Bloody Rose Petals - Greer, South Carolina

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Hello and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.

Yay and choo-choo.

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy.

Yay, indeed.

My name is James Petrogallo.

I'm here with my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wistman.

Thank you so much for joining us today on another wild, crazy edition of Small Town Murder Express.

All aboard the murder train, pulling away from the station.

And we have a wild one for you.

This is definitely 10 pounds of murder in a two-pound bag here.

Okay.

It's wild.

So we will get to this very quickly before we start.

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It's crazy.

We'll talk about that.

Then for Small Town Murder, this Amy Bradley case that's been going on for 27 years now, it's just fascinating.

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She might be dead.

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So

this is what we give you.

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We can't do any more than that.

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But other than that, I don't know.

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So get yourself some Patreon, and you get a shout-out at the end of the regular show as well, or Jimmy will mess your name all up.

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That's our promise.

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There it is.

That said, I think it's time, everybody.

Let's all sit back.

Let me say, clear the lungs, and let's all shout.

Shut up

and give me

murder.

Let's do this, everybody.

Okay.

Let's go on a trip.

Here we go.

We are going to South Carolina this week.

Down there, it's been a little while.

We're going to Greer, South Carolina.

G-R-E-E-R.

This is in...

You don't know it?

Haven't been there?

I never heard of it.

No, it's in northwestern South Carolina, like nowhere near the water.

There's Greer, Arizona.

I know that.

There is.

There's probably Greer in a lot of places.

There's probably a lot of Greer's.

This is what they do in this country.

They just, yeah.

There's like 12 Miamis.

So obviously we have to.

They name everything after somewhere else.

Yeah.

That's it.

This is in, it's on the website, they say it's nestled in the heart of the upstate of South Carolina.

The upstate of South Carolina.

Upstate of South Carolina.

It's about an hour and a half to Charlotte, about an hour 45 to Columbia, South Carolina, and about 30 minutes to Roebuck, South Carolina, which was our last South Carolina episode, which was crazy.

That was the beauty shop butcher one.

That was a weird episode where the woman was killed in her beauty shop.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah, that was a weird episode.

This is in both Greenville and Spartanburg counties.

So

it's on the border.

Area code 864, population here, 35,131.

So pretty good-sized little town.

And it is a small town kind of by by itself, but

still, it's a good size.

Median household income here is almost at the national average.

It's $67,536.

So a couple thousand shy.

And the median home cost here is $318,200.

So it's all very average.

The income, the home costs, it's a lot of, and even their motto is very average.

You're going to know it.

Jimmy, I want you to finish this for me.

A great place to live, work, and play.

You got it.

That's their motto i'm telling you some company

yeah some pr company went around to everybody and sold it to 4 000 towns in the united states and then

all the way to the bank they were like that's brilliant no one else is using this awesome

a little bit of history here greer was named for james manning greer who was a Scottish guy, and many of his descendants still reside in the region.

There's still some Greers running around here.

So around 1873 is when the town became a town.

That is when the

railroad came through, basically.

Like a lot of towns.

It didn't become a town until the Richmond and Danville Airline Railway established a line between Atlanta and Charlotte that went right through here.

That's how it works.

Now, it became a big textile-making place here.

Sure.

Factories, you know, clothing and processing cotton into things, fabrics, except the imports started in the 1970s, started coming in, and we started getting, you know, cheap t-shirts from China and stuff like that,

which really screwed up the textile industry down there.

And basically, it was predicted that Greer would be a ghost town soon at that point.

Really?

It was just going to be a dead, you know, one of those towns you drove through and went, whoa, people used to live here.

They used to make shirts right there.

Right there, man.

They made this shirt I'm wearing.

But apparently they kept going at it and they put their heads down and attracted new industry and new jobs to come in.

And now the town is up to 35,000 people.

It's the highest it's ever been.

It's thriving.

So

incredible.

It's wild.

Reviews of this town.

Here's five stars.

Okay.

Since I have moved to Greer, South Carolina, I've had an overall great experience.

It is very calm and relaxed.

And we have little to no disturbances from neighbors.

Is that the first thing you're worried about?

Weeded out all the bad neighbors?

How'd you do it?

Little to no from the neighbors.

Never mind anybody else.

And little need to worry about crime or danger.

That's pretty cocky.

You're awfully sure of yourself.

Brave, yeah.

That sounds like the thing somebody says in the beginning of a dateline episode before they talk about a horrible fucking butchery that happened to their family member.

Here's three stars.

All of the roads have potholes, and it takes a pretty long time for them to be filled.

Okay.

They're slow with the

asphalt there.

Slow with the cold patch.

Yeah, slow with the old tar patch.

Also, I don't know if it's just the neighborhood where I live or if it's the city, but the recycling program is sub-par at best.

Where have you been?

Why?

When

it's been

Denver?

There can't be that much to complain about if your main complaint is the recycling program is sub-par.

You know what I mean?

I just found out recently that

many

municipalities in Phoenix do not recycle, recycle, even though they have the recycle bin, that shit just goes into the landfill.

So people are just sorting shit for no reason?

Rinsing their milk jug for no goddamn recent.

No fucking reason.

Jesus.

Thanks a lot, Phoenix.

Ah, that's Phoenix for you.

Yeah.

Wait, what?

Phoenix, where we punish you for living here.

That should be their town motto.

Phoenix, we'll make you wash your trash for no reason.

No reason at all.

We'll just throw it all in a big fucking pit.

Rinse your dog food cans, dip shit.

Oh, man.

Dude,

that's infuriating.

Here's two stars.

Yeah.

There is nothing to do here in Greer.

The people are all bitter and old or mentally unstable teenagers.

That is.

Extremely specific.

Bitter and old and mentally.

Well, that's why they're so bitter because it's just mentally unstable teenagers running around.

They were unstable for one another, just bitter and old.

So that's that's this life cycle here.

You go from mentally unstable to bitter.

That's how it works.

It's not bad.

Things to do here.

Oh, man.

The skunk fest.

Oh, nothing.

The music fest.

A skunk fest music festival, they call it here.

South Carolina.

Is weed legal there?

It's not, is it?

Fuck no.

Are you kidding me?

Mason Dixon.

That is the hard weed is a legal line.

Are you sure?

I am 100% positive that there is not one southern state where weed is legal.

Trust me.

I know where weed is legal.

None of them.

Yeah.

James.

Medically in a couple places.

I know exactly where it's legal, and it ain't there.

The question is: is marijuana legal in South Carolina?

Short answer, no.

Nope.

Absolutely not.

Any form.

It's all illegal.

Wonder why we never tour in South Carolina?

You got to do that.

That's a good reason.

If it's there or a weed legal state, guess where we're going?

Not there.

So funny.

You know, so this was founded as a bluegrass music festival.

All right.

But now, that's fine.

I like bluegrass.

That's cool.

And now features mostly acoustic music, including Americana, folk, singer-songwriter, alt-country, acoustic, roots, and bluegrass.

Actually, good music, probably.

So that's interesting.

Yeah, it is held at the skunk farm.

Why?

Yeah, let's all go to the skunk farm, everybody.

That sounds great.

Where can we make people not stick around long?

That's what it was, right?

And you would think the reason for it, you know, maybe wouldn't be because of skunks.

