Bloody Rose Petals - Greer, South Carolina

Summary

Podcast Summary: Small Town Murder Episode: Bloody Rose Petals - Greer, South Carolina
Release Date: August 1, 2025
Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Small Town Murder, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman delve into a harrowing murder case set in the seemingly tranquil town of Greer, South Carolina. Balancing thorough investigative storytelling with their signature comedic flair, the hosts unravel the complexities of the case, revealing a web of deceit, abuse, and vengeance.

Background: Greer, South Carolina

Greer, a town nestled in the upstate of South Carolina with a population of approximately 35,131, presents an image of normalcy. With a median household income near the national average and an affordable housing market, Greer appears to be a thriving small town. However, beneath this veneer lies a tumultuous history marked by economic resilience and community challenges.

Notable Quote:
James Pietragallo [04:06]: "Greer became a big textile-making place... when imports started coming in, they predicted Greer would be a ghost town soon."

The Central Murder Case: Christina Parcell

The focal point of the episode is the brutal murder of Christina Parcell, a 41-year-old vet technician residing at her sister Tina's house in Greer. On October 13, 2021, Christina was found brutally stabbed 35 times, a scene marked by scattered rose petals and a pervasive chemical smell, suggesting an attempted cover-up.

Notable Quote:
Jimmie Whisman [33:16]: "She's got blood everywhere... a little stripper."

Investigation: Key Evidence and Suspects

The investigation uncovers a multitude of leads:

1. Immediate Discovery:

   • Christina was found with defensive wounds, indicating she fought her attacker.
   • Rose petals were strewn throughout the crime scene, hinting at a possible personal motive or message.

2. Surveillance Footage:

   • A figure dressed in black with a backpack was captured entering Christina's home around 9:15 AM and exiting on a bicycle at 9:27 AM.

3. DNA Evidence:

   • Attempts to clean Christina's DNA with paint thinner were unsuccessful, leaving traces linking the perpetrator to Zachary David Hughes, a 32-year-old Juilliard-trained concert pianist.

4. Digital Footprint:

   • Hughes was found deleting photos from his phone during the aftermath of the murder.
   • The discovery of nude photographs and evidence of child abuse linked both Hughes and Christina to the abuse of Christina's daughter.

5. Motive:

   • Hughes claimed he murdered Christina to protect her daughter from ongoing abuse perpetrated by Christina and her boyfriend, Bradley Post.

Notable Quotes:
James Pietragallo [53:40]: "The DNA found under Christina's fingernails... was 825 million times more likely to belong to Zachary Hughes."
Jimmie Whisman [58:24]: "They arrested him for murder because... they don't know any of this really all that much."

Legal Proceedings and Trial

Zachary Hughes stood trial for first-degree murder based on the overwhelming evidence against him:

• Prosecution's Case:

  • DNA evidence tied Hughes to the crime scene.
  • Surveillance footage placed him at the scene.
  • Digital evidence suggested a motive tied to protecting Christina's daughter from abuse.

• Defense's Argument:

  • Attempted to introduce evidence of Christina's alleged abuse, which the judge deemed inadmissible to prevent prejudice.
  • Hughes chose to testify, detailing his relationship with John Mello and his belief that murder was necessary to save the child.

• Outcome:

  • Hughes admitted to the crime, describing his actions as a means to protect the child.
  • The jury found Hughes guilty of murder, sentencing him to life imprisonment without parole.
  • John Mello was arrested shortly after the trial for his involvement, awaiting his own trial.

Notable Quote:
James Pietragallo [66:59]: "He said, 'I believe that I did it for the right reason... I have to take responsibility that it's the right thing.'"

Conclusion and Aftermath

The murder of Christina Parcell shook the community of Greer, revealing deep-seated issues of abuse and the lengths to which individuals might go to protect loved ones. The case underscores the often-hidden struggles within small towns and the complex interplay of personal motives and criminal actions.

Notable Quote:
Jimmie Whisman [71:05]: "And the verdict comes in here. Three hours of deliberation, they find him guilty of murder, life without parole..."

