Murder: True Crime Stories - UNSOLVED: Jessica Chambers 1

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

In December 2014, 19 year old Jessica Chambers was found severely burned beside her car on a rural road in Courtland, Mississippi and soon passed away from her injuries. The horrifying crime quickly became one of the most haunting unsolved murder cases in recent memory. Before she died, Jessica reportedly identified her attacker, and her final words quickly became one of the most debated pieces of evidence in the case. As investigators searched for answers, the case exploded online, with social media users and amateur sleuths dissecting every rumor, clue, and theory. In Part 1 of Murder: True Crime Stories, Carter Roy examines the timeline of Jessica’s final hours, the intense public scrutiny surrounding the investigation, and how online speculation complicated the search for the truth. As pressure mounted and theories spread across the internet, authorities focused on a local man named Quinton Tellis, whose arrest and indictment would set the stage for a controversial legal battle to come. Head over to our Murder True Crime Stories YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@MurderTrueCrimeStories If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Murder True Crime Stories to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios YouTube: @murdertruecrimestories To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everyone, it's Carter. Exciting news. Video episodes of murder true crime stories are now on YouTube. Every Friday, I'll be dropping a full video episode going deeper into the cases that still haunt us, the mysteries that haven't been solved, and the stories that deserve more than just a headline. Same depth, same commitment to telling the real story. Now you can watch it. Subscribe at Murder True Crime Stories on YouTube.

to catch a new video episode every Friday. This is Crime House. Social media has undeniably changed society. We're now more connected than ever, but it turns out that constant communication isn't always a good thing. In December of 2014, the small town of Cortland, Mississippi,

learned this firsthand. After a 19-year-old woman named Jessica Chambers suffered a tragic death, the community received an outpouring of support from all around the globe. In the year to follow, amateur detectives formed online discussion groups using sites like Facebook. Their official goal was to help the police solve Jessica's murder, but in reality, all they did was harassed the people they believed were guilty, without any evidence to back up their accusations. That obsession with true crime backfired, stalling the investigation into Jessica's murder. And all these years later, her friends and family are still paying the price.

People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories, a crime house original powered by Pave Studios. New episodes come out every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, with Friday's episodes covering the cases that deserve a deeper look. Thank you for being part of the crime house community. Please rate, review, and follow the show, and for add free access to every episode, subscribe to Crimehouse Plus on Apple Podcasts.

And this is the first of two episodes on the murder of 19-year-old Jessica Chambers in Cortland, Mississippi. And please note, this episode contains graphic descriptions of violence and murder. Please listen with care. Today, we'll discuss the brutal crime that shocked the town of Cortland, Mississippi, on December 6, 2014. because the case was so heavily impacted by social media, we'll start by covering the murder itself, then we'll learn who Jessica Chambers was, just like the armchair detectives who fixated on her case.

And of course, we'll follow detectives as they search for clues and eventually land on a prime suspect. Next time, we'll dive into the two trials that followed. Although prosecutors were certain, they had found Jessica's killer getting a conviction proved to be more difficult than they expected. Because of that, Jessica's family is still searching for answers. All that and more coming up. You'd have to zoom in pretty far on a map to notice the small town of Cortland, Mississippi,

located in the northern part of the states, in our south of Memphis, Tennessee. only about 500 people live there, and most have been in Cortland their entire lives. The area is predominantly blue-collar. Most people are farmers or factory workers, and though many of them live below the poverty line, they like to say they are rich in spirit. Cortland has one of the highest rates of church attendance in the United States and is the kind of place where neighbors really do look out for one another. So it's safe to say that faith is the first priority for many families in Cortland.

Maybe the second is football. Every Saturday during the height of the season, and practically the entire town gathers at the local high school to cheer on the team. And while Cortland has problems with petty crime and violence like anywhere else, most people would call it safe. Or at least, it was safe. But that all changed on December 6th, 2014. That night at around 8.10 p.m., local firefighters got a call that would haunt them forever.