It's just the name.

We'll talk about it.

But it started as an initially private event, but it's now open to the public.

I don't know how you have a festival.

It's private.

That doesn't make sense.

It got its name from the sightings of white skunks on the grounds.

No stripes, just white.

No, they're mostly white with a dark stripe.

Oh, instead.

Reversed.

They're flipped.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Reverse pandas.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's weird.

So each fall, a theme of the fest, they have original drawings of the albino skunk characters.

That's how they promote it.

It's always an albino skunk person here.

People performing shiny ribs.

Shiny ribs?

Shiny ribs, one word.

Looks like an old guy in a Kangal hat.

The Ruin Brothers, R-U-E-N.

Sunny War.

who is a black woman with a guitar.

That's the picture, just a lone woman.

The John Jorgensen Bluegrass Band, which is four old guys.

Christina Vane,

who is wearing like a black leather, like motorcycle jacket, a cowboy hat, and has blue hair.

So I don't know what the hell she sings.

Who knows?

Tyler Ramsey, who looks like his picture looks like they just pulled him out of like he was hiding from the cops who were hunting him for six months and he was like being a survivalist in the woods.

The Hill Benders.

Okay.

Wolf Jet.

In England, that's different.

Yeah, that's a different tale.

Wolf Jet, which is five dudes sitting in a car is their picture.

David Childers and the Serpents.

Okay.

The Holler Choir.

We just yell.

We yell in unison.

The two tracks.

The Shelby Means Trio, which is just a very shiny-looking young woman.

Oh, looks real clean.

And then the

Joel Timmins Psychedelic Surf Country.

What?

That is a lot to take in, man.

I don't know if that's like Dick Dale mixed with, like, I don't even know what to mix that with.

I don't know how to do that.

The dead, and then also, I don't know, Luke Bryan.

That's what I mean.

Yeah, mixed with surf, too.

So,

and the beach boy.

I thought of more of a Dick Dale.

Yes.

I don't know.

That said, let's talk about some murder people.

They are confusing, if nothing else.

It's a confusing festival.

Let's go to something that is not confusing, but just horrible.

This is a case where there are

very few cases where there are no good guys.

Oh.

This is one of those cases where everyone involved

is kind of messed up.

Let's talk first about Christina.

Okay.

Christina Parcel.

She's 41 years old in 2020.

So that'll make her about 79.

She's born.

She has a sister named Tina.

Okay.

Christina and Tina.

That's the same girl.

Her sister's name is Lutina, and her name is Christina.

Lutina?

Lutina.

Now, she's older, so I guess she gets to go by Tina.

And Christina has to go by Tina.

Because who wants to go by Lutina?

Lutina, yeah.

So that's her sister, and they're close.

That's why we're mentioning her sister.

Now, Christina, she attended the South Carolina Governor's School for Math and Science,

which is prestigious, apparently, in that

state.

They actually do math and science in this school, which is, you know, it's a special school in South Carolina that does that.

It gets that, you get actual science.

Um, so I don't know.

I'm just joking around, but who knows?

Uh, she is very, very smart, obviously, if she

goes to the school, but she never graduates from college.

She goes to college and never graduates from college.

And everybody in her life just bemoans her choice of everything.

She makes terrible choices, especially in partners of

the loving kind.

Yeah.

Men, she's not good at picking men at all.

Okay.

Real bad.

Bad picker.

Oh, an awfully bad picker.

She was married and divorced in the early 2000s.

Then she meets a guy in 2008 named John Joey Mellow.

M-E-L-L-O, like Mellow Yellow.

Joey Mellow?

Joey.

John Mellow.

Joey's his middle name.

John Joey.

John Mellow.

That's awesome.

John Joey.

Hey.

Yeah.

He's born in 1960, a little older than her.

They start dating in December of 2008, John Joey.

Joey is, this is weird.

He's born in Cambridge, Massachusetts,

but he's also an Italian citizen as well.

Yeah, if Italy has a thing, I don't know if everybody knows about, if you're not Italian, you probably don't know that this is a thing, but they have a thing where if you have, if your grandparents came from there,

it's grandparents or, you know, lower.

If your grandparents are there, you can get Italian citizenship.

Fantastic.

So J.J.

Mellow figured it out.

So he did that.

He got Italian citizenship there, and that's what he does.

Now, he's born, like I said, in Massachusetts here.

He lived in California at some time when he was a kid because that's when his Social Security card was issued from California when he was 13.

He opened a bar in the 1980s called The Doll Hut.

Really?

Which sounds like there's tits in there.

The doll hut?

The doll hut.

That sounds like that.

It's like he could have gone with like mellows or something.

I mean, something cool with his name.

He went with doll hut.

That's crazy.

He could have gone with, yeah, Mellow's mamas or something.

J.J.

Mellows sounds awesome.

That sounds cool.

Mellow, yeah, that's cool.

But no, the doll hut.

Okay.

He opened it with a woman named Linda,

who he ended up marrying.

So this relationship ends in a divorce,

complete with restraining orders and harassment allegations, which is what everybody in Joey, John Joey's life, ends up with.

Oh,

Every relationship ends with restraining orders against him.

So

he's not mellow.

We'll put it that way.

No, the least apt name ever.

That's not good.

Yeah, if you're harassing people and getting...

You'd think a judge, when he got brought before a judge, they'd say, what are you doing, bro?

While you're here, we're going to change your name.

You pick it.

Just be mellow, man.

He had married another woman in the 90s named Cassandra, and they moved around all the time

in Oregon and then finally in Greenville, South Carolina in 2004.

He ends up of course divorcing Cassandra and I'm sure she had a lot of problems with him as well and so does everybody else.

He accumulates numerous harassment complaints while in South Carolina.

Not just from her, from everybody.

What's JJ doing?

In 2007 he threatened a Piedmont natural gas employee.

What they did?

They were going to shut it off.

I have no idea.

They're checking his, reading his thing.

I don't know, but he threatened him and he got a harassment complaint and had to a restraining order.

You got to stay away from the gas guy.

How do you get a restraining order?

Against the gas company guy, they got to be on your property.

I don't understand it either.

You can't allow it outside when they come to read your shit.

I don't have any idea.

You're not allowed to be home.

Man, it's weird.

So, anyway, Christina and John, like we said, they met right after that while he's in a sea of harassment allegations.

Yeah.

By 2012,

they're still in a relationship, so it's been about three years, and then they have a child in 2012.

Uh-oh.

And this is not like a real, this is a kind of a rocky relationship.

Yeah.

And they've decided to have a kid here,

which doesn't help anybody.

No.

It just makes more conflict between them.

In 2014, a man named Bobby Dorn, Roger's brother, I'm sure.

Clearly.

Yeah, clearly.

He filed harassment charges against Mello for online threats and blackmail after being rejected, after Mello was rejected for a music producer job.

Oh.

He's a self-proclaimed music producer who on his LinkedIn page, Joey Mello or John Joey Mello, claims to have worked with Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Jimmy Page, Christy McVeigh, Neil Young, Lil Richard, and Jimmy Cliff.

Anybody else?

You didn't produce fucking Led Zeppelin 4?

No.

You didn't have Robert Plan on there.

He just had Jimmy Page.

Just Jimmy Page.

Nice.

