19-Year-Old Cheerleader Found Burned to Death Next to Her Car

hey everybody welcome back to tend to life it's me Annie Elise and I am here to talk to you about another True Crime case today now I'm a little bit conflicted about the overall Vibes of today because I'm somebody who I believes like Christmas decorations should be up by like August 1st right okay that's kind of an exaggeration but like I'm definitely like a Christmas either before Halloween or the night that trick-or-treating ends so like I'm already kind of in the throws of over here but the case we're talking about today makes me feel like it still needs to be spooky season and maybe I'm not quite there mentally and you'll get what I'm saying as I go through it but it's kind of a wild one and it has some twists and turns along the way with kind of an ending that you wouldn't really ever expect to happen as you're listening to it especially as true crime Buffs like us we kind of usually know who the suspect is what's going to happen who's held responsible this one was a little different so let me just kind of set the stage for you imagine being a first responder and arriving at what is supposed to be a car fire but when you get there and you are about to put the fire out you see a figure of somebody walking out of the woods toward you that goes on to be described as something like a scene from The Walking Dead now imagine that that zombie is an actual person who on top of asking for help also utters the name of the person who started the fire today's case is wild and like I said it is filled with a ton of twists turns and controversy so let's get right into [Music] it 19-year-old Jess Cain Chambers was born on February 2nd 1995 in Clarksdale Mississippi she was born to her parents Lisa and Ben Lisa and Ben divorced when Jessica was just 3 years old and Ben ended up remarrying which led Jessica to having multiple siblings and also step siblings they were named Ashley Annabelle Amanda Christopher Brandon Ben and Steven talk about the Brady Bunch now I guess not really the Brady Bunch because growing up Jessica had a bit of a rough childhood because her dad actually served time in prison for manufacturing methamphetamine but he ended up getting out and became a mechanic for the local police department she grew up and lived in the small town of courland Mississippi courland has a population of just 526 people but it's not exactly known for being one of those cute little small towns where you can leave your door unlocked feel safe Hallmark movie all of the things while everyone does know everyone in town the the crime rate for the town is 49% higher than the national average and more people than not have had a record in their past at some time so Jessica lived with her mom but at one point she moved out for a short time due to her mother not approving of a boyfriend that she had across the street was her grandma and down the road was where her dad and her stepmom Debbie lived when Jessica was in high school she was a cheerleader and was academically very well-rounded she was a great student who made really good grades unfortunately during High School in 2012 her brother Ben tragically died in a car crash now Jessica was really close with Ben so his death was very very hard on her after high school she started working at a department store called goodies but aside from those things Jessica was also kind of involved with a not so great crowd and even sold drugs and wound up getting arrested for it but again even with all of that she was still very loved Jessica also had a boyfriend 28-year-old Trav Sanford but Travis was actually serving time in prison so all around kind of a little bit of a checkered past for everyone it was a very small town almost everybody had a record she was now getting wrapped up in the wrong crowd she was doing bad things to get arrested she was having this boyfriend who was in prison her dad had served prison time kind of almost making it feel like the norm over there I guess you would say but it wasn't and on December 6th 2014 around 5:00 p.m. Jess told her mom Lisa that she was going to go make a trip to the gas station but that she would be back soon after a couple of hours Jessica didn't return though so Lisa texted her daughter jokingly saying hey where'd you go to wash your car Memphis I mean you were supposed to be right back now Jessica did not answer so Lisa called her but she got the voicemail so she called a second time and this time Jessica did answer telling her mom that she would be back soon to clean her room which apparently she had been promising that she would be doing for weeks so Lisa went on to later say that the other end of the phone was really quiet which was unusual for Jessica she usually apparently always had her music blasting so at 8:07 p.m. lroy Rudd and Glenn Williams called 911 to report a burning car on Heron Road in Courtland they saw this burning car while they were driving by Just 2 minutes later responders arrived at the scene of this burning car upon arriving the fire was primarily inside of the car while the engine compartment and the trunk didn't seem to be as effective firefighters went to start putting the fire out but then out of nowhere they noticed something that looked like a person walking toward them from the woods with their arms stretched out so they got back into the truck and backed out to use their headlights to get a better look at what was happening then they saw a young woman who was only wearing underwear her body was severely burned from head to toe making her unrecognizable Chief Cole Haley was arriving right behind the two responders and saw the woman walking out of the woods as she got closer she said help me he