the sample is so small, we are definitely not talking about CODIS.
I don't even know if it's big enough to do direct comparison.

From what I can tell, they can compare in a way that they can rule people out, but they're going to have a harder time proving that someone is a match, if that makes sense with how little that they have. Got it.
Which means that they're going to have to solve this the old-fashioned way,

by hitting the streets, talking to people, and keeping an ear to the ground,

trying to figure out if any of the rumors floating around the small town have any merit to them. And this is when they start hearing some interesting things.
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Supposedly, Jessica was dating a guy named Travis Sanford at the time of her murder. Travis is actually serving time behind bars for burglary charges at the time.
But it's apparently known around certain circles that Travis and Jessica didn't always have the best relationship. Even though he was incarcerated, he and Jessica would still talk on the phone and he was a very jealous guy.
And it's never mentioned which gang he's connected to, but detectives hear that he is affiliated with one of the gangs in town. But just to be clear, he was in prison when she was killed.
Yes, which is why they know it can't be him, or at least he could not have done it himself, which doesn't mean that he didn't have someone else do it. And detectives even go talk to him about that, but they say when they get there, he's like visibly upset when they tell him not only that Jessica had been murdered, but like how she'd been murdered.
And based on his

reaction and their conversation with him, he gets ruled out as a potential suspect. But even when

confronted with this, Jessica's family still denies that she had a boyfriend or was ever in a

relationship with this Travis guy. They say that even though she made some bad decisions, like it doesn doesn't mean she's involved with any gang, which, like, seems to be what people are implying.
What kind of bad decisions were they aware of? Well, I mean, it's no secret, I guess, within the community that Jessica struggled with substance use. Like, she'd actually just gotten out of a recovery center designed to help her get her life back on track.
But what her family didn't know was that at least according to her friends,

Jessica was selling drugs.

In reporting by Sarah Fowler and Ron Maxey,

it's Jessica's friend Keisha actually

who claims that Jessica regularly sold marijuana,

like almost every day for the last six months

leading up to her death.

I don't know if that's real.

I don't know.

I don't know what's real.

I don't know what's rumor.

Like her family feels like the rumors about her kind of spiraled out of control after she died. And maybe they did because I see places where Keisha alleges that she and Jessica often drove around and smoked marijuana.
But that is a far cry from being a dealer. And apparently like when they tried to push her, she wouldn't name names.
She wouldn't say where Jessica got her supply. So is she not wanting to, like, snitch on people? Didn't, like, go up the chain? Or is there nothing to back it up? You know what I mean? Right.
But clearly, the rumor mill is spinning. Especially since Jessica's murder took place during peak Facebook.
I mean, there's a large number of people online commenting, speculating. Right.
Basically, like, virtual detectives trying to solve this crime. Reporting by Terence Apel says that hacktivist group Anonymous actually takes note of Jessica's death and starts digging up information on people they think are related to her murder.
And the consensus kind of becomes that Jessica could have been a victim of domestic violence or maybe even something gang-related. And Anonymous claims to learn this from hacking into different people's social media accounts, one being a former boyfriend of Jessica's and some of his associates.
But detectives do their due diligence and check into these theories and basically say that there's nothing to prove any of these rumors to be true. But what's interesting about these rumors is that for Cortland being such a small town, there is actually a lot of gang activity.
One gang that the internet sleuths believe is connected to Jessica's murder at the time is the Black Squad gang. After surveillance footage was released from the convenience store, people online started targeting the store owner's son, Ali Alsanay.
And they were saying that he was the leader of the Black Squad and that he used his dad's store to sell drugs. And they say that since he knows Jessica and he was one of the last people to speak to her, like he's got to be connected.
All kinds of ridiculous claims that aren't backed by any factual evidence. Ali says in a documentary for Investigation Discovery about this case that it's just wild because he willingly gave police the surveillance footage from his store in hopes that it would help them track Jessica's killer down.
But it almost just like backfired on him because he's trying to be helpful. And then all of a sudden he starts receiving death threats online.
People are avoiding coming to his store. And this prompts detectives to speak out again and let the public know that like, by the way, guys, Ali is clear.
He's not even, like, a suspect at all in this case. Now, other rumors are floating around that Jessica could have been an informant, mostly because she hung out with people affiliated to certain gangs.
But her father was a mechanic for the Panola County Sheriff's Department, which I think made some people uneasy, especially those who were leery around police officers. So they worried that somehow Jessica's dad maybe got her involved with the sheriff's department, which is why people around town started saying that Jessica was, you know, on the verge of outing some like big time gang members.
And to back that up, what I'll say is more reporting by Terrence Apel says that Jessica even told her mom, this is just a few weeks before her death, that here I have a quote. Hang on just a second.
It says, quote, these bitches think I'm snitching and I'm not. And I guess when Lisa asked her, like, you know, what are you talking about? Who are you talking about? She just said, quote, nobody, mama, you don't need to know.
So I don't know what she was talking about.

