Instead, his defense team made the fact that multiple first responders said that they heard Jessica say the name "Eric" (investigators interviewed numerous Dereks and Derricks as well as Erics) the centerpiece of their case. Before the retrial began on Sept. 24, the defense accused Champion of trying to coach a jailhouse informant into claiming that Jessica had sometimes called Quinton "Eric," but that was before the second jury was seated and the court refused to consider a misconduct allegation.
"I sat there and held her hand. That's all I could do," firefighter Cole Haley testified on Sept. 25. "I said, 'Sweetheart, it's going to be okay,' and she said, 'I'm going to die.'"
Ultimately it sounds as though two juries couldn't get past the possibility that Chambers at least tried to identify her killer, and the name did not sound like Quinton Tellis.
And now, while Tellis, 29, is hardly a free man, justice has not yet come for Jessica.
When his daughter's accused killer was first indicted, Bruce Chambers struck an optimistic tone.
"She'll be at peace now," he told reporters. "I always told her some day it would come and it did. Just like Mr. Champion said, this is the first step. There's a lot of steps to it, you know. It takes time."
Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on Oxygen
(E! and Oxygen are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)
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