Put all the Rolling Stones and Elton Jobs.

All of them.

We don't know if any of this is true.

Probably not.

It's on his LinkedIn page.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say maybe not.

I'm going to go probably not on this one.

Yeah, I definitely don't believe him.

So, and if you don't hire him, he will threaten you and try to blackmail you.

Shut your gas off.

I got a guy.

Shut your gas right fucking down.

Don't tempt me.

Don't you tempt me.

So 2015, he's officially divorced from Cassandra.

This whole time, he's still been married to this woman from the 90s.

Then in October of 2015, 2015 is like conflict year for him.

I'm going to get divorced.

And he also files for custody of the daughter he has with Christina.

Okay.

So he wants custody.

On January 4th, 2016, the family court granted John Joey Mello sole custody of the daughter.

Maybe the restraining order.

I can't imagine.

One restraining order?

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Fool me once.

You know what I'm saying?

What's a restraining order amongst friends?

Yeah, you get like a dozen over a 10-year period.

It's him.

It's not everybody else.

How many restraining orders you got against you currently?

I hope zero.

Not that I'm aware of.

I haven't been served with any papers.

I'm allowed to be wherever I want as far as I know.

And over my whole life, you know how many I've racked up?

Zero.

Zero.

Yeah.

So if this guy's racking up this many in a short period of time, it's him.

It's got to be.

Most of the times when I was asked to leave, I was like, yeah, you're probably right.

I'm the type you don't have to ask me to leave.

I'll yell and then leave on my own.

I'll throw a beer at the wall and walk.

I'm out of here, motherfuckers.

Tell the cops I left on my own.

Yeah, you don't need to get a restraining order.

So, but he gets sole custody of the child, which is strange because it's...

That's wild.

It's pretty difficult to

get sole custody away from a mom.

And that's just, you know, who the hell

is so much better than ours.

Who rips a child from their mother?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So also in 2015, because things with Christina and John Joey aren't going so well,

she starts dating a new man.

Oh.

A guy named Bradley Post.

He's even older than Mello.

Oh, boy.

He's four years older than Mello.

So he's like, you know, over 25 years older than Christina.

Right.

Bradley.

She's got a type.

She's got a type for sure.

Now, he had recently retired.

He lived in Ohio and moved to South Carolina to retire, you know, because he's almost 70.

So it's time.

It's time.

Yeah.

He's got a good amount of money.

Oh.

And yeah.

Now he's known Christina for over 20 years.

Knew him while they were married.

Yeah.

Well, no, Christina's father used to own a cigar shop.

Oh.

And that's where they met.

Where this guy used to come into the cigar shop and he met her 20 years earlier and they reconnected in 2016 when he moved down there.

I'm sure it was Facebook or some shit.

And he was like, hey, you're close.

I know you.

Well, he's in his 70s.

That's the only website he uses.

There's nothing else he wouldn't know how to use.

Yeah.

I don't understand this.

So they begin a romantic relationship, which is.

Very strange.

You know, like, yeah, he must be thrilled.

He's like, Jesus, retirement's fantastic.

Still got it.

Still got it.

He had some money, and he is happy to be, to help her with things.

He's very generous.

He's

financially supports her, encourages her to go to school to become a vet tech

and pays her tuition to go to vet tech school.

Okay.

So, yeah, basically, will you be my dad is kind of what's going on.

Right.

You know, type of deal here.

I mean, he's literally paying for tuitions and stuff like that.

So now they got a marriage license, these two, but never executed it.

Oh.

Yeah.

You go down to the court and you get a marriage license.

What about 80 bucks?

Yeah, it's like 70.

Actually, I know it's $78.

$77.

Now I was going to say $77.

Yeah, you're right.

It's a bizarre number.

Just make it $80.

Just make it $80.

Yeah.

Fucking $78.

It's stupid.

Whenever Sarah's being funny and breaking my ball, she'll go, you paid $78 for this.

And they go, all right, fine.

Yeah, that's true.

Fair enough.

So it's, yeah.

So you do that, and then you actually have to execute it.

And then everybody signs it, then you mail it in, and they send you a thing back saying you're married.

That's how it works.

But he never did that.

They never did it.

Christina does sign a power of attorney thing, giving Bradley Post authority to do business in her name.

Okay.

So that's actually more trusting than marriage.

Right.

A power of attorney is actually deeper than marriage, than a marriage license.

So that's actually, she trusts him.

Now, 2016, she pursues legal action to secure visitation rights with her daughter.

She gets that on August 10th.

A visitation order was granted allowing her scheduled visits while John Mellow retains sole custody.

So she's getting like visits

like a dad would, basically.

So 2017, there's more filings as John Mellow files to revoke, files a motion to revoke her visitation rights, citing allegations of inappropriateness and potential abuse involving Christina and her then-boyfriend Bradley Post.

So

this is what's going on.

He's saying that.

Now,

do we believe John Mello?

What do we know?

I mean, he threatens to blackmail people if you don't hire him for a job.

So it's very difficult.

Yeah, he's a little dramatic.

Sure.

He's a little, you know.

He should have been an opera singer.

He should have used his Italianness for

opera singing and being dramatic instead of not.

But who knows?

Now, 2018,

Christina had gone to vet tech school and she gets a job as a vet tech working at an animal hospital in Greenville where people love her.

Her boss describes her as someone who, quote, exhibited compassion, empathy, and was always very even-tempered.

Yeah.

So that's what you want out of a vet tech,

obviously.

Those vet techs do a lot of shit.

Oh, my God.

They're good.

Don't tell me how they do it a lot of times.

No, I mean, they just,

some of them are little and they're wrestling like 150-pound dog around.

I'm like, look at you.

Good for you.

They're tough.

January 2019,

after there's been legal proceedings going on this entire time between Christina and John Mellow about visitation.

Yeah.

So they reach a formal visitation agreement, and that is finalized on February 4th, 2019,

outlining her scheduled time with the child and all that kind of thing.

So she now has a court-mandated

visitation schedule so she can see the kid.

Before that, it was kind of piecemeal and however it happened.

Now, early 2021,

this is crazy.

Early 2021, John Mello

just takes the daughter and moves to Italy.

Really?

Just moves her to Italy.

You're allowed to do that?

Fuck no.

You're not allowed to do that.

Absolutely not legally allowed.

She has visitation, and you're not allowed to do that, which is part of the court hearing.

He might have been able to do that a while back, but he can't do it now.

And this is when he does it.

So

now, March of 2021, Christina's got her getting her shit together here.

She moves into a very nice house, a nice four-bedroom house,

you know, 2,000-something square foot house owned by her sister Tina.

And Christina moves in in March of 2021.

Now, April 14th, 2021, Christina wants her daughter back, back, obviously.

She doesn't want her living overseas.

So Bradley is, by the way, financially footing the bill for all this stuff.

Her legal shit,

trips to Italy.

That's expensive.

It's all expensive.

She made multiple trips to Italy that he paid for.

The Italian central authority ordered John Joey Mello to return to the U.S.

with the child pending a resolution of the custody case.

Like, unless you have full custody and are allowed to do this, get the fuck out.

Basically, they told him.

So,

hey, everybody, just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit more about Smalls.

Smalls.com.

Absolutely.

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I hope you do.

I love my cat.

