Juilliard-trained pianist denied bond in slaying of SC mother stabbed 31 times
A Juilliard-trained concert pianist charged in the brutal stabbing death of a Greer mother was denied bond Wednesday after his attorneys claimed he was innocent, but the prosecution said his DNA was found under the woman’s fingernails.
Circuit Judge Edward Miller heard testimony from Zachary David Hughes’ mother and the sister of Christina Parcell, who was found dead in the living room of her home with 31 stab wounds to the head and neck on Oct. 13.
Tina Parcell, the sister said, “He slaughtered my sister on my living room floor, got on a bicycle and rode away.”
Hughes’ mother, Melinda Hughes, said she had never seen a proclivity towards violence in her son.
“I know him,” she said. “I plead with you to consider bond for him.”
Miller said the defense can ask for bond again if other evidence casts doubt on the DNA evidence the prosecution told the court about or if Hughes’ phone records, which are locked, provide important evidence.
The prosecution said they are trying to open the phone to see text messages and other information regarding the case, but Hughes will not give them the code. They have used technology to open it, but it will take two years for the program to work it out, they said.
Hughes’ attorneys said he deserved bond because Hughes is innocent, not a danger to society and deserved to be set free. His release was supported by letters from 54 people, including Greenville attorney Marshall Wynn, who appeared in court Wednesday on Hughes’ behalf.
Wynn said he met Hughes while searching for a pianist accomplished enough to play at an inaugural concert on a rare piano that had been donated to his church.
Hughes moved with Wynn and his wife, Jeanette, practiced on their piano for the concert and stayed for two years, giving piano lessons to children and playing community concerts on Main Street in downtown Greenville.
But the prosecution had a much more dire description of Hughes, saying he was shown entering and leaving Parcell’s house dressed in a dark hoodie on the day she died. They said he was close friends with Parcell’s child’s father, whom they did not name.
They said Parcell and the father were in a contentious custody battle for the child. The father took the child to Italy in October 2020 in violation of a court order. She returned in April 2021. The father stayed in Italy and was there when Parcell was murdered.
Prosecutors said evidence showed Hughes had googled information about knives.
“This was a vicious brutal stabbing,” Solicitor Walt Wilkins said, adding the crime scene was staged. He did not explain how.
Hughes stood nearly motionless during the hearing. He appeared by video from the Greenville County Detention Center. He did not speak.
Hughes was in Detroit, headed to a job on a cruise ship, when he heard he had been charged. He returned to Greenville and turned himself in to face charges of murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime.
His lawyers argued that alone shows he is not a flight risk.
Wynn said, “He could have walked across the bridge to Canada.”
Hughes’ website says he grew up in California and rural southwest Virginia.
“Being homeschooled afforded him ample practice time, and his early love of piano was only rivaled by an infatuation with J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Free time not spent practicing piano was employed crafting wooden replica swords from the LOTR books and movies and taking them into the Appalachian woods to do battle with the forces of darkness,” he said on his website.
Hughes attended Marine Corps Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia, in 2019, but was “dropped from training due to severe stress fractures sustained in both legs,” the website said.
Parcel was a technician for a Greenville veterinarian. Her sister said in court she is trying to obtain custody of her niece, which she believes would put her in danger should Hughes be let out on bond.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 1:10 PM.