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An unresolved jury imposed a no-show trial in the case of a Mississippi man accused of setting Jessica Chambers, 19, on fire and killing her.
Juries reported they could not reach a verdict on Monday in a week-long trial of 29-year-old Quinton Tellis, who faced murder charges for the second time in the county court. Panola.
Judge Gerald Chatham Clarence declared the trial void after a day and a half of deliberation, barring jurors from reaching a unanimous decision. The original proceedings ended in the same circumstances.
Tellis was accused of spraying the teenage cheerleader with gasoline, then burning her car in December 2014 on a country road in Courtland.
Prosecutors alleged that Tellis had met several times with the teenage girl, who was a recent acquaintance, on the day of his horrible murder.
Tellis initially claimed that they had just spent the morning driving with her friend, but changed her story when she was presented with surveillance images and cellular data gathering them the night of her death, prosecutors said. .
The investigators testified that there were other inconsistencies with his alibi, such as his claim that he was with a friend named Big Mike. The police later discovered that he was in Nashville to watch a football match.
He also told the investigators that the marks of burns on his own body were caused by a bonfire.
The accused allegedly erased his phone from any communication with Chambers the day after the teenager's death.
Tellis, however, emphatically insisted that he was innocent and that he had become emotional when he was questioned during a recorded interrogation.
"I have never killed anyone," Tellis told the authorities. "I did not even have it in my heart."
Her lawyers focused their argument around the testimony of several emergency responders who heard the name of the dying teenager "Derek" or "Eric" as her abuser.
Two medical experts summoned to the stand by the prosecution challenged the possibility that the teenager could have spoken because of the extent of her injuries. Officials estimated that nearly 93% of the chambers were burned during this horrific incident.
The teenager's family sometimes became emotional during the week-long trial, especially when rescuers reported finding rooms on the roadside covered with soot and frizzy hair.
Tellis's lawsuit comes as he faces another indictment of murder committed in 2015 during the shooting death of Meing-Chen Hsiao in Monroe, Louisiana. He has already pleaded guilty to the use of his debit card without authorization. He is currently serving a prison sentence for an unrelated burglary charge.
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