Key Takeaways

• Complex Motives: The case highlights how personal relationships and perceived protection can lead to extreme actions.
• Evidence Handling: The importance of DNA evidence and surveillance footage in solving modern-day crimes.
• Community Impact: Even in seemingly peaceful towns, underlying issues can lead to tragic outcomes.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• James Pietragallo [00:42]: "This is definitely ten pounds of murder in a two-pound bag here."
• James Pietragallo [04:06]: "Greer became a big textile-making place... when imports started coming in, they predicted Greer would be a ghost town soon."
• Jimmie Whisman [33:16]: "She's got blood everywhere... a little stripper."
• James Pietragallo [53:40]: "The DNA found under Christina's fingernails... was 825 million times more likely to belong to Zachary Hughes."
• James Pietragallo [66:59]: "He said, 'I believe that I did it for the right reason... I have to take responsibility that it's the right thing.'"
• Jimmie Whisman [71:05]: "And the verdict comes in here. Three hours of deliberation, they find him guilty of murder, life without parole..."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key elements of the Small Town Murder episode "Bloody Rose Petals," offering listeners a detailed overview of the case, its investigation, and the subsequent legal proceedings in Greer, South Carolina.

Transcript

[James Petragallo]

Hello and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, Choo choo.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co host Jimmy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm Jimmy Whisman.

[James Petragallo]

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 ten pounds of murder in a two pound bag here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay?

[James Petragallo]

It's wild. So we will get to this very quickly. Before we start, shut upandgivemerder.com, get your tickets for live shows in the fall and in the winter as well. We have right now Seattle, D.C. philly. There's tickets available there. Keep checking back though because we have holds and stuff that get released. So there's a few left in all the places that we hold on to and then release at a certain point. So definitely check those out. And you never know, you might get lucky on a city that's been sold out for months. So do that. Shut up and give me murder.com also get yourself Patreon. Do yourself a favor here. Yeah, Patreon, you deserve Patreon. You work hard, dammit. Get yourself patreon.patreon.com crimeinsports and because you work so hard, we want to make sure you can afford it. $5 a month or above if you want, if you can afford it. But $5 a month or above, you get everything. All these bonus episodes, hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard you'll get immediately upon subscription. Then you get new ones every other week. One Crime in sports, one Small Town Murder. This week, what you're going to get for crime and sports, we're going to do some updates, guys that we had before, including BJ Penn who has lost his mind and said his family's been replaced by aliens or something. 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. And I gotta talk about. She disappeared from a cruise ship and she might be alive, she might be dead, who knows? We'll talk all about that. That is patreon.com crimeinsports@. And now you also get all three shows, crime in Sports, you, Stupid Opinions and Small Town Murder all ad free on Patreon as well. So this is what we give you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's everything. We can't do any more than that.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, we can't. We can come Wax your car. But other than that I don't.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's about it.

[James Petragallo]

I don't know that's about it. 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. You can't beat that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's my promise.

[James Petragallo]

That's the small town murder promise.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There it is.

[James Petragallo]

That said, I think it's time everybody, let's all sit back. What do you say? Clear the lungs and let's all shout and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, let's go on a trip.

[James Petragallo]

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. Haven't been there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I never heard of it.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Arizona. I know that there is probably Greer in a lot of places.

[James Petragallo]

There's probably a lot of Greer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's what they do in this country.

[James Petragallo]

They just. Yeah, there's like 12 miamis. So obviously we have no creativity after somewhere else. Yeah, that's it. This is in they. It's on the website. They say it's nestled in the heart of 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 1. That was a weird episode where the woman was killed in her beauty shop and.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Oh yeah, that was a weird episode. This is in both Greenville and Spartanburg counties. So that'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 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, some PR company went around to everybody and sold it to 4,000 towns in the United States and then laughed.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Unique.

[James Petragallo]

With this 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 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. Factories, clothing and processing cotton into things, fabrics. Except the imports started in the 1970s, started coming in, and we started getting 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 gonna be dead. You know, one of those towns you drove through and went, whoa. People used to live here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They used to make shirts. Right there.

