The Great Smoky Mountain Journal

Staff, Wire Reports

Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 06:32 PM

Firefighter Testifies In Murder Case Of Mississippi 19-Year Old Jessica Chambers Who Was Burned To Death Intentionally In 2014

A longtime firefighter said Wednesday he had never seen a victim so badly burned when he found a young Mississippi woman lying on the ground -- barely able to sleep with blisters covering her body -- before she died after being intentionally set on fire.

Daniel Cole testified Wednesday about the death of 19-year-old Jessica Chambers at the capital murder trial of the man accused of killing her on Dec. 6, 2014.

"She was sitting on a blanket. Her hair was singed ... soot all around her nose and her mouth ... blistering all over her body," Cole, director of emergency operations for Panola County, told jurors.

"At one point I even laid down beside her," said Cole, fighting back tears.

Quinton Tellis, 29, is accused of killing Chambers, a former high school cheerleader from Courtland, Miss., who was found along a back road near a tree farm nearly three years ago. The teenager, who had been doused with a flammable liquid and set ablaze, was found lying next to her burning car. She died four hours later at a Memphis hospital.

Tellis has pleaded not guilty in Chamber's death.

Prosecutors claim Tellis lied repeatedly to investigators about spending time with Chambers in the hours before she was found with burns on 93 percent of her body.

But defense attorneys say Chambers told firefighters on the scene that a man named Eric set her on fire -- not the man charged with her murder.

Cole and another firefighter, Brandie Davis, told jurors Wednesday that Chambers responded "Eric" when they asked who had set her on fire.

"I asked who did this to you. She replied, "Eric,'" Davis testified on the second day of the trial in in Batesville, Mississippi.

"She was a fighter. She was trying to answer questions. She was trying to tell us who she was," said Davis.

On Tuesday, during opening statements, District Attorney John Champion acknowledged that that's not the name of the man he's prosecuting, but told jurors he believed evidence in the case would "change your mind."

Cristina Corbin is a Fox News reporter based in New York. Follow her on Twitter @CristinaCorbin