Posted at 6:24 PM, February 14, 2025
GREENVILLE, S.C. (Court TV) — A concert pianist known for memorizing Beethoven’s sonatas is standing trial on charges he brutally murdered a woman whose body was found surrounded by rose petals.
Zachary Hughes is charged with murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in the death of Christina Parcell. Parcell was stabbed approximately 31 times in her home on Oct. 13, 2021.
Defendant Zachary Hughes appears in court Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (Court TV)
At the time of his arrest, police said Hughes, a Juilliard-trained pianist, had no criminal history. Investigators linked Hughes to Parcell through Hughes’ friend, John Mello. At the time of Parcell’s death, she was in a custody battle with Mello over their shared daughter and Mello was facing charges of custodial interference for taking the child out of the country. The charges against Mello were dismissed in April 2024.
Prosecutors say they found approximately 1,769 WhatsApp messages sent between Hughes and Mello, including one where Mello asked the defendant to harass Parcell. Additional evidence against Hughes includes a Ring video showing a person leaving Parcell’s home and riding a bicycle out of the neighborhood; a search warrant revealed a bike matching that in the video at Hughes’ home.
Hughes’ defense has maintained his innocence and has instead pointed at Parcell’s fiancé, Bradley Post, as a potential suspect. Post, who called 911 after finding Parcell’s body, is not charged in her death but is facing charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and buggery in a separate case.
DAILY TRIAL UPDATES
DAY 4 – 2/14/25
Sgt. Jarrad Sparkman returned to the witness stand and said that Bradley Post was deleting photos from his phone while waiting for police to arrive, and maintained possession of his phone until Oct. 19.
Sparkman confirmed no lineups were done because no witnesses said they saw the face of the man leaving Parcell’s home.
WATCH: Did Bradley Post Wipe HIs Phone Clean Before Police Confiscated It?
Greenville County Medical Examiner Dr. Claire Rose described the 35 sharp force injuries to Christina Parcell’s body.
Among the injuries were stab wounds that perforated Parcell’s lung as well as her carotid and jugular arteries.
WATCH: Medical Examiner: Christina Parcell Had 35 Sharp Force Injuries
Analyst Tim Nafzinger testified that DNA found under Christina Parcell’s fingernails on her right hand was 825 million times more likely to belong to Zachary Hughes than anyone else.
WATCH: Zachary Hughes’ DNA Found Under Christina Parcell’s Nails
WATCH: Rose Petal Murder Trial: Day 4 Recap
DAY 3 – 2/13/25
Prosecutors advanced its case that defendant Zachary Hughes had become so deeply enmeshed in the custody battle between John Mello and Christina Parcell that he was Mello’s proxy in custody litigation and was copied on emails with family attorneys.
WATCH: Rose Petal Murder Trial: Day 3 Recap
Emails, texts and calls between Mello and Hughes show the two appeared to be collaborating in a campaign to sully Christina Parcell so Mello could regain custody of his daughter.
Jurors heard from an investigator who examined six packets, each containing the same items; nude pictures of Parcell linked to an escort website, along with a letter noting that Parcell was working under the pseudonym Caroline Warren. Greenville County Sheriff’s detectives testified the escort website was no longer active, but defense lawyers suggested the website could have been active at one time and taken down.
A forensic examination of Hughes’ cell phone revealed he and Mello were communicating through ‘What’s App,’ an encrypted messaging app. They exchanged hundreds of messages through the app, but when police tried to recover them – they appeared as gibberish.
Still, key words contained in the messages allowed lead investigator Jarrad Sparkman to decipher several of the encoded messages like the one Mello sent Hughes on April 17, 2021, that read, ‘harass shit of her 5142 we can 864 out 483,’ which the detective interpreted as “Harass the shit out of her,” which included mailing the packets containing the nude pictures, according to prosecutors.
The envelopes containing the nudge pictures were mailed from points in Greenville and Knoxville, while Mello was living overseas.
Their communication grew more intense around the time of Christina’s murder. An analysis of Hughes’ cell phone records shows the two talked for nearly 2 hours the day before the murder and one hour and 20 minutes, later in the afternoon after the stabbing. There was a flurry of calls the day after, including calls between Mello and Hughes, Hughes’ and Isabella Mello – Mello’s adult daughter, and two calls to the Max Hyde law, a firm that specializes in Divorce and Family law.
DAY 2 – 2/12/25
Prosecutors called Tina Parcell who testified that her sister Christina was in the throes of a contentious custody battle with her daughter’s father John Mello at the time of her murder.
Tina testified Mello violated their custody arrangement when he left the country with their daughter in 2020. Christina did not know where he had taken her, and it was only through a Facebook post that allowed Christina to track down her daughter’s whereabouts in Italy.
That started a new round of litigation for custody that required intervention from the State Department. Christina eventually won custody and she returned to the U.S. with her daughter in the spring of 2021 moving in with her sister Tina.
WATCH: Christina Parcell’s Sister: ‘Custody Dispute Active Until Moment She Died’
After Mello left the country, a Guardian Ad Litem was appointed to represent Christina’s daughter.
Vanessa Kormylo testified that John Mello would not cooperate or allow her to speak to the child and the exchanges she had with him were ‘threatening, bullying and harassing.’ His emails to her were so voluminous and vitriolic, she said printing them in preparation for the family court trial took up 3 reams of paper.
Kormylo testified that she recommended that the child remain with the mother because A.M. was thriving. Her direct testimony sparked another round of arguments from the defense claiming that the door had been open to admit testimony of the child pornography allegations against Christina Parcell and her fiancé Bradley Post.
The judge took a break and returned after nearly 30 minutes and ruled that the door had not been open after all and that any evidence of kiddie porn would stay out of the trial. The defense insisted on a proffer and elicited from Kormylo that had she known ‘then what she knew now,’ she would have separated the child from her mother.
A Greenville County Homicide investigator testified that photos recovered from traffic cams captured the defendant’s gold pick-up truck showing a black bicycle in the bed of the truck. That photograph was captured on October 13, 2021 – the date Christina was murdered.
The photo is significant because the suspect is captured on surveillance video leaving the neighborhood riding a bicycle.
Investigator Blake Wolfe also recovered photos from a trail camera near the defendant’s home. He recovered photos of the defendant wearing a black and gray hoodie — similar in style and color to the jacket worn by the suspect.
WATCH: Rose Petal Murder Trial: Ring Camera Establishes Murder Timeline
WATCH: Evidence: Rose Petals Found Near Christina Parcell’s Body At Crime Scene
Michael Manigault testified he met Zachary Hughes through the yard and clean-up work he did for Mello. He said he and Hughes worked on Mello’s house together.
He described Hughes as a ‘good man,’ before he left the witness stand.
Christina and the defendant did not know each other, but prosecutors claim that Hughes and Mello were friends, and Hughes became aware of Mello’s custody battle and killed Christina to help him out.
DAY 1 – 2/11/25
The prosecution delivered an opening statement.
Greenville County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chris Robinson, one of the first officers on scene, described finding Christina Parcell’s body.
The jury saw bodyworn camera footage from Robinson’s response to the scene.
WATCH: Officer Describes Murder Scene: Blood on Floor, Drag Marks
Bradley Post, Christina Parcell’s fiancé testifies, saying he saw Parcell’s body in the living room ‘on her back, and there were petals from a rose.’
WATCH: Rose Petal Murder Trial: Victim’s Fiancé Takes the Stand