But the important thing to note is even that statement does not prove she was involved in anything or had anything to snitch about. So with no solid leads to follow, detectives watch as days pass and no new information comes to light.
the next big hit that they get doesn't come until the fall of 2015 when detectives get

more cell phone data that they start to analyze and really start digging in. They're hoping to pin down if Jessica was alone or with someone in those few hours that she's really unaccounted for on December 6th.
And what they get back doesn't give them any new names, but it does point them back to someone they've already talked to. So in the records that detectives get back, they're able to show that her friend Quentin, remember the guy that she had hung out with, they're like calling each other on the day of the fire.
So he was actually with Jessica at the exact same time she was murdered, which is not, yeah, not the story he told before when they wrote him off, Before he says he was just with her in the morning. Now, this took so stinking long to get.
I assume maybe what they did was like a cell phone dump or they were like tracking location data. Not obviously not back and forth text.
Like that was simple, small potato stuff that they did in the early days. And we're almost a year out now.
But they have something that they basically think proves he lied to them. So in November 2015, detectives go and they question 27-year-old Quentin Tellis to see what his story is now.
Problem is he's not in town anymore. He's actually in jail now in Monroe, Louisiana for debit card theft.
So they have to go there. And when they meet with him, they are really upfront with him.
They tell him that, you know, while they know his original story was that he saw Jessica the morning of the day she was murdered, they now have cell phone data putting him and Jessica together on December 6th later than what he initially told them. And this time he's like, oh, you know, yeah, I was with my buddy Big Mike.
We rode up to Batesville together to meet Jessica. We had to give her some marijuana.

But like, that's really it.

I really didn't see her after that.

Never good when the story starts changing.

No.

And in the moment, I guess that explanation's good enough for detectives

because the cell phone pings, they're not exact, right?

So it is kind of plausible.

If it's a small area, maybe he's like meeting up with her,

but not in her car.

You know, maybe they'd be in the same area, whatever.

So detectives decide what they have to do.