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She does all sorts of crazy things.

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She's just a hilarious little cat.

She doesn't ask for much, but what she does ask for is the right food.

She wants good food.

They're a little picky about their food, and I don't blame them because I'm picky too.

So that's why you need to get smalls because they're helping out our cats.

Maybe they'll help out your cats.

Is your cat having digestive issues, maybe throwing up their food, or simply in need of a diet upgrade?

Well, guess what?

Smalls is where you need to be.

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She comes back from Italy feeling triumphant that he now has to come back.

And at the airport, when Brad picks her up, Bradley proposes to her.

Atta, boy.

There you go.

And that's when they get the marriage license and all that.

So now,

that's what's going on.

So there's a lot of turmoil.

I mean, if I'm 70 years old almost, I'm in my late 60s.

I want no part of this, any of this.

This is going to kill me.

Yeah, it's nobody's fault, but I don't want to deal with this.

No, I understand that you're 40 and you're dealing with all this now, but I am an old retired man.

My heart can't take it.

I want to go fishing.

Like, this is insane, you know, and spend my money the way I want to.

Yeah.

But, I mean, he's being a nice guy anyway on the surface here.

October 13th, 2021.

Now, John has had to move back to the United States

with Christina or with the daughter, and Christina's been able to see the daughter since then.

On this particular day, October 13th, 2021, Bradley Post is trying to

reach Christina, his fiancé, all morning, and she can't get a hold of her.

So he decides to go over and check on her.

Maybe she's oversleeping.

What's going on?

So they go to this house on Cane Brake Drive.

It's 122 Cane Break Drive, to be exact here.

And when he gets there, the front door is unlocked.

Oh.

Which, how many houses do you know with two women living there?

With their front door unlocked?

With the front door unlocked.

That's just rare.

So that's odd.

But he walks into the house carefully.

Yeah.

And I'll let Bradley describe what he found.

Quote,

it was dark and quiet.

So I walked back down the hallway to see if she was in the bathroom or shower, and it was all dark.

I looked on the floor and right at the entrance of the living room and at the entrance of that hallway were these petals from a rose.

Romantic.

Yeah.

As I looked, I looked into the room.

So there's like a trail of rose petals.

Sure, yeah.

And he follows them with his eyes and looks into the room.

He said, I looked into the room and I saw her on her back.

And she was on her back in her living room on the floor,

covered in blood and a lot of holes.

Looks like she's apparently been stabbed quite a bit.

Oh.

Blood everywhere and rose petals are all around her.

On and around her are a bunch of rose petals, and there's rose petals leading up to the body.

That's weird.

That's fucking weird.

Yeah.

That looks like romance or something.

So, John probably saw the, or Bradley probably saw the rose petals and

she's an invitation.

Yeah.

Or she's been, I can't get a hold of her because she's fucking somebody in here.

She's got somebody over.

Yeah.

And then, oh no, she's dead.

Hopefully, it's an invitation.

Hopefully, yeah.

Best case scenario.

He calls 911 and says,

I think I might have a death.

Okay.

I think you sure have a death here.

The EMS operator tries to walk him through CPR, but he says this, quote, I think she's gone.

There's a lot of blood, and there were petals from a rose.

And I found her on her back in the living room, he says.

So he's like, nah, no need for CPR.

Don't bother.

She's gone.

Which is weird to lead off with, I think I might have a death.

And then a minute later, you're 100% positive she's dead.

So the police arrived and

not only do they notice right away the rose petals, which is what the fuck right away, but they said the chemical smell in the house, just a smell of chemicals, cleaning agent type of smells, but not bleach.

Chemical, like paint thinner type of smell.

And she's got,

there's blood everywhere.

So blood everywhere.

Everywhere's cleaning that.

Paint thinner smell, rose petals everywhere, and an old man standing there going, I think I might have a death.

So, this is a weird scene to walk into.

So, they look at the rose petals, the paint thinner smell, and they're like, what the fuck is going on here?

What's happening?

Um, so they said that these the

petals were not arranged in some kind of, they weren't like in a big heart or anything like that.

They were just scattered around.

Just, yeah, they're just scattered around.

Um, when they look at her wounds, she's been stabbed 35 times.

That's a lot.

That is a lot of stabbing.

Had defensive wounds on her hands.

She fought hard here.

They document 35 sharp force trauma wounds with fatal injuries to her jugular vein and carotid artery.

So throat stabbed or slashed.

That's a rough way to go out.

I mean, she fought hard with a knife.

That's brutal.

So inside the living room near her body, they find memory cards, a laptop, and a clear Ziploc bag containing a white powder substance stained with dried blood.

Hmm.

Yeah.

They also get her cell phone, which they're going to analyze later.

They have her purse, which contains two envelopes with $500 each in them.

That's discovered on a table near the hallway.

So there is literally $1,000 cash and drugs on the ground and a laptop, all sorts of shit that you would steal if you were here to rob somebody.

If you're here to rob, you're taking all of that shit.

So they're like, okay, robbery is obviously not the,

you know, not the main motivation here.

In another room, they also find a small single-shot firearm, like a little Derringer,

hidden inside a bag within a suitcase.

She had a gun, just didn't have it accessible, and didn't know she needed to use it, it looks like.

Her bedroom

revealed multiple documents related to an ongoing custody battle alongside several USB drives.

They also found bed sheets stained with what appeared to be blood.

Oh.

So that's not even near the scene.

It's in another room.

Yeah.

Now they did us, you know, they do a whole test of the house to see where there's blood.

And there's blood in various areas of the home, including the bathrooms as well.

Really?

Yeah.

So they're like, okay, somebody was trying to clean up or

she just attacked all over this house.

Or, yeah, there was a fight.

And

she has defensive wounds all over her arms.

So this didn't happen in one place.

This definitely happened.

There's smears on the wall where it's fighting and trying to, you know, hold yourself up.

And so, I mean, who the fuck could have done this?

She's a vet tech living at her sister's house.

You know what I mean?

Like, she's not, you know, anybody you would expect this to happen to.

And what's up with these fucking roses?

Yeah, what's going on?

Who does this?

Who scatters rose petals all over a murder?

That's like a hit.

It feels like a hit or some weird serial killer shit.

Like, that's, you know, there's some staging involved here, basically.

So a client, by the way, of hers from The Vet

posted on social media, quote, Christina was not only one of the most epic vet techs,

epic vet techs.

Epic.

We really need to

monitor our usage of words.

Just stop using that one.

Epic vet tech would be like, my dog was dead for a week and she touched it and it rose to life.

That's an epic vet tech otherwise you're doing your job say she jumped uh uh two cars on a 10-speed with the dead carcass of the animal over her shoulder and then upon landing then it came back to life that's epic

she also jumps cars while doing all that and giving your dog a rectal temperature exam while in mid-air expressing anal glands

she lands and says this is the temp anal glands expressed next please done take a fucking hike.

So, yeah, she said an epic vet tech to our dogs, but she was a friend with a personality the size of a high-rise and always trying to make everyone else feel better.

She always had an ear and always tried to make you smile in the worst of situations, which is very good for a vet tech when they're telling you your dog's dying or to put it to sleep or something.

So now, the one thing that is helpful here is it's 2021.

Yeah.

Meaning.