grabbed a blanket to try to wrap her up and help her toward the front of the fir Tru which I just have to say and I noticed a lot of people also commending Cole for this but how gracious was that of him to do he was trying to cover up the woman since she was basically naked he didn't want her to be so exposed in an already vulnerable state the woman then collapsed 2 ft behind the truck and Cole held her and told her that help was on the way the woman tried to speak but her voice was very hard to hear and very difficult to understand and he had to put his ear right next to her mouth to even hear what was coming out Cole asked her what her name was but he could not understand he thought she might have said Courtney but she ended up saying Jessica tambers not to be confused with Chambers so at that point though a light bulb went off for Cole he recognized the woman even with the third degree burns covering her body and her face blackened by these Burns her hair was fried and burned away from her face she no longer had eyebrows and there was soot around her mouth and nostrils but he thought to himself that's a Jessica Chambers he wasn't friends with her but since it was a small town he knew her he asked who did it to her and she responded with what sounded to be her only using one syllable the woman was getting frustrated that she was unable to fully communicate the name cole then thought that she said water and that she was going to die at that point the woman began to fade away so Cole using his knuckles rubbed her sternum to revive her now that is a standard procedure that first attempters use to attempt to bring a person back to Consciousness then one of the firefighters named jod Morris came to assist Cole and he asked the woman if there was anyone else inside the car with her and although it was hard for jod to understand he thought that she said Eric a crowd of responders soon began to form around the woman and the scene was horrific it was loud and it was chaotic so Cole continued to try to get answers from this woman and she said the one syllable word again her again so Cole turned to the other responders and said did you hear that did she say Eric so Cole figured that to be sure he would try to have the woman write the name down and he had someone get a pen in a paper but the woman was unable to write due to her skin being so severely burned it was burned so much that it actually lost the ability to move it was basically like leather bystanders started flooding the scene but luckily an ambulance appeared and the woman was loaded inside as she was being loaded she told Cole a name that sounded like Essie Cole then asked is your name Jessica Chambers and the woman nodded yes and Jessica kept saying oh o so the Medics turned up the heat they assumed that she was trying to say cold cold because when someone is severely burned it is likely that they will feel cold so Cole peaked his head around the ambulance door and asked Jessica again who had done this to her the EMT and the paramedic who were working on her thought that they heard either Eric or Derek or something that sounded like e I'm trying to kind of just give you the pronunciations here so then Deputy Chuck Taylor walked in while she was being asked who did this and he heard the responder say Eric so he said Eric who and Jessica then replied no Jessica was life flighted to Regional One hospital in Memphis Tennessee police first told Ben Jessica's dad about what had happened he and his wife Debbie sped up the road to let Lisa know the devastating news Debbie got out of the car and yelled to Lisa that Jessica was set on fire and Lisa didn't know what to think she had just spoken to her daughter not too long ago and everything seemed fine despite it being a little bit quiet on the other end of the phone so she Debbie and Ben raced to Regional 1 hospital about an hour away which I can only imagine how that car ride must have felt like forever it must have felt like it was taking an absolute lifetime at the hospital Jessica's dad was too upset to go in and see her but her mom Lisa knew that she needed to be by her daughter's side she was told ahead of time that Jessica had been burnt beyond recognition and when Lisa walked into the room she knew that it was her she knew that the woman lying in the bed was Jessica her daughter Lisa said in an interview later that her face was all pink and her hair was all burned but they were trying to make it look like hair and of course she was intubated and you could tell maybe her eyes were burnt because she had Vaseline or something really deep over her eyes but she looked like Jessica to me Jessica's heart was beating but even so it was clear that Jessica was struggling to survive at that point so Lisa put her arm on Jessica's shoulder and leaned over feeling her neck which was about the only bit of body that was not burnt and she whispered into her ear Jessica it's okay baby Mama's here and Daddy's in the waiting room and you know your daddy he's a big old baby and he can't come in here but he's here and we love you I know you're in pain baby if you want to go you can go Jessica then took one final breath and passed away Lisa said later in an interview it was 2 something or 3 something I don't know the exact time I wasn't looking but she hung on seemingly that long just for me to tell her that it was okay that we were there that we knew it's like she kind of wanted to know that somebody was there not only did the severe burns tragically lead to her death but so did the smoke inhalation that she had suffered from the medical examiner estimated that over 93% of Jessica's body was covered in second and third degree burns hundreds of people showed up to Jessica's