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The highly-anticipated murder trial of Zachary David Hughes – the classically trained concert pianist accused of perpetrating the ritualistic ‘Rose Petal Murder’ of 41-year-old Christina Parcell in the fall of 2021 – is scheduled to begin in Greenville County, South Carolina next Monday (January 13, 2025).
The violent, seemingly random murder of Parcell more than three years ago prompted a wave of shock – and deluge of grief – in and around Greer, S.C., a city of nearly 50,000 located on the border of Greenville and Spartanburg counties. Given the Palmetto Upstate’s status as a bastion of social conservatism, thousands of prayers were lifted up on behalf of Parcell’s friends and family – particularly her surviving daughter, who was under the age of ten at the time her mother was murdered.
The community rallied behind the victims of this apparently senseless, soulless slaying – and posted notices to help police in their search for the perpetrator(s).
What began as an unsolved murder mystery soon morphed, though, as details regarding the victim – and other key players in the story – began to emerge. More than just evidence of a homicide was uncovered inside the suburban Greer home where Parcell’s body was found – other crimes were committed there, too.
Now, the narrative surrounding this horrific case has become so convoluted it’s legitimately difficult even for us to track… and we’ve been on it from the beginning.
To recap: Parcell’s body was discovered shortly after 11:00 a.m. EST on October 13, 2021 in the front living room of a suburban home owned by her sister. She was found, unresponsive, by her fiancée, Bradly Post.
According to Post, he placed multiple calls to Parcell on the morning of her murder – calls which went unanswered. When he drove to the home to check on her, he found her savagely slain.
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In a statement, Greenville County sheriff Hobart Lewis confirmed Parcell had been “brutally stabbed multiple times” and “murdered in a very violent way.”
Details from this “brutal” scene have yet to be released publicly, but there are reportedly some disturbing ritualistic components to it. For example, sources told FITSNews the killer allegedly sprinkled rose petals – or deadheaded roses – around Parcell’s body after dragging (and posing) her in the front living room of the 2,100-square foot home.
“Rose petals were sprinkled around her body,” a source familiar with the killing told this news outlet. “She was dragged – there were drag marks. The scene was staged.”
Officially, Parcell’s cause of death was recorded by the Greenville county coroner as a homicide due to “multiple sharp force injuries.”
How many such “sharp-force injuries” are we talking about? During an April 6, 2022 court hearing related to this case, S.C. thirteenth circuit solicitor Walt Wilkins indicated Parcell had been “brutally stabbed to death in her neck and head area” – sustaining “approximately 31 different stab wounds by a sharp object.”
Over the months that followed, though, a vastly different picture of Parcell has come to light. Meanwhile, the investigation into her death has volleyed back and forth between absolute certainty … and unresolved mystery. The story is intricately layered – and until all of the evidence is laid out in the various interconnected civil and criminal cases, we don’t even know the half of it.
To bring some clarity (or at least to attempt to bring some clarity), it is important to simplify this case by focusing on the four key individuals intimately involved in the saga – and their connections to each other (or lack thereof).
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THE VICTIM: CHRISTINA PARCELL
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At the time of her murder, 41-year-old Christina Parcell worked as a technician at Foothills Veterinary Hospital in Greenville, S.C. Gifted with a “personality the size of a high-rise,” Parcell was described by her veterinary co-workers as “always trying to make everyone feel better.”
“The dogs loved her and she did such an incredible job with them,” one hospital employee wrote.
As for her relationships with humans, Parcell “always had an ear and always tried to make you smile even in the worst of situations,” the co-worker added.
“She did just a really good job of exhibiting compassion and empathy, and she was always very even-tempered,” hospital owner Dan Randall told WSPA TV-7 (CBS – Greenville/ Spartanburg). “We traveled some difficult journeys with her over the last three years, and I (would) just like people to know, she was an amazing person.”
“She loved her daughter, was extremely close to her sister… she’s just not another nameless faceless victim,” Randall added.
