Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Rose Petal Killer Reveals Why He Killed Vet Tech

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

Zachary Hughes was on trial for murdering Christina Parcell in her home in Greenville County, South Carolina in October 2021. Hughes detailed how and why he murdered Parcell when he took the stand in his own defense. His testimony led to the arrest of his friend and the father of Parcell's child, John Mello. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through Hughes' testimony in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. I had been absolutely convinced that Christina Parcell was sexually abusing her daughter. Zachary Hughes on trial for murder takes the stand and stuns the courtroom by confessing to murdering Christina Parcell. I lay out his testimony and the bombshells he droppeding to murdering Christina Parcell. I lay out his testimony and the bombshells he dropped that led to his friend's arrest. John asked me that if I believed his daughter was in grave danger, would I be willing to kill Christina Parcell for $5,000? Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. When a defendant takes the stand

in a murder trial, it's always interesting to watch. But when Zach Hughes testified, it was practically unbelievable. It was incredible, actually. He confessed in detail to planning and carrying out the murder of Christina Parcell. You don't typically see that unless it's a self-defense case. This was not a self-defense case, not even close. Hughes was charged with murdering Christina Parcell on October 13th, 2021 at her home in Greenville County, South Carolina. Rose petals were found scattered in the home along with blood and even the stems of those roses that were held together with a rubber band. People always wondered, what on earth did the rose petals mean?

Was this something ritualistic? Well, you'll hear about those rose petals right from Zachary Hughes shortly. Hughes was a good friend of a man named John Mello, the father of Christina Parcell's nine-year-old daughter and a local musician. At first, John Mello had come under suspicion for Parcell's murder because of the contentious custody battle the two were engaged in over their daughter. And oddly enough, Parcell's fiance, Bradley Post, who found her body, was arrested and charged with possessing child sex abuse materials that deputies said they found on his phone while investigating Parcell's murder. But it was Zach Hughes who detectives identified as their suspect.

Hughes was charged with murdering Christina Parcell a couple of weeks after the murder. And he's not what you would typically think of as a murderer. He's a classically trained pianist, and he took the stand to tell the jury his story. When it came to go for you to go to college. Where did you apply to go to college? I applied to five different conservatories in the country. Were you accepted to any of those conservatories? I was accepted to three. Where did you decide to go to college? I went to the Juilliard School in Manhattan. The year you applied, what percentage of applicants were granted admission to Juilliard? I believe it was 7.2%. And you were one of those musicians?

Yes. When you were accepted, what, if any, inducements or incentives did Juilliard give you to attend their institution? They offered me a generous financial aid package and merit-based scholarship. When did you begin your education at the Juilliard School? I matriculated in the fall of 2011. Zach Hughes is probably the most well-spoken defendant I've ever seen testify. He described his older adopted sister, Grace, whom he called evil.

I don't say this lightly, but my older sister, Grace, was the most evil human being I've ever met in my life. She was 10 when she came into our family. The Russian government didn't tell us much about the kids, so we weren't aware of any, if any, behavioral issues there may have been. And there were many, but specifically with her, I would describe her without reservation as an affectionless psychopath. It wasn't that she was immoral. It was more that she was amoral. She didn't have a sense of right and wrong. Her emotional compass was seemingly nonexistent.

She was just dead inside. She was a masterful manipulator and deceiver. She could lie at the drop of the hat for reasons that might involve her personal gain or just for the heck of it. She would invent the most absurd, crazy, gruesome stories just to get a reaction out of people. And she could talk about this stuff with the same tone that you might talk about making a sandwich, and this from a girl that I knew between the ages of 10 to 14.

It was incredibly disturbing, and the things I learned about that type of personality have stayed with me my entire life, because I've never met someone like this since, and with one exception, I had never even heard someone describe another human being like this sense and with one exception I had never even heard someone describe another human being like this and one of the things that is so dangerous about someone like this is so this she was literally like a vampire who would just suck the goodness out of other people around her. She could be very emotional and she would fake these emotions in order to elicit a response in you, a sympathetic response. Hughes described discussing Christina Parcell with John Mello.

