Mississippi teenager Jessica Chambers was inexplicably set on fire Saturday evening, and authorities have been trying to piece together the final 24 hours of her life.
Chambers, 19, went out at roughly 6:30 p.m. to get gas and something to eat at a Courtland, Mississippi convenience store. She then began driving to nearby Batesville to get her vehicle cleaned, according to her mother Lisa Chambers, who spoke to the deceased at approximately 7 p.m.
Police were later called to the scene of a burning vehicle at roughly 8 p.m., and found Chambers on fire herself. The teen later died at a Memphis hospital.
Convenience store clerk Ali Alsanai, and acquaintance of Chambers’, told investigators that he didn’t think anything was wrong when he encountered the teen on the night of her death. Alsanai commented, “She was normal that day. She just pumped the gas like she always does. She left. Then two hours later, we all heard.”
“If something was going on, she would have told me,” Alsanai said. “She would have told me she was having a problem with someone. She was smiling and she left, and that’s the last time I saw her.”
Surveillance footage at the gas station Chambers was last seen:
Courtland Fire Chief Cole Haley commented, “We was expecting it to be any other vehicle fire: Get it extinguished and be back home, you know? We saw that the vehicle was fully involved and we noticed the young female. And we knew we had something bigger on our hands.”
Haley spoke to Chambers while she was still conscious, but has not revealed what she told him. Lisa Chambers commented that her daughter was able to give investigators some names before she died.
Police tell @MartinSavidge that what #jessicachambers whispered in her final moments is "a lead" pic.twitter.com/znyolMLfnC
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) December 11, 2014
District Attorney John Champion remarked, “We’ve talked to a lot of people and some of those people could end up being a suspect. But as of right now we have not questioned anybody who we believe to be a suspect.”
“I feel like it’s something we’re going to solve,” Champion added. “It could be in the next 5 minutes, five months or five years. You just don’t know.”