A family is seeking justice after a 22-year-old man from South Carolina living in a mental health facility was brutally murdered by another resident — one they say “had every telltale sign of a budding serial killer.”
22-year-old Jared Ondrea’s body has never been found, but he was declared dead in 2023, allegedly following a “graphic” confession from Marc-Anthony Cantrell.
In addition to Ondrea, Cantrell also allegedly admitted to the killing of Deshea Butler, who went missing from the same facility.
Per WIS 10, the lawsuit was filed by Ondrea’s grandmother, Peggy, against the South Carolina Department of Mental Health (SCDMH), well as New Hope Home Solutions LLC, the facility in question. Per the suit, SCDMH recommended New Hope to the family, who claim they had no idea the facility also “served as a halfway house for released convicted criminals.”
Among them was Cantrell, who the suit claims had a “dangerous criminal history,” including allegedly setting fire to his grandmother’s house to “cover up the fact he had brutally killed the family’s three dogs in what was described by police as a ‘gruesome’ scene.”
Describing Cantrell’s appearance, the suit said he was “hard to miss” because “during his time in prison, Cantrell had gotten devil horns tattooed on his forehead, signifying his love and worship of Satan.”
According to the family’s account, they last saw Jared alive on March 20, 2023 — one month after he moved into the facility. His grandmother had taken him to a nearby lake, before dropping him back off before curfew that same day.
When his grandparents returned two days later, on March 22, he didn’t meet them outside and nobody at the facility answered the front door, per the suit. It wasn’t until the next day they say they heard from New Hope, who allegedly told them he had been missing since he was dropped off by the family.
His disappearance, according to his relatives, was “alarmingly out-of-character for Jared,” who they say preferred isolating in his room. Despite a search, his body was never found.
Four months after Jared’s disappearance, another resident at the same facility, Deshea Butler, at the also vanished. Butler, who was described by police as Cantrell’s “roommate,” was reported missing on July 4, before his body was discovered on the 6th.
Per the suit, video surveillance led to the arrest of Cantrell for Butler’s murder on the 9th. It’s then he allegedly “confessed to police that he had also killed Jared and provided specific, graphic details as to how the murder was conducted and the means of disposing of Jared’s body,” according to the lawsuit.
The suit claims he told police he killed Jared “by placing a bag over his head and strangling him with a rope,” before putting his body in a Rubbermaid bin, carrying it outside and placing his remains into a city garbage can, where they were never seen again.
Jared’s family says Cantrell was “no doubt emboldened by his successful murder of Jared” when he killed Deshea, who they claim was also killed via strangulation before his body was dumped nearby.
Cantrell also told police, per the suit, “that he killed Jared and Deshea because his alternate personality, Robert Baldwin, had instructed him to do so.” He then allegedly said he “had cut off one of Jared’s ears, and both of Deshea’s, and ate them ‘so he could gain their power,'” before collecting Deshea’s blood in a coffee cup, which he drank out of “over several days.”
Cantrell was also charged with Jared’s murder in August 2023.
“Sadly, every bit of this was avoidable,” reads the suit. “Cantrell — who had every telltale sign of a budding serial killer — never should have been placed in a home with vulnerable adults.”
“Upon information and belief, SCDMH failed to take any appropriate steps to treat Cantrell or to otherwise prevent the obvious danger that he posed to the public and to those living in close proximity to him,” it adds.
An attorney representing New Hope said his clients raised concerns about Cantrell to both law enforcement and SCDMH. “It appears, unfortunately, that some of the appropriate professionals failed to do their end of the job and I think in a way it facilitated the actions that occurred,” they said.