He started describing Christina Parcell's character and her personality. And as he was going through various points, he kept saying, Zach, I know you're not going to believe me. Like, I know this sounds overblown and dramatic and you probably think I'm exaggerating. And under other circumstances, I would have, because John does, I mean, he's a big storyteller and, you know, when people are talking about their exes, like everyone thinks their ex is the Antichrist. So of course I was sort of predisposed to be biased against what he was telling me, except for the fact that point by point, everything he described about Christina Parcell was exactly the same as my sister Grace. He told me that Christina Parcell was a master manipulator.

He said she can lie at the drop of the hat and you'll never know it. He said she was incredibly charming. He said she was incredibly intelligent and talented. He used to say she was smarter than he was, but that her biggest fault was that she was lazy. And she had this arrogance combined with her laziness that was essentially born out of the fact that she knew she never really had to work too hard at anything in life. And she could even sacrifice trust with people and tell them lies that could easily be found out because ultimately she was completely confident in her ability to reel someone back in no matter how bad

she had burned them before. And he could have been describing grace to me because I knew this behavior. I had lived through this behavior. Zachary Hughes said hearing about Christina Parcell triggered him. So when John was telling me all this, I realized that there was an incredible danger that what Christina Parcell was, was a future preview of what could potentially become if she was left in this woman's custody and was raised by her. And the facts have borne out that I was right. Then came an offer from John Mello. In May of 2021, were you and John Mello continuing to communicate about this situation? Yes.

In May of 2021, what, if anything, did John ask you to do for him? Given the extremely grave nature of John's concerns for his daughter, especially while she was in the custody of her mother, Christina Parcell, grave nature of John's concerns for his daughter especially while she was in the custody of her mother Christina Parcell and

potentially being exposed to her mother's boyfriend Brad Post who John believed was a pedophile and is a pedophile I instruct you to totally disregard the last comments made by this defendant.

Zach, could you just tell this jury what John asked you to do? Yes. Given his concerns, John asked me that if I believed his daughter was in grave danger, would I be willing to kill Christina Parcell for $5,000? What did you say when he asked you that? I was shocked and insulted by the request, and I gave him an immediate and unequivocal no. So he offered you $5,000 if you would kill Christina Persaud, and you said no. That's correct.

At some point, did he revisit that subject? Yes. Hughes described the second offer. Did he make you another offer? Yes, he did. How long after the first offer did he make the second offer? I'm not certain, but I would say maybe two or three weeks later. Tell this jury about that. He was becoming increasingly more worried and distressed about the safety of his daughter.

I was as well. The more I learned about this situation and everything and a lot more than what I've told you, I was also... What was the second offer? The second offer he asked me again if I became convinced that his daughter was in danger, would I be willing to kill Christina Parcell for $10,000 I told him John there's no amount of money that would ever tempt me to do something like this and I told

him I was insulted that he even thought that would be something I would consider. So I told him I would never do something like this for money. I told him the only way I would ever consider taking action like this is if I was absolutely convinced that his daughter was not only in danger, but that the only way to rescue her from that danger would be to take Christina Parcell's wife. So Zachary Hughes, he said he declined these offers. He says he's offended by them. But then he hears more from John Mello about Christina Parcell. So John had been telling me for weeks, Zach, Christina is killing my little girl. Like I can see the spark dying in her eyes.

And again, when I first heard that, I thought, aren't you being a little dramatic? Like I hadn't seen her, but it just seemed a bit much. When I saw her in these visits, I didn't feel that way anymore. She was not the same little girl that I had known in Greenville when I first met them. She had put on a great deal of weight, probably about 20 pounds, which is roughly a quarter of her body weight for an eight-year-old girl. That's a lot in a short period of time, but it was much more than that. was her demeanor her spirit was just she was morose she was depressed um like that spunky precocious lively little girl that i had met was just not present there um it was a complete change in character and i mean john would ask her how she

was doing and she would always try to give a good response. Like she would try to smile and say, I'm fine, daddy, and try to put on a good face. But it was clear that she was doing that because she didn't want to worry her dad. She didn't want him to, to realize how poorly she was doing. And it just reminded me so much of myself when I was a little older than she was with what I've previously described with Grace. It's this, you internalize things. Like she's a strong person. And she was trying to be stronger than she was probably ready to be at that age.

