BATESVILLE, Miss. — The state rested its case Saturday in Quinton Tellis’ retrial in the murder of Jessica Chambers and the jury went into recess until 9 or 9:30 Sunday morning.
“We will finish this case tomorrow,” the judge said.
Tellis is accused of lighting Jessica Chambers on fire and killing her in Courtland, Mississippi in 2014. His trial last year ended in a hung jury.
The state laid it all out Sunday with its final witnesses and evidence — they say it shows Quinton Tellis wasn’t only with Chambers in her final hours, but is responsible for this crime.
Chambers’ mother held back tears as she watched her 19-year-old walk across a TV screen in surveillance video shown in court Sunday.
“This is the last time Jessica Chambers was ever seen alive,” said Paul Rowlett, an intelligence analyst with the Department of Justice.
This video along with several others were shown to jurors to document Chambers and Quinton Tellis’ movements the day she died.
The state said Chambers and Tellis drove to Batesville in her car together and came back to Courtland around 6:30.
Tellis told investigators she then left his house around 7, but surveillance video doesn’t show Chambers or Tellis leave his house. Instead, the state said a car left the driveway next to Tellis’ just before 8.
That’s the area where Tellis said they once had sex in her passenger seat. Investigators think he somehow made her unconscious there.
Chambers’ phone was active at 7:30 in the spot she’d later be found burned alive.
Video shows a car pull into Tellis’ driveway around 7:50 for about a minute, then drive in the direction of the crime scene.
Around 8:30, Tellis was seen in Batesville without a coat and then, 30 minutes later, he was seen in Courtland wearing a different outfit.
After finding out about Chambers being in a car fire, Tellis didn’t try contacting her, according to phone records and ended up deleting all her text messages.
The defense brought up how cooperative Tellis was with investigators, how he never admitted to the crime and how all prior interactions with Chambers were friendly.
And of course, there were the reports from 10 first responders where they heard Chambers answer “Eric” or “Derek” when asked who set her on fire.
Before resting their case the state asked their final questions to the man who analyzed all the data in the investigation.
“You told the jury this was like a puzzle, and it took you basically four years to put this puzzle together,” District Attorney John Champion said to Rowlett. “Was there a picture at the conclusion of that puzzle?”
Rowlett answered: “There was and to me, it was a clear picture of Quinton Tellis.”
Part One: Cross examination of investigator/ Big Mike
The first new witness to take the stand on day five of the Jessica Chambers murder trial was Mike Sanford, who is known around Courtland as Big Mike.
On December 6, Sanford told the jury he and several other friends were in Nashville for a Tennessee Titans game. He left that afternoon around 2 p.m. and didn’t get back until after the game.
When asked if Quinton Tellis had borrowed his car on the day Chambers was murdered, he said no.
The next person to take the stand was James “Paul” Rowlett, an intelligence specialist with the Department of Justice. Rowlett was part of the task force assigned to the Chambers case shortly after her murder in December 2014.
He explained that at first he did focus on anyone with the name Eric or Derick while analyzing the data from Chamber’s phone. He said in the 30 days before her death Chambers did not receive or make a call to anyone with a variation of that name. There were also no texts to or from anyone with that name.
She did have two Facebook friends named Eric but investigators determined one of them didn’t even live in the area. The other was more of an “acquaintance” that she had befriended on Facebook rather than someone she talked to.
Rowlett said he then extended his search for Erics and Dericks to the counties surrounding Panola County. Once again, he came back with nothing that could link any of them to Chambers.
After several months without any leads, Rowlett said he called a meeting with their team in October 2015. During that meeting, he suggested they start from the beginning and see if there was anything they hadn’t noticed.
At that point, investigators knew Chambers had been in Batesville at 6:30 p.m. but couldn’t figure out where she was from then until her death around 7:33 p.m.
It was during that data review that they noticed some inconsistencies with Tellis’ story regarding where he’d been that night, Rowlett said. They then pulled a bunch of different data including Tellis’ call logs and location data; Chambers’ text messages, SMS messages, location data; data from nearby phone towers; and surveillance videos from both M&Ms and Fred’s in Batesville.
According to that information, the pair met on November 29, 2014 – just seven days before Chambers was killed- and exchanged numbers. His number did not have a name associated with it and Chambers never called Tellis by any name.