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Friends of Jessica Chambers, a 19-year-old girl who died after being set on fire, talk about the love they had for their friend. VPC
Jessica Chambers was set on fire on Herron Road outside Courtland, Miss., on Dec. 6, 2014.(Photo: Courtesy of Chambers family)
COURTLAND, Miss. — Lynnsey Fowler and Amber Shields wanted to see the spot where their friend was set ablaze.
The two were close to Jessica Chambers, who died after she and her car were torched Saturday night. Chambers later died at a Memphis hospital.
Local and state authorities are treating the crime as a homicide and are searching for her attacker. Her family wants to know why anybody would douse a 19-year-old with flammable liquid and set her on fire in a rural area about a mile away from a convenience store where she had filled up her car 90 minutes earlier.
"We've talked to a lot of people and some of those people could end up being a suspect," District Attorney John Champion, based 45 miles north in Hernando, Miss., said Wednesday. "But as of right now we have not questioned anybody who we believe to be a suspect."
Investigators are reviewing video from the gas station, recorded just before 6:30 p.m. CT Saturday; checking Chambers' cellphone records and looking into reports that she had attended a party before her death, Champion said. A man filling a container with gasoline in the surveillance video has been cleared.
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They want to piece together what happened to Chambers in the 24 hours before she was attacked and left to die.
"I feel like it's something we're going to solve," Champion said. "It could be in the next 5 minutes, five months or five years. You just don't know."
The scene Dec. 9, 2014, on Herron Road in Courtland, Miss., where Jessica Chambers' car burned three nights earlier.(Photo: Clay Chandler, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger)
Lynnsey Fowler kept shaking her head in disbelief as she stared at the charred, rutted ground where Chambers' car sat after it apparently ran up a slight embankment. Fowler remembers Chambers from her sleepovers with her sister.
Fowler passed by the scene Saturday on her way to fish for crappie at Enid Lake.
"Sunday morning, I took my phone off the charger and looked at Facebook, like I almost always do, and I saw the Fly High Jessica Chambers page," Fowler said, referring to the digital memorial Chambers' friends and family had set up.
"I got sick to my stomach," Fowler said once she realized what had happened. "I can't believe I didn't see anything when I passed by here. I wish I had. I would have helped her. I would have fought for her if I had to."
Fowler works at the Batesville Sonic Drive-In about 5 miles north of Courtland where Chambers was a frequent customer. She often would order one of those massive Route 44 drinks "that was almost as big as her," Fowler said.
"She was my Sonic baby. She was up there all the time, just all the time," Fowler said. "She always had that smile on her face, always looking in her mirror fixing those eyelashes."
“I feel like it's something we're going to solve.”
John Champion, district attorney
Shields — who, like Fowler, lives close to the scene — went to school with Chambers at South Panola High School where Chambers graduated in 2013. They hung out there and socially.
"She had fun with life, Shields said. "She was a very likeable person and ready for anything. She got along with everybody."
Amanda Prince, Chambers' sister who lives in Fort Bliss, Texas, said her younger sister was "full of life; she was bright. She was a comedian. She was always cracking jokes and making funny faces, and she kept you laughing."
"She was so much light. She was definitely put here for a reason," Prince said. "There was no way to have a bad day in front of her. You could be having a bad day and she'd make you laugh about the stupidest stuff."
Chambers had just started a new job at Goody's Department Store in Batesville, and she loved it, her sister said.
Jessica Chambers graduated in 2013 from South Panola High School in Batesville, Miss.(Photo: Courtesy of Chambers family)
"She didn't do a whole lot. She loved to be around friends and she had some nieces and nephews she completely adored," Prince said.
Prince said the family can't think of anyone that might have wanted to hurt Chambers. She didn't have a current boyfriend and family members don't know of anyone she was talking to romantically.
"Nobody deserves this," Fowler said. "Somebody had to have seen something. Somebody knows something."
Courtland, a town of 500 residents, is about 70 miles south of Memphis.
"I'm the kind that'll bounce out there and start asking questions to find out what happened because that'll be the only way to get any information," Fowler said. "We owe that to Jessica."
The Facebook group Justice for Jessica had more than 70,000 likes as of Wednesday evening. A GoFundMe account started Monday has raised about $6,500 for Chambers' funeral, which will be Saturday in Batesville.
Clay Chandler and Therese Apel also report for The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger.
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