BATESVILLE, Miss. — Friday, jurors heard a bombshell in the trial of Quinton Tellis, who is accused of setting 19-year-old Jessica Chambers on fire and killing her.
In the 30-odd people who have testified so far in Quinton Tellis’ retrial, no one’s truly given the state a huge lead since the defense has had strong rebuttals.
But Friday, an old interview with Tellis may have changed that. He changed his story when confronted by investigators with phone evidence.
“I ain’t kill nobody. It’s not in my heart,” an emotional Tellis said in a video interview with investigators from 2015. “You kill someone, you go to Hell. That ain’t me.”
These statements came from him after hours of speaking with special agents. The video was shown in court Friday.
Tellis was redeveloped as a suspect in the murder of Jessica Chambers after authorities discovered his phone records didn’t match the original story he told them.
When they went to speak with him in the interview, he first told them he last saw Chambers around noon the day she died.
He said he dropped her off money at the gas station and went back home. He denied seeing her any later than that numerous times. He swore it “on his mama’s life.”
But then investigators told him a witness spotted them together later in the day and brought out cell phone data that also showed it.
“I’m going to tell you from 5:34 for the next long time, your phone and her phone are in the exact same place.” ATF special agent Scott Meadows said.
That’s when Tellis’ tune started to change. He ultimately admitted being with her that night in Batesville around 6.
First responders found Chambers burned alive with her car on fire about two hours later.
Along with Tellis changing his story in the interview, a new detail came out when investigators asked him about a burn mark on his arm.
He told them he got it from a game where he and his friends tried jumping over a bonfire. Tellis told them he fell, and his butt also had a burn mark from it.
As investigators started to show Tellis more and more cell phone evidence, his story and details kept changing.
It’s something the jurors are likely taking into account.
The trial will continue Saturday.
Part One: DNA expert
The next witness to take the stand was Scott Meadows with the ATF, who became actively involved in the investigation shortly after the fire on December 6, 2014.
He told the jury he knew about the other interviews Tellis had undergone with other investigators and added that he wasn’t a suspect for some time. They eventually began to investigate his story after their intelligence analysis pulled records from Chambers’ phone which appeared to show he’d not been truthful about where he was the day of the murder.
Meadows said his interest was peaked when those records showed Tellis -who previously said he had not seen Tellis that evening- was in fact in the same exact location as the victim at certain points.
The prosecution then showed video from some of Tellis’ interviews with police.
In an interview from November 2015, Tellis said he and Chambers had had sex in her car one time. He said he had tried again another time. He said he drove her car to the liquor store before walking investigators through what he did on December 6.
In the interview, Tellis said he rode around with Chambers and Myers and then after a while they dropped him off at his home. Afterwards another friend picked him up and they went to hangout for a couple hours.
Later that evening, he told investigators he spoke with Chambers who asked for money. He said he walked over to the store across the street, handed her the money and she left.
When asked why she didn’t just come over to his house, Tellis reportedly told investigators his girlfriend was up at his home.
During his testimony, Meadows said they checked on Tellis’ story and said surveillance video from the store never showed him meeting Chambers. They also learned that the girlfriend wasn’t at his home that day.
Meadows said that’s when Tellis changed his story and confirmed she wasn’t there.