Outrage: The Peg Cuttino Story

Breaking Ranks

The controversy, as it would soon turn out, was not confined to whispered doubts on the streets of Sumter. Even one of the men who had worked on the case, Howard J. Parnell, coroner and nephew to the sheriff, had grave concerns about the case and in June 1973, he went public. The truth was, he had always doubted that Pierce was guilty. But as the public clamor grew, Howard Parnell joined it, claiming that he had unearthed new evidence in the case, evidence that presumably would have cleared Pierce. He demanded a meeting with Sheriff Parnell, with the chief of police and other local officials, including McLeod, the solicitor and SLED Chief Strom.

Griffin, Parnell & Dollard, police

The meeting ended abruptly, to put it charitably when Coroner Parnell, a funeral director by trade, stormed out, shouting, according to published reports at the time, "I'm through! I'm through," and claiming that he had been ambushed by what he described as "a hostile group."

Howard Parnell recounted the meeting in a recent interview with Court TV's Crime Library, acknowledging that the evidence he had planned to present in large part duplicated the information that already had been made public, some it during Pierce's trial, about the suspect's movements on the days surrounding Peg Cuttino's death.

Far more damning was his allegation that the officials at the meeting in essence urged him, in his words to "just go along and forget about this and we'll promise you that your funeral home will get business."

To this day, Howard Parnell believes that he was punished for his refusal to support Pierce's conviction. He contends that he was effectively "run out of town." He bases that allegation chiefly on the fact that three banks subsequently rejected his applications for mortgages in the days following the controversial meeting.

The authorities, of course, had a far different version of the events that day.

"There were no hard feelings, I even got up and shook his hand when he came in," Sheriff Parnell told reporters after the session. According to the sheriff, the meeting ended because his nephew "had no new leads, and we reassured him if he had anything we would cooperate and help him in any way we could."

That reassurance did little to assuage Howard Parnell's anger. Soon after he quit his post as coroner and left town. And it did even less to reduce the simmering mistrust in the community.