I'm going to go check this out with Big Mike. And when they bring him in for questioning, he says that he and Quentin weren't together on December 6th and they never drove to Batesville together.
Yeah, he's actually got his own solid alibi to prove it. There was cell phone data putting him in Nashville at the time, and a friend of his claims to have been with Big Mike in Nashville.
I guess they were watching, like, the Titans play the Giants or something. Which, to be fair, is a better alibi than being at home rubbing your mom's feet.
Seriously, yes. So, after checking out the alibis, at the end of January 2016, detectives head back to Louisiana to question Quentin again.
And what do you know? His story changes again. Of course it does.
This time he tells detectives like, OK, oh, wait, I must have misremembered. I actually did ride with Jessica to Batesville sometime after 530 p.m.
I was with her afterwards at my house, just not for long. And what detectives need to account for is the fact that Quentin was actually seen on security footage after Jessica's murder at this dollar store back in Batesville around 8.30 p.m.
And so they're asking him about this, and he says that he went back to buy a cash card for his girlfriend in Louisiana. Or he's trying to establish an alibi.
Maybe that too. But as they keep talking, I think Quentin is getting paranoid because he just like blurts out that he and Jessica had sex just once about a week before her murder, but not that night.
Like for sure not that night. Even though, by the way, like apparently when he blurts this out, like, no one asked.
And then he divulges some unique details about how they did it in her car and they had to, like, lean the seat all the way back. And out of curiosity, what position was Jessica's seat in when they found her car? Nail on the head.
Her passenger seat in her car was found laid all the way back. So that and the fact that she was only wearing underwear when first responders found her, they're thinking that maybe they did have sex, something went wrong, and then she was set on fire.
But then where did the gasoline come from? They actually have a theory about this. So at some point, detectives learned that around 7.46 p.m., like very specific, Quentin made a call to his girlfriend in Louisiana and told her that he was going to walk to his sister's house to borrow her car.
And detectives already know that there's a shortcut from Heron Road. This is where Jessica's car was found.
There's a shortcut that leads to his sister's neighborhood. And wouldn't you know it, it's along that route that someone had found Jessica's keys way back in the beginning.
So they're thinking he went that way, got his sister's vehicle, and then used that to drive to his own place where he kept a gas can in the shed. And because this is such a small town, you can't make this up.
Like, only in this story could this happen. But apparently, the security footage from the gas station from earlier, not only is it capturing, like, the stuff with Jessica or whatever, but it actually points to Quentin's house of all places.
What? I know. And you can pretty much see the like just the beginning of his driveway, not everything.
And what they see is that around 750 ish, you can kind of make out a vehicle pulling into Quentin's driveway up to the storage shed near the front of the driveway. The car's there for like two minutes before it drives off.
Now, you can't make out the driver or the tag from this footage, but they say that it's him and that he's going back to get the gas can because apparently he told them that he had that gas can way early when they like first talked to him and they weren't even interested in him. So because they learned about this forever ago and they weren't interested in that, obviously they didn't collect that gas can or check out this like super well back then when they could have.
And now it's a little late. But this is their theory now.
But if the video quality sucks so bad, how do they know it's Quentin in his sister's car? Apparently there's another camera at the gas station. I told you it had more than the one that we saw.
And I guess that one had a better shot of the make and model of this car, which they say matches Quinton's sisters. So at 8 p.m., the video captures the car speeding past, I guess this like other one that they say they can see him in, speeding past heading to Batesville, where detectives know now that Quinton was to buy that cash card for his girlfriend out of state.
So what detectives really want to get into next with Quentin are the string of text messages between him and Jessica. They had gotten access to their entire texting conversation so they can try and figure out why Quentin would even want to hurt Jessica.
And they see that for four days leading up to her death, Quentin kept texting Jessica, basically asking her for sex. And every time she would let him down easy was some kind of like throwaway comment.
And on the night of the crime at 7.42 p.m., which is likely right around or even right after the time Jessica was set on fire, Quentin's phone, they say it like wakes up. Was it turned off? That's not super clear.
It just says it wakes up. So I don't know if it was like in sleep mode or if it was off, but it wakes up.
Okay. He calls and texts her and his messages aren't being returned, obviously.
But then his text says, oh, hang on, let me read it to you exactly because I think it's important for stuff like this. It says, quote, Is his phone pinging near where Jessica is?

It's not. I'll get to that in just a second.

But what detectives can't get past is Quentin's lack of texts or calls to check on Jessica after word gets out that she's been seriously hurt.