funeral but now the question on everybody's mind was who did this heinous crime who would go after Jessica in such a cruel and evil way while some thought that maybe it was a car accident gone bad police knew that that was unlikely being due to no marks on the fence near where the car was and no marks on the car itself that would prove that it crashed into something so there was an $1,000 reward put in place for information that would lead to fighting the suspect investigators went to Lisa to figure out fig out what Jessica did the day of her murder Lisa told them that Jessica went out with a friend named Kesha earlier that day and got home around 2 and took a nap in the living room then around 4:25 p.m. a phone call woke Jessica up and after the short call she told her mom that she was heading out to the gas station and would be back now apparently there isn't a ton to do in Courtland and so the M andm convenience store is the place to be apparently so the investigators has decided to go to this &m convenience store and talk to the clerk see if they had any information so they go into the store and they talk to 19-year-old Ali aleni Ali remembered seeing Jessica that night and told the police that they could take a look at the surveillance footage so on the footage she is seen around 6:25 p.m. walking toward the door of the store but then someone who is out of the footage must call her name because she looks over in that direction and waves she then walks over towards this person and she doesn't return to the surveillance footage for two whole minutes where she then walks in pays for her gas and leaves now police were happy to have the footage to confirm Jessica's last known whereabouts but the court of public opinion felt very differently people online spread rumors that Ali was the leader of a gang and was the one to kill Jessica especially since he was the last known person to see her but throughout the early stages of the investigation Ali was very helpful to police when interviewed he said as long as I'm cleared I'm good I just hope they find the killer I was just trying to help and in the end everybody turned against me now police did their due diligence to confirm Ali's Alibi and remove him as a possible suspect and luckily for Ali the da John Champion made a public statement saying I would like to publicly say that Ali at the store has been cleared he had nothing to do with this so they were able to figure out that an accelerant was poured on Jessica and on the car the way that was determined was because a doctor at the burn unit at Regional One hospital noticed a a pattern of burns on Jessica as if someone threw liquid on her and then set her on fire and horrifically that is exactly what happened when pieces of her bra were found at the scene they were sent in and they came back positive for gasoline a piece of evidence was later found by someone named Jerry King Jerry was out on a walk with his baby when he noticed something shiny in the grass it was Jessica Keys about a/4 mile away from the car they interviewed many people including men from surrounding counties with the names Derek and Eric they looked into her boyfriend Travis but being that he was in prison he wasn't considered a suspect Jessica's Family was also looked into by police and of course with the court of public opinion many believed that Jessica's dad was somehow involved due to his sketchy past and his negative opinions on interracial relationships see Jessica was in an interracial relationship so people thought that because of that he could somehow be the suspect but Ben went on to publicly say that he had no problems with different races just interracial relationships and that he would never hurt a hair on one of his child's head for no reason investigators spoke with Kesha Meer Jessica's best friend who she told police she was with earlier that day when she was murdered Kesha told police that she and Jessica went driving around that morning and when Jessica picked her up a man named Quinton Tellis was in the car she said that her and Jessica smoked a blunt together and then dropped Quinton off after looping through town wh lived with his mother in town right across from the M&M convenience store and he also had a past he was in prison a couple different times for things like burglary and Jessica and Quinton had only really actually recently met only knowing each other for two weeks before she died so police brought Quinton in to talk Quinton was very Cooperative during questioning he confirmed Kesha's story saying that yeah he didn't really know Jessica very well but they were just friends and they drove around that morning and she dropped him off that was it he claimed he hadn't seen her since so police then asked if he knew anyone named Eric or Derek that would in any way be connected to Jessica and he actually did Derek Holmes he said that Derek was acting weird towards Jessica for a little bit even harassing her at various points all to go out with him so police looked into Derek and he had quite a wrap sheet which included exploitation of miners real standup guy right so they brought him to talk to him and see where he was that night and in a very weird turn of events he said that he was at home rubbing his mother's feet pause for reaction pause for reaction I'm kind of grossed out but I guess it could be interpreted as endearing because apparently his mom had a diabetic condition that made it so that her feet needed to be rubbed nightly or maybe a foot rub gave her relief I don't really know it just kind of gives me the E personally but maybe he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart so who am I a judge so either way police were able to cooperate Derrick's