[James Petragallo]

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?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Weeded out all the bad neighbors. How'd you do it?

[James Petragallo]

Little to know 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Brave. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

They're slow with the. Slow with the asphalt there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Slow with the cold patch.

[James Petragallo]

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 subpar at best.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where have you been? That it's in. Would you be in Denver?

[James Petragallo]

There can't be that much to complain about if your main complaint is the recycling program is subpar. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I just found out recently that many municipalities in Phoenix do not recycle. Even though they have the recycle bin. That shit just goes into the landfill.

[James Petragallo]

So people are just sorting shit for no reason?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Rinsing their milk jug for no goddamn reason.

[James Petragallo]

No fucking reason. Jesus. Thanks a lot, Phoen. Ah, that's Phoenix for you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Phoenix, where we punish you for living here. That should be. That's their town motto.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

No reason at all. We'll just throw it all in the big fucking pit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Rinse your dog food cans. Dip shit.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, man. Dude, that's infuriating. Here's two stars. 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 mental. Well, that's why they're so bitter. Because it's just mentally unstable teenagers running around.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They were unstable for a while. Now they're just bitter and old.

[James Petragallo]

So that's this life cycle here you go from mentally unstable to bitter. That's how it works. That's not bad things to do here. Oh, man. The skunk fest. Oh, the music fest. A skunk fest music festival they call here South Carolina.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is weed legal there? It's not.

[James Petragallo]

Fuck no. Are you kidding me? Mason Dixon. That is the hard weed is illegal line.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Are you sure?

[James Petragallo]

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. None of them. Medically, in a couple places. I know exactly where it's legal and it ain't there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The question, is marijuana legal in South Carolina? Short answer, no.

[James Petragallo]

No, Absolutely not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Any form. It's all illegal.

[James Petragallo]

Wonder why we never tour in South Carolina. That's a good reason. If it's there. Or a weed legal state, guess where we're going. Not there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's so funny.

[James Petragallo]

You know. So this was founded as a bluegrass music festival.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All right, I can.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Good music probably so.

[James Petragallo]

That's interesting. Yeah. It is held at the skunk farm.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where can we make people not stick around long?

[James Petragallo]

That's what that is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petragallo]

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 that's private. That doesn't make sense. It got its name from the sightings of white skunks on the grounds.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So no stripes, just white?

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Reversed.

[James Petragallo]

They're flipped. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Reverse pandas. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Shiny ribs.

[James Petragallo]

Shiny ribs. One word. Looks like an old guy in a Kangol 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who knows?

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay. Wolf Jet in England. That's different.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's a different deal. Wolf Jet, which is five dudes sitting in a car, is their picture. David Childers and the Serpents. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, looks real clean.

[James Petragallo]

And then the Joel. Joel Timmons psychedelic surf country.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

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 to make it do that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

That's what I mean. I don't. Yeah, mixed with surf too, so.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And the Beach Boys.

[James Petragallo]

I thought of more of a Dick Dale. Yes. I don't know. That said, let's talk about some murder people.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They are confusing. If nothing else. Let's go.

[James Petragallo]

That is the 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. Christina and Tina, that's the same girl. Her sister's name is Luteina, and her name is Christina. Lutina Luteina. Now, she's older, so I guess she gets to go by Tina, and Christina has to go with Christina, who wants to go by Lutina Luteina. 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. You get actual science. So I don't know. I'm just joking around, but who knows? 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. Real 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 Mello. M E L L O. Like mellow yellow Joey Mello Joey. John Mello. Joey's his middle name. John Joey. John Joey. Hey.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

He's born in 1960, a little older than her. They start dating in December of 2008. John Joey. Now, Joey is. This is weird. He's born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but he's also an Italian citizen as well. Yeah, if Italy as a thing. I don't know if everybody knows about the. 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. Your grandparents are there. You can get Italian citizenship.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fantastic. So JJ Mello figured it out.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Which sounds like there's tits in there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The Doll Hut.