Those perceptions dominated media coverage in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. As Parcell was being eulogized, however, deputies with the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office (GCSO) – the lead investigative agency in this case – were scouring the residence at 122 Canebrake Drive where her body was found.
There, they discovered “memory cards and a laptop” in the living room near Parcell’s body, according to an incident report. They also recovered a “clear ziplock bag that had (a) white power substance inside.”
“This clear bag appeared to have dried spots (of) blood on it,” the report added.
A cell phone located “near Christina’s body” was retrieved and processed for “data extraction,” while a purse belonging to Parcell containing two envelopes (each with $500 in cash inside) was discovered “on a table near the hallway” of the living room.
That’s not all deputies found…
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“In the back room a small, single-shot firearm was located inside of a bag that was inside of a suitcase,” the report added.
Meanwhile, “multiple documents regarding (an ongoing) custody battle” were retrieved from Parcell’s bedroom – along with additional “usb drives.” Parcell’s bed sheets were also collected “as they appeared to have blood on them.” In fact, a Bluestar spray test was conducted in “several areas (of the home), to include the bathrooms, and (produced) a positive response for the possible presence of blood.”
In the years leading up to her death, Parcell had been in an ongoing custody battle with the father of her child, John Mello (more on him momentarily). Incident reports indicate the dispute had led to a campaign of stalking and harassment against her. According to police, Parcell had been the target of a long-term campaign of stalking and harassment carried out by Mello – a skilled puppet master who not only followed and tormented her but, according to incident reports, appears to have compelled others to do the same. As our media outlet has previously reported, this is behavior Mello demonstrated long before his obsession with Parcell began. His first wife and her family and friends reportedly lived in fear of the self-styled music producer due to the excessive, aggressive and threatening words and actions he employed against them.
The lengthy custody battle with Mello was incredibly expensive. Parcell’s fiancée, Bradly Post, covered the attorney fees, though… making her indebted to him.
The arrests of both Post and Mello for unrelated crimes in the weeks following Parcell’s murder raised eyebrows – and speculation ran rampant as to their potential involvement in her slaying. Instead of bringing answers, though, the arrests served only to expose several unexpected layers to this graphic homicide. Those layers clouded the picture – especially after our other key player, Zachary David Hughes, was arrested and charged with murder on November 3, 2021.
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THE FIANCEE: BRADLY POST
Bradly Post was arrested on October 19, 2021 – six days after the murder of his fiancée.
Contrary to public perception – or expectation – he was not charged with killing Parcell. Instead, Post was apprehended in connection with a child pornography investigation related to evidence obtained at the murder scene. After Post reported the discovery of Parcell’s body, police began their aforementioned search of the 2,100-square-foot home. That’s when they discovered evidence of child pornography (or “child sex abuse material”) linked to Post and Christina Parcell.
Post’s devices were seized by GCSO investigators, but the case is being handled by the office of S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson. According to Hughes’ attorneys, police found “more than 15,000 images and videos of child pornography… on nine electronic storage devices” while searching the home where the murder took place. As a result, Post is currently facing five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in the first degree, one count of sexual exploitation of a minor in the third degree, one count of third degree criminal sexual content with a minor and one count of buggery.
Additionally, Post and the estate of Christina Parcell were listed as defendants in two civil lawsuits – one brought on behalf of Parcell’s own daughter and the other brought on behalf of another minor female allegedly victimized by the couple.
According to the first lawsuit (.pdf) – filed on behalf of a friend of Parcell’s daughter in February 2022 – “Parcell and Post took pictures/ videos of and with (the minor female) in states of undress and in sexually provocative positions.” According to the second lawsuit (.pdf), Parcell’s daughter was photographed and videoed “in various stages of undress and in sexually explicit and nude positions.” Some of these files “graphically depict(ed) her genitals and breasts.”
As our founding editor reported in March 2023, Parcell was allegedly "not only aware these images and videos were being produced" - but personally appeared in many of them. Subsequent filings submitted by Hughes' attorneys have confirmed these allegations based on information obtained in pre-trial discovery.
