'Budding serial killer' ate victims at state-approved South Carolina care home, lawsuit says

John Monk, The State (Columbia, S.C.) on Mar 12, 2025

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — A “budding serial killer” was placed in a state-approved Columbia mental health residential care home where he cannibalized two people he killed over the span of five months, according to a lawsuit.

The alleged killer ate his victims’ ears after killing them and drank the blood of one victim, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit was brought by Peggy Ondrea, the grandmother of Jared Ondrea, one of the killer’s alleged victims, who lived in the house at 2214 Harper St. in Columbia, a few blocks from C.A. Johnson High School.

A defendant in the lawsuit is the S.C. Department of Mental Health, whose employees allegedly urged the Ondrea family to put 22-year-old Jared in the Harper Street group home, the lawsuit alleges. At the time, in early 2023, Jared had mild mental health issues and was an outpatient under the agency’s care, the lawsuit said.

A spokeswoman for the agency declined to respond to the lawsuit’s allegations, saying, “SCDMH does not comment on pending litigation.”

The lawsuit said Peggy and Jared Ondrea were “repeatedly assured” by DMH employees “that the Harper Street facility was suitable and safe and offered a beneficial and protected environment.”

Unknown to the Ondreas, but known to DMH, one of Jared’s fellow residents at the group home was an ex-convict on probation named Marc-Anthony Cantrell, who had been serving time for torturing three dogs to death and second-degree arson for attempting to burn up his parents’ home in Aiken, according to the lawsuit and court records.

Jared Ondrea went missing in March 2023, and despite police and other searches, he was not found.

In July 2023, another resident at the home, Deshea Butler, also disappeared. His body was discovered a few days later across the street in a wooded area.

Police reviewing video surveillance tapes found evidence linking Cantrell to Butler’s disappearance and subsequently charged him with murder.

In interviews with police, Cantrell, 26, admitted killing both Jared Ondrea and Butler and provided “graphic details” about the murders, including that he strangled both of them, the lawsuit alleged.

“Cantrell told police that he killed Jared and Deshea because his alternate personality, Robert Baldwin, had instructed him to do so. He also told police that he had cut off one of Jared’s ears, and both of Deshea’s, and ate them ‘so he could gain their power,’“ the lawsuit said.

Cantrell “further told police that, after he had strangled Deshea, he hit him in the head with one of his lifting weights so that he could drink his blood, which he did over several days from a coffee cup’,” the lawsuit said.

An autopsy of Deshea supported Cantrell’s narrative of cannibalism, the lawsuit said.

Ondrea’s body has never been found. Cantrell said he dumped it in outgoing trash. The body is believed buried under many feet of refuse in the Richland County landfill. He has been judicially declared dead, the lawsuit said.

Columbia police have charged Cantrell with the murders of both Ondrea and Butler. No trial date has been set.

Richland County public defender Zoe Bruck, who represents Cantrell, had no immediate comment.

Cantrell is back in state prison, serving out his sentence for his arson conviction. He is scheduled to be released in October 2031.

The lawsuit said the killings of Ondrea and Butler were avoidable.

“Cantrell — who had every telltale sign of a budding serial killer — never should have been placed in a home with vulnerable adults,” the lawsuit said.

The Department of Mental Health, “which had been treating Cantrell since his release from prison, was aware of Cantrell’s living arrangements, and was also aware of his past violent crimes of arson and animal cruelty,” the lawsuit said.

“SCDMH was further aware that Cantrell had continued to suffer from severe mental illness while in prison, and that these problems had persisted after his release from prison.”

The Department of Mental Health was added last week as a defendant to an existing lawsuit, filed last year by Peggy Ondrea, against the operator of the care home where Jared Ondrea was allegedly killed.

The original defendant in that case was New Hope Solutions Home LLC, which runs the care home.

Austin Nichols, attorney for New Hope, said it is “appropriate to include the Department of Mental Health in this matter.”

That agency has the professionals who deal with mental health issues, and “there’s probably more that could have, or should have, been done in monitoring Mr. Cantrell,” Nichols said.

A lawyer for Peggy Ondrea said that the new material about Cantrell’s alleged cannibalism and the Department of Mental Health surfaced during the last year.

“During the discovery in the original lawsuit, we found documents and took depositions that gave us that information — all kinds of things we weren’t aware of,” said attorney Dick Harpootlian, who is working the case with attorney Joe McCulloch.

Harpootlian said he and McCulloch seek a jury trial.