[James Petragallo]

The Doll Hut.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That sounds like he could have gone with, like, Mellows or something. I mean, something cool with his name. He went with Doll Hut.

[James Petragallo]

That's creepy. He could have went with. Yeah, Mellows Mamas or something.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Mellows sounds awesome.

[James Petragallo]

That sounds cool. Mellow. Yeah, that's cool. But no, the Doll Hut. He opened it with a woman named Linda, who he ended up marrying. So this relationship ends in a divorce.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

So he's not very. He's not mellow. We'll put it that way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No Least apt name ever.

[James Petragallo]

That's not good. Yeah. If you're harassing people and getting.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

You think a judge, when he brought. Got brought before a judge, they'd say, you're. What are you doing, bro?

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's JJ doing?

[James Petragallo]

In 2007, he threatened a Piedmont Natural Gas employee.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What? They did. They're gonna shut it off.

[James Petragallo]

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 a restraining order. You got to stay away from the gas guy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How do you get a restraining order.

[James Petragallo]

Against the gas company guy?

[Jimmy Whisman]

They got to be on your property.

[James Petragallo]

I don't understand it either. You're not allowed outside when they come to read your shit. I don't have any idea. 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. By 2012, they're still in a relationship. So it's been about three years. And then they have a child in 2012. And this is not like a real. This is a kind of a rocky relationship.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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. Yeah, clearly. Yeah, clearly. He filed harassment charges against Mellow for online threats and blackmail after being rejected. After Mello was rejected for a music producer job. 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 McVie, Neil Young, Little Richard and Jimmy Cliff. Anybody else you didn't produce fucking Led Zeppelin 4.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No, he didn't have Robert Plant on there. He just had Jimmy Page.

[James Petragallo]

Just Jimmy Page.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nice.

[James Petragallo]

Put all the Rolling Stones and Elton John.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All of them.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Probably not.

[James Petragallo]

It's on his LinkedIn page. I mean, that's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'd go out on a limb and say maybe not.

[James Petragallo]

I'm gonna go. Probably not on this one. Yeah, I don't. Definitely don't believe him, so. And if you don't hire him, he will threaten you and try to blackmail you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Shut your gas off.

[James Petragallo]

So I got a guy. Shut your gas right fucking down. Don't tempt me, don't shoot, temp 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 gonna get divorced. And he also files for custody of the daughter he has with Christina. Okay, so he wants custody. On January 4, 2016, the Family Court granted John Joey Mello sole custody of the daughter. We'll keep her name out of it. I can't imagine one restraining order. You know what I mean? Fool me once, you know what I'm saying?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's a restraining order amongst friends?

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Zero. Not that I'm aware of.

[James Petragallo]

I haven't been served with any paper.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

And over my whole life, you know how many I've racked up? 0. So if this guy's racking up this many in a short period of time, it's him. It's gotta be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

I'm the type. You don't have to ask me to leave. I'll yell and then leave on my own.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

I'm out of here, motherfuckers.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Tell the cops I left on my own. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

You don't need to get a restraining order. But he gets sole custody of the child, which is strange because it's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's wild.

[James Petragallo]

It's pretty difficult for a guy to get it. To get sole custody away from a mom. And that's just, you know, who the hell is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's just a child from. So much better than ours. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Who rips a child from their MOT, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

So also in 2015, because things with Christina and John Joey aren't going so well, she starts dating a new man, a guy named Bradley Post. He's even older than Mello.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petragallo]

He's four years older than Mello. So he's like, you know, over 25 years older than Christina Bradley.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's got a type.

[James Petragallo]

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 and. Yeah. Now he's known Christina for over 20 years.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Knew him while they were married. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, he's in the 70s. That's the only website he uses.

[James Petragallo]

There's nothing else he would know how to use. Yeah. I don't understand this. So they begin a romantic relationship, which is very strange. Yeah. He must be thrilled. He's like, jesus, Retirement's fantastic.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Still got it.