story and came to the conclusion that he was telling the truth he really was at home that night rubbing his mom's feet and he didn't leave the house so police were now back to square one so they decided to extend their search and ended up talking to nearly 500 derks and Erics but this just started a whole new storm because nearly all of the men that they interviewed were black which turned the story into a racial profiling issue as they continued interviewing people some of those people spoke out then he come out kept us up there for about 6 seven8 hours George Mis and Rachel tutor say they're the latest to be questioned in Jessica Chambers murder I took a lad take the T I took a uh swap investigators wouldn't confirm the pair was questioned but a jail log shows mister's name on the date in question tutor isn't listed but I did see her in the jail parking lot they questioned me about a text message that I sent Jessica two days before she died and uh I guess that was why they may have thought something I don't know these two say they both know Jessica how did you know Jessica she's a good friend but tell me they have no idea how she was set on fire and found near her burning car in courland it's saying that uh I it was a lover core it was a lovers core you know a L's core that's they questioning about District Attorney John Champion estimates 100 people have been questioned I knew Jessica pretty well and we hung out and we had our differences ups and downs but you know no none of us would really ever imagine doing something like that to her mystery still surrounds the 19-year-old's death it's been almost two weeks people continue to come in and out of the jail for questioning but so far no one has stayed to be charged with her murder Jess in any trouble we don't know you don't know what what the problem was that got a Kill throughout all of the chaos with the media investigators got a little glimmer of hope Jessica's cell phone was recovered now this allowed them to go through the phone and see who she last talked to and see if she talked to any derck or Erics which to their surprise she didn't have anyone with that name in her phone but she did have an unnamed phone number on her phone that she had been texting with for a week and even called at the gas station the night of her murder the day before the murder this person who owns this phone number texts just saying I'm horny Jessica texts back oh Lord Jessica then goes on to say that the person's mom and sisters were home and they would freak out if they found out the next day the number texted Jessica again saying I'm horny with Jessica replying oh Lord again Jessica then went on to ask for money to get something to eat and the number replies back in a very sexual nature and Jessica goes on to reply and say she only needs six bucks so investigators were able to track who Jessica was texting and shockingly it was the man that they spoke with previously Quinton which was a major red flag for investigators because Quinton never said anything about texting Jessica that day about having sex in fact he told them that they were just friends so right away police knew that Quinton was not being fully transparent about the night of the murder so they went to quinton's house to talk to him again like they did the last time he was being very Cooperative but he did say this time that he and Jessica did have a sexual relationship and that they actually had sex in her car in a field right behind his house he said they had sex a couple of times and had to put the seat back in her car which later tipped authorities off because the passenger seat in her car was put back when it was brought in to be searched for Clues but Quinton stressed that they didn't have a physical relationship the night that she died and they hadn't since the week prior Quinton took investigators on a tour of his property he showed them into a shed which had a 5 gallon thing for gasoline which as we all know gasoline was found on Jess his bra in order to accelerate the fire but to be fair I feel like it's not exactly uncommon to find that thing of gasoline in someone's shed or garage especially people who like are preparing for a natural disaster or something of that sort so Quinton also told investigators that he was in a town about 10 minutes away called Batesville getting a prepaid debit card to send to his girlfriend in Louisiana so that she could come and visit him he told them that when he got back that night he had heard what happened to Jessica but instead of checking up on her he deleted her information from his phone saying that he just didn't want those messages on his phone anymore now police were very weary about Quinn and the fact that he had already lied to them once so they figured they needed to see if his Alibi was airtight or not so they went to that store that he said he got that prepaid card at a store called Freds and they went to go speak with the manager the manager gave them surveillance video which showed Quinton buying that card at 8:26 p.m. which really isn't too long after the 911 call was made that night Freds was about 15 minutes away from the crime scene so realistically Quinton could have left the scene of the crime and made it to that store by 826 but since there was no way to confirm that suspicion Quinton was left off the hook but remained on the police's radar investigators then decided to Circle back to Jessica's boyfriend Travis yes he was in prison but they thought that maybe he got wind of Jessica being unfaithful and maybe put a hit out on her he was affiliated with a gang and since police were trying to cover all of their bases they went and they spoke with Travis but they soon realized that there was