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South Carolina Neo-Nazi Couple Pleads Guilty to Murdering Sex Offender and His Wife

A neo-Nazi skinhead and his wife stood side-by-side, smiling at each other and wearing his-and-her handcuffs, as they pleaded guilty today in a South Carolina courtroom to murdering a stranger and his wife because they found his name on a list of registered sex offenders.

Jeremy and Christine Moody, the South Carolina representatives of a racist skinhead gang called Crew 41, were arrested last summer shortly after Charles Parker, 59, and his wife, Gretchen, 51, were found shot and stabbed to death in their home on July 21 in the town of Jonesville in Union County, SC.

The Moodys also pleaded guilty to kidnapping, first-degree burglary and possession of a weapon during a violent crime.

They each received a sentence of life in prison.

Jeremy Moody, who is 30, confessed early and often to authorities that he killed Parker because Parker was a convicted sex offender. Moody said when he was arrested that it was his intention to rid the world of sex offenders and pedophiles. When he was arrested at his parent’s home, The State reported, investigators found that Moody had written down the name of another sex offender he apparently planned to murder.

As for why Parker’s wife was killed, Moody told investigators at the time that she was simply “a casualty of war.”

Union County Sheriff David Taylor told Hatewatch last summer that Moody’s 36-year-old wife Christine was much more tight-lipped in the beginning of the investigation. But she quickly grew jealous at the media attention her husband was receiving and she too began to boast.

Taylor said Christine bragged about cutting Gretchen Parker’s throat. “She wants to get the glory,” the sheriff said. “She’s cold as hell.”

It appears not much has changed since she was locked up. When asked by the judge today if she had received any promises if she pleaded guilty, Christine grinned and replied, according to The State,  “just fame and fortune.”

Before that bloody weekend last July hardly anyone had heard of Crew 41, also known as Die Auserwahlten – “the chosen few.” The crew had small chapters in several states, including South Carolina, where the Moodys appear to have been the only members. They had been trying to recruit more members on social media at the time of their arrest.

Johnathan “Monster” Schmidt, a heavily tattooed California transplant living in small-town Nebraska, founded the crew six months earlier. The same weekend the Parkers were killed, Schmidt was arrested and charged with the brutal assault of a man during a street fight in a Nebraska college town.

“I am out on bail facing 50 years in prison,” Schmidt wrote on VK, a Russian version of Facebook. “And our South Carolina chapter has been picked up on murder charges. Having a hard first years but hopefully things turn around for us.”

On his Facebook page, Schmidt added, “Though I can’t blame them for their actions, this in no way was ordered.”

Things did turn around for Schmidt – at least temporarily. He was acquitted in the assault case and returned to California with his young family. In April, however, Schmidt was once again in trouble with the law. He was arrested in Southern California for an assault in a bar as he was belting out white power songs on a karaoke machine.

Since their arrest, the Moodys had each been examined by psychiatrists and were found competent to stand trail. Today in court, according to a local television station, Jeremy Moody said he was the “right hand of God.”

Moody’s doctor testified, according to the station, that Moody had been in church Sunday morning before killing the Parkers.

“They got exactly what they deserved,” Moody said, as he was being led out of the courthouse. “Had to do it over again, I’d kill more.”

His wife also had no regrets or remorse.

“Killing that pedophile,” she told the station, “was the best day of my life.”

But if killing registered sex offenders was indeed the Moodys mission, they did not have to go outside the ranks of Crew 41 to find them.

At the time the Parkers were murdered, the head of group’s Colorado chapter was also on a list of registered sex offenders.

 

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