[James Petragallo]

Still got it. He had some money and he is happy to help her with things. He's very generous. He financially supports her, encourages her to go to school to become a vet tech and pays her tuition to go to vet tech school.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Petragallo]

You go down to the court and you get a marriage license cost. But yeah, it's like 70, actually. I know it's $78.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I was gonna say 77. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a bizarre number. Just make it 80 bucks.

[James Petragallo]

Make it 80 bucks. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

$78. It's stupid.

[James Petragallo]

Whenever. Whenever Sarah's being funny and breaking my ball, she'll go, you paid $78 for this? And I go, all right, fine. 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. And. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

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 10, a visitation order was granted, allowing her scheduled visits while John Mello retains sole custody. So she's getting visits like a dad would, basically. So 2017, there's more filings as John Mello 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?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What do we know?

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petragallo]

He's a little. You know, he should have been an opera singer. He should have used his Italian ness for opera singing and being dramatic instead of not so. But who knows? Now, 2018, she. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petragallo]

They're good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

No, I mean, they. They just. Some of them are little and they're wrestling my 150 pound dog around. I'm like, look at you. Good for you. January 2019, after there's been legal proceedings going on this entire time between Christina and John Mello about visitation.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

So they reach a formal visitation agreement, and that is finalized on February 4, 2019, outlining her scheduled time with the child and all that kind of thing. So she now has a court mandated visitation, 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 Mellow just takes the daughter and moves to Italy. Really Just moves her to Italy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're allowed to do that?

[James Petragallo]

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 hearings. 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, 2,000 something square foot house owned by her sister Tina. And Christina moves in in March of 2021. Now April 14, 2021, Christina wants her daughter 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Trips to Italy, that's expensive.

[James Petragallo]

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 US 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Smalls.com Absolutely.

[James Petragallo]

Do you love your cat?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petragallo]

I hope you do. I love my cat. I love her. She's hilarious. She, she does all sorts of crazy things. She hangs off the side of my bed like she's hanging off a building. It's hilarious. 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. I'll tell you that right now. You've got to get Smalls. Smalls cat food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients that you find in your fridge. And it's delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. To get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, just head to smalls.com stm for a limited time only. My cat is obsessed with these Smalls. Obsessed with it. The food. There's a paste thing that you can put on top of the. Oh, my gosh.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, a tummy topper.

[James Petragallo]

You could put it on anything and she'd just eat it all off of there. She loves it. The tuna flavored one is her favorite. Of course, you know, she's traditional. What do you want? She likes that you say, well, why can't I just feed my cat kibble? Because it's gross. That's why. Your cat's a hunter. Let it have something that it felt. It feels like it hunted. Something that's fresh, something delicious. And for a limited time only, because you're a small town murder listener, you can get 60% off your first Smalls order, plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com STM that's 60% off when you head to smalls.com STm/free shipping. Again, that's smalls.com STM now back to the show. She comes back from Italy feeling triumphant, but he now has to come back. And at the airport, when Brad picks her up, Bradley proposes to her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Attaboy.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is gonna kill me.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, it's nobody's fault, but I don't want to deal with this. I understand that you're 40 and you're doing all this now, but I am an old ret.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I can't take it.

[James Petragallo]

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 13, 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 13, 2021, Bradley Post is trying to reach Christina, his fiance, 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 Canebrake Drive. It's 122Canebrake Drive, to be exact here. And when he gets there, the front door is unlocked, which. How many houses do you know with two women living there with the front door unlocked? With the front door unlocked. That's rare. So that's odd. But he walks into the house carefully. And I'll let Bradley describe what he found. 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. As I looked, I looked into the room. So there's like a trail of rose petals.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's weird.

[James Petragallo]

That's fucking weird. Yeah. That looks like romance or something. So John probably saw the. Or Bradley probably saw the rose petals.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And was like an invitation. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

And then, oh, no, she's dead.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hopefully it's an invitation.

[James Petragallo]

Hopefully, yeah. Best case scenario, he calls 911 and says, quote, I think I might have a death. Okay, I think you sure has 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 pet. There were petals from a rose. I found Runner back in the living room. She said. He says. So he's like, nah, no need for cpr.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Don't bother.

