Defense: Wrong man on trial in burning death of woman

BATESVILLE, Miss. — Defense attorneys argued Sunday that the wrong man is on trial in the burning death of a Mississippi woman and that their client, Quinton Tellis, should be found innocent because the woman told firefighters that someone named Eric or Derek set her on fire.

“‘Eric’ is not on trial today, but ladies and gentlemen, he should be,” attorney Darla Palmer said during closing arguments on the sixth day of Tellis’ capital murder trial.

District Attorney John Champion said 19-year-old Jessica Chambers, who died hours after being set on fire, suffered severe damage to her mouth and throat and could not pronounce the letter T.

“Maybe she wasn’t trying to say ‘Eric,'” Champion said. “Maybe she was trying to say ‘Tellis.'”

Tellis, 29, pleaded not guilty and did not testify during the trial. Jurors started deliberating the case Sunday after closing arguments.

Champion said investigators were thorough in searching for people named Eric or Derek in the county where Chambers was killed and in surrounding counties. He said, however, that evidence points to Tellis, including an analysis of the locations of Tellis’ cellphone and Chambers’ cellphone the day she was set on fire.

Prosecutors theorize that Tellis had sex with Chambers before setting her and her car on fire and leaving her to die along a back road in Courtland, Miss., on Dec. 6, 2014. Tellis drove Chambers’ car to a rural back road, ran to his sister’s house nearby, borrowed her car, stopped at his house for a can of gasoline, and used the liquid to set Chambers on fire, prosecutors told jurors.

Tellis has told investigators he does not know who killed Chambers.

A severely burned Chambers was found walking near her burning car, and some first responders testified that she looked like a “zombie” with burned skin and hair. A doctor testified she had third-degree burns on most her body when she died at a hospital in Memphis, Tenn., about 60 miles north of Courtland.

During early interviews with law enforcement agents, Tellis said he only saw Chambers on the morning of the day she died. I