“The video begins with a minor child on a bed in the nude,” a recent motion (.pdf) noted, describing one of the files. “Parcell emerges from behind the camera, nude, and climbs on the bed with the minor. Both then engage in sexually explicit and coordinated poses.”
Post’s discovery of the crime scene makes him a material witness to the murder of Christina Parcell. In fact, he’s likely one of the most important witnesses prosecutors will call as they present their case. At the time of her death, the two were engaged and allegedly living together at the home in which she was murdered.
In addition to testifying as to the horrific crime scene he encountered, the nature and history of Post's relationship with Parcell will need to be established during the course of his testimony – yet according to a pair of pre-trial motions filed by Hughes’ defense team, the state wants the testimony of that relationship to be limited in scope so it doesn’t include the charges of which Post has been accused.
And the potential crimes to which the late victim has been linked...
As the start of the trial approached, Hughes’ defense attorneys - Mark Moyer and Andrew Moorman - sought to compel prosecutors to produce Post’s phone which would open the door to a discussion of the child porn allegations. Meanwhile, Wilkins’ office countered with a motion (.pdf) asking the court to exclude any reference to child pornography during the trial.
Make no mistake: How Post's testimony is ultimately handled will be one of the most critical components of this trial.
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THE ACCUSED KILLER: ZACHARY HUGHES
By all accounts, 32-year-old Zachary David Hughes – a California native and graduate of the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City – was an unlikely suspect. Scratch that, an impossible suspect. A classically trained concert pianist who studied at the prestigious Julliard School, Hughes studied and performed piano sonatas written by famed composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
On the day warrants were issued for his arrest, Hughes was preparing to begin a new job on an international cruise line. He was in Detroit, Michigan awaiting a flight to Europe. According to a motion filed by his defense team in support of bond, upon learning of these warrants Hughes didn’t attempt to flee across the border into Canada – instead, he rented a car and drove from Detroit to Greenville, where he turned himself in to authorities.
With no apparent connection to Christina Parcell, Hughes’ motive was a mystery – but the evidence against him was damning. As previously reported, during an April 6, 2022 bond hearing before S.C. circuit court judge Edward W. Miller, prosecutors revealed Ring camera footage from a home across the street which showed “the defendant dressed in a black hoodie and a backpack entering the front door” of Parcell’s home just before her murder.
Hughes was later seen on another Ring camera “leaving the subdivision on a bicycle” after Parcell’s murder, solicitor Wilkins told the judge. A bicycle “matching the exact bicycle leaving the neighborhood at the time of the murder” – was spotted on yet another camera in the back of Hughes’ truck, according to Wilkins.
Hughes’ attorneys disputed the video evidence, claiming the clips cited by prosecutors “don’t show Zach.”
However, prosecutors further asserted that DNA collected from under Parcell’s fingernails belonged to Hughes – which would definitively link him to the crime scene.
“The victim’s fingernails were processed for DNA, and the (result) conclusively shows that Zach Hughes’ DNA was under the fingernails of the victim,” Wilkins told judge Miller.
According to Wilkins, “the premeditation and calculation and planning that had to go into this crime was pretty impeccable.”
Bond was denied – and Hughes has remained incarcerated at the Greenville County detention center pending trial. A motion in support of bond by Hughes’ lawyers in April 2022 gave the public the first glimpse at the man charged with this gruesome, ritualistic crime.
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RELATED | ZACH HUGHES' iPHONE UNLOCKED
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Hughes was born in Morro Bay, California to Dave Hughes and Mindy Hughes. In addition to Zachary, Dave and Mindy – married for over 46 years – have another son named Eli Hughes, who is 23 years old. According to court documents, Dave and Mindy both were born and raised in California. Upon making the decision to start a family, they wanted to “ instill in their children a love of the Lord and an appreciation for family” and decided the best way to do this was to move the family to Virginia.