Not only that, every single house in the neighborhood is covered in clouds.

Oh, you're about to see the other thing.

This is not like, if this was 1975, they'd go, uh-huh.

But now the first thing they do is go to all the neighbors and say, we need all your ring doorbell footage.

Yeah.

And they get it.

Camera across the street captured a person dressed in a black hoodie and a backpack entering the front door of Christina's home.

Okay.

Another would later show him from a different angle, another different neighbor showing him him leave the subdivision on a bicycle.

Okay.

So we have this.

We have

a figure, basically, just a person dressed in black riding a bicycle

with a backpack.

So they show, these are what they piece together.

9.12 a.m., Christina returns home from taking her daughter to school and from a job interview.

So she drops off Christina, has a job interview, or drops off the kid, has a job interview.

9.15,

that's when we see the black clad figure entering her front door.

And 9.27 a.m.

is when that person is seen leaving on a bicycle, now wearing a white mask.

Oh.

Which is maybe the most conspicuous thing you could possibly do.

Yeah, you see that?

Riding to or from a crossbow.

A cross-burning mask.

Yeah, one of the ten.

A white mask?

What are we doing here?

Like, yeah, that's crazy.

Are you fucking leatherface?

What are you wearing?

What's the opera?

What's going on?

Yeah, well, maybe you're close there.

So

we'll talk about it.

So, yeah, they now one other thing that's lucky it's 2021 is they have license plate reading cameras all over the area, too.

Yeah.

So anybody coming from this area, they can run all their plates and see if they belong there or not or what the hell, basically.

Drive around and look up.

It is amazing how many cameras are everywhere.

The government, the state, whoever owns them.

It's crazy.

It's all over the place.

So that's kind of how that goes here.

Now the cameras show a Ford pickup truck with a bicycle in the bed

of it both the day before and the day of the murder.

Okay.

Coming in and out of here, but not anytime before or after that.

Oh.

So they end up matching the bicycle in the truck to the one seen in the ring footage based on

all the angles.

It's the same bicycle.

So that's the truck they're looking for, and they're going to run it, and we'll figure out who that is in just a second.

Now, one odd thing, Bradley, who was there, while waiting for the police to arrive, they found out later Bradley was furiously deleting photos from his phone as the police were coming.

Oh.

Which is not a normal reaction

at all.

They later discovered that he ended up having possession of his phone for six full days after this before the police get it.

Oh.

He had it all to himself for six days.

So they end up getting a search warrant and seizing his phone.

And they're trying to find something that looks like

something.

Yeah, him setting it up, him doing anything.

They find nothing to do with her murder in there.

What was he deleting?

What they found,

I would rather have murder on my phone than this, put it that way.

Oh.

Yeah.

The phone contained numerous images of sexual child abuse.

Dude.

Directly and with evidence involving both Bradley, Christina, and Christina's daughter.

They were abusing her daughter, apparently, allegedly, or whatever.

But, I mean, it's on the phone.

There's not really an allege to it.

Oh, my God.

For legalities, I'll say allegedly, because it's not been adjudicated yet.

Oh, my God.

John was right.

John Mellow was not being dramatic.

He was fucking right.

This is a bad guy.

And he took his daughter and fled the goddamn country to get away from these people.

And

this is not good.

So they find evidence that the daughter had been sexually abused, that Bradley Post was the primary perpetrator of this, and that Christina was involved as well.

Disgusting.

So

they go ahead and arrest Bradley, not for murder.

No, for being a dirtbag.

For being a scumbag on charges of six charges of sexual exploitation of a minor.

The investigation reveals that the abuse had been ongoing, and these explicit images had been taken and stored.

So, immediately, the daughter is taken and placed in emergency protective custody.

Oh, boy.

Figure out what to do with her because this poor kid.

I mean, the poor kid.

Now, her mom's dead, and her mom was abusing her.

It's horrifying, and there's no good here at all.

So was Bradley.

Jesus.

Yeah.

So,

oh, Christ.

John had...

Once John Mellow heard about Christina's murder, he came back to the United States because he was staying there.

He was in Italy to avoid getting arrested here for running away with the daughter.

As soon as he gets home, he's arrested for custodial interference charges.

Right.

Which I'd be like, good.

You fucking take, after what you just found, take me to fucking jail with my chin up.

Fuck you.

Take me to jail.

You better not put me on the same yard as him.

Well, yeah, obviously not, I would hope.

So

during the booking, he lists as his only contact

as a Zachary David Hughes,

who is a very young man, born in 1993.

Odd that they would be.

Yeah, they're 33 years difference in age here.

Weird.

He also records a video granting Zach Hughes exclusive rights to collect his luggage and medication from the Charlotte Airport.

All right.

So, who the fuck is Zachary David Hughes?

He's a concert pianist and ex-marine.

Because, you know, that's normal.

They usually go together.

Oh, yeah.

He's an interesting guy.

One night in 2020, Zach David Hughes, who's a piano player, was performing because it was during COVID.

So they were performing like on street corners with keyboards.

And he's like a real like Juilliard trained concert pianist, but he's doing that.

While this is happening, John Mellow and the daughter were there, and they went up to him, and they were like, wow, this kid's, you know, John was like, this guy really knows what he's doing.

He's an alleged music producer.

So he's like, this kid can play.

Melton John, I know him.

And he said that his daughter loved Claire DeLoon and requested that he play it for her.

Could you play that?

So he does, and they become friends here.

Now, a little bit about Zachary here.

Zachary was born in California to Dave and Mindy Hughes.

They're a very churchy couple who were married for 46 years and all that.

Zach's father had bought him a piano from a yard sale when he was four years old for $300.

And he just took to it.

Immediately.

Figured it out right away.

Figured it out.

Yeah, it's one of those things.

You either know that or you don't, if you're going to be like great at it.

You know what I mean?

You can learn how to play something.

Yeah.

It's essentially just like eight guitars, isn't it?

It's so much.

It's a string instrument, isn't it?

Yeah, it is, but there's also, it's like part percussion as well.

And then there's the pedals, too.

There's so much to work with in a piano.

It's such a big range of sounds.

it's so difficult to deal with but if you can play piano i hear you can pretty much play any instrument that's the the key so they this family adopted five siblings from russia in 2005 is that right trying to give them a better life but the problem is and this happens a lot with these russian adoptees

is once they get here you realize they've been through horrible shit and they're all fucked up emotionally sure yeah you know what i mean so when they get them and bring them into their families, you get like a, you know, an Italia Grace situation, except not with a physical

disability, but just.

All that appearance shit is between the ears.

Exactly.

Absolutely.

So all these kids have a lot of fucking problems, and they have a hard time adapting to America and everything like that.

The oldest child, whose name is Grace.

They renamed her Grace.

Her name was some Russian name, but they renamed her Grace,

was

by all accounts of the family members, psychotic, a fucking maniac.

Yeah.

She wrote about wanting to kill the parents.

What?

Oh, yeah.

Investigations were conducted and everything like that.

She was accusing them of things and nobody was hurting her anymore.

They were taking care of her.

But basically, here's Zach's description.

He said, I don't say this lightly, but my oldest sister, Grace, was the most evil human being I've ever met in my life.

I would describe her without reservation as an affectionless psychopath.

Wow.

It wasn't that she was immoral.