Now, I don't know that anyone knew she'd been fully set on fire at that point. People had just started to hear that she was severely injured.
And what they're saying is that instead of reaching out to her, it's just like radio silence. And then what really doesn't do him any favors is that once word got out that Jessica had died, and that happens on Sunday morning, you know what he does? He deleted all of the calls, all of the texts, everything between them.
And he deletes her entire contact from his phone. And when police are like, why would you do that if you had nothing to do with this? He's like, well, she's not around anymore.
Why would I keep a dead girl on my phone? Okay. Did the police not know all of this when they first talked to him? So it turns out that they did know all of this early on.
According to the limited series Unspeakable Crime, he had told the FBI about deleting everything. But I guess the agent never asked why or deemed it suspicious.
Yeah, like, hey, like little red flag over here. I know.
It wasn't until detectives were like actually talking to him in Louisiana that they wanted to know more about his logic behind it. And to be fair, when everything is in a new light now, especially because when they go talk to him in prison, not only is he there for debit card fraud or whatever, the thing I didn't tell you is that the debit card theft is actually connected to a young woman named Ming Chen Xiao who went by Mandy.
And Mandy had been murdered. So Quentin had become a suspect in her case because of a weird string of events.
So I need you to back up with me a little bit. Mandy was an exchange student at the University of Louisiana Monroe from Taiwan.
And on July 29th, 2015, she was stabbed 34 times in her own apartment. According to reporting by Sarah Fowler, a warrant filed said that she was stabbed by someone trying to get the pin to her debit card.
And after her death, her card was used three times. Surveillance footage from the ATM used to take the money out of her account shows Quinton using her card.
And apparently he'd used his own phone to call her bank and entered her debit card number and PIN in. And after he was arrested, he admitted to using the debit card.
Now, the whole reason they got to him was actually not by using the ATM footage and working backwards, my friend. No, no, no, no.
So there is a guy that had come forward and said that someone he knew confessed to Mandy's murder. Again, this is like a totally different jurisdiction.
Yeah. He's like, this person knows the details about stabbing her and torturing her until she gave up her debit card pin.
That's how they got to the affidavit. So everything we have in the affidavit comes from this guy.
Well, according to Law & Crime, the man who came forward said that this person showed him the ID of the woman and then said, quote, that stupid motherfucker Quentin got caught using her debit card, end quote. And the guy this man is first pinning for Mandy's murder is not Quentin.

Right.

It is a different guy.

So detectives went, checked out that lead, found out it was a total lie.

The guy he's pointing to couldn't have done it.

So they go back and confront this original witness about it.

And he's like, yeah, I actually just want to frame that guy.

Like, bad day.

Sorry, not him.

Like.

Okay.

Britt, this is the weird part.

Guess what this guy's name is.

Thank you. Bad day.
Sorry. Not him.
Like. Okay.
Britt, this is the weird part. Guess what this guy's name is.
Like this witness. Guess what his name is.
Uh, does it end with a rook? Frickin' Eric. Oh my God.
Let me introduce you to Eric Hill. And if things can't get more small town, Eric is a former boyfriend of Quentin's sister.

Oh.

And she actually still has his name tattooed on her, by the way.

So he's like solidly like within the circle.

Yeah.

And he is apparently key to giving law enforcement in Louisiana information about Mandy's death.

Because even though Eric and Quentin's sister aren't dating anymore, Eric is actually, you know,

if that line has been severed.

Yes, Eric.

Okay, so he is... Because even though Eric and Quentin's sister aren't dating anymore, Eric is actually, you know, if that line has been severed.

Yes, Eric.

OK, so he is related to Quentin through marriage now.

So in 2015, Quentin and Eric's cousin, Chiquita Jackson, they married actually on the same day Mandy's body was found.

