Tellis heads back to La. following Jessica Chambers mistrial

Quinton Tellis is headed back to Louisiana this week to face charges there following a second Mississippi mistrial in the Jessica Chambers burning death.

A third Chambers trial — if it happens — won’t be for quite some time, District Attorney John Champion said.

Champion, who unsuccessfully prosecuted both trials in Chambers’ 2014 death, wasn’t sure exactly when Tellis will leave Mississippi or where he is being held in the interim. He said, however, that the transfer to Louisiana authorities will happen this week.

Louisiana officials said in the immediate aftermath of the second Chambers mistrial earlier this week in Batesville that they would wait to confer with Mississippi prosecutors before deciding what to do.

But, Champion said: “We actually borrowed him from Louisiana, so before we do anything, Louisiana will have to finish their case.”

Asked if that means a possible third Chambers trial was quite some time away, Champion replied: “That’s correct.”

After Circuit Judge Gerald Chatham declared a mistrial Monday, Champion said on the Panola County Courthouse steps that he wouldn’t speculate on trying the case a third time. He told reporters he and his team would have to confer at some point and decide what to do next.

Champion said late Wednesday there’s no timetable for his team getting together since Louisiana now needs to take the next step, anyway.

In Louisiana, Tellis is charged with first-degree murder for the July 2015 stabbing death of Ming-Chen Hsiao, a Taiwanese exchange student at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

He is accused of stabbing her more than 30 times, many of the wounds superficial in order to torture her until she gave Tellis the PIN number for her debit card.

Tellis had moved to Monroe following the 2014 death of Chambers in Panola County’s Courtland community, where both Tellis and Chambers lived.

In addition to the murder charge, Tellis faces Louisiana charges for the theft of the debit card and an unrelated charge of possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute.

In Mississippi, Tellis was incarcerated at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman before the Chambers trial, serving a sentence for an unrelated charge of burglarizing an unoccupied building.