It was more that she was amoral.

She didn't have a sense of right and wrong.

He said she was literally like a vampire who would just suck the goodness out of other people around her.

Jesus Christ.

It was like a mask that would just fall off her face.

And I mean she'd look at you with shark eyes.

He said, I discovered a diary that she had made where she described in detail my parents having their eyes gouged out and dying and how once my parents were out of the way and dead, she would be able to assume her role as the rightful queen of the country.

What is going on?

Queen of America.

She can't do that.

We don't have those.

Yeah.

So, wow.

Zach.

just turned all of his shit to music.

Six to eight hours a day of practicing the piano as a child.

That's all he was into.

Very talented, won a bunch of contests.

He won one in 2011 that earned him a solo performance with the South Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra, playing Beethoven's fifth.

2010, he got into Juilliard with scholarships.

He got scholarships to Juilliard, and they accept like four out of 100 applicants there.

That's fascinating.

Yeah.

You got to be really, really good.

And academically, he does well.

He's studying classical piano with a focus on Beethoven's sonatas and concertos.

So he even was one of only 12 students from around the world

to be invited to play at the Tokyo International Music Festival.

He was the only one from the United States.

Wow.

So he got his bachelor's degree in music in 2018.

He played professionally with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

And this is before he moved down to South Carolina.

And he's embarked on what he called the Beethoven Odyssey, which was to,

wow, he wanted to memorize and perform all of Beethoven's sonatas from memory at once.

Okay.

Which is crazy.

This was planned for stage performances, but then 2020 hit and he started, he had to record them instead.

And then he was doing street performances for a couple bucks and all that kind of thing.

He also, somehow, in the middle of being a master Juilliard pianist, he also joined the Marines.

It's amazing.

It's crazy.

Yeah, it's wild.

He joined the Marine Corps.

He enlisted.

He applied as an enlisted soldier, but the recruiter saw that he was better than that, basically.

Yeah.

And said, no, no, apply for officer candidate school.

That's what you need to apply for.

Wow.

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This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

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So the personnel board for the Marines, which convenes three times a year, determined that yes, he was suitable for the program.

He was the only candidate the Tennessee board accepted during the whole cycle.

Wow.

The kid's got some shit.

He's a special

talented as fuck.

Yeah.

Three weeks into officer candidate school, though, he got stress fractures in both his legs and had to pull out.

But the Marines said, once you heal, we'd like to have you back in the officer program.

Now, in 2019, a friend of his called him and said, come to South Carolina.

There's this piano that's been gifted to the local Unitarian church that's one of the greatest, one of the nicest pianos in the world.

It's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It's one of these like the Stradivarius of pianos.

And come here to play it.

Yeah, you should come to this church because you're going to love this shit.

So he did.

And,

you know, that's what he said he was going to do.

He's going to perform all 32 of Beethoven's sonatas by memory during the 250th

anniversary of Beethoven's birth.

Wow.

That's what he was going to do at the church.

And they said, yeah, you should do that.

So he doesn't go back to the Marines.

He moves in with a couple from the church for a couple years.

He would play piano on their front lawn just for neighbors.

Just for funsies.

Yep.

They just pull up lawn chairs and sit around drinking sweet tea and watching him fucking do that shit.

So the church, they reached an agreement where they would take donations for his performances and split it 50-50 with him.

Yeah.

So, yeah, he's going to do it.

So

he, when COVID hit, he bought an electronic keyboard and was playing on street corners.

And that's when he met John Mellow and got involved in all this.

Now, he also gave piano lessons out of the church couple's home and got a job teaching piano online through the Bronx Conservatory, which teaches piano to underprivileged kids from the Bronx.

Okay.

Okay.

Now,

he was playing on the street when he met Mellow and the daughter and all that kind of thing.

Now, the

thing is,

the truck he drives

matches the license plate reader

that had the bicycle in it.

Oh, no.

That's not good.

That's how Zach's in this story.

Because you go, where the hell does that come from?

His license plate is on that truck.

It's on that truck.

That's his truck.

This is bad.

A neighbor of Christina's named Donna Gorman, who lived three doors down from Christina's house, was drinking her morning coffee.

When she happened to look outside at 8.15 a.m., she saw someone riding a black bicycle, a tall, skinny Caucasian with reddish hair, dressed in all black, wearing a backpack and putting on gloves.

Couldn't look more suspicious.

Then she said, also, after that, he was wearing a white mask and a hood.

She said, when I looked back up, I didn't see him anymore.

But later on, she will

identify Zachary Hughes as the person that she saw riding around.

He's got red hair.

He's very distinctive looking.

Can't miss him.

Can't miss him.

Also, DNA evidence they get.

They find that there was attempts to clean not the crime scene with paint thinner, but Christina's fingers with paint thinner.

What?

To get DNA out from under her fingernails.

That's where the paint thinner smell came from.

It was on her hands.

Yes.

And they found out it didn't work because there was still DNA under her fingernails.

Yeah, because a soak won't do it, man.

No, you got to get in there, I assume.

So that doesn't sound good.

Yeah, you got to get in there, man.

Every time I'm committing a murder and trying to fill it up, this is how I do it.

Paint thinner on the DNA.

Wow.

So the analyst says that the DNA found under Christina's fingernails on her right hand was 825 million times more likely to belong to Zachary Hughes than anyone else.

It's him.

That's a lot.

Then they find out that through all their phones that Zach and John Mellow had conspired to send nude photographs of Christina Christina to multiple recipients the month before she was murdered.

Oh.

The envelopes were sent from both Greenville and Knoxville, locations where Hughes' cell phone data places him while they were being mailed.

Yeah.

Through Hughes' Google account, they discover that there are a lot of WhatsApp messages, but also hundreds of additional emails between John Mellow and Zachary Hughes.

It's a lot.

One investigator said Hughes had become so deeply enmeshed in the dispute that he was essentially Mello's proxy in custody litigation, even being copied on emails with family attorneys.

Whoa.

They must just think that people think he's smart.

So October 2020, there was a birthday party for Zach, and everything was fine.

But as the night went on, Mello, John Mellow, confided into Zachary about, hey, I'm worried about my kid.

And, you know, that's how this all started, saying that there's a troubling troubling dynamic.

And he said, that's when he told him, I'm going to take, I'm going to take the kid and move to Italy when she gets back, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So they were talking about, you know, he's going to take the kid.

And that's what they were discussing.

This was in 2020.

He ended up taking the kid.

So Zach just listened and was trying to be a, you know, just a sounding board, whatever.

But then he actually did it, as we know.

And Zach said he was relieved that they moved to Italy.

Oh, good, the kid's out of danger now.

So they stopped talking as much, Zach and John Mellow.

They said, there's a, he said, I was excited for them.

This is Mellow.

I was excited to be, or this is Zach.

I was excited to be able to have this experience.

Based on what John had told me about, I'll leave the girl's name out of its mother, meaning Christina.

I thought it was good that there was distance between them.

Our communications had died off a bit after they left.

John is interesting.

He's also a lot.

He's a very dramatic person.

Yeah.

And it was a bit of a relief to just not be running into him downtown all the time because I had a lot of practice I was doing and sometimes I didn't have time to hang out as much as he would have wanted to.

So our communications petered out.