So and I know that's a lot of names and you don't have to keep track of them all. Just know that Eric Hill has a lot of ties to Quentin.
That's the moral of the story. Again, firmly in the circle.
Firmly in the circle. So, after Eric flip-flops his story, detectives tell him they know he's related to Quentin's wife, spent a lot of time with Quentin, and weird, you know a lot of things about her murder that if this guy didn't tell you, question mark, how do you know? And that's when Eric's story changes.
He then says that he learned all of those details about Mandy from Quentin when they were trading their like, quote unquote, war stories. But here's the thing about all those details he shared with detectives.
Like none of that stuff was public knowledge. And they know what he said about torturing her.
And, like, specifically he talked about, like, small cuts that would inflict pain. They're like, that's something that only the killer would know.
Which my question is, he knows all this because Quentin told him or he knows because he knows? Exactly. Except they don't seem to press on that.
They're like, they basically on a silver platter is like, here's your chance to connect the crime to Quentin. Would you like to? And he totally does.
Even though there's no evidence from Mandy's case that connects Quentin to it. Just the calls to her bank and the ATM footage incriminates Quentin.
So for sure, he was using her cards. And there's also no forensic help in Mandy's case.
But in Jessica's, they are able to develop four male profiles from the DNA found on her keys as things are getting better. Okay.
Again, it seems like it's still just exclusionary. And Quentin's DNA cannot be excluded from those.
What about Eric's? This is the crazy part. They don't even seem to entertain that idea.
Like, I don't see anything about them looking at his. So when detectives, though, they go back to Quentin.
They're like, why would your DNA be on her keys? And he's like, I've driven her car before. But I don't know if that helps anyone because like I said, the sample is super small

so it's not like

a definitive win

for detectives.

But with Quentin's

changing story,

he has actually

provided them

a more rounded look

at the events

of that night

and detectives

are confident

that they have a motive.

Quentin wanted sex,

Jessica refused

and things got out of hand.

They theorize

that he either

knocked her out

or thought he killed her

then left the scene,

borrowed his sister's

Thank you. wanted sex, Jessica refused, and things got out of hand.
They theorized that he either knocked her out or thought he killed her, then left the scene, borrowed his sister's car, got the gas can from his shed, drove back, doused Jessica and her car in gasoline, then set her on fire. But here's the kicker.
Detectives believe that Quentin didn't know Jessica was still alive when he set her on fire. He thought he was just going to get rid of the evidence.
He didn't anticipate her being alive when first responders showed up. So they're saying he sent her that text about a friend coming over, like I'll call you tomorrow, and then goes to establish an alibi in Batesville by buying that like cash card for his girlfriend or whatever.
So detectives think they have a home run, but Quentin denies all of it. He says he was with her that night, yeah, but he wasn't with her around the time she was killed.
But detectives just don't believe him. And in February 2016, he is indicted on capital murder charges by a special grand jury in Panola County.
And by July, he pleads not guilty. But it's not until October 2017, after some delays, that Quentin's trial begins.
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junkie for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use kind of lost the thread at this part.
I think the jury did too, which is like an important piece if you're going to be a prosecutor or defense attorney. Right.
Because the prosecution, they spend so much time getting into the details of the cell phone data using language like RTTs and NELOs to describe the system that they use to determine where a cell phone is located within the network, like what tower you're getting pinged off of when you use your phone. Lost in the weeds.
I know, but here's the big issue that I was able to actually glean from all this. Jessica had Verizon and Quentin had AT&T.
So their phones were using two different systems to ping their locations. And while

