David Walls already convicted for 2016 murder
Staff reports
A Shell Point man already in state prison for the murder of his disabled neighbor will spend the rest of his life behind bars after his conviction for a 2016 rape.
Brian David Walls, 43, was found guilty Wednesday, Aug. 28, by a Beaufort County General Sessions jury of first-degree criminal sexual assault. He also was convicted of kidnapping and use of a vehicle without permission.
Under South Carolina’s two-strikes law, Walls automatically received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the sexual assault. He also received life for kidnapping and three years for the use of vehicle charge. The sentences are to be served consecutively.
Walls also is serving 40 years for the murder of 56-year-old Teresa Siegler, which occurred just days before the sexual assault.
“In the span of a few days, Brian Walls murdered a neighbor and raped a family friend,” said Sean Thornton of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, who prosecuted the case. “He is the worst sort of predator – someone who repays kindness with brutality.”
Seigler lived two lots away from Walls and several housemates. She had a reputation for feeding friends and neighbors who were down on their luck or who needed a temporary place to stay. Walls and two co-defendants murdered Seigler in December 2016 as part of a plan to steal drugs and her monthly disability check. Seigler’s body was then wrapped in a blanket, bound in duct tape and set on fire.
A day after Seigler’s body was discovered, Walls sexually assaulted a 19-year-old woman in the bathroom of a motel on Boundary Street in Beaufort, where he and two of his murder co-defendants had rented a room.
The victim testified that she received a phone call from Walls, a family acquaintance, asking for a ride to the motel. She agreed but was surprised when four other people – two of Walls’ co-defendants in the murder case and two of his teenage sons – also piled into her car.
The party made brief stops at a friend of Walls’ and a convenience store, then drove to the motel to rent a room. The victim tried to depart, but Walls asked the victim to help carry some items to the second-floor room. Once inside, he struck her on her head, forced her into the bathroom and sexually assaulted her while the others were present in the locked room.
Walls then left the room with the victim, with the intent of driving with her to an ATM and withdraw cash. Seeing an opportunity for escape, she at first played along, but then bailed out of her car and fled into a nearby marsh, she testified.
“Rape is about power. It’s never about sex,” Thornton said. “This power play began when Brian Walls committed a sexual assault. It ended when the victim got on that stand and took it back from him.”
Walls and Courtney Elizabeth Brock, one of the co-defendants in the murder case, took the victim’s Toyota sedan and left town. They were apprehended near the North Carolina border while parked in that vehicle. Inside, investigators found a roll of duct tape and several items belonging to Seigler.
John Dontue Priester, 27, and Brock, 24, also were convicted of Seigler’s murder, and Priester was convicted of arson for attempting to burn down Seigler’s mobile home to conceal their crime.
Hunter Swanson of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office Special Victims Unit secured guilty verdicts against Walls and Brock in jury trials in 2019. Priester pleaded guilty in January 2020.
Assistant Solicitor Jared Shedd assisted Thornton in Walls’ trial for criminal sexual assault. The state called 12 witnesses over three days of testimony at the Beaufort County Courthouse.
Walls’ criminal history includes convictions for simple assault, fraud, multiple counts of simple possession of marijuana, multiple counts of assault and battery, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Circuit Court Judge Carmen T. Mullen presided over the trial.
Thornton is chief deputy solicitor and the leader of the Solicitor’s Office Career Criminal Unit, which prosecutes the circuit’s most violent and habitual offenders. That team has secured convictions against 496 of the 541 defendants it has prosecuted since its formation in 2009.