April of 2021, they shot up like crazy, their communications.

Before they'd just been talking about bullshit and, you know, things and

movies and stuff like that.

What young men and old men talk about?

Yeah, I guess sports and cars.

I have no idea.

So then

Mello started becoming more and more frantic about, you know, Christina having going to Italy and bringing the daughter back and all that kind of thing.

Then he starts telling Zach about these allegations about Christina and Bradley, claiming they were not only involved in prostitution and drug use, but also child sexual abuse.

Good lord.

Mello provided Zach with what he claims was evidence, which was nude photos allegedly linked to escort advertisements

where court deposition transcripts from before also were where Christina had invoked her Fifth Amendment rights when asked about prostitution and drug use,

which you don't do if you're not a prostitute or a drug user.

Hey, Jimmy, you suck dick for money?

Very few.

There you go.

That's the answer.

And an affidavit from a firefighter who claimed Christina had propositioned him for sex and drugs.

Okay.

Now, the evidence he provides to Zach, Zach buys it all, and there's nude photos, court documents, witness statements.

So April 17th, 2021, John Mellow sent a message to Hughes saying, quote, harass the shit out of her.

Oh.

Harass the shit out of her.

So that's what they do.

They discovered that she worked, had previously worked as an escort using the name Sweet Caroline Warren.

Okay.

So John Mellow claimed she had been involved in trafficking, drugs, prostitution, and he wanted to tell everybody about it.

So over the next few months, Hughes and Mellow exchanged 1,769 text messages or emails and texts.

Okay.

They were planning to humiliate Christina.

And they, like I said, they sent out a bunch of different things to a bunch of different places and like her employers, her friends, they were sending all this information to.

So they are going to go ahead and charge Zach with murder because

it sure looks like it.

They don't understand why they're charging him with murder because they don't know any of this really all that much.

They just know that he was there, his license plate and his DNA matches.

They're discovering everything else as they go later on.

But there's a lot of people that support him.

A lot of people would say basically the main push here is there's just no way this guy could have done this.

He's never had a traffic ticket.

He's never shown any.

He's a pianist.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

No propensity toward violence or anything like that.

He's not going to punch you.

It'll hurt his hand.

He won't be able to play piano.

It'll be so soft.

Oh, soft hands.

Yeah.

Lots of lotion on those.

Oh, boy.

Got so clean.

The Ivory's hands.

You got to have it.

So February 2025 is Zach's trial.

Yeah.

Now, the pre-trial ruling, the judge makes a decision determining that

the sexual abuse allegations and evidence involving Bradley Post would be inadmissible.

So you can't

Because that will make people think that he's a murderer because he's an alleged child molester.

Okay.

So that's what they're saying.

So you can't bring that in because then you can blame somebody else where there's no evidence that he did it.

You know what I mean?

The evidence points here.

So the judge determined that this evidence was irrelevant to the murder charges and would just confuse and prejudice the jury.

The defense attorney said the law in South Carolina is crystal clear that when a state witness is cross-examined and has pending charges, he can be asked about what those charges are and what the penalties are.

Because they're going going to have to bring Bradley Post up there to say what he found.

Yeah.

The judge said no,

saying that there will be no graphic details or using what the prosecution called the shock value and heinousness associated with the subject of child pornography.

Because

everything stops in its tracks at that point.

I mean, it does, rightfully so.

You know, nobody wants that.

So the defense attorneys fought the ruling, but it doesn't matter.

But there's also the point of like,

if we were going to shoot, stab, kill anybody in

self-defense of this child, not self, just in defense of this child, wouldn't you get the guy that's got the pictures on his phone?

That would make sense.

Yeah.

That would make a fucking lot of sense.

If I was John Mellow, I would definitely be wanting to kill Bradley first.

I would want to open Bradley.

That's what I mean.

Bradley, we're going to,

we'll handle him, and then we'll deal with Christina later.

Right.

I'll deal with her in a minute.

This guy.

Yeah.

He's not.

Yeah.

He didn't shit this kid out and he's abused.

Enemy number one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's the he's a stranger who's abusing your child.

Over with.

Yeah.

So the prosecution says there's DNA evidence, surveillance footage, all sorts of shit.

You know,

during the openings, they said they were going to prove how that Hughes had an evil heart.

And he said Hughes began inserting himself in the custody battle.

And because the dispute elevated into a situation where custody might not go John Mellow's way, at that point, Zach Hughes made the ultimate decision, ladies and gentlemen.

They bring in a lot of witnesses.

They bring in the neighbor who identified him and said, that's the guy I saw going into her house, which doesn't look good at all.

They also said John Mellow had a custody problem, and the only way to solve it was murder.

Custody problem.

Which problem?

So sounds like a fucking dateline opening.

Yeah, like he had a drinking problem, and the only way to solve it was murder.

Murder.

Cold-blooded murder.

So the legal team advises Zach, whatever you do, don't testify.

He says, I'm going to go ahead and testify.

I'll be doing that.

And he does not pull a punch.

He just, really?

He just spills it, man.

He gets on the stand and admits to this shit after pleading not guilty to murder.

He said, I had a great childhood.

I have great parents, and they raised my biological brother and I before we adopted in a Christian household.

They taught us good values and the importance of good morals and service to others.

He walked everybody through what we just told you about the relationship with Mello, how they met, allegations against Christina and Bradley, his growing conviction that the daughter was in mortal danger.

He said that he received nude photos, read the court documents, and saw what he believed was evidence of ongoing abuse.

He said, point by point, everything he described about Christina Parcel was exactly the same as my sister Grace.

That's where this came from.

Yep.

She said that he said he could have been describing Grace to me because I knew this behavior.

I had lived through this behavior.

I bet he was sexually abused by this person, Grace, too.

Possible.

Because I guarantee if she was that psychotic, she was sexually abused before she got here and then might have perpetuated that on others.

But worse off, it sounds like

perhaps he was

he told maybe what happened with him, and then some

perhaps mellow somebody told him stories about this that it's not true or it is true one way or the other.

That's what he thought.

So

then he said there was no way he could have possibly invented this because nobody would get it right point by point by point unless they had met one of these people, he said.

So

about all of these shit that's going on here.

So by the way, they went over the six packages that were sent to Christina's workplace, two of Christina's neighbors, to Bradley Post, to Outman Cigars and Martini Bar, which is a place that they just went to eat all the time and drink.

So socially and various other people too.

Just anybody where they would be around, he's going to try to ruin her reputation.

Giving them packages of her?

Each package contained nude photographs of Christina allegedly linked to escort websites along with a letter identifying her by the alias Caroline Warren, which they claim she used for prostitution.

I just read this lady the specials yesterday.

Yeah, so, but none of them care.

They all think that it's shitty and they actually support her.

Mello also told Hughes about a video call where Christina had appeared on the screen and drawn her finger across her throat like a death threat.

And Mello claimed to have received threatening emails from someone, quote, in the biker community

associated with Bradley Post.

Okay.

September 21st, 2021, 2021.

Here, that's when Hughes had submitted an affidavit to family court on Mello's behalf to file a complaint with the Department of Social Services about the child abuse.

But nothing happened immediately.

Right.

So

Hughes said that Mello offered him money to kill Christina.

And that's when it all came.