[James Petragallo]

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 the smell of chemicals, cleaning agent type of smells, but not bleach chemical, like paint thinner type of smell.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And she's got. She's. There's blood everywhere.

[James Petragallo]

So blood everywhere. Cleaning that paint thinner smell. Rose petals everywhere, and an old man standing there going, I think I might have a death. This is a weird scene to walk into. So they look at the rose petals, the paint thinner smell. They're like, what the fuck is going on here? What's happening? So they said that 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. Yeah, they're just scattered around. When they look at her wounds, she's been stabbed 35 times.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a lot.

[James Petragallo]

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. 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. Yeah, 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. That's in another room.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Attacked all over this house or.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, there was a fight. And I mean, she has defensive wounds all over her arms. So this didn't happen in one place. It's definitely happened. There's smears on the wall where it's fighting and trying to 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 anybody you would expect this to happen to. And what's up with these fucking roses?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, what's going on?

[James Petragallo]

Who does this? Who scatters rose petals all over a murder?

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's like a hit.

[James Petragallo]

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, cristina was not only one of the most epic vet techs. Epic vet techs.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Epic.

[James Petragallo]

We really need to stop using the word monitor our usage of words.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just stop using that one.

[James Petragallo]

It's 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She jumped two cars on a ten speed with the dead carcass of the animal over her shoulder. And then upon landing, then it came back to life.

[James Petragallo]

That's f. She also jumps cars while doing all that and giving your dog a rectal temperature exam while in midair 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Meaning fantastic.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, you're about to see something.

[James Petragallo]

That's the other thing. This is not like if this was 1975. They'd go, oh. But now the first thing they do is go to all the neighbors and say, we need all your ring doorbell footage.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

Another would later show him from a different angle, another different neighbor showing him leave the subdivision on a bicycle. Okay, so we have this, we have clues. A figure, basically just a person dressed in black riding a bicycle with a Backpack. So they show. These are what they piece together. 9:12am, Christina returns home from taking her daughter to school and from a job interview. So she drops off, Christina has a job 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 9:27am is when that person is seen leaving on a bicycle. Now wearing a white mask.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. You see that riding to or from across.

[James Petragallo]

Burning. Yeah. One of the. A white mask. What are we doing here? Like. Yeah. That's crazy. Are you fucking Leatherface? What are you wearing with the opera?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's happening? What's going on?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, well, maybe you're close there, so we'll talk about it. So, yeah, they. One other thing that's, you know, lucky it's 2021 is they have license plate reading cameras all over the area, too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Basically drive around and look up. It is amazing how many cameras are everywhere. The government, the state, whoever, everybody. It's crazy.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

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, you know, they're trying to find something that looks like, you know, conspiracy or anything. 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. Yeah. The phone contained numerous images of sexual child abuse Dude. Directly 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 alleged to it. But for legalities, I'll say allegedly, because I don't. It's not been adjudicated yet, so.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petragallo]

John was right. John Mello was not being dramatic. He was fucking right.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is a bad guy.

[James Petragallo]

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. They go ahead and arrest Bradley. Not for murder.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No. For being a dirtbag.

[James Petragallo]

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. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So is Bradley. Jesus.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Christ.

[James Petragallo]

John had. Once John Mello 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. Soon as he gets home, he's arrested for custodial interference charges.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

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. Incredible. Odd that they would be. Yeah, they're, you know, 33 years, difference in age. Here we are. 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 Mello 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 Elton John.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I know him.

[James Petragallo]

And he said his daughter loved Claire de Lune 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 is born in California to Dave and Mindy Hughes. They're a very churchy couple who are married for 46 years and all that. Zach's father had bought him a piano from a yard sale when he was 4 years old for $300. And he just took to it immediately.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Figured it out right away.

[James Petragallo]

Figured it out. Yeah, it's one of those things. You either know that or you don't. If you're gonna be, like, great at it. You know what I mean? You can learn how to play something.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

It's so much fun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, it is, but there's also. It's like part percussion as well, and then there's the pedals. 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 key. So this family adopted five siblings from Russia in 2005.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right? Right.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure, yeah.

