Former SC coroner tells all in shocking testimony in ex-girlfriend’s murder trial
Christopher Dontell said he threw the body of Greg Rice into the Little Pee Dee River because he feared Meagan Jackson would kill him.
Dontell, a former Horry County deputy coroner, testified against Jackson in court on Thursday. Dontell was having an affair with Jackson at the time of Rice’s death.
Jackson is charged with murder and criminal conspiracy in the death of Rice, her ex-boyfriend and the father of her four children.
Rice went missing in early October 2020 and his body was found wrapped in a tarp in the Little Pee Dee River a month later. Dontell admitted he dumped Rice’s body at the request of Jackson, after he pleaded guilty on Dec. 4 to accessory after the fact and criminal conspiracy.
Dontell said the night of Oct. 2, 2020, he had been hanging out with Jackson, going shooting and then out to dinner. At one point, Jackson said she needed to go see Rice but did not say why. Dontell drove Jackson to Rice’s apartment complex in herJackson’s vehicle.
When they got to the apartment complex, Rice was standing outside. Jackson had Dontell make a U-turn and pull up next to the man before she opened the door and fired a gun at Rice multiple times. Rice had gunshot wounds in his head, chest, hip and leg, a witness testified.
Jackson yelled at Dontell to help her load the body, which he did. They then took him to the Myrtle Beach Funeral Home and stored the body in the cooler until Dontell could dump the body the following evening.
“She said if I told anyone what happened, that she’d kill me and that we had to be in this together. She told me that I had to stay with her,” Dontell testified.
Jackson and Dontell left the funeral home and went back to her house, where they found Savannah Rice, Jackson and Rice’s daughter. Jackson took a shower while Dontell made small talk with the teenager.
“I’m sorry, Savannah,” Dontell said while crying, with 19-year-old Savannah sitting in the court room. “I tried to make small talk like I hadn’t just watched her mother kill her father.”
Jackson then had Dontell take her back to the funeral home so she could collect items from Rice’s body. Then she left Rice’s keys on his front porch when she faked dropping the children off the following morning.
During testimony, Jackson appeared to be crying. She would occasionally bring a tissue to her face and her nose appeared red.
On Oct. 3, 2020, Jackson told Dontell he had to get rid of the body. He did not want to and tried to convince her otherwise.
“I heard her say, ‘Do this or do that or I’m going to kill you.’ And I just watched her kill the father of her kids. I’m going to take it seriously,” Dontell said.
Dontell was not sure how he would dispose of Rice’s body, so he went to Lowe’s Home Improvement the afternoon of Oct. 3 and began gathering whatever he thought he could use. This included a tarp, ratchet straps, zip ties and a cinder block. The shopping trip was later used against him when these items were found on Rice’s body.
Between late Oct. 3 and early Oct. 4, Dontell decided to dump Rice into the Little Pee Dee River.
Dontell’s testimony is the first piece of direct evidence state prosecutors have to tie Jackson to Rice’s murder. Cellphone data, security footage and license plate readers show Dontell and Jackson were together most of the night Rice was reportedly killed.
Jackson tied herself into Dontell’s family
During testimony, Dontell also shared how he became involved with Jackson when she began coming to a bar he frequented regularly. Then one night at the end of 2019, she had him get in her car, drove him behind the restaurant, asked if he had ever cheated on his wife, and then said he was going to.
Dontell said he pushed Jackson away but she stayed persistent, and over time, wore him down. Around the same time they got together, Jackson moved into a home two streets away from Dontell’s family.
In 2020, the Dontells were having financial troubles and Jackson would regularly help them out, said Erica Dontell, the former coroner’s wife. She bought them groceries from Sam’s Club and took the family out to dinner.
“I can look back and see like that, probably these are red flags but like I said, at the time COVID, the whole world was shut down, we were the only two families that were really hanging out together,” Erica Dontell said.
Dontell said he lied about Jackson killing Rice for years because he feared she would harm his family.
“I did not tell the complete truth until my attorney arranged for the police to put a GPS safety area around my family, and once that was in place, I told the complete truth that I’ve known so ever since,” Dontell said.
This story was originally published June 12, 2025 at 4:13 PM.