Jessica's location was pretty well tracked, Quentin's actually wasn't. His was more of a guesstimate that they used to basically place him with Jessica on the 6th.
Wait, that's their smoking gun? That Quentin is kind of, sort of, in the same area as Jessica? Yeah. So it's not rock solid.
No. And another thing the prosecution has to overcome is Jessica's final statement that Eric did this to her.
They bring a burn doctor that treated Jessica that night and he says that her mouth and airways were so charred that there's no way she would have been able to speak like normal. They say it's highly unlikely that she said Eric or Derek with much clarity.
But the thing I'll say. But she said her name almost right.
Yeah, that was. Yeah.
I can't get past that. Like, I can't buy that she couldn't have said Eric there if she said Jessica Tambers versus Jessica Chambers.
I know this all gets like kind of muddy. And one of the first responders on the stand says that what they heard was more of like a, eh, weh, like, so a little muddier.
Some say they didn't hear her say anything at all. But again, others are actually pretty adamant.
But after adding doubt to the prosecution's cell phone data argument, and then the fact that Quinton's name is nowhere close to sounding like Eric or Derek, the defense goes after the fact that Quinton was on camera back in Batesville buying that cash card when Jessica was set on fire. Even though the prosecution argues that he went to the store right after to basically set up his alibi.
I mean, they're both using the same evidence to like argue different things. When the trial concludes, Terese Apel reports that the jury deliberates for eight hours over the course of two days.
And when they reconvene, their verdict is not what anyone in the courtroom expects. Now, in the state of Mississippi, the jury's verdict has to be unanimous.
There is no majority rules here. So what happens next stuns everyone.
Apparently, the jury got confused by the instructions and they thought that if they were going to choose guilty, the vote had to be unanimous. But if they all couldn't agree that Quentin was guilty or not guilty, then it automatically meant that they had to go with a not guilty verdict.
But that's not how it works in Mississippi. The jury's vote has to be unanimous one way or the other.
So, oh, yeah, it's not like like I think I I think I don't know. Like, I think it actually would have been a mistrial.
And in their mind, they're just like not guilty because they didn't understand because they didn't get the instructions. Yeah.
Just because you couldn't all agree on guilty, you still had to agree on not guilty, essentially. Yeah.
Which is like so wild, especially coming off of like stuff with, like, with the juries and the forms. Like, it's wild to me that you could go through a whole trial like that and then say not guilty.
And then if they're like, hey, we didn't understand. Like, fumble the instructions and not be like, hey, why don't you just go back into that room and talk it out again? Yeah, but, and luckily, that's, like, kind of what they do here.
Like, before everyone leaves, like, again, in Karen Reed's, everyone, everyone like left the courtroom and then they found out that there was confusion. In this case, it seems to happen there in the courtroom.
So the judge like sends the jury back. They're like, you know, you need to come to some kind of agreement.
Just kidding. Verdict's not in.
Yeah. And not long after that, they're back and they're like, OK, all right.
We have a unanimous decision this time, all in agreement. And our verdict is not guilty, which is obviously not what the prosecution wants.
So they asked for the jury to be polled in case there is still any kind of confusion. And it turns out they're still split.
The jury still can't come to a unanimous decision if he's guilty or not guilty, which, again, so freaking concerning that, like, you just got it explained to you. Did you not? Or are you just trying to go home? Yeah.
How did, like, oh, so many questions. So the judge declares a mistrial on October 16th, 2017.
Honestly appropriate. And this split ultimately comes down, the split in the jury, to a few different things.
One of them was her saying Eric. Like, the jury just could not get past that.
But also, there is a racial component to this entire trial. Jessica was a young, blonde white girl.
Quinton was in his late 20s and Black. And Cortland, Mississippi has its own racial tensions.
Even though the town is pretty split population-wise with Black and white residents, there is still a racial divide within the community. And many individuals in the Black community feel that the prosecution or like the whole system really was just trying to pin Jessica's murder on a Black man with a criminal history.
Because like you said earlier, there is no smoking gun in this case. And just like the racial makeup of the town, the selected jury was also pretty split in half.
Like the five not guilty votes were all from the black jurors. And the seven guilty verdicts came from every white juror plus two black jurors.
But what I will say is this mistrial isn't the end for Quentin. He's still serving that five-year sentence for burglary.
So he is still kind of put away. And the prosecution has time to like put their case back together again.
They gear up right away for a second trial. And the second time around, the prosecution tries to learn from their past errors.
They tried to keep the new jury from getting hung up on the Eric Derrick of it all. But the defense won't let them.
They want them to not forget that the last thing she said is Eric did this. And they bring in their own experts who say that she could totally have said Eric.

Basically, you don't need your lips for that.

Like if you actually, I'm going to look like a fool, but if you're like Eric.

Yeah, her lips burnt off, but they're like, she could have done it.

So according to the defense, there is a chance she did mean to say exactly what she did.

Eric may be Derek.

