Notorious Columbia killer dies in state prison of COVID-19 complications

Marcellus Pierce, one of Columbia’s most notorious killers, died Tuesday morning in state prison of complications from COVID-19, prison officials said.

The death of Pierce, 73, the mastermind behind the brutal 1984 kidnapping and killing of a University of South Carolina nursing student, closes the chapter in one of Columbia’s more horrific crimes in the last 50 years.

Pierce and two others were convicted of the kidnapping, rape and murder in the abduction of Bobbi Rossi, 20, from Columbia’s Woodhill Mall parking lot on Garners Ferry Road — today the Shoppes at Woodhill. They took her to a rural area, raped her and fatally shot her.

Bobbi Rossi’s death shocked the Midlands, leaving many feeling that violent crime could strike anytime, anywhere. It took three days to find her body. From a large prominent family, she grew up in Shandon and graduated from Cardinal Newman.

Pierce died in the infirmary in the Lee Correctional Institution, officials said. His two accomplices, also serving life sentences, died earlier in prison.

Pierce had tested positive for COVID-19 in early January and was also undergoing palliative care for an unspecified terminal disease, officials said.

Anne-Marie Rossi, Bobbi’s mother, said Tuesday afternoon prison officials had contacted her with news of Pierce’s death. She said she has been grateful over the years by the support of so many friends and family.

“I feel relieved,” she told a reporter. “He would have been up again for parole in November.”

Each time Pierce came up for parole she and numerous others testified or sent letters urging that he not be released into the community.

Pierce had come up for parole more than 16 times since his death sentence was overturned.

For Pierce’s parole hearing in 2010, Ann Marie Rossi showed up with a petition signed by thousands of people opposing parole for her daughter’s killer.

Also opposing any parole for Pierce were prosecutors and law enforcement officers involved in the case. They fiercely objected to his going free.

“I plan on opposing parole, whether I’m solicitor or not, until he is dead or paroled, or I’m dead,” former Fifth Circuit Solicitor Barney Giese, who was an assistant and then deputy solicitor when Pierce was tried, said in 2010.

“He received life in prison, and life ought to mean life,” Giese said at the time.

At the time Pierce received a life sentence, convicted killers could apply for parole after serving a stint in prison. They no longer can.

Pierce’s two accomplices in the crime, Willie Nesmith and Benjamin Joyner, died in prison earlier.

All three were tried and convicted twice. In the first trial, Pierce received the death penalty and the other two got life sentences. In the second trial, for Pierce alone, prosecutors again sought the death penalty but the jury deadlocked. That meant the trial judge had to sentence Pierce to life in prison. The judge did so, calling Pierce a “creature” whom he hoped would never leave prison.

Pierce, who never testified at his trials, had a lengthy criminal record and was said to be the ringleader in Rossi’s killing. At the trials, Nesmith and Joyner testified that Pierce was the one who shot Rossi. Nesmith and Joyner received life sentences in their second trials.

After the crime, Rossi’s late father, Ray Rossi, crusaded successfully for stiffer sentencing laws, lobbying for years at the State House. The citizens’ group he founded was called CAVE, which stood for Citizens Against Violent Crime.

This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 5:29 PM.