After moving young Zack and Eli across the country, in 2005 David and Mindy adopted five children, all siblings, from Russia to provide these children with a better life. The motion in support of bond noted “the addition of these children to the Hughes’ family had a profound impact on Zack.” According to the Hughes family, they were unaware that most or all of these children suffered from significant emotional, psychological, and/or physical adversity due to maltreatment they had received in Russia.
The initial plan to move the family to a small farm in Virginia called for both Dave and Mindy to stay at home with their children while they lived off of savings and any income generated by the farm. They soon learned this wasn’t going to be enough to sustain the family – which required Zachary to step into the role of adult caregiver for the children.
Hughes found an outlet for his mounting stress in music. His parents had purchased a used piano at a yard sale when he was a young boy and quickly discovered he had an “aptitude for music.” After his adopted siblings joined the family, he immersed himself in the piano. His parents told the court he devoted his entire life to it as an escape from his life at home.
During high school, Hughes began entering competitions and won first place in the prestigious Southeastern Piano Festival. This prize earned him a soloist performance with the S.C. Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 (the “Emperor Concerto”).
Hughes’ talent was undeniable. In 2010, he applied to The Juilliard School for piano performance. Entrance into Juilliard – a highly competitive performing arts conservatory in New York City – is exceedingly difficult. Despite the highly selective admissions process, Hughes’ talent was noticed by the school and he was not only admitted, but offered numerous scholarships.
(Click to view)
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In 2018, while attending the University of Tennessee in pursuit of a masters degree in piano performance, Hughes volunteered to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps. Though he initially applied as an enlisted soldier, the recruiter instructed him to apply for officer candidate school instead.
Three weeks into his training, Hughes suffered stress fractures in both of his legs, forcing him to withdraw. At the time of his injury, he was in the top three percent of his OCS class – which was composed of approximately 400 students. He was encouraged to return after recovering from his injuries.
Those plans were put on hold, though, when a friend contacted him with a request. A church in Greenville, S.C. had been recently gifted with a high-end piano and a woman named Jeannette Winn was leading the search for a talented pianist to play it for its inaugural performance. Hughes agreed and after the 2019 performance, the Winn family and Hughes family developed a close, personal friendship.
With the support of Greenville Unitarian Universalist Church, Hughes decided to stay in the Upstate. To support his new life, the church helped him realize his dream of performing all thirty-two of Beethoven’s sonatas (from memory) during the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2020. The church came to an agreement with Hughes that they would request a donation from all those who attended these performances, and the donations would be split evenly between Hughes and the church.
The plan was going off without a hitch until Covid-19 halted social gatherings in early 2020 - shortly after his third performance. Hughes persevered by purchasing an electric keyboard and performing in large open spaces. Hughes also supplemented his income by providing virtual piano lessons through the Bronx Conservatory of Music.
How did this talented young man who friends describe as a loyal friend with a big heart end up a suspect in the horrific slaying of a woman to whom he seemingly had no ties?
Investigators believe the answer lies with the father of Christina Parcell’s young daughter, John Mello.
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THE PRODUCER: JOHN MELLO
John Mello, 64, describes himself as a music producer. He lived on the west coast until moving to Greenville with his family. After divorcing his second wife, he dated Parcell briefly and the two had a daughter in 2012. The couple split up shortly thereafter and a years long custody battle ensued over the young child.
On October 5, 2020, Mello took his daughter to Italy in the midst of his ongoing custody battle with Parcell. This led to criminal charges being filed against him for custodial interference in Greenville County. On October 21, 2021 – a year later and just after Christina’s death – Mello returned to Greenville from Italy and was served a warrant for these charges and arrested.
This charge was dismissed by S.C. circuit court judge Perry Gravely in April of 2024 after he determined Christina Parcell was not a “legal custodian” of her daughter at the time Mello fled to Italy.
According to investigators, Hughes worked for Mello cleaning his house and performing other domestic tasks from 2020-2021. It is unknown how they met, but in the relatively small community of Greenville, South Carolina it is believed a shared love of music brought them together.
