Charleston, South Carolina – A man has been condemned in the death of Celia Sweeney, a Charleston woman who went missing in 2020 and was discovered dead inside a ‘Husky’ container in Spartanburg County.
A Charleston County jury found Mark Dwyane Walton, 36, guilty of accessory after the fact to murder and desecration of human remains after a week-long trial, according to the Ninth Circuit Solicitor’s Office.
Judge Charles McCutchen sentenced Walton to 25 years of consecutive jail, 15 years for accessory, and 10 years for desecration.
Buddy Carr, 32, drove to Charleston from Spartanburg in a white Ford F-150 pickup truck on February 27, 2020, to see Walton and attend his burial. Carr and Walton were longstanding pals who claimed to be affiliated with the motorcycle gang Hell’s Angels.
When Carr arrived, the two buddies had planned to go out drinking. Walton was living with his girlfriend, Gina Scialdone, 23, at West Ashley’s Westchase Apartment Complex at the time.
The men went out with a group and became intoxicated, to the point that workers reported they were being obnoxious. After leaving the pub, the party returned to Westchase, where Sweeney also lived.
Sweeney and Scialdone worked together at King Street Grill on Kiawah Island and had become great friends.
After stopping at Scialdone’s residence, the group proceeded to Sweeney’s to continue socializing. Carr and Walton were alleged to have been intoxicated and obnoxious, so Sweeney advised everyone to go to another bar.
The gang then moved to a nearby bar called Trayce’s Too, which had extensive monitoring, allowing the group’s movements at the time to be fully documented, according to a release from the solicitor’s office.
Walton ended up driving Scialdone home early while the party was at Trayce’s Too, but he returned to meet Carr at 12:15 a.m. on Friday, February 28, 2020.
The two were finally booted out of Trayce’s Too and not permitted to return.
Around 1:30 a.m., the gang returned to Sweeney’s apartment, where Walton had left Carr. Sweeney was “furious” because Carr had been left at her flat. Walton ignored Sweeney’s instructions to find Carr and returned to Scialdone’s apartment, where he crawled in via the window.
An altercation erupted, and Walton claimed to have passed out as a result, although trial evidence clearly contradicted this account, according to the solicitor’s office.
Sweeney returned to her apartment and informed others that she was upset and planned to kick Carr out. Officials confirmed that these were her last known living conversations.
Instead of sleeping, Walton returned to Sweeney’s apartment shortly after her last known communications were logged, where she remained for some time.
According to circumstantial evidence, Walton assisted Carr in moving Sweeney’s vehicle to a nearby neighborhood before the two returned in Carr’s truck.
Carr proceeded to a neighboring Home Depot in the morning and purchased a black ‘Husky 45 Gallon Tote,’ which Sweeney’s body was discovered in.
Both men returned to Home Depot later, carrying the tote in the back of the pickup, and went inside to buy four bags of cement, a tie-down strap, and latex gloves. The males walked to a Chick-fil-A drive-through, where surveillance cameras revealed the bag was secured closed with a charge wire, just as Sweeney’s body was subsequently discovered.
A few days later, on Monday, March 2, 2020, several law enforcement agencies, including the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), arrived on Carr’s home at 704 O’Henry Drive in Inman to carry out a search warrant. They discovered his white Ford F-150 trapped in mud behind his mobile home near the tree line, as well as the black tote inside the tree line, which contained Sweeney’s body, who had suffered over 40 blunt force strikes to the head with what authorities concluded to be a hammer.
When agents searched the house, they discovered Carr dead on the couch from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
“The Ninth Circuit Solicitor’s Office is especially appreciative of the Sweeney family, who endured so much that terrible day and, in the years, to follow to see this matter to its resolution, as well as Gina Scialdone and Patrick Stanborough, who suffered unfair and untrue accusations of involvement while also morning the loss of a loved one,” the lawyer’s office said.
