Season 1 – Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers

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stephen c @Bertaut 10/12/2022 A decent overview of a savage murder, a town torn apart, two families destroyed, and the dark side of social media On December 6, 2014, in the town of Courtland, Mississippi, the fire department responded to a burning car on a quiet rural road. As they fought the flames, one of them saw someone approaching from the woods; a young girl, her entire body burnt beyond recognition. Her name was Jessica Chambers (19) and she had been inside the car when it was doused in accelerant and set on fire. Despite having third-degree burns to 93% of her body, Jessica was lucid enough to tell multiple first-responders that "Eric" had set her on fire. But who was Eric? Jessica died on December 7, but her death was only the prologue to a story which would rip a town apart, destroy two families, lead to two trials, expose investigative and prosecutorial ineptitude, and highlight a dangerous side of social media. Inspired by Katie J.M. Baker's 2015 BuzzFeed article, "Troll Detective" and directed by Joe Berlinger, Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers was originally a five-part series, but an additional episode was added when the story took an unexpected turn in the middle of the broadcast. Despite its title, however, Unspeakable Crime isn't really a deep dive into why Jessica was killed or who may have done it. Rather, it's a courtroom drama, following the trial of the man who law enforcement believes lit the match – Quinton Tellis. It's a solid enough overview of the case, although some of the more interesting revelations are found, strangely enough, only in the accompanying podcast of the same name. One of the show's main themes is the pernicious effects of social media. Within days of her death, multiple Justice for Jessica and Jessica's Revenge groups had appeared on Facebook. Without a shred of evidence, some amateur sleuths suggested he father had killed her because he disapproved of miscegenation, and at the time of her death, Jessica was dating an imprisoned African-American, Travis Sanford. Others focused their ire on her mother's perceived lack of parenting skills. When Tellis was accused of the crime, his family became the target for hatred and harassment. Of course, as Baker points out, none of these armchair detectives actually knew any of the people involved, had access to any of the case files or evidence, or had ever visited Courtland. But that didn't stop them attacking the Chambers family, abusing the Tellis family, and even turning on Jessica herself when it emerged she smoked and sold weed, with some speculating that her death may have been gang-related. In an especially lucid example of the toxicity of online herd mentality, Ali Alsanai, the clerk at the store where Jessica was last seen, was forced to leave Panola County when he received death threats after right-wing commentators began to accuse him of the murder. Their evidence? He's of Middle-Eastern descent. The show also spends a lot of time illustrating the often gaping holes in the prosecution's case and the inadequacies of the police investigation and is critical of how the police processed the crime scene, arguing that a larger area should have been roped off (the actual crime scene was the car, nothing outside it), that dogs should have been used to search for ignitable liquids, that fire-trained CSI officers should have been called in, that the car should have been left at the scene for longer (it was moved to the police lot the night of December 6), that the surrounding woods should have been searched either that night or at first light (they weren't searched until the following week), and that Jessica should have been examined for signs of sexual assault. A big area of criticism concerns DNA found on Jessica's car keys. Although the prosecution says on multiple occasions that Tellis's DNA was on the keys, during cross-examination, their own DNA expert, Catherine Rogers, explains that this isn't entirely accurate. In actuality, the DNA of four men was found on the keys, and Rogers couldn't exclude the possibility that some of the DNA was Tellis's. The other major area critiqued by the show is the cellphone data that the prosecution argued proves Tellis and Jessica were in the same place at the same time right before she was set on fire. In short, it doesn't. At all. In fact, not only does the evidence not confirm Tellis's guilt, it actually suggests his innocence. Some criticisms I'd have would include how aesthetically bland the show is and a tendency towards repetition, especially from episode to episode, as each episode tends to repeat material from the previous episode. Additionally, too much valuable information is covered exclusively in the podcast. Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers isn't so much about the savage murder itself as it is about the reverberations of that murder – race relations compromised, a town torn apart, families destroyed. And problems notwithstanding, this is a decent overview of the subject. See more Read all reviews

Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers — Season 1

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