Someone had spotted a young woman staggering down a rural road outside of town, half naked and dazed, even more disturbing. The victim was engulfed in flames. Because of the way she stumbled down the street. The caller said she looked like some kind of zombie. And when firefighters arrived, just minutes later, they found she was covered in severe burns that extended from the tips of her toes to the inside of her throat. From the beginning, they could tell the attack was deliberate. The victim's car, a black Kia Rio, was smoldering a few yards away. It looked like someone had doused the vehicle and the young woman in gasoline before setting them both on fire. And yet she was somehow able to escape and stay on her feet long enough to walk away.

By the time paramedics arrived, the woman was still clinging to life, but just barely. The EMTs found her lying in the fetal position next to a ditch. with every ragged breath she took, a flap of burnt skin hanging from her nose fluttered in the dirt. Emergency workers were stunned to find the young woman was still relatively lucid. She could nod weakly or shake her head in response to questions, and though it clearly hurt her to speak, she was able to croak out a few words here and there.

Most of it was unintelligible, but some of what she said was clear as day, knowing that her time was probably running out, a volunteer firefighter named Brandy Davis asked the victim who attacked her. According to eight witnesses, she said that someone named Eric was to blame. After that, she fell silent, trembling as EMTs loaded her onto a stretcher. They rushed her to a local hospital just a few minutes away. It was a Saturday night and the ICU was busy, but doctors dropped everything when they saw the extent of the young woman's injuries. Second and third-degree burns covered 93% of her body as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

The police managed to identify her as 19-year-old Jessica Chambers. That was how they got in touch. with her parents Ben and Lisa. As painful as it was, they were able to sit by their daughter's bedside in her final moments. Ben couldn't bear to see his little girl in so much pain. For six long hours he sat outside the hospital room while Jessica fought to stay alive. Sadly, she was too far gone by then. Her mom, Lisa, held her hand as she passed away around, one or two a.m. on December 7th, 2014. Jessica's death shocked Cortland. Her older sister, 25-year-old AJ, just couldn't wrap her head around it. Growing up, she and Jessica spent

their days in the neighbor's backyard, playing kickball with the other kids on their street. Cortland was so small it felt like everyone was family. AJ couldn't imagine anyone doing something so horrific to her sister. No one could. Pretty much everyone who knew Jessica loved her. She was fun-loving, kind, and talented. Growing up, she made a name for herself as an athlete, playing softball, and joining the cheerleading squad in middle school. Jessica knew how much football meant to the town, so she wanted to be right there on the field, supporting the players from the sidelines. It helped that she was short, slender, and blonde, the quintessential cheerleader. And by all accounts, she loved it.

She was the flyer, the most sought after role on the squad. Not only was she the top of the pyramid, she was also the one launched into the air during acrobatic routines. It was definitely a little risky. On more than one occasion, her parents had to close their eyes when they watched, terrified that her teammates would accidentally drop her to the ground. ground, but for Jessica, cheerleading was exhilarating. In 2013, Jessica graduated high school and passed her role as flyer down to someone else.

After that, she got a job at a local department store, but the photo she took in her cheer uniform were the ones that circulated most widely in the media a year later after her death. The headlines basically wrote themselves, a popular, former cheerleader had been burned alive. A story like that was bound to spread, especially because Jessica's case came at a time when public interest in true crime was growing. Publications like BuzzFeed covered her death extensively and helped circulate the story to a wider audience. So it wasn't surprising that within weeks, dozens of social media pages dedicated to the case had popped

up. Their armchair detectives, who knew nothing about Jessica or her community, debated what had happened to her. They accused her friends, ex-boyfriends, and even her father of killing her. Many tried to get in contact with the accused over social media to interrogate and harassed them. This only made the grieving process more difficult for Jessica's family. family, and the red herrings made it harder for the Mississippi police to do their jobs. The local sheriff Dennis Darby was put in charge of the case. For him, the crime hit especially close to home. Jessica's dad, Ben, worked as a mechanic in his department.