When he was arrested on the custodial interference charge, Mello listed ‘Zachary Hughes’ on the relationship portion of his intake form – allowing the two of them to communicate while he was incarcerated. He also recorded a video with Hughes granting him permission to retrieve his luggage and medication from the Charlotte Airport following his arrest.
When authorities learned of the relationship between Mello and Hughes, they began looking at footage from Flock cameras. Flock cameras are license plate reading cameras that store every vehicle that is read by a particular camera in a searchable database – including dates, timestamps and photos of the car.
What they discovered was chilling. On the day before the murder – and the day of the murders – Flock camera footage showed Zachary Hughes’ truck with a bicycle located in its bed. This bicycle matched the description of the bicycle the killer used when he was leaving Christina Parcell’s neighborhood immediately following her murder. Law enforcement officials used this footage to obtain a search warrant on the home where Zachary Hughes was living.
(Click to view)
During this search, a bicycle was discovered matching the description of the one located in the back of Zachary Hughes’ truck – the one photographed on the Flock cameras. A witness in Zachary Hughes’ home stated Hughes owned the recovered bicycle and had recently used it.
During this search, authorities also located Hughes’ iPhone and obtained a separate search warrant for it. The phone required a 6-digit passcode and law enforcement technicians were unable to unlock the phone - although they were successful in extracting partial contents from it.
Mello and Hughes communicated extensively through an application on their phones called WhatsApp – which encrypts messages and is often used to exchange messages, videos and phone calls when one person is living outside the United States. At the time of Christina’s homicide, Mello was in Italy.
Some of these messages were able to be downloaded, others were not. The messages viewable by law enforcement were presented in a motion to compel Hughes to provide authorities with the passcode to his phone.
And they were concerning …
In one conversation via WhatsApp on April 17, 2021, Mello told Hughes he had obtained Christina’s private number and instructed him to use it to “harass the shit out of her.”
Authorities also found numerous conversations between Mello and Zachary Hughes via WhatsApp between October 8 and October 13, 2021 – the day of Christina Parcell’s murder. On October 13, for example, there is a conversation in which Mello asked Hughes “how did the music research go?”
“Good,” Hughes responded. “I’ll tell you over the phone.”
Mello has not been charged in connection with Parcell's murder - and has consistently maintained his innocence of all the charges against him in communications with this media outlet. In September 2023, however, Mello and Hughes were charged in Greenville County with first degree harassment and conspiracy for allegedly disseminating nude pictures of Parcell provided by Mello to an undisclosed group of recipients. Those charges remain pending.
Sources close to the prosecution have referred to Mello as an "un-indicted co-conspirator" in Parcell's murder. Supporters of Mello have claimed he is being unfairly targeted - without any evidence - and that even if he were tied to her killing, his actions would have been justified given the allegations against her.
How else is a father supposed to respond to his daughter being abused?
Four key players: A victim, a fiancée, an accused murderer and a man some insist produced the entire saga from start to finish. As we cover this incredibly intricate story next week, keep an eye on these four key players.
Jury selection for Zachary Hughes' trial begins Monday, January 13, 2025. Stay tuned to FITSNews for updates. Also, for more on the Rose Petal Murder, be sure to check out the first six episodes of our crime and corruption podcast FITSFiles (Apple, Spotify, Google) and check out this landing page.
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THE KEY PLAYERS...
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...
Jenn Wood is FITSNews' incomparable research director. She's also the producer of the FITSFiles and Cheer Incorporated podcasts and leading expert on all things Murdaugh/ South Carolina justice. A former private investigator with a criminal justice degree, evildoers beware, Jenn Wood is far from your average journalist! A deep dive researcher with a passion for truth and a heart for victims, this mom of two is pretty much a superhero in FITSNews country. Did we mention she's married to a rocket scientist? (Lucky guy!) Got a story idea or a tip for Jenn? Email her at jenn@fitsnews.com.
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