no way that Travis was involved even though they had had their fair share of problems when they were together he was beyond devastated when he heard what had happened to his girlfriend so 6 months went by with no strong leads or suspects Jessica's Family was left to pick up the pieces but investigators didn't give up and an intelligence analyst by the name of Paul rowlet looked into the cell phone records of Jessica and Quinton and he was able to figure out that at the same time that Jessica was in Batesville so was Quinton so if you piece it together Jessica called Quinton at the Eminem convenience store that evening and then went off to Batesville with him that evening so investigators decide to speak with Quinton again but this time he was not in Courtland he was serving time in a Louisiana jail for fraud charges so investigators traveled to the jail that he was at and spoke with him again just like the last couple of times Quinton was very very Cooperative even waving his moranda rights and they told him that they came to the conclusion that he and Jessica were in Batesville at the same time shortly before she was murdered he said he wasn't in Batesville until later that night and they say well you might not have been but your cell phone was so how did that happen did you loan it out and Quinton paused and he said oh wait you're right I was in Batesville that night I was with my friend Big Mike driving around in his truck he went on to say that they saw Jessica at Taco Bell and he gave her a bag of marijuana and 10 bucks and then went on his way Quinton said that he wasn't with Jessica that night and he was at home and until a little after 8:00 p.m. when he then went to get the prepaid debit card for his girlfriend so what's the truth what really happened here so investigators went on a new trail of figuring out who Big Mike was and if he was in Batesville with Quinton that night now Big Mike's name was actually Michael Sanford and Michael spoke with investigators and completely threw Quinton right under the bus stating that there was no way he was with him that night because he went to a Tennessee Titans game that night in his truck so with each lie so far in the case it would appear that investigators kept Landing right back in front of Quinton they spoke to him again and confronted him with Big Mike's Alibi and Quinton yet again changed his story he said he actually was with Jessica that night he said that up until 700 p.m. they hung out in her car smoking weed behind his house but Quinton swore that he did not kill Jessica but toward the end of the interrogation Quinton was visibly shaken and walked out on February 24th 2016 14 months after Jessica's murder da John champion held a press conference saying that they had a suspect for the case and that suspect was Quinton he said that Quinton was being charged with capital murder for Jessica's death JN didn't give much information about why Quinton was the Prime Suspect but he did say we methodically plugged along making sure that if we had some piece of information we had something to back it up with the public wants these cases to be solved quickly television doesn't help us with that the town was still not over the racial profiling that had come along with the case and having the press conference didn't help being that basically no information was given as to why Quinton was arrested which of course only fueled the rumor Mills that much more during the time of quinton's arrest up until his trial on October 10th 2017 in Batesville the prosecution site opened up first and da John Champion told the jury about how Jessica was burned alive and that Quinton was the last one to be with her he discussed how Quinton lied to the police multiple times about his whereabouts that evening but that with the cellular data they found they were able to track him that night John said that he believed that Quinton suffocated Jessica and went back to his house got a sister's car a can of gasoline drove back to Jessica in the car poured the gasoline lit it on fire and then drove off to Batesville to get that prepaid debit card while Jon was trying to persuade the jury that Quinton was guilty he also said that Quinton deserved a fair trial and had been extremely Cooperative from the start of the invest tigation next it was the defense's turn to present their case so in opening statements defense attorney Darla Palmer spoke with the jury acknowledging how heinous the crime was while also saying that there was absolutely no possible way that Quinton was guilty she focused on the key witness statement from Jessica herself and that it was her saying what sounded to be Eric or Derek when they asked who did it to her Darla went on to discuss how Jessica was able to say who she was and when asked who did it she said the same name multiple times Darla spoke on how Jessica didn't seem to know the suspect's last name but she knew Quinton beforehand and she knew his last name so if it really was in fact Quinton wouldn't she have been able to say his last name Darla also brought up the cell phone records and said that they can't actually pinpoint a person's location and her last piece of evidence to prove that Quinton was innocent was the Green Dot card otherwise known as that prepaid debit card she told the jury that the card was purchased at 753 or 758 that night and the car fire was reported on fire only a few minutes l later which would have made it absolutely impossible for Quinton to be at the scene of the crime next up was one of the prosecution's first Witnesses Jessica's best friend Kesha Kesha confirmed that she and Jessica were with Quinton that day driving around town she talked about how a few days prior to Jessica's