Man indicted in killing after 2 mistrials for separate death

Published 5:24 pm Monday, May 20, 2019

(AP) — A man who was tried twice but not convicted in the burning death of a Mississippi woman has been indicted in the killing of a woman in Louisiana.

The News Star reports Quinton Tellis was indicted Friday on one count of second-degree murder in the July 2015 death of Ming-Chen Hsiao. She was killed in an apartment near the University of Louisiana Monroe, where she had earned a degree.

Tellis pleaded guilty in May 2016 to the unauthorized use of Hsiao’s debit card.

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He was tried in 2017 and 2018 in Mississippi on capital murder charges in the December 2014 burning death of 19-year-old Jessica Chambers. Both juries deadlocked without reaching a verdict.

Tellis’ Louisiana attorney, Randall Donald, was in court Monday and not available for comment.

Hsiao was from Taiwan. Authorities have alleged that Tellis cut her more than 30 times — on her shoulders, face and ears — until she provided her personal identification number. They say Tellis then killed her and left her body to rot.

Criminal charges filed earlier against Tellis say someone used Hsiao’s phone to dial the bank number on the back of her debit card twice on the night authorities believe she died. The caller hung up each time before the call was answered. Someone also used Tellis’ phone to dial the bank number twice, with the calls made within minutes of each other, and to enter the debit card number and personal identification number. According to the charge, GPS records indicate Tellis’ phone was located within 60 meters (200 feet) of Hsiao’s apartment at the time of the calls.