Cedric Marks Murders 2 In Texas

Cedric Marks is a killer who would be sentenced to death in Texas for the murders of Jenna Scott, 28, and Michael Swearingin, 32

According to court documents Cedric Marks would kidnap Jenna Scott and Michael Sweringin from a home in Temple Texas. The pair were brought to another location where they would be murdered

Cedric Marks would be arrested years later, convicted and sentenced to death

Cedric Marks was also accused of another murder in Minnesota: April Pease

Cedric Marks Case

Police were called to handle an alarm at a home in Temple, Texas on Jan. 4, 2019, and discovered Michael Swearingin, 32, and his best friend, 28-year-old Jenna Scott — who was supposed to be with him — weren’t there.

“It’s like they fell off the face of the earth. They just disappeared,” said Temple detective Ashley Cunningham on Snapped: Killer Couples, airing on Oxygen on Sundays at 6/5c.

There was no note. No messages left for anyone. Swearingin’s missing vehicle was located later that night about 70 miles south in Austin.

“It’s obvious that it’s been wiped down. You can smell the bleach and the hydrogen peroxide,” said ret. Temple detective Corey Powell on Snapped: Killer Couples.

Family and friends immediately pointed the finger at 40-year-old Cedric Marks, Scott’s ex-boyfriend. As police investigated the mixed martial arts fighter, they started to believe he had a disturbing pattern of meeting women on dating apps — while married — and then taking that girlfriend along with him while he murdered an ex.

This pattern allegedly began with missing Oklahoma woman April Pease in March 2009.

“Fast forward 10 years, and Jenna and him are in an involved relationship, it’s the same routine,” Cunningham said. “So that kind of started our thinking, ‘Is this a serial killer case?’”
Jenna Scott and Cedric Marks’ violent relationship leads to her disappearance

Jenna Scott and Cedric Marks first met in 2015 on a dating app and had an off-and-on relationship for three years, until it became violent.

“He had choked her out. He had assaulted her,” Powell said.

In 2018, she filed for a protection order against Marks, but a judge denied it.

“Jenna told the judge after he denied it, ‘My blood will be on your hands,’” Powell said.

In August 2018, after the order was denied, Marks was charged with breaking into Scott’s home. He fled to Michigan before his arrest, and a federal warrant was issued for him. Five months later, Scott and her friend Michael Swearingin were missing.

The U.S. Marshals arrested Cedric Marks in Michigan the day after the disappearance. He was living in a home with his wife, Ginell McDonough, their two children, and his pregnant girlfriend, 27-year-old Maya Maxwell.

Cedric Marks and Ginell McDonough married in October 2003, after meeting while serving in the U.S. Navy. But their relationship had one hitch.

“It wasn’t the typical marriage everybody else has,” Ginell McDonough, Marks’ ex-wife, said on Snapped: Killer Couples. “Because of the fact that I’m gay, we just kind of had an open relationship.”

In exchange for having children with her, McDonough was fine with Marks dating other women.
Maya Maxwell confesses she watched Cedric Marks kill Jenna Scott and Michael Swearingin

Under questioning, Maya Maxwell admitted to police that her boyfriend, Cedric Marks, killed Jenna Scott and Michael Swearingin — and she was with him when it happened.

“I was terrified. I just — I hate saying this. It’s so hard for me,” Maxwell said from behind bars in Snapped: Killer Couples. “I was just trying to survive. I know that’s horrible because Jenna and Michael didn’t. I’m so sorry.”

Maxwell and Marks met in 2016 on a dating app.

“He seemed like the perfect guy,” she said.

But Marks had a violent history and had served six years in prison for an aggravated burglary when he was 17. Eventually, he admitted to Maxwell that he was also dating Jenna Scott, but claimed it was over because she filed a court order against him.

“She’s crazy and ruining his life,” Maxwell said he claimed. “She just won’t leave him alone.”

Maxwell agreed to travel from Michigan to Texas with Marks because she believed he was turning himself in for breaking into Scott’s home. But instead, she claimed, Marks forced her to drive to a home in Temple.

“He told me he wanted to go hang out with his friend,” Maxwell said. “And he tells me to just go to Walmart, get something to eat. He tells me, ‘Oh, by the way, while you’re there, also pick up big black trash bags.’”

Maxwell said she then went to the home in which they were visiting, when Marks arrived with a handcuffed Scott and Swearingin. She then claimed to see Marks strangle Swearingin.

“I begged him to stop. I couldn’t get out. He just turned and looked at me. He told me to ‘look the f away,’” Maxwell said. “I couldn’t move. My brain just — I couldn’t believe what was happening. I couldn’t.”

Maxwell said Marks next brought Scott in to see her dead friend.

“[He] told her this was her fault. And she and I just looked at each other and didn’t say anything,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell alleged after Scott was killed, she and Marks cleaned up, stopped at a Wal-Mart to buy a shovel, and eventually drove to a spot in Marks’ home state of Oklahoma and buried the bodies.

“He had told me if I tried to get away, he knew the area better than I did,” Maxwell said. “He’s faster. He’s a trained fighter … I was pregnant. I was terrified.”

Maxwell helped lead police to the bodies of Jenna Scott and Michael Swearingin. She took a plea deal and agreed to testify against Marks. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison and is currently eligible for parole.
Cedric Marks is accused of a third murder of another ex-girlfriend

When the news got out that Cedric Marks was charged with two counts of capital murder and was facing the death penalty, police in Bloomington, Minnesota realized Marks was at the top of their suspect list in another missing woman case: April Pease. Pease and Marks also met on a dating app, and she was the mother of one of his children — even living with Marks and his wife for a time. She also filed a protective order against him in October 2008. She was last seen living at a shelter in March 2009.

And once again, one of Marks’ girlfriends, Kellee Sorenson, told police he in fact killed April Pease.

“Then we find out that Kellee actually had been present with Cedric,” Cunningham said in a case of déjà vu.

In the end, it was Marks’ wife who turned over a crucial piece of evidence to police: a tape recording Marks had made before April Pease disappeared.

“And he just talks about how much he loves his boys and he wanted to get them together, and he wanted his son back, and he was going to do whatever he had to do…that’s the equivalent of a confession,” Cunningham said.

April Pease’s body has never been found. Cedric Marks and Kellee Sorenson are awaiting trial for her murder.

In April 2023, Marks went on trial for murdering Jenna Scott and Michael Swearingin, and chose to be his own defense lawyer.

“Jenna was going to send him to prison for a long time. And Cedric had no control over her. He was gonna go to prison for a long time, and so how do you make that not happen? You take it out. You kill it. It was retaliation,” Powell said.

Cedric Marks was found guilty and sentenced to death.

“There are evil people out here in this world and he’s one of them,” Powell said. “He was able to manipulate the girls that he’s in relationships with.”

https://www.oxygen.com/snapped-killer-couples/crime-news/cedric-marks-accused-of-killing-ex-jenna-scott-other-women

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