Solving the murder was priority one for Sheriff Darby, but the town had never dealt with such a high-profile case. Rather than try to do everything themselves, the deputies assembled a task force of state and local investigators. Having experienced detectives on their side would give them the best chance at finding the culprit. At the outset of the investigation, the team was confident. But the scene of the crime itself proved to be their first challenge. The fire and its aftermath had obliterated all traces of, of forensic evidence. And what hadn't been burnt in the flames was washed away by the fire department.

Officers tried their best to sift through the debris that remained, but they couldn't come up with anything usable. There were no signs of the killer in the surrounding area either. Dozens of emergency responders had stampeded through the dirt, trampling over any existing footprints. So the team turned back to the only lead they did have, one that Jessica provided in her final moments. According to firefighters at the scene, she blamed someone named Eric for attacking her. Police poured over her phone, searching for any conversations with the mystery man.

They looked at her texts, her social media accounts, anything that might help. but there was no mention of him anywhere. At that point, they cast a wider net. Local deputies, along with FBI officials, started making a list of every single Eric in the surrounding area. Just to be safe, they included people named Derek, too. Over the next few weeks, they conducted dozens of interviews, and yet no one they spoke to had any clear connection to Jessica.

None of her family and friends knew who the mysterious Eric might be either. The investigation was going nowhere fast, and before long, detectives were forced to admit they'd hit a dead end. They had no choice but to consider other possibilities. When she was found, Jessica's throat was burned and raw from breathing in scalding smoke. law enforcement believed her injuries could have prevented her from pronouncing certain sounds. So while the firefighters insisted she accused Eric of being the culprit, it was possible she meant to say something else.

It's not that the first responders misheard, but that her vocal cords were too damaged for her to speak clearly. And that meant the police would have to go back to the drawing board. Burning someone alive is a particularly violent way to commit murder. Because of that, investigators were certain the motive had to be personal. So they focused on her family, friends, and romantic partners. They wanted to know every single person who saw Jessica in the days before her death. That's when detectives realized there was much more to Jessica's story.

then met the eye. On December 6th, 2014, 19-year-old Jessica Chambers was found on the side of a road in Cortland, Mississippi. Although she had been set on fire and was severely injured, she was still conscious. At the scene, she told firefighters that someone named Eric had attacked her. Jessica died in the hospital six hours later, and as the story of her horrific murder spread across the country. A police task force slept into action to find the killer. Unfortunately, their initial efforts to track down Eric hit a wall. So, early on, detectives

turned their attention to Jessica's personal life. They quickly realized she'd been through a lot in her 19 years. Jessica Chambers was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, near Cortland, on February 2, 1995. She was one of seven children. with three brothers and three sisters. That man, Jessica, grew up in a full house. With so many mouths to feed, her parents had to work hard to make ends meet. It was a lot of pressure that pushed her father, Ben, to make some mistakes. In the early 2000s, Ben was busted for manufacturing crystal meth.

During the same period, he was arrested for driving under the influence. Later on, he got sober and turned his life around, becoming the first. mechanic and eventually getting a job with the sheriff's department. But even then, Jessica's teenage years were turbulent and at times tragic. In 2006, her next-door neighbor was shot in his front yard. Six years later in 2012, one of her older brothers passed away in a car accident. Jessica might have been naturally rebellious, but these experiences only caused her to act out even more. She liked to push boundaries, especially when her parents disapproved of her decisions. As the years wore on, the relationship between Jessica and her mother, Lisa, became especially

tense. According to Lisa, she and her daughter shared the same short temper. When they argued, they didn't hold anything back. Friends remember Jessica and her mom having full-on screaming matches in their front yard. And sometimes these ended with Jessica leaving the house to go stay with friends for a few months. Things between the mother-daughter duo weren't always perfect.