Now, their most valuable tactic at this trial for the prosecution is a brand new witness, this woman named Sherry Flowers, who says that she picked up a guy that was flagging her down on December 6th along Main Street. And this area is near where Jessica's keys had been found.
And at first, she says she stopped because she thought the guy was like family. She knew him.
She pulls over, realized she didn't actually know him. And this guy apparently never identified himself.
But detectives presume that this man is Quentin. And the long of the short of it is, like, I don't really understand why they bring her because they have her basically tell the same story.
Like she drops him off at his sisters and their story is still the same. Sisters Sisters, like, he gets her car, goes to his house.
I think they do this because maybe the timeline of having him walk to his sisters, yeah, was, like, too tight. So they fix that, like, bada bing, bada boom, with this.
He hitches a ride, same old story, gets the gas can, you know the rest. Now, at the second trial, the defense also questions the interview tactics used on Quentin, insinuating that he was likely coerced into changing his story because of the detective's lies about cell phone data pinning him to Jessica's location and her murder that night.
And what I'll say is I watched some of the interrogation and he either, I don't know, he sounds so scared, like an innocent man, or this man deserves an Oscar. And I don't know which it is.
But the last thing that the defense really does is that they go after the fact that Jessica was involved in drugs in some way or another. And they say that that could have put her in danger with people other than Quentin.
So I don't think they did that the first time around. And I think they saw that as a mistake.
Like, clearly we need to, if not him, then who? You don't have to do that. But like, clearly a jury wants that, they think.
According to the Clarion Ledger, to back up the defense's claims, and thanks to Jessica's phone data, the federal anti-gang operation was able to charge 17 people with different drug and gang-related offenses, though none were ever suspected of her murder. So, like, that was going on, yes.
But, like, was it connected? I don't know. Right.
So now that they've got all the information laid out, they send the jury back to deliberate. And again, it takes a long time, 12 hours until they come back claiming that they do have an answer.
And their answer is that they are split. Six guilty and six not guilty.
So the answer is another hung jury. Yeah.
There's simply, they say, enough reasonable doubt that they cannot come to a unanimous conclusion. And so the judge has to declare another mistrial.
What does this mean for Quentin? Well, I mean, nothing in relation to Jessica's case, but he is still serving time for the previous charges. And he still has Mandy's case kind of looming over him in Louisiana.
So in 2019, a grand jury actually indicts him

on second-degree murder charges

in connection with Mandy's death.

And according to reporting by Ashley Mott,

there is GPS info that they say puts Quentin's phone

within 60 meters of Mandy's apartment

on the day that she was murdered

because of the calls that he made to her bank.

Do detectives question Eric Hill about either case?

I kind of feel like he's the biggest loose end here.

I couldn't find anything in like any of the source material I have that talks about them

talking to him, even though I personally think he should have been questioned.

And like, OK, if we're going to if we're going to use all this cell phone data to say

that Quentin was around, like his.

Yeah.

What's his cell phone data look like?

But they don't.

Like, I think they just think of him as a witness.

Except even that changes in 2020 when Eric Hill writes a handwritten affidavit recanting his testimony. And Brett, I'm actually going to have you read this.
So this letter was published in the News Star. It says, quote, My name is Eric Hill Jr.
I'm writing and filing this affidavit on my own free will to state, On about May 11, 2016, I, Eric Hill Jr., was pressured by Monroe police to take the stand to make a false statement against Quentin Tellis.

Quentin Tellis never told me anything about a crime, and I don't know anything other than what was put on TV.

I, Eric Hill Jr., was charged with accessory to murder and was forced to... So, I mean, this dude fully recants on some pretty serious details.
Yeah. That, like I said, only the killer would know.
Though, right, like if we're saying, Quentin is saying his confession was coerced, we know how things can accidentally, intentionally get, like, fed. Mm-hmm.
I don't know, but he's saying he actually didn't have any knowledge of what happened. He was just forced to take the stand in Quentin's debit card theft trial.
But here's the thing about the affidavit that's really confusing to me. Reporting by Ashley Mott claims that the detectives do a handwriting analysis on this letter, and allegedly it was written by both Eric and Quentin.
What? I'm so confused.

I was too.

There's actually pictures of the affidavit.

Sorry, the letter and the affidavit, there's pictures of this for like analysis.

And so there's apparently like sections written by Quentin where it says like,

my name is, and then like, I declare under penalty.

