MONROE, La — Judge Larry Jefferson’s “Not guilty” was so nonchalant as his clerk spoke it to the court in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, that it almost seemed he didn’t mean it.
Quinton Tellis was acquitted Thursday of second-degree murder in the 2015 killing of Ming-Chen “Mandy” Hsiao, ending an 11-year prosecution and leaving no one convicted in either of the two murders for which the Panola County native has stood trial.
Contrasted with the brutal and graphic autopsy and crime scene photos, Jefferson’s verdict felt as easy as washing his hands.
Maybe it was. After the verdict, when asked a question by defense attorney Bob Noel, the Judge admonished that no one should be critical of his court.
Noel, who notably had requested the bench trial from Jefferson for his client, remarked that he certainly wasn’t going to do that.
Tellis looked triumphant when he heard the verdict.
Jefferson offered no explanation from the bench. He directed the clerk to hand out the verdict form and read through the possible verdicts available to him under Louisiana law: guilty of second-degree murder, guilty of manslaughter, guilty of negligent homicide, not guilty.
“Verdict, count one, not guilty,” she read. “Signed by Judge Larry Jefferson, July 23rd, 2026.”
He then filed written reasons for the verdict into the record and had copies distributed to the parties. He did not read them aloud.
“In accordance with the verdict, the court orders Mr. Tellis discharged from this case,” Jefferson said.
Tellis will not walk free. The state advised the court he is to be returned to Mississippi custody. He is serving a sentence with Mississippi Department of corrections for burglary with an estimated release date of October 2027.
An acquittal cannot be appealed. The verdict is final.
Hsiao, a Taiwanese national who had earned a master’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Louisiana at Monroe, was found dead on the floor of her Monroe apartment on Aug. 8, 2015, after neighbors reported a foul odor coming from the residence. She had been stabbed 31 times. Investigators believe she was killed on July 29, the last day any activity registered on her phone, her bank accounts or her social media.
Hsiao lived alone, and her entire family remains in Taiwan. She had friends from a Christian group she attended at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, but aside from some friends who gave her rides to run errands, she was largely unconnected to people in town.
Prosecutors argued Tellis killed her for the PIN number to her Chase debit card.
Assistant District Attorney Holly Chambers Jones built the state’s case as a picture assembled fact by fact: cell tower data placing Tellis in the area, a pattern of calls to Chase customer service that failed from Hsiao’s phone and were then completed successfully from Tellis’s phone, ATM withdrawals in Vicksburg, and the abrupt and permanent silence of a woman who never called police, never contacted her family and never used her own accounts again after July 29.
Two witnesses formed the spine of the state’s case, and both drew heavy fire from the defense.
Mohammed Mahrous, Tellis’s former neighbor, testified that Tellis handed him a debit card with an Asian name on it and a sticky note bearing a PIN that started with 7, and asked him to withdraw $2,500 from a Chase branch in five transactions. Mahrous told the court he drove to the bank, sat at the machine, and stopped. He said a better conscience told him not to do it. He returned the card. Tellis, he testified, called him weak.
Eric Hill, a cousin by marriage, testified that Tellis called him from jail and asked him to find someone else to pin the murder on. Jones argued that Hill knew details about the number and nature of Hsiao’s wounds that had never been made public, information she said could only have come from Tellis. The defense attacked Hill’s credibility hard, including what attorney Bob Noel called an outright lie about having testified at a prior proceeding.
Noel’s closing argument ran about 30 minutes and rested on absence. No DNA linked Tellis to the apartment. No blood was found in his vehicle. No physical evidence placed him inside the residence at all. He argued Tellis could have found the card, or that Hsiao could have given it to him, and that the state had built its case on supposition and unreliable testimony.
Jones conceded there was no DNA, arguing that 10 days of decomposition in the Louisiana summer heat had destroyed whatever might have been recoverable, and noting that 17 people had DNA tested in connection with the case and none of them were connected to the scene either.
Tellis pleaded guilty in 2016 to unauthorized use of Hsiao’s access card and was sentenced to 10 years at hard labor as a habitual offender. He has consistently maintained his innocence in her death.
The story of Quinton Tellis reaches back into Mississippi. Tellis was tried twice in Panola County in the December 2014 burning death of 19-year-old Jessica Chambers of Courtland. Both trials ended in hung juries. Thursday’s verdict means that after three murder trials in two states spanning more than a decade, Tellis stands convicted in neither death.
Both were brutal.
The Louisiana trial was delayed repeatedly, by a transfer of custody back to Mississippi, by a flu, by a winter storm that closed the Ouachita Parish courthouse, and, in November 2025, by the death of retired Brig. Gen. Paul Rowlett, a key prosecution expert on electronic and analytical evidence, who was killed in a vehicle collision while traveling to Monroe to testify.
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MONROE, La. — A judge is expected to deliver a verdict Thursday in the much-delayed murder trial of Quinton Tellis, nearly 11 years after the death of University of Louisiana at Monroe graduate student Ming-Chen “Mandy” Hsiao.
Tellis’ bench trial in Ouachita Parish ended after prosecutors and defense attorneys rested their cases before 4th Judicial District Judge Larry Jefferson two months ago. A bench trial means the judge, rather than a jury, will decide whether Tellis is guilty.
Tellis is charged with second-degree murder in Hsiao’s 2015 death. Hsiao, a Taiwanese national, was found dead inside her Monroe apartment after investigators said she had been stabbed. Prosecutors have alleged Tellis killed Hsiao and later used her debit card. Tellis pleaded guilty in 2016 to unauthorized use of Hsiao’s debit card but has maintained his innocence in her death.
The case has been repeatedly delayed over the years, with multiple trial dates being set and rescheduled.
The latest round of delays began in late 2025, when retired Brig. Gen. Paul Rowlett, a key prosecution expert witness, was killed in a vehicle crash while traveling to Monroe. Prosecutors told the court Rowlett’s testimony involving electronic and analytical evidence was significant to their case, and the judge granted a continuance.
The trial was later pushed back again after Assistant District Attorney Holly Jones became ill with the flu. A winter storm also forced the closure of Ouachita Parish courts, creating another postponement.
The case eventually moved forward in March, with prosecutors presenting recorded interviews and other evidence they said showed inconsistencies in Tellis’ statements following Hsiao’s death. A verdict was expected last month, but Judge Jefferson postponed for one more month so that he could finish reviewing the court transcripts.
Tellis’ name has also been tied to another high-profile Mississippi case. He was tried twice in the 2014 burning death of 19-year-old Jessica Chambers in Panola County. Both trials ended with hung juries, and no conviction was reached in that case.
The Hsiao case has drawn attention for years because of the circumstances surrounding her death, the lengthy delays before trial and Tellis’ connection to the Chambers investigation.
Judge Jefferson is expected to announce his decision Thursday in Monroe.