But in the end, Jessica always came back home. After digging into these disputes, investigators found that many of them traced back to Jessica's taste in men. Lisa felt that her daughter had fallen in with a rough crowd and went out with guys who didn't treat her right. To make matters worse, Lisa said Jessica could be manipulative with her boyfriends, using them to get what she wanted. She even threw her

mother under the bus in the process. For example, Jessica sometimes said her mom locked up all the food in the house to starve her as a punishment. Lisa insisted these stories were lies designed by Jessica to pressure her dates into giving her money so she could go to Burger King. On other occasions, Jessica agreed to go out with a guy on the condition that he brought her cigarettes beforehand. She claimed they were for her mom, but in reality, she smoked them all herself. Lisa said that these wild stories made Jessica's dates think she was some kind of monster, and while that probably wasn't fair, there was another major. factor underpinning these relationships.

Race. Jessica was white, but had a lot of black friends and often dated black men, and on more than one occasion, Jessica told her friends and boyfriends that her parents were racist. Ben did acknowledge that he doesn't believe in interracial relationships. But Lisa disputed her daughter's characterization. She, and, that she didn't like the behavior of the guys Jessica went out with and said it didn't have anything to do with race Still, that tension was at the root of some of their most passionate arguments in 2013 a year before her death Jessica was dating a young black man named Brian Rudd because Lisa didn't approve of the relationship she kicked her 18-year-old daughter out of the house

Brian's mom went outside the next morning to find her son sleeping with Jessica out on the front porch. Overcome with sympathy, she agreed to let Jessica stay with them for a few months. That summer, the couple broke up and Jessica moved back in with her mom. But even though she and Brian were no longer dating, they were still close. And apparently he wanted to rekindle their relationship. In May of 2013, around the time Jessica graduated high school, the two of them met up at Lisa's house. While they were there, someone fired a gun. Jessica claimed that Brian tried to shoot her because she wouldn't get back together with him.

Brian said it was the other way around. He told police that she tried to shoot him to get him to leave. It was a messy situation that ended with Brian. moving to Iowa to live with his older brother. Jessica coped differently. Soon she started dating another young man named Travis Sanford. But just a few months into their relationship in the fall of 2013, Travis was sentenced to six years in prison for robbery. Although he and Jessica stayed together, it seemed like his run-in with a law was a wake-up call for her. Once he was behind bars, she got a job at a local department store and tried to straighten out her act.

All in all, things seemed to be going well for her in the days before her death on December 6, 2014, which made the crime even more baffling for the police. Her official boyfriend, Travis Sanford, was incarcerated at the time of the attack, so investigators knew he couldn't be responsible. and even though Jessica had personal feuds with some of her friends, none of them seemed capable of such a brutal murder. The only thing left to do was to reconstruct the 19-year-old's final hours. That's how detectives learned Travis Sanford wasn't her only boyfriend.

It turned out she'd recently gotten involved with another man, a 26-year-old named Quentin Tellis. On December 10, 2014, just three days after Jessica was pronounced dead, Quentin sat down with police. He explained that he and Jessica had been dating for a few weeks at the time of her murder, and they were introduced through some friends, and Jessica's older sister, AJ, had gone to elementary school with Quentin and knew him well. According to Quentin, Jessica picked him up on the morning,

of her death. One of her best friends, a young woman named Keisha Meyer, was also in the car. The trio drove around town for about an hour. He said they didn't do much. They just chatted and laughed about some local gossip. Then Jessica dropped Quentin back off at his house. He was adamant that he wasn't with Jessica for long. Even under pressure from investigators, Quentin was cooperative and seemed to be forthcoming. He voluntarily offered a DNA sample and even took a polygraph, which he passed. He also gave them an alibi, claiming he was with some friends about 30 minutes after Jessica was attacked sometime around 8.45 that night. After making sure Quentin's story checked out, detectives turned their attention to the rest of Jessica's day. Based on location data from

Jessica's cell phone. Investigators were able to get a rough idea of her movements, although they weren't always able to verify if she was alone or not. But from what they could gather, that afternoon was a pretty slow one for the 19-year-old. She spent the majority of her time at home, relaxing, passing the hours with her mom. Then just before 5 p.m. that evening, Lisa said Jessica got a phone call from a friend. After a short conversation, Jessica told her she was going out. Lisa didn't ask many questions. It didn't seem like her daughter was headed anywhere important.

She was wearing camouflage sweatpants and her hair was tossed into a messy bun. Cell phone data confirmed that Jessica's next stop was a nearby gas station where she paused to fill up her Kia Rio sedan. Security footage showed her fueling up her car and paying at the counter. In the video, nothing about her behavior seemed out of the ordinary. She didn't interact with anyone other than the cashier. Then she headed to a nearby friend's house, though it's not clear if this was the same friend who'd called her or someone else.

But we do know that Jessica spent the next 45 minutes there. Then, at 6 o'clock, Jessica left her friend and drove to the neighboring town, a place called Batesville, which isn't much larger than Cortland. Police had no idea what she did there or who she may have been with. Finally, sometime around 7.30 that night, she pulled over on the back road where she died, only a couple of miles away from her mom's house. Forty-five minutes later, a passing driver spotted her burning car. After weeks of investigating, detectives felt like they had a good idea of who Jessica Chambers was, and they knew all about her friends, her family, and her romantic life.

But none of it added up to a solid lead. The 90 minutes between 6 p.m. and 7.30 seemed to be the crucial window. Police believe that whoever Jessica met up with in Batesville could point them to the killer. or was the killer. But for the time being, they had no idea who that might be. Her car was too burnt up to offer any forensic evidence. Her final words pointed them to a man who might not exist, and even though police believed the motive had to be personal,

the people closest to her all had solid alibis. Deputies spent countless hours going over the evidence with a fine-tooth comb. Even then, it took them almost a year to realize they'd made a serious mistake. It turned out, one of their prime suspects had lied straight to their faces. A mother is on trial for allegedly luring her own son-in-law

to his death and her search history may have given away everything. This is Vanessa, the host. of Crime House 24-7. Right now in a Utah courtroom, 60-year-old Tracy Grist is standing trial for murder, accused of masterminding a family plot to kill her son-in-law, Matthew Rostelli. Prosecutors say Matthew was lured from California under the pretense of picking up his wife and kids. What he didn't know, he was walking into a trap. Within seconds, he was shot seven times, three of them in the back. And months before the killing, investigators say Tracy sent a text to,

one of her daughters that read, quote, Matt made it so I want to kill him. He straight up lied, I'm going to kill him, end quote. Hear the rest of that story and never miss another on Crime House 24-7, where we cover breaking true crime news daily. Follow Crimehouse 24-7 wherever you listen to podcasts, so you never miss a story as it breaks. I'm Tyler McBrion. Join me as we take a wild ride through granite quarries, graveyards, cults, small town southern lore and a lot of explosives.

In the new AJC original podcast, Who Blew Up the Guidestones? You know it's still under criminal investigation, right? These are people who enjoy keeping secrets. Political nonsense. Religious nuts. Did you ever see the Georgia Guidestones? This is crazy.

The Georgia Guidestones may be America's answer to Stonehenge. County administrator says there were conspiracy theories. I'll forget that crime was committed here, and somebody got away with it. That's not how we did banks in our country. A man walks in his office. Says, I want to buy a monument. It might be unsolved because they chose not to solve.

Follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. They ought to tear that satanic symbol down in Elberton, Georgia. By September 2015, it had been nine months since 19-year-old Jessica Chambers was burned alive in Cortland, Mississippi. So far, a task force of local and federal agents had failed to arrest anyone for Jessica's murder. Her family and friends were starting to get frustrated with the lack of progress. To make matters worse, a mob of internet detectives was still harassing them practically every day. These people congregated on Facebook pages and online discussion boards to debate their wild theories. Most of the so-called leads they flowed.

were totally unsubstantiated, and lately many of them had taken on a racial angle. For example, some posters spread misinformation about Jessica's ex-boyfriend Brian Rudd. Brian was black, which they believe somehow implicated him in Jessica's death. Officially, the police had never considered him a suspect. He didn't even live in Cortland anymore, and hadn't at the time Jessica was killed, But none of that mattered to the trolls. Other internet users honed in on a 19-year-old who worked at the gas station where Jessica was seen a few hours before her death. Without any other clear suspects, the virtual mob descended on him too.

Some of them focused on the fact that he was of Arab descent. They claimed without evidence that the gas station where he worked was often used to carry out drugs. drugs deals. The harassment got so bad that the local police had to step in and formally announced that the young man was not a suspect. On the contrary, he had gone out of his way to help the authorities by finding surveillance video of Jessica filling up her car. Even then, the online trolls didn't stop. They were convinced that Jessica was a victim of gang violence and concocted wild narratives that placed her at the center of a vast conspiracy. They wanted to make the case about racial tensions, a narrative that Jessica's friends in the police flatly rejected.

Overall, the residents of Cortland were baffled and incredibly frustrated by all the online attention. Clearly, the internet sleuths weren't going to help solve Jessica's murder. In fact, they were just making things worse. So the authorities tried to ignore the noise and focus on the case, and in August of 2015, they finally got the lead they'd been waiting for. That month, 26-year-old Quentin Talis was arrested in Louisiana. And remember, he and Jessica had been dating for a few weeks at the time of her death, and Quentin told police he was with her the day she died. but he insisted he had nothing to do with her murder. After her death, he started dating another woman,

and in early July 2015, they moved to Louisiana and got married. One of the first things Quentin did once they arrived was place a call to Chase Bank to activate a debit card. The problem was, the card belonged to a dead woman. 34-year-old Mandy Xiao was a Taiwanese international student who had received her master's degree from the University of Louisiana in April 2015. She was found stabbed to death in an off-campus apartment just three months later on June 29th. Bank records showed that someone had withdrawn $1,000 from her account the same night she was murdered. her debit card was missing from her wallet.

And Quentin Tellis was the one who had it. He was arrested in September. A month later, he was charged with three counts of unauthorized use of a credit card and possession of a quarter pound of marijuana. The police affidavit stated that investigators believed he had something to do with Mandy's murder too. When news of the crime reached detectives in Cortland, Mississippi, they saw Quentin in a new light. Months earlier, they dismissed him as a suspect in the murder of Jessica Chambers. Now, they weren't so sure.

Investigators took another look at Quentin's alibi and filed subpoenas to access his cell phone records. After cross-referencing his official statements with the new data, it seems. like he'd been lying to them. According to the district attorney, John Champion, experts made a mistake in their initial analysis of Jessica's cell phone. After adjusting their criteria to account for the error, location data showed that she and Quentin were together in the hours leading up to her death. That contradicted Quentin's previous testimony. A year earlier, back in December of 2014, he told authorities that he'd only seen Jessica for about an hour on the morning of her murder.

Clearly he was hiding something. To learn more, the Cortland police had him sent back to Mississippi for another round of questioning. Quentin stuck to his original story. Even when police confronted him with the cell phone data, he insisted that he was with his friend, a man who went by the name Big Mike during the period that Jessica was killed. And the police had no choice but to return him to Louisiana, where Quentin was still being held on suspicion of illegally using Mandy's credit card. But now, they had a new lead to follow.

