Jurors in Tellis trial take field trip to scenes
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BATESVILLE, Miss. — From the remote spot where Jessica Chambers’ burning car was found to the convenience store where surveillance footage showed the teen last alive, jurors in the Quinton Tellis murder trial got a firsthand look Thursday.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys accompanied the jury on a morninglong
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Loaded in two white vans and accompanied by a caravan of law enforcement vehicles and media, jurors made the short trip from the Panola County Courthouse in Batesville to the tiny Courtland community where Chambers and Tellis lived.
The first stop was the wooded area
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At the stop, with jurors huddled nearby under a watchful eye from court authorities to avoid improper contact, Assistant District Attorney Jay Hale and Daily
defense attorney Alton Peterson questioned investigator Barry Thompson of the Panola County Sheriff ’s Department.
Thompson explained for jurors how Chambers’ vehicle was positioned under a tree still bearing the scars from intense heat that damaged it that night. The tree remains decorated with markings and bows.
Tellis stood with his lawyers, Peterson and Darla Palmer, throughout the field trip. He sometimes appeared nervous and wiped his brow during Thompson’s testimony at the fire site.
The caravan next traveled just down the road to a spot where keys, identified during testimony as Chambers’ keys, were found. Under questioning from Peterson, Thompson admitted he did not know personally that the keys were found at that location, but said that’s where they were reported found by Jerry King.
The jury next saw the location, again nearby on the same road, where witness Sherry Rena Flowers testified Wednesday she picked up an unidentified African-American male the evening Chambers died.
Investigators marked the spot on the road matching the coordinates of where Flowers had said she picked up the hitchhiker, whom she never identified in court as being Tellis.
The entourage then moved to the area along U.S. 51 at its intersection with Old U.S. 51. That’s the area where Julia Chambers and her daughter, Keri Henson, lived.
Flowers testified that Chambers’ house was where the hitchhiker she picked up said he wanted to go.
Tellis is distantly related to Julia Chambers, who is no relation to Jessica Chambers.
Flowers testified she dropped off the hitchhiker at the intersection of the two highways, just down from Chambers’ house, though Julia Chambers later testified Wednesday that she never saw Tellis that night.
Chambers said Tellis had probably been in her house only a couple of times in his life, once as a little boy and once as a teen.
The jury next went to the convenience store on U.S. 51, known as the M&M convenience store at the time of Chambers’ death in 2014. Surveillance video showed Chambers purchasing gas there on the evening she died. Also, prosecutors pointed out surveillance cameras mounted on either end of the outside of the store and pointed across U.S. 51 in the direction of the final stop across the road — Tellis’ house.
After moving across the highway to the driveway of the Tellis home, Hale pointed out the line of sight of one of the convenience store cameras. Peterson, however, got Thompson to concede on cross-examination that the camera’s field of view would have taken in only the entrance to the house, at the very end of the drive. A view up to the house would not have been possible.
Though there would have been less vegetation in December than was visible Thursday, Peterson noted many of the trees along the highway were evergreens that would still have had leaves that would have further obscured the view.
As part of the final stop at the Tellis home, jurors saw a vacant area next to the house. Though not yet explained in testimony during this trial as of Thursday morning’s field trip, testimony in the first trial last October explained the significance of the field.
Prosecutors said in the first trial that the field is where they believed Tellis and Chambers had sex in her car before it was moved to the Herron Road site and set on fire.
The trip included most of the stops jurors saw during a similar field trip at last fall’s initial trial, which ended with a hung jury. Jurors this time did not, however, visit the impound lot where Chambers’ burned-out car was taken.
“There was no need,” District Attorney John Champion said. “The condition of the car was too badly deteriorated. We relied on photos this time.”
Before the field trip began, Circuit Judge Gerald Chatham considered several motions from the defense Thursday morning.
The defense team sought to exclude several of the stops on the trip, including the location where Chambers’ keys were found and the areas where Flowers testified she picked up and dropped off the hitchhiker.
They also objected to planned testimony by Thelma Taylor, the wife of Willie Taylor, the man believed to be the stranger many responders reported seeing at the crime scene the evening of Dec. 6. Peterson said defense attorneys had received little notice of Taylor’s testimony.
Finally, defense attorneys objected to a re-creation, expected to take place Thursday evening, at the Herron Road site of the burning car. Prosecutors expect to have emergency response vehicles in place, as they were the evening of Dec. 6, to simulate noise levels that would have made it difficult to hear anything Chambers told responders.
“There has been no testimony as to how the noise level would have been the same the whole time,” Peterson argued. “We do not believe it’s possible to recreate the situation.”
Chatham overruled the motion on the field trip sites, allowing the trip to go forward as planned. He took under advisement the objections about Thursday evening’s re-creation and about Taylor’s testimony.
During that afternoon session, jurors heard from medical personnel who dealt with Chambers at Regional One Hospital.
Dr. William Hickerson testified at length about her condition. At one point, as defense attorney Palmer pressed Hickerson on Chambers’ ability to speak given her condition, the exchange became tense.
“She could have made sounds, but not sounds that we would be able to say is speech,” Hickerson said.
“Despite what all the other reports have indicated?” Palmer asked.
“I’m just telling you what I see, ma’am,” Hickerson responded, later adding: “I’m trying to give you my best opinion. It doesn’t change. I’m not trying to be dogmatic with you; I’m trying to be honest. My momma didn’t raise no liar.”