Ming Chen HsiaoMONROE, Louisiana — The man Quinton Tellis initially built his story of a debit card stolen from a dead girl around testified in Ouachita Parish Court Friday afternoon, and if his testimony is true, it debunks Tellis’s winding tales of the man named Jay.
Tellis is on trial in Monroe in the 2015 stabbing death of Ming Chen “Mandy” Hsiao, a Taiwanese national who had just finished graduate school in education at the University of Louisiana Monroe.
When investigators interviewed Tellis in the days after Hsiao was found dead, he told a story of a man named Jay that he had met and done a drug deal with. He said Jay gave him the debit card and told him to go get cash off of it at the ATM.
When Tellis was shown a lineup by investigators, he pointed to a city employee named Termar Key. This piqued their interest because they knew Key from the drug scene at the time. They had Tellis call him from the interview room and set up a time to meet, and they went out and brought him in off a traffic stop.
On Friday, Key took the stand for the prosecution. ADA Holly Jones entered his criminal history into the record so he could speak freely about the parts of the questioning that involved drugs.
Key testified that he met Tellis one day at the Chevron when Key had gotten off work and had his lawnmower on a trailer behind his truck. Tellis approached him and asked if he needed help cutting grass. Key had said he might be able to find something for him and gave him his number.
He said he had never met Tellis before that day. Tellis called him later and “he asked me if I smoke,” Key said, clarifying that he was talking about marijuana. Tellis asked him for “a sack” and Key met him behind Burger King and sold him $10 worth of marijuana.
After that, Tellis called him one more time, Key said, and it was the time he called him from the interview room. He said he’d never dealt with him again since then.
When police picked him up that day, Key said, they quickly told him they weren’t worried about the drugs, that this was about a homicide.
Jones walked him through the warrants that were served on his truck and his car, how police searched his wallet and took a DNA swab.
“You did everything they asked you to do, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am,” he said.
At the time, he didn’t even know Tellis’s name, he said, though he’s learned it since.
Jones asked him about his own name, and Key told her his nickname is “Lucky.” His middle name is “Laquan.”
“So your name is Termar Laquan Key?” she asked. He confirmed that was correct.
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“Have you ever had another nickname?” she asked. “Have you ever met Mr. Tellis other than at Chevron and Burger King? Did you know someone named Kenny?”
The answer to all of those were no. The “Kenny” she referred to was the name Tellis gave when he alleged that Hsiao had a boyfriend who had bought crack from him. Police were very skeptical of Kenny’s existence because they felt Hsiao was unlikely to be dating a “crackhead.”
As Tellis’s story unfolded, the bank card seemed to have been shuffled back and forth between “Jay” and “Kenny,” and by the end of it, it was unclear who it was that allegedly gave Tellis the card.
“So you never knew a Kenny who was the boyfriend of an Asian girl?” Jones asked.
“No ma’am.”
“Did you ever go by the name ‘Jay?'”
“No ma’am.”
“Have you ever stolen a Chase bank card?” she pressed. “Did you ever instruct the defendant to take that bank card to the ATM in exchange for weed?”
No and no.
When Termar Keys left the courtroom, it felt like the ghost of the alleged “Jay” left with him.
That ended testimony for Friday, and for the immediate future. The trial was expected to have lasted only four days, but the prosecution still has several witnesses to call. Because of court scheduling, the judge and the attorneys floated some possible return dates, which could be as soon as April 1 or as far off as May 12. They are expected to come to an agreement next week on when to return.
Still expected to testify are Tellis’s ex-wife, Chakita Jackson, as well as some additional experts and some other storyline witnesses. The defense is calling one expert witness to dispute the prosecution’s cell phone data testimony.
Tellis remains in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Corrections in the meantime.