They tracked down, Big Mike. And according to him, he wasn't even in town the day Jessica was killed. With that, Quentin's alibi had officially fallen apart. So in early 2016, the authorities interrogated him for the third time. Finally, Quentin confessed that he was with Jessica that evening. The two of them met at a Taco Bell in Batesville at around 6 p.m. after she left her friend's house in Cortland. This was the key window of time police had already identified, the 90 minutes leading up to her murder. Still, Quentin continued to insist that he had nothing to do with her death, but given the fact that he'd been lying to them for months,

the authorities refused to take him at his word. On February 23, 2016, a grand jury indicted 27-year-old Quentin Tellis for the murder of Jessica Chambers. And meanwhile, the investigation into Mandy Schau's death was ongoing, though the Louisiana police still considered Quintan, and a suspect. They had yet to charge him with her murder. Back in Cortland,

Jessica's family was shocked to hear the news about his indictment. They hadn't heard an update on the case in months, and suddenly the police had a potential culprit, and they weren't the only ones who were taken aback. The army of ever-present internet sleuths was outraged. In a year since Jessica was killed, the mob had harassed countless people, people they suspected of being involved in the crime, but almost none of them had named Quentin

as the killer. Many refused to believe he was responsible, and they took to the web to let out their frustration. For these detractors, there were two major issues with the police's newest suspect. The first had to do with Jessica's final words. For over a year, everyone had been searching for a man with a name that sounded something like Eric. Quentin Tellis clearly didn't fit the bill. Because of that, some people argued that he couldn't possibly be guilty. Law enforcement responded to the criticism by emphasizing that Jessica's mouth and throat were damaged by the fire. They believe she wasn't able to pronounce a T sound because of her injuries. They argued that maybe she had been trying to say,

Talis, and the firefighters at the scene misheard her. That struck some internet commentators as a stretch, but they also had a second larger objection to the arrest. At a press conference following his indictment, the district attorney said, unequivocally, that Jessica's murder had nothing to do with gang violence or drugs, though he acknowledged that Quentin was a member of a gang, he was adamant that the motive was personal.

That flew in the face of the conspiracies that many internet sleuths had spent a year furiously debating on Facebook. Over time, some of them had become utterly convinced, without real evidence, that Jessica was deeply embedded with gangs in Portland. Many were confident that she was also dealing drugs. They believed multiple people must have colluded to kill her. These internet users who had never even been to Cortland

or met anyone involved in the case were certain they were correct. Investigators released several public statements to try to contradict the internet hysteria, but in the end, they had to turn their attention away from the trolls to focus on building their case. Quentin's trial was scheduled for October 9th, 2017. The authorities hoped a guilty verdict would prove the online skeptics wrong once and for all. But when Quentin Tellis' day in court came, and the prosecution got more than they bargained for.

Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder, True Crime Stories. Come back next time for part two on the murder of Jessica Chambers and all the people it affected. Murder True Crime Stories is a crime house original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference.

And to enhance your murder true crime stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad-free. We'll be back on Thursday. Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy, and is a crime house original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Natalie Protofsky, Lori Maranelli, Sarah Camp, Terrell Wells, Honeya Asaid, Nicolette Tavallero, Cassidy Dillon, and Russell Nash.

Thank you for listening. A mother is on trial for allegedly luring her own son-in-law to his death, and her search history may have given away everything. This is Vanessa, the host of Crime House 24-Sexam. Right now in a Utah courtroom, 60-year-old Tracy Grist is standing trial for murder, accused of masterminding a family plot to kill her son-in-law, Matthew Rostelli. Prosecutors say Matthew was lured from California under the pretense of picking up his wife and kids. What he didn't know? He was walking into a trap.

Within seconds, he was shot seven times, three of them in the back. And months before the killing, investigators say Tracy sent a text to one of her daughters that read, Quote, Matt made it so I want to kill him. He straight up lied, I'm going to kill him, end quote. Hear the rest of that story and never miss another on Crime House 24-7, where we cover breaking true crime news daily. Follow Crimehouse 24-7 wherever you listen to podcasts, so you never miss a story as it breaks. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Murder True Crime Stories. Not sure what to listen to next.

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