[James Petragallo]

You know what I mean? So when they get them and bring them into their families, you get like a, you know, an Italia gray situation, except not with a physical disability, but just.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's all that. All that appearance shit is between the ears.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

She wrote about wanting to kill the parents.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What is going on?

[James Petragallo]

Queen of America is going to be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She can't do that. We don't have those.

[James Petragallo]

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 won1 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

You got to be really, really good academically. He does. Well. He's studying classical piano with a focus on Beethoven sonatas and concertos. So he even was one of only 12 students from around the world to be. To be invited to play at the Tokyo International Music Festival. He was the only one from the United States.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petragallo]

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 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

Which is crazy. This was planned for stage performances, but then 2020 hit, and 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's amazing.

[James Petragallo]

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, and said, no, no, apply for Officer Candidate School. That's what you need to apply for.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petragallo]

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. The kid's got some shit. He's a special.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Talented as fuck. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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, 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 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 gonna 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. 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. Yeah, they just pull up lawn chairs and sit around drinking sweet tea and watching him fucking do that shit. So the church, they reach an agreement where they would take donations for his performances and split it 50, 50 with him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

So, yeah, he's gonna 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 Mello 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. Now, he was playing on the street when he met Melo and the daughter and all that kind of thing. Now, the thing is, the truck he drives matches the license plate reader.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Uh.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, 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?

[Jimmy Whisman]

His license Plate is on that truck.

[James Petragallo]

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 8:15am 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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

[James Petragallo]

No, you gotta get in there. I assume so. That doesn't sound good. Yeah, you gotta get in there, man. Every time I'm committing a murder and trying to figure out, this is how I do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Paint thinner on the DNA.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a lot.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whoa.

[James Petragallo]

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 Mello 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 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 Mello, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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. Yeah, you know, movies and stuff like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But now young men and old men talk about.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, I guess, sports and cars. I have no idea. So then Melo 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Good Lord.

[James Petragallo]

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 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Very few.

[James Petragallo]

There you go. That's. That's the answer. And an affidavit from a firefighter who claimed Christina had propositioned him for sex and drugs.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay?

[James Petragallo]

Now, the evidence he provides to Zach, Zack buys it all. And there's nude photos, court documents, witness statements. So April 17, 2021, John Mello sent a message to Hughes saying, quote, harass the shit out of her. Oh, harassed 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 Mello 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 Mello exchanged 1769 text messages or emails and texts.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay?

[James Petragallo]

They were planning to humiliate Christina. And 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 message to. So they are gonna go ahead and charge Zach with murder? Because it sure looks like it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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. Discovering everything else as they go later on. But there's a lot of people that support him. A lot of people would say 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's a pianist.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's what I mean. No propensity toward violence or anything like that. He's not going to punch you. He'll hurt his hand. Won't be able to play piano.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It'd be so soft.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, soft hands. Yeah, lots of lotion on those.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petragallo]

You gotta have it. So February 2025 is Zach's trial. Now, the pretrial ruling, the judge makes a decision determining that the sexual abuse allegations and evidence involving Bradley Post would be inadmissible. So you can't really, because that will make people think that he's a murderer because he's a alleged child molester.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay?

[James Petragallo]

So that's what they're saying. So you can't bring that in because then you can blame somebody else. So 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 to have to bring Bradley Post up there to say what he found. 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. Nobody wants that. So the defense attorneys fought the ruling, but it doesn't matter.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But there's also the point of like, if there, if. If we were going to shoot, stab, kill anybody in self defense of this child, not so just in defense of this child, wouldn't you get the guy that's got the pictures on his phone?

[James Petragallo]

That would make sense. Yeah, that would make a fucking lot of sense. If I was John Mello, I would definitely be wanting to kill Bradley first.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I would want to open Bradley.

[James Petragallo]

That's what I mean. Bradley, we're going to. We'll handle him and then we'll deal with Christina later, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'll deal with her in a minute. This guy.