And despite the stoic, strong exterior she was trying to put on, I could just see that she was being tortured, like she was drowning. And him saying that the spark was dying in her eyes was absolutely accurate. I could see it. I could hear it in her voice. I could tell it in her demeanor. In the middle of Zach Hughes's testimony, Greenville County deputies took John Mello into custody, charging him with accessory before the fact to a felony and solicitation to commit a felony. Despite declining the offers to murder Christina Parcell for cash, Hughes said he decided on his own to murder Christina Parcell. I was still in the middle of this music project. So I had a lot on my plate there just professionally. And of course, I was continuing and even increasing my support to help John save his daughter. And since June, when I had returned, I had been absolutely convinced

that Christina Parcell was sexually abusing her daughter. Let's go. Judge Fant had previously ruled that Hughes could not tell the jury that he was trying to save Christina Parcell and John Mello's daughter and that he believed she was being sexually abused. He said it wasn't permitted under South Carolina law. But you saw that didn't stop Zach Hughes. He described the murder to the jury. And when I rang the doorbell, the door opened and a woman came to the front. And I thought it was Christina Parcell,

but I wanted to make sure. And I also wanted to make sure that no one else was home. So I told her that whileutina wasn't home. So at this point I realized that Christina was at the house alone. And I handed her the roses. And I took the revolver out of the box and I pointed it at her and I told her to be quiet

and to go back into the house, which she did. And I followed her into the house and I shut the door. And I was, I was experiencing such anxiety that my body wasn't really doing what I was telling it to do anymore. Like, when I realized that I couldn't use the gun, which was unloaded at this point, my plan had been to try to knock her unconscious because I didn't want to cause her or anyone any pain. That wasn't my intention. I just wanted to save her and to make sure that no one else who was a bystander

would be involved in this or could be endangered in any way. So I tried, while she was holding the roses, to strike her on the head and knock her unconscious. But my body was fighting me because even though I knew who she was and what she was doing and the danger that was put in. I was still looking at her, and I was seeing a sympathetic figure. I was seeing a woman, and I had always been taught never to hurt a woman, to always protect women and children. So when I went to strike her with the gun, my hand didn't really do what I was trying to tell it to.

I essentially pulled my strike. It felt like a time I had been cliff jumping with friends. I have a big fear of heights and there was a 30-foot face that you could jump off and jump into a deep pool of water and when I would run up to the edge, I would try to get a running start and jump off the edge, and I just couldn't. Like, my body would stop me against my will. And I had to try to do this 10 or 15 or 20 times before I could actually get myself to go over the edge. So when I struck her on the head with the pistol, that's what happened.

It didn't knock her unconscious, and I'd hardly struck her at all, to be honest. So I tried again, and the same thing happened. I just couldn't bring myself to strike her. And at this point, she realized that I was hesitating. And she began to try to move herself and to get away and to fight back. And during this period of time, the roses had dropped and the petals and stems had scattered. So that is how those rose petals ended up scattered around the home. Hughes said he dragged Parcell's body, leaving blood on the floor, and then left. And I got back on my bike and I pedaled my bike back to the truck and I drove back to the mountain house. And I was still completely freaking out and it felt entirely surreal. But there is a big difference in how I felt in that as soon as I left the house,

I felt the most enormous wave of relief wash over me because I knew from that moment on, Aida would be safe. Aida would be safe from the sexual abuse that her mother was perpetrating on her. And there is proof to that, that the state is hiding from you. It's just going to be quiet. Okay, you need to stop talking. On cross-examination, solicitor Walt Wilkins asked just one question. Mr. Hughes, when you dragged Christina Parcell across the floor of the front room where you killed her, did you drag her by her arm or by her ankle?

I don't remember for certain, but I think by the ankle. That's all the questions I need to ask this, Your Honor. In the end, the jury found Hughes guilty of murder. The judge sentenced Hughes to life in prison without parole. His attorney said they will appeal. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being here. I'll see you back here next time.