New details emerging in the Jessica Chambers murder case

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A longtime firefighter said Wednesday he had never seen a victim so badly burned when he found a young Mississippi woman lying on the ground, barely able to speak, after being intentionally set on fire.

Daniel Cole testified Wednesday about the death of 19-year-old Jessica Chambers at the capital murder trial of the man accused of killing her on Dec. 6, 2014.

"She was sitting on a blanket. Her hair was singed ... soot all around her nose and her mouth ... blistering all over her body," Cole, director of emergency operations for Panola County, told jurors.

"At one point I even laid down beside her," said Cole, fighting back tears.

Quinton Tellis, 29, is accused of killing Chambers, a former high school cheerleader from Courtland, Miss., who was found along a back road near a tree farm nearly three years ago.

The teenager, who had been doused with a flammable liquid and set ablaze, was first discovered emerging from the woods near her burning car wearing only her underwear. She died four hours later at a Memphis hospital.

Tellis has pleaded not guilty in Chambers' death.

Prosecutors claim Tellis lied repeatedly to investigators about spending time with Chambers in the hours before she was found with burns on 93 percent of her body.

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