Already convicted in fiery murder, Beaufort Co. man gets life in prison for 2016 rape
A Beaufort man will spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of a 2016 rape, which occurred the day before he murdered his disabled neighbor by setting her house ablaze.
Brian David Walls, 42, was found guilty by a Beaufort County jury Wednesday afternoon of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping and use of a vehicle without permission. He automatically received a life sentence without the possibility of parole under South Carolina’s “two strikes” law, which mandates life sentences for any defendant convicted of two or more “serious offenses.”
The trial lasted three days at the Beaufort County Courthouse with a jury consisting of three women and nine men. Circuit Court Judge Carmen T. Mullen gave Walls another life sentence for the kidnapping charge and the maximum three-year penalty for stealing her vehicle, adding to his previous 40-year sentence for his murder conviction.
The attack happened the evening of Dec. 6, 2016, when Beaufort woman Daryan Payne received a call from Walls, a longtime family friend who had even visited her in the hospital the day she was born. Walls and his teenage sons needed a ride from their home in Burton to a hotel, he told her.
Payne, who was 19 at the time, wouldn’t have given the ride to Walls alone, she told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette in 2017, but she had gotten to know his sons well when they stayed at her house several months before. Walls offered to pay her gas money for the favor.
After Payne dropped the group off at the Howard Johnson hotel on Trask Parkway, Walls asked her to help carry a pack of Bud Light and grocery bags into their room. She declined twice but carried the items inside after Walls insisted, she said.
As Payne turned to leave, Walls slapped her in the face with an open hand, she testified on Tuesday. “Don’t scream. I mean it; I will kill you,” he told her. Walls forced her into the hotel room’s bathroom, where he raped her.
Payne escaped as the two walked outside shortly after, sprinting out of the parking lot and into the nearby pluff mud. She dialed 911 on her cellphone. Officers found the woman crying and bruised in the marsh several minutes later, her clothes blackened with mud and her lip busted open.
“It’s harder knowing that it was people that knew me,” Payne told the newspapers in 2017. “They’ve met my son. They knew I would pick them up that night because I will help somebody out. That’s my downfall.”
Walls and another woman stole Payne’s Toyota sedan and left town. He was located by police four days later near the North Carolina border and charged for the assault.
Taking the witness stand Wednesday morning, Walls denied raping the woman. He fielded questions from his defense attorney Juan Tolley in a soft, hushed tone, leaning toward the microphone for each answer.
“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.”
‘Monster’ found guilty of murderous blaze
Walls’ rape conviction came over five years after he was found guilty of murdering his 56-year-old disabled neighbor Teresa “Resa” Siegler, who was beaten, wrapped in blankets and bound with duct tape before having her home set on fire. She was killed in the blaze on Dec. 7, 2016, the day after he raped Payne.
At his 2019 trial, prosecutors argued Walls and two co-defendants murdered Siegler as part of a scheme to steal her monthly disability check and newly refilled prescriptions. DNA evidence connected the three suspects to the scene.
Courtney Elizabeth Brock, 30, who also accompanied Walls on the night of the rape, was also convicted of murder for the fatal house fire later that year. The third defendant, John Dontue Priester, 32, was found guilty in early 2020. At the time, prosecutors said all three lived in a mobile home two houses down from Siegler.
The grandmother often gave her neighbors food and allowed them to shower in her home when their utilities were disconnected, according to previous reporting. She lived alone and had health problems, sometimes using a scooter to get around.
“She had a heart of gold,” said Lori Latham, a longtime friend of Siegler, at Walls’ murder trial. “She took care of people and we took care of her ... It breaks all of our hearts that somebody — a monster — could do this to somebody that would help him. ... She will be missed greatly.”