death they did the same thing drove around town but when Jessica dropped Quinton off the two of them hugged and something about the hug didn't sit right with Kesha but something about the hug it just wasn't sitting right you know cuz we just acted she acted like it was you know something dangerous like she acted like she was paranoid or scared of something I don't know what what it could have been but she made it seem like it was like you know aggressive towards her but did did she appear to be returning the I guess for lack of better word returning to love she yeah she made it like short made it like you know a friendly hug but she made it seem more like she was scared to do it so she made it a quick hug and then got it back in the car and he left next it was Darla's turn to speak with Kesha and she focused on Jessica's history of selling marijuana you have knowledge that uh Jessica actually uh was involved with uh selling drugs to some degree marijuana yes that was yes yes and that would have been pretty often let's say in the last 6 months prior of that yes and closer we got to the December time frame would you say that she was basically serving people every other day yes the prosecution then brought Cole onto the stand as a key witness to the crime scene Cole was that first responder that wrapped Jessica in a blanket and spoke with her now his testimony was truly heartbreaking when when you arrived did you pull around them when I arrived I pulled around them and pulled on up to where the car was on fire and what did you see I I saw J standing in the road and uh then of course I se in the car on fire out of the corner of my eye and I immediately stepped out of the truck and open raised the compartment got a blanket out and went to Jessica's a let me ask you about it did you know Jessica Chambers I I knew her I we weren't you know friends or anything but I I knew were when you first arrived on the scene did you recognize this person no sir I did not what was this person wearing when I seen her she had nothing on but her pants and what did you tell me you did you you got a blanket I got out and I I got a blanket and she had her arms out was coming towards me saying help me help me help me Nicole I want you to describe for this jury what type of what did she look like what was the condition of Jessica Chambers her hair was uh her hair was fried out like she had stuck it in the light socket and uh she had black all over her face her body was severely burned and just all the way down her body was was was very badly burned and uh like I said and I wrapped the blanket around her to for one to concealer and uh concealer and uh I always knew that uh learned that you know burn victims would be cold and so that's why you know I placed a blanket around her and we proceeded to walk up the road I was trying to get her to the front of the engine a 81 to where the headlights were where it be more light where you know could access her a little more you know see a little better we we made it to the back of engine 81 and she she couldn't go anymore and I proceeded to lay her down on the ground she reached out for my hand I held on to her hand and I talked to her and I asked her her name she said what come out like I said her her mouth inside her mouth was just Char black and could not understand her very well at all when Darla cross-examined Cole she had him read his statement that he made shortly after helping Jessica the statement talked about how Jessica said the name Eric but when cross-examined Cole said that he was in a days when he made that statement and that he actually didn't understand what Jessica said the prosecution brought up all of the other First Responders to testify and they all stuck to basically the same story saying that the scene was beyond loud and chaotic but that they all pretty much heard Eric next up was Jessica's keys that Jerry King found not too far away from the crime scene the keys were sent off to be DNA tested and Katherine Rogers a forensic DNA analyst from scales biology laboratory discussed the DNA that was found on the keys while taking the stand she said that the DNA was from four different men and it was found on the keys when asked if any of the DNA was quinton's she said Quinton Tellus could not be excluded but let's be honest whether his DNA was found on the keys or not it doesn't exactly make him a suspect because from the sounds of it Jessica drove a lot of people around and it wouldn't be out of the question for the passenger to touch the keys at some point during one of their drives so then the prosecution team brought up Paul rowlet the intelligence analyst to discuss those phone records and what he found now Paul's testimony was close to 5 hours long he presented the jury with a PowerPoint and a map that showed all of Jessica's locations that evening as well as quinton's locations the pings of Jessica's phone to the cell phone tower put her in three different locations that evening the &m convenience store quinton's house and the field behind his house that to quinton's own admission admitted they had sex in when Paul analyzed quinton's phone records his phone ended up in the exact same spots as Jessica's that night then from 6:49 p.m. to 7:26 p.m. there was no activity from either Jessica or quinton's phones so investigators tried to account for that time period they checked the M&M's convenience store surveillance camera which faced directly in front of quinton's home the video showed a a car leaving quinton's house at 7:25 p.m. and a minute later Jessica's phone headed toward the scene of the crime but no text messages or calls were made at that point going forward with her phone then the camera spotted a car pulling