A day after co-workers and friends told police Celia Sweeney had gone missing, authorities in South Carolina found her Audi convertible.

Then, two days later, they found her body.

Sweeney, a 28-year-old Massachusetts native, was found dead Monday inside a home in Inman, South Carolina, some 200 miles from where she’d been living in Charleston, according to city police.

Officials at the scene also found the body of 32-year-old Buddy Allen Carr, a person of interest in Sweeney’s disappearance who lived there, authorities said.

Sweeney’s death has been ruled a homicide.

Here’s what we know about the case so far:

Sweeney was reported missing on Friday, Feb. 28


Charleston police were contacted by Sweeney’s co-workers and friends on Friday and were told she was missing, officials said in a statement.

Officers conducted a welfare check at Sweeney’s residence and found that both she and her car were gone.

Police put out an alert Saturday, asking the public for help in finding her. At the time, authorities said Sweeney was believed to be with her Audi sedan, with Massachusetts license plates, and was “considered to be endangered.”

The car was last seen near Sweeney’s Charleston home on Westchase Drive, police said. Authorities ultimately located the vehicle without her late Saturday night.

Carr was considered a ‘person of interest’ in Sweeney’s disappearance, police say

Buddy Allen Carr. —Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office

Police said investigators identified a person of interest in the case who lived in Spartanburg County, which sits on the state’s border with North Carolina.

With assistance from the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office and the State Law Enforcement Division, authorities then descended on a home on Ohenry Drive in Inman.

Responding to a double death notification, County Coroner Rusty Clevenger identified the bodies of a woman and a man found there as Sweeney and Carr, according to a statement.

Clevenger said Sweeney’s cause of death is listed as a blunt force trauma to the head; he ruled the manner of her death a homicide.


An autopsy has not yet been conducted on Carr, “but none of the agencies involved feel like there is any danger to the community,” Clevenger said.

“We continue to gather information and investigate with all listed agencies, and more information will be released only at the appropriate time,” he said.

Authorities have not said what connection, if any, Sweeney and Carr had to one another.

Charleston police ask anyone with information about the case to call 843-743-7200 to speak to an on-duty detective or Crime Stoppers at 843-554-1111.

Body Found in Spartanburg Identified as Missing Charleston Woman#chsnews pic.twitter.com/CnkWK6eiAE — Charleston P.D. (@CharlestonPD) March 3, 2020

Sweeney was a Scituate native who moved south about a year ago, a friend says

A Scituate native, Sweeney left the Bay State about a year ago, Haley Mahoney, a friend, told WCVB in an interview before Sweeney’s body was discovered.

“I think she just wanted a change of pace,” Mahoney recalled.

Sweeney was a 2009 graduate of Scituate High School, Wicked Local reports. She earned a criminal justice degree from Curry College in 2013, according to a LinkedIn profile.

Sweeney lived in Weymouth for a while, WCVB reports.

Mahoney worked with her as a bartender in Quincy.

“We worked with three other girls and we just had unbelievable camaraderie and, you know, it was just such a fun job, like I didn’t dread going in,” she told WCVB. “I loved working with her.”

Have you seen this woman? Scituate native Celia Sweeney is reported missing in South Carolina. Her car has been found, but no sign of Celia. #wcvb pic.twitter.com/gELBofWSqv — Nichole Berlie (@NicholeBerlie) March 2, 2020

Mahoney, speaking when Sweeney was still considered missing, told the news station that the situation was “a nightmare.”

It was unlike Sweeney to go so long without contacting anyone, she said.

“Everyone is distraught,” Mahoney said at the time. “Celia is a person who means a lot to a lot of people and we’re just — it feels surreal. It’s like a movie: This isn’t our friend, you know?”