Dec. 9, 2014

A grisly killing in a small town in Mississippi has local residents on edge and looking for answers.

A blond-haired teenager with no known enemies was found walking down a rural road on fire Saturday night. She had been beaten, doused with lighter-fluid and set ablaze.

Jessica Chambers, 19, of Panola County was found engulfed in flames near the charred shell of her car sitting on the roadside in the town of Courtland. The town has a population of 460.

She was flown to a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, but later died. Preliminary autopsy results reveal Jessica died of severe burns to 98 percent of her body, according to a report by Fox affiliate WAFF of Huntsville, Alabama.

“They have ripped everything I have,” Lisa Chambers, Jessica’s mother, told WAFF. “She left to go clean out her car and was going to get her something to eat.”

Jessica never made it home.

Her father, Ben Allen Chambers Sr., said investigators told him his daughter whispered something to first responders before going unconscious. He and others believe Jessica told them who her attackers were.

“When the fire department got there, she was walking down the road on fire,” he said in WAFF’s report. “Only part of her body that wasn’t burned was the bottom of her feet.”

Fighting back tears, the father then described how his daughter’s attackers knocked her out, and squirted lighter fluid down her throat and in her nose.

“She had a big gash on top of her head,” he said. “She told them, she told them, told him who done it.”

Investigators won’t say what Jessica said or release any details about how she died.

“I love her you know; I’m so sorry Daddy wasn’t there for her,” her father said. “I’d trade places with her in a minute if I could.”

Ben Chambers worked as an employee for Panola County Sheriff’s Office. He believes his friends and co-workers will find his daughter’s killer and bring them to justice.

Her parents are not the only ones left wondering who could commit such a heinous crime.

A woman named Windy LaShea, identifying herself as Jessica’s cousin, indicated on her Twitter site that the attack on Jessica was not random but was related to “domestic violence.”

A Facebook page, #justiceforjessica, has already popped up as well in which friends like Alicia Faulkner are demanding answers. The page has gained more than 7,000 “likes” in less than a day.

Other social media postings showed her in a romantic relationship with a young man.

Assistant District Attorney Jay Hale knows someone in the community knows something and is pleading for help. Detectives are working to learn who the 19-year-old may have been with before her murder.

“We’re trying to go through the information that we have, certainly interviewing all the potential witnesses we can and going through and using the phone records we can,” Hale said.

“The sheriff called me this morning he told me, he said, ‘I’m working hard,’” Chambers said. “They took something from me I can’t ever get back. Not ever, you know? It’s a part of me gone forever.”

Jessica’s mother hopes for a tip that could lead to her daughter’s killer or killers.

“Even if they don’t think it’s information, if it’s just something they heard, to please call the sheriff’s department,” Lisa Chambers said.

Several people are being questioned by detectives, but no arrests have been made. The teen’s car and any potential clues inside were destroyed. Investigators did find a cell phone at the scene.

“We do have a phone that we believe is hers and that is what we are attempting to gather the information from,” said Hale.

Detectives spent Monday going through the phone for clues.

Jessica Chambers is survived by her parents, three sisters, three brothers and three grandparents. Her brother Ben Allen Jr. had died earlier, according to an obituary posted online.

As Lisa Chambers prepares to bury her daughter, she has just one question for whomever is responsible.

“Why?” Chambers asked. “How would you like for it to be done to you, your daughter, your mother, your father, someone in your family?”

---

Article printed from WND: http://www.wnd.com

VIEW VIDEO http://www.wnd.com/2014/12/teen-girl-doused-burned-alive-in-mississippi/