into quinton's house and stopping at the shed on his property at 7:50 p.m. staying only for a few minutes and then leaving again heading south which again was the direction that Jessica's car was found and the direction that the car had just previously came from when Paul was cross-examined by Darla she said that being that Courtland was so small there weren't a ton of cell phone towers so the information that Paul found was not 100% accurate and Paul agreed saying that yes the more Towers the more accurate the results Darla also said that the surveillance footage never actually showed a license plate or who was driving the car found on the footage so it was all just an assumption that it was Quinton but not an actual fact then another piece of information that came from the cell phone records was quinton's last text that he had sent to Jess that night at 7:43 p.m. which said my friend is coming tonight I'm going to call you tomorrow good night sweet dreams da John claimed that he believed that that text as well as Quinton going to get the prepaid card was just a way for Quinton to create an alibi so next it was time for closing arguments da John recounted to the jury what happened to Jessica and how the prosecution came to the conclusion that Quinton was the suspect when Darla went on the defense's closing statement she focused on Jessica's last words Eric and went on to discuss the racial profiling found within the case when Da John had his rebuttal he dismissed the racial profiling claims as well as discussed how Jessica turned Quinton down for sex multiple times he said that we had sex and you got to believe him on that despite all of the text messages where Jessica is basically telling him no I'm not going to have sex with you oh Lord I'm tired your mom is there the various nice reasons that she was giving him I'm not having sex with you but you have to believe a man who has lied multiple times to law enforcement in order to believe that but he tries to tell you that we had sex right where we walk to you next to his house remember that when we walk down that little road that's where he pointed out to Dustin blunt 11 days after Jessica died that's where we had sex and then he said I said well how did you do it she got over on top of me and laid the seat back okay and then they walked over to the shed and Dustin was talking to him about his dirt bike and Dustin told you yes yeah he went inside and showed me a can of gasoline so let's go back to what the actual facts show Paul rette testified at beginning around 6:30 the dots are showing right where he pointed out to Dustin blunt that they had had sex second of all he pointed out that where the gas can was located which is the exact same spot you see the car slowly pull into and what we know was the substance on Jessica's bra found at the scene was what gasoline he showed Dustin blunt and the thing about it is he said they lean the seat back what was the position of the seat when it was found that night you've got multiple pictures of it just like he told Dustin blunt Jessica seat was laid back in the passenger seat you remember him telling Dustin that look at the photographs it supports exactly what he said happened inside that car there are three that's not made up those are things he said car gas where they had sex the green the dots not the green dots but the dots that Paul put out there so when they go and they want to have you say oh we pick we decided to go back to Quint TS we just picked him out of 150 people we interviewed no we went back to the person who had con we found contradictory evidence from what he told us in his interviews da John went on to talk about how he thought that Jessica and Quinton didn't have sex that night but that something did go on to make her become unconscious and then at that point Quinton drove the car to the spot First Responders found it went back to his house to get the gas and then set her and the car on fire then when it was time for the jury to announce their verdict something pretty shocking happened I don't need to know what your verdict was but I just need to know did all 12 jurors agree on that verdict yes sir we did all right would you hand the verdict please to the court to the clerk excuse me we all didn't agree on sir you said we all agreed on that verdict we didn't all verdict has to be unanimous so all 12 did not agree on the verdict is that what you're telling me me sir yeah I didn't agree he was all right i' ask you to step back into the Jury Room please pass the pass the verdict please to the clerk that you have in your hand after the jury was sent back they returned after 30 minutes of deliberation and came back with a unanimous decision the jury found Quinton not guilty for the capital murder of Jessica but then a different juror said that they did find Quinton guilty it was all very very confusing not only did the jury come back without being on the front once they actually came back twice doing the same thing so after deliberating a third time for an hour they came back and said that they couldn't make a unanimous decision one way or the other so the trial was considered a mistrial uh as part of our system of justice uh which we all uh fight jealously to to protect and preserve uh every defendant comes in this court is entitled to a jury that's as conscientious As You Are about the jury's rights and uh I respect your decisions uh your inability to reach a verdict is not mean that uh you've not done an admirable job because you have uh and this court appreciates it so uh with that I'm going to send you I'm going to declare a mistrial in this case and uh I want to send you back to your jury room and we'll be sending you home very shortly or so