by Donald Joy
It’s been five weeks since 19-year-old blonde former cheerleader Jessica Chambers was horrifyingly burned over 98% of her body in her hometown of rural Courtland, Mississippi, on the side of a country back road on a Saturday night. She died several hours later, at a Memphis hospital, after being flown by medevac helicopter from near the scene of the apparent homicide.
Just before her death, Jessica had appeared to be working toward ending abusive relationships and turning her troubled young life around, partly through a 6-8 week stay at an intensive Christian women’s discipleship program at a place called Leah’s House. While there, she hand-wrote an ebullient letter full of cheerful flourishes to her niece, expressing love, optimism, and excitement about the future, writing “I know I messed up in the past but it’s going to be so much better!” After leaving Leah’s House, she started working a part-time job at Goody’s, a local chain retail store.
Still, some ominous darkness followed her. Recently Pastor Michael Green spoke directly with certain people who had been close to Jessica before her death, including her mother, Lisa Daugherty. Green obtained express permission from Daugherty to share with me, for this article, that Jessica had been worried, very worried, that local female gang members suspected her of betrayal. In the week before her death, terrified of being harmed by them, Jessica twice told her mother, “the bitches think I’m snitching.”
Pastor Green says another person whom Jessica trusted (and with whom Jessica discussed having been gang-raped) also told him that about three months ago, Jessica was showing severe emotional distress, and expressed fear that certain people might be planning to kill her. A week before she died, in a maudlin and fearful moment, she made a point of telling/playing for her mother the song she wanted to be played at her funeral.
Those following the case over these weeks, with interest in seeing justice done, have been frustrated by the appalling bungling(or deliberate abandonment) of the most basic police procedures in failing to secure crucial, initial crime scene evidence in the aftermath of the event, by indications of gang-land corruption permeating the area of jurisdiction, and by lack of any arrests nor appearance of any real urgency on the part of the authorities in Panola County. There is a near-total dearth of information released to the public by Sheriff Dennis Darby and District Attorney John Champion(partly due to relevant Mississippi state law), along with some troubling official conduct about which I’ve previously written.
Adding to the frustration is the relative lack of attention by the mainstream media, when compared to the nationwide hysteria and outrage generated by the frenzied reporting on certain other cases — such as when criminal black teenagers justifiably meet with deadly results for themselves when they attempt to murder or threaten to murder non-black men who dare watch or confront them.
Despite a recent public pledge by the governor of Mississippi to use all available resources to help solve the Jessica Chambers mystery and bring justice to the guilty party, and despite the FBI newly announcing a reward of $43,000 for information which will help crack the case, some observers insist that a deliberate, politically-motivated cover-up is afoot, given the usual known priorities of the media and associated powers at various levels to push only a particular racial narrative and agenda.
Things may change in due order, however. Earlier this month, I received confidential messages from a trusted, leading source in the alternative media about an alleged eyewitness who, despite being “beyond petrified,” had contacted him with extremely compelling revelations. I now have received permission from that source to include the information here.
According to the witness, about four days before her death Jessica had received some sort of relationship proposal from a black male, and she had rebuked and rejected him. The witness said that on the night of December 6th, in the hour or so just before her death, the male in question and three other black males grabbed Jessica, took her to a motel in nearby Batesville, and sexually assaulted her there, followed by two of them taking Jessica away to some unknown location. This person said they observed the event from across the street from the motel, being employed near there and having witnessed some “similar sordid activity” there before, but “never seen it result in murder.” Jessica was found shortly after that, about 6 miles South, burned and barely alive near her completely torched 2005 Kia Rio alongside Herron Road.
The witness, as reported by my source, knew two of the perpetrators’ identities for sure, but had only a 50% idea of the identities of the other two.
The alleged eyewitness said they had at first been silent, dreading deadly consequences for their children and themselves if they came forward in a way that would expose them to being identified. They later decided to contact my source, partly because his diligent and thoughtful online postings about the case had won enough of their confidence to encourage them to do so, and partly out of anger at what they saw as damaging theories and disinformation being spun on social media and by writers at GotNews.com attempting to implicate white supremacist gangs, along with suspicions cast on Jessica’s own family members, particularly her ex-convict father. That anger compelled them to overcome being terrified of the culprits enough to reach out to my source, seeking to set the story straight.
My source said that this alleged witness came across as rock-solid. However, conscientious concern on my source’s part caused him to immediately instruct the witness to just hold on to whatever further details they had, pending his helping them find strong, prudent legal counsel for immediate referral to law enforcement. At the time of this being written, the witness had been turned over to a good attorney, in order to work out the arrangements for their protection while getting information to the investigators. Presumably, since then, he or she has either been assisting with the investigation, or has been for some reason deemed unreliable and dismissed.
There has of course been endless speculation, theorizing, and hearsay about the case bandied about for week after week, primarily at the #JusticeforJessica hashtag on Twitter and at TheConservativeTreehouse.com’s daily(until yesterday) case research and analysis threads. Much of it has been productive of worthy insights and exposure of relevant social media clues, however much has also just, at this point, amounted to exhaustion and frustration as to anticipated closure.
Admittedly, what I have included here is, mainly, merely more hearsay. It’s understood that journalism, even at its most compelling, is not the same as a court of law. The point is that justice for Jessica may only come if and only if we of the world-wide fever swamps keep the story alive; not let the case go completely cold by just throwing up our hands and walking away from it. We must crank up the controversy, crank up the coverage, and crank up the ruckus over the horrible crime that took place, and of the failure of the powers that be, until the bright sunlight of Truth blasts away the shadows.
Even if it’s far too late to get those in charge down there in Northwest Mississippi to properly secure the crime scene and critical evidence, and if they for whatever reason can’t, or won’t, put together a solid enough case against whoever to make any arrests to date, the least we can do in the meantime is to throw everything we have at the media blockage until something big breaks loose. I don’t care one whit if the locals are upset with us for intruding on their provincial problems. In the internet age, and in the absence of justice as of yet, that’s our job — to get them to bring the big lights, the satellite trucks, and the crowds to Courtland.
Make it happen. #JusticeforJessica
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