To this point, Hughes hasn't been arrested for the, or Mello has not been arrested for the murder yet.

It's just Zach.

Yeah, they don't have any connection to John actually being involved in John Spirit.

You are such a great pianist.

My wife said, twat, would you?

And then he just said, I'll murder her.

Well, he said at first he offered me $5,000, then $10,000.

Hughes said he refused both offers, saying, quote, John, there's no amount of money that would ever tempt me to do something like this.

I told him I was insulted that he even thought that I would say this was something I would consider.

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 only in danger, but that the only way to rescue her from danger would be to take Christina Parcel's life,

which is why he then filed the social services thing to try to go a right route, and it didn't work.

So he said, John had been telling me for weeks that Christina is killing my little girl.

I can see the spark dying in her eyes.

And Zach said she wasn't the same little girl that I had known in Greenville when I first met her.

She had put on a great deal of weight, probably 20 pounds, which is roughly a quarter of her body weight.

Her spirit was just, she was morose.

She was depressed,

unlike that spunky, precocious, lively girl that I had met, was just not present there.

So he said it essentially, it felt like a foregone conclusion because I knew I had a duty to save this child.

And he said he looked at the jury.

and said after he killed her, quote, I knew from that moment on that the child 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.

Oh, you can't say that.

So the judge immediately bangs his gavel and says, Do not go there.

You fucking know better.

And then he kept talking.

So the judge holds him in contempt and sentences him to six months in jail on a contempt charge right there.

He's up for murder, and he just admitted to it on the stand.

He purchased a gun intending to shoot Christina, but became concerned that it'd be too loud.

So he tried to make make a silencer, and that didn't work.

So then he decided on a knife.

Okay.

The day of the murder, he said, I woke up that day and felt such reluctance.

Something in my gut told me that it wasn't the right day, so I waited one more day.

He went the next day.

He said he gathered his supplies, roses, a gift box to conceal his gun.

He knocked on the door and said, I have roses for your sister.

And they said, oh, sure, open the door.

That's when he took the gun out and said, get the fuck in the house.

Wow.

He mapped out his route, planning to use back roads to avoid traffic cameras until he got near the neighborhood.

Yeah, it's wild.

So he loaded his bicycle in and drove, and

we know what happened here.

Yeah.

He said, I was experiencing a level of anxiety and physical illness that I had just never experienced due to stress before.

My hands were shaking.

I was in a cold sweat, and I wasn't fighting the urge to vomit.

Yeah, I was experiencing such anxiety that my body wasn't really doing what I was telling it to do anymore.

My plan had been to try to knock her unconscious, but I didn't want to cause her or anyone anything that wasn't my intention.

He said, I have a fear of heights, and there's a 30-foot ledge that you can jump off into a deep pool of water.

When I would run to the ledge, I would try to get a running start and jump, but I just couldn't.

My body would stop me against my will.

He said, that's what was going on here.

He said, he's tried to strike her on the head with the pistol to knock her unconscious, but he said,

I essentially pulled my strike i hardly hit her at all so he tried again and didn't work again and now she's trying to fight him back yeah so he said the roses dropped and everything went and he said what was happening to her would he he said that if he didn't act on soon or act on this soon the kid would be in danger so he said i kept striking her and striking her until finally we fell on the floor i stopped striking her when she stopped struggling i was 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 and to always protect women and children.

He said he stood up and he was in a daze and he was freaking out, but he forced himself to focus on leaving the scene without being caught.

He drew the blinds because he was worried that neighbors might have heard something.

He looked in the mirror and saw he had scratches on his face during the struggle.

So he realized his DNA would be under her fingernail.

That's when he used the paint thinner that he brought for this purpose and tried to clean her hands and fingernails.

And also he realized he had blood on his shirt, which he took off, and that's why he had a white shirt when he left.

And then through the blood over the scratches.

Yep.

He said, I prayed and I just said that I believe that what I've done, I think it was right.

I believe that I did it for the right reason.

But if it's your will and that I be connected to this, I will turn myself in and own up to what I've done and take responsibility that it's the right thing.

Then he said he had an enormous wave of relief.

He said, I wasn't angry.

The only thing I was feeling that day was pity.

Yeah.

He said, I've had a great life.

I had everything.

I made money doing what I loved, but how could I go on and enjoy that if I was leaving a kid to her fate, a kid who had thought I was her friend?

I would never be able to look at myself in the mirror again.

The prosecutor later on said, I've never had a defendant get on the stand with that kind of attitude, ego, and cold-faced sternness and explain a brutal murder in the way he did.

It shook me up a little bit.

It's pretty fucked up.

Within three hours of testimony, John Mellow's arrested too.

He spilled it all on the stand.

So

they ran from the court to to go arrest him.

Literally, as he's speaking, there's sheriffs being dispatched from the court to go arrest him, like my cousin Vinny.

Under oath information right now that

we have to take as

gospel, right?

You have to.

What else do you do?

I mean, he's, it all, it all lines up.

He's got electronic proof.

And yeah.

So the verdict comes in here.

Three hours of, or you don't know if John, if Mellow is guilty, though.

So three hours of deliberation.

They find him, well, they probably just talked about that was crazy, right?

Yeah.

For the first half hour, guilty of murder, first-degree burglary, second-degree harassment, conspiracy to commit second-degree harassment, and possession of a weapon during a violent crime.

Wow.

He has tons of people coming out of the woodwork trying to talking for him during sentencing.

He's gifted.

He's this.

He's a sweet guy.

He's gentle.

Tina Parcel, the sister, she says there's been no remorse once shown by this defendant in this courtroom.

Without remorse, you cannot have rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation requires acknowledgement that I've done wrong.

Right.

Then she says, all of these men did nothing but use my sister.

You did not save anyone.

You took away the one person that truly loved that little girl.

Wow.

Judge says, you, sir, may fuck off life in prison without possibility of parole.

Life without.

Life without for murder and burglary, additional sentences of five years for weapons possession and 60 days for harassment charges and six months for contempt.

Now, we don't, we're not even getting you for conspiracy

and financial gain of it.

We're just getting you for the murder because you just admitted to it.

He didn't take the money.

He didn't take any money.

Yeah.

Now, at this point, he's at the Kirkland Correctional Institution serving life.

John Mellow is in the Greenville County Detention Center awaiting trial on his charges.

That's not been adjudicated yet.

So alleged, alleged, alleged.

And Bradley Post is awaiting trial on multiple child sex abuse charges.

They arrested Mello?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

They arrested him.

I just said it.

Within three hours of the testimony, they went out and arrested him.

So he's right now still waiting on trial?

Yeah, he's waiting on trial.

The rose petals?

Yeah.

It was just, I think he's an artist.

That's all.

Just American beauty?

That's it.

He just put rose petals around to just throw it off, maybe.

We're not sure.

He just never gave a reason why.

Well, he brought them for the sister, right?

And then I guess they just fell and he just kicked them all over the place?

No, no, no.

He put rose petals around.

He did it.

He kicked them off and threw them.

Yeah.

Then the house itself just sold last year for $256,000.

Four-bedroom, three-bath, $2,192-square-foot house.

So somebody is living in a murder house.

That, everybody, is Greer, South Carolina.

Wow.

Whew.

We got to go through the ending real quick.

We're running extremely late here.

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