[James Petragallo]

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 Mello had a custody problem and the only way to solve it was murder. Which so sounds like a fucking Dateline opening.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, he had a drinking problem. The only way to solve it was murder.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'll be doing that.

[James Petragallo]

And he does not pull a punch, really. He just spills it, man. He gets on his 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 Melo, 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 Parcell 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, because I guarantee if she was that psychotic, she was sexually abused before she got here. And then might have perpetuated that on others.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But worse off, it sounds like perhaps he was. He told maybe what happened with him and then some. Perhaps Melo, somebody told him stories about this, that it's not true or it is true one way or the other.

[James Petragallo]

But that's what he thought. So, yeah, 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, you know, shit that's going on here. So by the way, they went over these 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Reputation giving them packages of her.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I just read this lady the specials yesterday.

[James Petragallo]

It's. Yeah, so. But none of them care. They all think that it's shitty and they actually support her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's fucked up.

[James Petragallo]

Melo 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 Melo claimed to have received threatening emails from someone, quote, in the biker community associated with Bradley Post. Okay, September 21, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

So Hughes said he that Mello offered him money to kill Christina and that's when it all. To this point, Hughes hasn't been arrested for the Melo 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 a conspiracy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Johnson, you are such a great pianist. My wife said, twat, would you? And then he just said, I'll murder her.

[James Petragallo]

Well, she 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 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 in danger, but that the only way to rescue her from danger would be to take Christina Parcell's life. Which is why he then filed the social services thing to try to go 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, not 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, you can't say that.

[James Petragallo]

So the judge immediately bangs his gavel and says, do not go there. You fucking 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 a silencer, and that didn't work. So then he decided on a knife.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

And they said, oh, sure, open the door. That's when he took the gun out and said, get the fuck in the house. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

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 was fighting the urge to vomit. I was experienced. 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. 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 append. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

So he said the roses dropped and everything went. And he said what was happening to her would. He said that if he didn't 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The undershirt over the scratches.

[James Petragallo]

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. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Pretty fucked up.

[James Petragallo]

Within three hours of testimony, John Mello's arrested too, because he spilled it all on the stand. So they go, they ran from the court 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Information right now that, yep, we have to take as gospel. Right?

[James Petragallo]

You have to. What else do you do? I mean, he's. It all, it all lines up. He's got electronic proof. And so the verdict comes in here. Three hours of. Or you don't know if John, if Mello's guilty though. So three hours of deliberation, they find him. Well, they probably just talked about. That was crazy, right? 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petragallo]

He has tons of people coming out of the woodwork trying to talking for him during sentencing. Yeah, he's gifted. He's this, he's a sweet guy. He's gentle. Tina Parcell, 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 acknowledgment that I've done wrong.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

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. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And 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 committed to it.

[James Petragallo]

He didn't take the money. He didn't take any money.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Now at this point, he's at the Kirkland Correctional Institution serving life. John Mello 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 waiting awaiting trial on multiple child sex abuse charges as well.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They arrested Melo.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, yeah, yeah, they arrested him. I just said three hours. Within three hours of the testimony, they went out and arrested him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So he's right now still waiting on trial?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, he's waiting on trial. The rose petals. Yeah, it was just. I think he's an artist, that's all.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just American Beauty.

[James Petragallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, he brought them for the sister. Right. And then I guess they just fell and he just kicked them all over the place.

[James Petragallo]

No, no, he put rose petals around. He did it on the throw. Yeah. Then the house itself just sold last year for $256,000. Four bedroom, three bath, 2192 square foot house. So somebody is living in a murder house that everybody is Greer, South Carolina. We got to go through the ending real quick. We're running extremely late here. Shut up and give me murder.com tickets to live shows. Patreon.com crime and sports. Amy Bradley story this week on that. For a bonus. You now get everything ad free on there as well. Anybody $5 a month or above. So do that. That's it. You get a shout out at the end there. Shutupandgivemerder.com Social media, smalltown murder. There you go. And come back and see us next week. And until next week, it's been our pleasure.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bye.

[C]

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