But then Eric wrote out the actual part of him saying his testimony was false.

And I think that's of it. If you want to see it, I can send it to you.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
There's, like, two different kinds of handwriting. There's almost like a fill-in-the-blank, my name is Eric Hill before all of this.
Yeah. So I don't know if this makes it weirder or not, but apparently Quentin and Eric are both in custody at the same time and place.
Like, I guess Eric had, by this point, he robbed a convenience store on Christmas Day in like 2019 and he'd been in prison since February of 2020. So I don't know what their endgame is or if they're finally just like, he's, or Quentin's able to confront him and if he really was lying, Quentin's like, listen, like, I penned this.
Like, you fill it out, and, like, you have to tell the truth.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But over the next few years, Quentin remains behind bars,

waiting for updates on Mandy's case until November 2022. That's when a Louisiana judge actually dismisses the indictment,

claiming that after much delay,

Quentin's right to a speedy trial for Mandy's murder was violated. And under Louisiana law, if that happens, the defendant is to be released without bail.
However, when Mississippi hears about his imminent release, they request a transfer to get him to serve out some outstanding sentences there. I don't really know what it's for, but Quinton gets transferred.
And because he's now in Mississippi, his trial is removed. His Louisiana trial, for Mandy's case, is like just removed from the docket.
Right. And that's where Quinton is now.
According to the Mississippi Department of Corrections website, he is anticipated to be released October 16th, 2027. I just can't get past the Eric of it all.
Like, how are they going to have an Eric that's

so closely tied to this person they're trying to pin this entire thing on and just not look into him? I need to know Eric's location on December 6, 2014. I mean, I feel like if this case is done right, there's a lot more people we need to know about.
Like, there are just like these offhand mentions of the guy she waved to, the guy who walks up during the scene.

I mean, yeah. we need to know about.
Like, there are just, like, these offhand mentions of...

The guy she waved to,

the guy who walks up during the scene.

I mean...

Yeah, so, like, I know that they, like,

the guy who walks up during the scene,

they basically kind of, like,

just wave him off, like, rule him out.

The guy that she, like, waved at,

or whoever she, like, saw at the gas station,

they do identify that person.

Also, another, like, they say not involved.

But, like, again, show me the self.

You did all this work on Quentin.

and she's... at the gas station, they do identify that person.
Also another, like, they say not involved. But like, again, show me the self.
You did all this work on Quentin. Show me the other data.
I need more than they say he's not involved, right? Right. And what I really want, so I mean, I think there's plenty of other work that can be done to either prove Quentin did it or prove someone else could have done it or prove Quentin didn't do it.
I honestly don't know. But the other question I have is like, I always want to know that thing I couldn't find is like, what is Quentin's excuse about having the debit card? Right? Yeah.
If he's not involved with Mandy's murder. Because yeah, I mean, I will admit.
How do you get the card? Right. That makes him look so guilty.
When you said all they have him on is using the card and calling the card, I'm like, all is kind of a lot. Don't get me wrong.
But like, in my mind, I'm like, like, if he were to say like, someone who I might know or who's in my circle gave it to me, that's a whole different thing. But as far as I know, he hasn't said that.
And like, wouldn't that have come up by now? I don't, but maybe not because it hasn't gone to trial. I don't know.
I think there's still so much, like I said, that can be done for this case. But the lack of forensic evidence is limiting, to say the least.
Now, there's obviously one or more people out there who I believe know what happened. And so if that is you or someone you think you know, please come forward.
For Jessica's family, for Mandy's family, they deserve justice. So if you have information regarding Jessica's murder, you can contact the Panola County Sheriff's Department at 662-563-6230.
Or if you want to be anonymous, you can call Crime Stoppers 1-800-729-2169.

And if you have any information about Mandy's murder, you can contact the Monroe Police Department at 318-329-2600.

And lastly, if you or a loved one wants to explore treatment for substance use, you can seek help by calling 211.

Or we'll link to their website in the show notes. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com.
And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.