Therese Apel

Clarion Ledger

The eyes of the nation have been on Mississippi since the news broke about the tragic and gruesome burning death of Courtland teen Jessica Chambers.

Chambers was found more than a week ago walking down Herron Road in Panola County with burns over 98 percent of her body, and her car was also burned. She was able to whisper some last words to firefighters before she was flown to Memphis, where she died shortly afterward in a hospital.

In addition to the local, state, and national media attention, several law enforcement agencies are involved in the hunt for Chambers' killer. On Monday, Panola County Sheriff Dennis Darby said that in addition to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the US Marshals Service, the FBI is also assisting on the case.

In recent days the crime has also sparked the interest of a group claiming to be the hacktivist group "Anonymous." There are also bloggers coming forward with theories about Chambers' death, and their postings are getting passed around at lightning speed.

The group claiming to be Anonymous has dug up information on several people they claim to be related to the case, as well as on people who spoke with the media or are said to be witnesses in the case. They allege the death of the teen to be related to gang activity, an angle to which law enforcement officials say there's no hard proof.

Other posts point to a previous relationship in which Chambers may have been a victim of domestic violence. Social media accounts belonging to that former boyfriend and several of his associates have been hacked and their contents posted to the internet by Anonymous.

""All the questions they're beating around on, we've got to rule those things in or out, and we can't go public on that stuff," Darby said. "People are curious, we realize that. We're going to answer those questions. And some of them are just ridiculous and trying to make everyone look bad."

The Chambers family, who has claimed Jessica didn't have a boyfriend or anyone who would want to hurt her, has taken exception to the information posted by the Twitter account associated with the group claiming to be Anonymous and the blogs putting out the theories on the death.

"Please as Jessica's Mother I am asking you to stop all the foolish talk!! I am SICK OF IT!!! I stand behind the Panola County Sheriffs Department 100%!! Please let them do their Job!! Thank You!!!" wrote Lisa Daugherty, Jessica Chambers' mother on the Facebook page "Justice for Jessica."

The Justice for Jessica page is run by Chambers' sister, Amanda Prince, and other family members. On Sunday night, the page admins posted that they do want justice for Chambers, but that people needed to be sure that what they were posting was accurate information.

"But we also want the truth and when people start putting stuff out there that is not true or is hear say it starts to take away from the truth. And that is something we don't want!!! So please be patient and as we get information we will let you guys know. we stand behind the Panola County sheriffs department so we need to let them do their job!!" the post reads.

Whether such a flow of information, accurate or not, is helpful to the investigation is something authorities haven't said a lot about.

Assistant District Attorney Jay Hale said the DA's office is not going to comment on the allegations made by the various social media accounts and blogs that have been weighing in on the case.

"We have different agencies, the US Marshal Service in particular, along with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Panola County Sheriff's Department monitoring the electronic communications, certainly social media being part of that," he said.

"MBI is going to go about its business and do what they're trained to do regardless of what shows up on social media, whether it's the Chambers death investigation or any other investigation," said Mississippi Bureau of Investigation spokesman Warren Strain. "The investigators are going to base their investigation on what their findings are and not be influenced by outside input, be it social media or anything else."

One person implicated is a store clerk who saw Chambers a little more than an hour before her death. He has disputed the claims on his Facebook page, saying that he was trying to help when he got involved by showing the surveillance video to police and reporters.

The account also alleges that there is potentially corruption among local law enforcement based in part on photos they have that were taken by inmates with cell phones inside the Panola County jail.

Darby said authorities are just ignoring the negativity, and that the investigation is not at the dead end that it would seem from the information posted online.

"We have to go with hard evidence. We have to get warrants for certain information, and over the weekend we had to wait on the crime lab, and hopefully we'll have some crime lab results today," he said. "The ATF and the FBI and numerous agencies are assisting, and they have the technology to help us too. We have a lot of assistance, and we have to work it all together."

"We've got to concentrate on the investigation itself. There are so many areas you can check. This investigation can go on a while because something new comes up every day," Darby said.



Others who are called out don't have as clear ties to the case, according to information released publicly about the investigation so far.

Chambers' autopsy is expected to be available sometime this week. District Attorney John Champion said he expects those results, as well as some test results, to give investigators more to go on in the case.

Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com or (601) 961-7236. Follow @TRex21 on Twitter.