Therese Apel

Clarion Ledger

Police say the suspect in the burning death of Jessica Chambers had a relationship with another woman found dead in Louisiana and had access to her apartment.

Quinton Tellis, 27, of Courtland, is charged with capital murder in the death of the Panola County teen. He was indicted by a grand jury this week as he sat in the Ouachita Parish Jail in Monroe, Louisiana, on charges related to the stabbing death of Meing-Chen Hsiao, 34, of Taiwan.

Tellis was living in Monroe with his new wife when he was arrested in August 2015 by Monroe Police Department and charged with crimes connected to Hsaio's death. The University of Louisiana at Monroe graduate lived in an apartment complex, and she and Tellis knew each other, said Monroe Police Detective Chris Bates.

"The victim was a person he had a relationship with," he said. "They had known each other for a couple of months, and she had helped him out. They had established a relationship, from what I gathered. Was it an intimate relationship? Possibly. She allowed him in and out of her apartment."

Tellis had been associated with Chambers for about two weeks when she was killed, according to her family, who didn't know his name when they heard it. Officials had been surprised that there was no street chatter, but they believe it to be because Tellis, a loner, just didn't tell anyone what had happened.

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"He is very smart, he knows the game, he's very intelligent. When our investigators spoke with him, his demeanor was very calm," Bates said. "When we asked him if he wanted a lawyer, he didn’t want one. And we have very good investigators, and they caught on to him very quickly — he was trying to interview us as much as we were trying to interview him. He’s been in the game a while."

Officials say Hsaio, who was known as "Mandy," died of a stab wound. Local media reports say she had been missing for more than a week when her body was found Aug. 8. Police said Hsiao's homicide appeared to be very personal.

Tellis has not been charged with Hsiao's murder, but according to jail records, he has been charged with three counts of unauthorized use of an access card and one count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

Bates said investigators have sent the case to the district attorney's office, and they are certain that Tellis will be indicted in Hsaio's death as well.

"With the evidence we’re gathering and have — when you send someone to trial you want a conviction. That’s why we’re dotting our i's and crossing our t's," he said. "We're getting everything together, so when they do indict him on that homicide, they want to make sure. We’re certain, but we want to make sure we get a conviction."

The police report says Tellis allegedly used a Chase Bank debit card belonging to Hsiao on Aug. 7 at around 11 p.m. On that transaction, he charged $.07. When it was used again on Aug. 18, it was allegedly used at 10:35 p.m. for $500 and again at 3:04 a.m. for another $500. Police said there were ATM surveillance photos of Tellis using the card, and after being Mirandized, he allegedly admitted to using the debit card on all three occasions.

During a search at his house, authorities said they found a quarter pound of marijuana in a bedroom. The report says the drugs were packaged for sale.

According to Tellis' Facebook page, he married his fiancee on or around Aug. 8, the day Hsiao's body was found.

"He’s the reason prisons were built. He’s as evil as they come," Bates said. "He’s not going to get out of jail, ever. We want the public to know he’s not going to get out of jail, he’ll be there for the rest of his life, and he'll never do this to anyone again."

Enzo Yaksic, founder of the Serial Homicide Expertise and Information Sharing Collaborative, said that it's very likely that Tellis, if guilty of both homicides, was developing as a serial killer.

"I would classify Tellis as a serial murderer based not only on the FBI's 2005 serial murder definition but because of our work with the Radford Serial Killer Database that shows perpetrators of two sequential homicides share similar characteristics to those that commit additional murders," Yaksic said. "From factors such as victim selection, methods and weapons used, those killing two individuals serially are comparable to others with higher body counts."

Tellis goes on trial in Louisiana on May 9 on the charges of using Hsaio's credit cards. Bates said Louisiana will try him as a habitual offender, which means that even if he didn't have the capital murder charge in Mississippi, he would serve life in prison if convicted.

Panola County District Attorney John Champion said Wednesday that investigators in the Chambers case wanted to be "one million percent" sure they had the right suspect so they could be certain of a conviction.

Tellis, if convicted on all the charges, faces a possible death penalty, and at least life in prison at Angola or Parchman.

Champion said if Tellis is convicted on the credit card charges in Louisiana, he would be loaned to Mississippi for his murder trial, and then sent back to spend life in prison in Angola.

"He’s gone. We got him, and it doesn’t matter who wraps it up," Bates said. "He will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. At the end of the day he’s never going to get out of prison and he’ll never be able to hurt anyone again."

Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow @TRex21 on Twitter.

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