BATESVILLE, Miss. — It took investigators more than a year of painstaking work, but they say they have finally cracked the case of a former high school cheerleader who was found near death in her rural Mississippi hometown after being doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire.
District Attorney John Champion on Wednesday announced that Quinton Verdell Tellis, 27, has been charged with capital murder in the death of 19-year-old Jessica Chambers. She was found along a road, badly burned, on Dec. 6, 2014. Her vehicle was on fire. She suffered burns over 98 percent of her body and died hours later at a hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
“This has been the most unusual case that I’ve ever dealt with,” Champion said. “Obviously, the nature of how she died was very brutal, very horrendous.”
Champion says Tellis and Chambers knew each other and were friends, but he would not describe a motive. Champion did say he believed it was a “personal crime” and not related to drug or gang activity.