if you retire to the Jury Room [Music] please so on September 24th 2018 Quinton was on trial again now overall the trial was very similar to the last one with many of the same key Witnesses but something that the prosecution team different this time was bring in a burn specialist Dr William Hickerson now William's job was to proved to the jury that going off of what Jessica last said Eric wasn't valid due to her injuries she wouldn't have been able to speak clearly so there is no telling what exactly she said or meant that night not only that but she would have been in excruciating pain so it would not have been that easy for her to properly communicate they also showed autopsy photos of Jessica which indicated bruising on her torso which would not have been caused by a fire so at that point the prosecution team felt pretty confident with their case not only were they using old evidence but with this new testimony that they brought in they felt that they did a great job at convincing the jury that Quinton was guilty but believe it or not after a week of the retrial the jury came back again without a unanimous decision six jurors thought he was guilty and six thought that he was innocent so again Quinton wasn't found guilty or innocent and if all of that wasn't enough a new case was brought to light that had a connection to Quinton on August 8th 2015 in Monroe Louisiana a 34-year-old woman named Ming chenchow was found stabbed to death in the bedroom of her apartment and how she was found was because there was a smell coming from her apartment her body had been there for a while probably about 10 days according to her autopsy now Ming was known as Mandy by her friends and she was a foreign exchange student who lived in the states for a couple of years Mandy had been brutally stabbed 30 times when looking for Clues investigators found a Walmart Pharmacy receipt in her apartment dated the day before Mandy was thought to have died so investigators took a look at the Walmart surveillance footage and they found Mandy walking to a black car and inside the car was a black man who she gave a prescription of painkillers to then they took a look at her bank records and saw that someone had been using her debit card after she died to take money out of the ATM machine so after looking at that ATM machine surveillance they saw the same man who was in the car of that Walmart footage they ran the car's license plate and who did the plates connect to none other than Quinton apparently around that time he had moved to Monroe to live near his girlfriend so police charged Quinton with the unauthorized use of a debit card but not with the murder since they didn't have anything to link him to the crime crime yet later a man called Crim Stoppers and said Quinton told him that he actually tortured Mandy for her pin number and then killed her which allowed Ferman R police to then charge Quinton for Mandy's murder but Louisiana waited until after Jessica's trial to start Mandy's trial in November of 2022 Judicial District Court Judge Larry Jefferson dismissed quinton's indictment for Mandy all based on Mississippi wanting Quinton to spend 5 years in prison for Jessica it still has yet to be decided whether or not Quinton will go on the stand again it will be up to the second Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether or not he will go on trial after he serves his sentence sadly it would appear that Jessica and even Mandy never got the justice that they deserved the people in Jessica's life have been left to go about life without their beloved daughter sister and friend tragically Jessica's mom Lisa died in October of 2021 at the hospital her cause of death has never been released but one can only assume that maybe it has to do with the terrible losses that she suffered and the toll that it took on her her not only did she lose her son too soon but she lost her daughter in one of the most gruesome ways that one could she also had to recount her daughter's final moments multiple times in court seeing things that no mother ever should such as Jessica's autopsy photos it is horrible to think of all that Jessica missed out on in life because she was just out of high school and she had the rest of her life ahead of her while she was making some bad choices yes one could argue that she had just gone through the trauma of her brother's death at the core of it Jessica deserved chance to work through her mistakes and come out of it on the other end stronger for it even but instead she was brutally burned alive and then just discarded and left to die no matter what she was doing during the time of her death she definitely did not deserve the faith that she received not only that but Justice was never truly served for Jessica now I've read some theories from people thinking that it was Gang Related and some people think that Jessica somehow pissed someone off who she sold drugs to and they retaliated there are still so many questions surrounding Jessica's death and the main one being who is responsible who did it was it Quinton or was it someone else the prosecution team seemed to have a pretty good case to prove that Quinton was guilty yet the case was left with a hung jury so what do you guys think do you think that the jury made the wrong choice or do you think that somebody else murdered Jessica that night let me know what you guys think in the comments below thanks for tuning in to another episode of tent to life my name is Annie Elise and until the next case stay safe bye [Music]

Channel: Law&Crime Network

Views: 57,067

Keywords: law and crime, law and crime network

Id: LF0UMVltORA

Length: 47min 35sec (2855 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 06 2024