Burned teen's mom recalls last words to daughter

JACKSON, Miss. — Lisa Daugherty knew she had to be brave for her daughter, Jessica Chambers, as the teenager lay in a hospital bed in Memphis after being found severely burned on a rural road in Courtland.

Daugherty summoned up the courage to walk into Jessica's room, having been told her daughter was burned beyond recognition. But Daugherty knew her little girl when she saw her, and she knew she had to give her permission to let go.

"You could see the monitor and her heart was still beating, and they had her on intubation and stuff. I put my arm up on her shoulder and leaned over, and felt of her neck, it wasn't burned. I said, 'Jessica, it's OK, Baby, Mama's here, and Daddy's in the waiting room. You know your daddy — he's a big, old baby and he can't come in here, but he's here. And we love you,' " she said.

"And I just looked at her and said, 'I know you're in pain, Baby, if you want to go, you can go.' And she took her last breath."

Daugherty is still being brave. It seems to be the only thing that's keeping her together.

" I'm up all night. I keep waiting on her to come through the door. I go to her room to see if she's in there," she said.

"The last words she said to me was, 'I'm cleaning my car and getting something to eat and I'll be home.' That was at 7 something that night, and I keep waiting on her to come home."

Daugherty stays home as much as she can. When she's at home, she can feel Jessica's presence. Sometimes she goes to her daughter's grave, and to the makeshift memorial at the site where Jessica was found by first responders on Dec. 6.

She said she thinks point break will come when they find the person who killed her daughter.

"I know there's a time that I'm going to break. I've come to the point of crying at night. I feel like the time's going to be closer to when they find out who," she said. "I don't want them to just pick up someone and say, 'Oh, we have evidence that this is going to be it.' No. I want the right one. I don't want a fall guy. I want THE guy. Girl. Whatever."

CONSTANT REMINDERS

The suffering comes in a million ways, Daugherty said. Everything reminds her of her daughter, a tiny, blonde former cheerleader who barely topped 90 pounds but loved to cook fried food and never backed down from a fight.

At Christmas time, Jessica's favorite time of year, Daugherty's three grandchildren came into town with their parents. The family went out to the gravesite, and the 7-year-old took control of the situation.

"She wanted to stand around the grave with the family and said, 'Now everyone hold hands, I want to pray for Aunt Gessica,' " Daugherty said.

In her grief, Daugherty has found it hard to connect with people. She said people will tell her they're praying for her, then leave as quickly as they came.

While the world moves on, Daugherty remains in the time before Dec. 6.

"I want to talk about it all the time. I don't care who you are, I want to talk about her. Good bad or ugly, it doesn't matter," she said. "Other people are like, 'You need to kind of, for your own sake, stop talking about her so much.' No, for my sake, I need to talk about her."

Something else that haunts her is that in the weeks leading up to Jessica's death, she had told her mother she was afraid, but she wouldn't say why.

"Jessica kept saying, 'Mama, these bitches think I'm snitching, and I'm not,' " Daugherty said. But she wouldn't tell her mother who she was afraid of.

THE NIGHT SHE DIED

Daugherty can't quit thinking about the events the night of Jessica's death.

"That night she left here between 5 and 5:30. She was over there sound asleep," she said, motioning toward the couch. "She got a call or text, I don't know which, went to the bathroom, went and put her coat on, and out the door she went. ... When she wasn't here in a certain amount of time, I text messaged her and said, 'Where'd you go to wash your car, Memphis? I mean, you were supposed to be right back.' "

Daugherty then called Jessica.

Jessica told her she'd be home shortly to clean up her room, something she'd been saying she was going to do for weeks. Daugherty questioned her on it, but had no reason to believe she wouldn't.

Now, looking back, she wonders if Jessica was in the car with her killer when she made that phone call.

"I hung the phone up with her at 7:13. I know by my phone. Then the law or whoever said they got the call at 8:13," she said.

Authorities notified Jessica's father, Ben Chambers, first. Then his sister came to get Daugherty, saying simply, "We have to go. Jessica. Her car's on fire." Daugherty grabbed her purse and left the house in her nightgown.

When Sheriff Dennis Darby and the others told Daugherty what had happened to her daughter, she didn't know how to react.

"I said, 'No way, I just got off the phone with her, are you sure that it's her?' " Daugherty said.

They got to the Regional Medical Center in Memphis around 11:30 p.m., and came in right behind the helicopter, she said. That began the waiting process, and finally her final visit with her daughter, who was wrapped in gauze.

"It was 2 something or 3 something, I don't know the exact time, I wasn't looking," she said, haltingly. "But she hung on seemingly that long just for me to tell her that it was OK, that we were there, that we knew. It's like she kind of wanted to know that somebody was there.

"I think she'd be amazed at the people that actually care," Daugherty said. "Because I think all she wanted was someone she felt loved her and would accept her for who she was."

Apel also reports for The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger