Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
E066: Karen Swift
3.1k Plays5 years ago
In Karen Swift’s murder, there were many suspects-- some obvious and some salacious. With accusations of corruption, of inappropriate relationships, and of doubt on all sides, the murder of this athletic mother of four rocked the small town of Dyersburg, TN.
If you would like to start your OWN podcast on Buzzsprout, please consider using our promo code so you can earn a $20 gift card after your second month on a paid plan:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=709643
Recommended
Transcript
Inspiration and Starting a Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Sleuth Hounds, have you ever considered creating your own podcast? Have you been inspired by listening to some of your favorites and thought, I'd love to try this out on my own? Whether it's a true crime podcast like ours, a motivational podcast, or maybe one filled with tips and strategies for those interested in the same activities you are?
00:00:19
Speaker
When Maggie and I first decided to start our podcast, we knew absolutely nothing about what podcasting would entail. But when we found that the platform Buzzsprout was one for which we didn't need any special equipment, just a computer microphone, some quiet space, and each other, we knew that this was the way to go.
00:00:37
Speaker
It is intuitive to use, fun to play around with, and so helpful in getting analytical data about our number of downloads to track trends and from where our listeners hail. Best yet, Buzzsprout is affordable, even by our teacher salary standards.
00:00:52
Speaker
Buzzsprout will get your podcasts listed on every major podcasting platform. So, what are you waiting for? Fulfill that dream of yours and start today. If you use our Coffee & Cases referral code, 709-643, linked on Facebook and in our show notes, not only will you help support our show, but you will receive a $20 Amazon gift card after your second month on a paid plan. It's that easy.
00:01:19
Speaker
Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners. Join over 100,000 podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the
The Kudzu Story and Karen Swift's Discovery
00:01:28
Speaker
world. Now it's time for the world to hear what you have to say. If you live in the Southern United States, then you're familiar with a certain vine that grows out of control. In fact, it is often called the vine that ate the South.
00:01:46
Speaker
This vine is called Kudzu. Initially imported to the United States in 1876 to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of our country, it was seen as a beautiful plant. Livestock liked the taste of it, so it was marketed to the public.
00:02:03
Speaker
Good for soil erosion, it was planted during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Years later, we finally saw our mistaken trust in this miracle vine. Kudzu kills. Its growth of one foot a day and up to 60 feet during a season allows it to overtake anything and everything in its path.
00:02:32
Speaker
With roots that can weigh up to 400 pounds and vines that twist and turn, upwards of 30 growing from one root, it suffocates, chokes the other plants and the trees it engulfs. The weight of the vines is so heavy that it can uproot a healthy tree.
00:02:56
Speaker
But in Dyersburg, Tennessee, 75 miles northeast of Memphis on December 10th, 2011, the Kudzu wasn't engulfing a tree, but a body.
00:03:10
Speaker
The woman's body was nearly camouflaged by the vines. She was partially skeletonized due to her exposure to the elements, but dental records revealed it was a local mother who had gone missing six weeks earlier in the early morning hours of October 30th, 2011.
00:03:31
Speaker
but with the victim being a woman currently going through a divorce, potentially involved in actions that she regretted and who had multiple altercations with others in the hours leading to her disappearance. This was destined to be a case of many accusations and few answers. This is the story of Karen Swift.
00:04:09
Speaker
Oh.
00:04:30
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases, where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the case will take those tips to law enforcement so justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:04:50
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, and to follow us on Instagram at Coffee Cases podcast and on TikTok at Coffee and Cases podcast. Because as these families know, conversation helps to keep their missing family member in the public consciousness, helping to keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:05:18
Speaker
So now last week Maggie and I actually talked about how we posted on Facebook in some of the groups that were members of asking for help in finding out lesser known cases that don't get the coverage in the media that every single victim missing person deserves and
00:05:43
Speaker
Maggie mentioned last week we were flooded with so many worthy cases and I think I stopped counting after like 260 something cases but Maggie I don't know if I told you this but I wrote down every single one of them in a list and Maggie and I have talked about how we vow to cover
00:06:10
Speaker
these cases.
Karen Swift's Personal Life and Challenges
00:06:12
Speaker
So many family members reached out, just wanting coverage, wanting you, Sleuthhounds, to hear and to help. And obviously, it'll take us time to cover all of those cases that were brought to our attention. You know, at one a week, we have enough for the next four years. I think I mentioned that in the last episode. But
00:06:31
Speaker
You can put your faith in the fact that Maggie and I will work to help find closure. And sometimes in cases like the one that I'm covering today, Maggie, it's a little bit harder to find closure because there's so much suspicion and so many accusations.
00:06:53
Speaker
The town where this week's case is set is a small one. It's about the size of your town, Maggie. So in this town where this week's case is set in Dyersburg, Tennessee, there's actually fewer than 18,000 people. And that was according to the 2010 census in this case is in 2011. So that's pretty accurate. Yeah, that's a small town.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yep. And we've talked about it before. We know in small towns, they aren't exactly the place where you can let accusations go. Instead, they're flying everywhere because there's no hiding. So they follow you, they haunt you.
00:07:40
Speaker
They're everywhere. And as I mentioned in the introduction, our case this week is from 2011, and it happened in the days leading up to Halloween. I also mentioned that Karen Swift's life had been pretty tumultuous recently.
00:08:01
Speaker
So she had plans to actually it was on a Saturday, attend a Halloween party on the night of October 29th. And I'm sure she was hoping that this party would like provide some much needed relaxation and fun. How old was Karen? She was 44. Okay.
00:08:20
Speaker
So a little bit older than me. I feel old sometimes, but still getting around. Not in the home yet. That's right. She had a little less than three weeks earlier, though Maggie filed for divorce from her husband, David.
00:08:44
Speaker
And I mean, we all know this to be true. Any relationship ending is hard. And with children involved, it was even harder for the Swifts. They had actually originally married in 1989 when Karen was just 22. They had four children together, two sons and two daughters.
00:09:06
Speaker
And in 2011, when this week's case took place, the two sons were actually attending college. So they had had them early in their marriage, but the couple's daughters were only nine and seven. That's really similar to some girls that I grew up with. They were twins and their siblings were in college when we were like in sixth grade. So their family, like their parents had them later in life too.
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, so that, I mean, that's pretty similar then. And according to most of the reports that I read, Maggie, Karen had a wonderful relationship with her children. One report for WREG News interviewed a neighbor of the Swifts who said that he would often see Karen out jogging with the kids. And that neighbor noted that she and her children were always together. And Karen's father, Gary Johnson, told ABC News
00:10:03
Speaker
that quote she never missed a day since they can remember that she wasn't there to wake the girls up at six am always with them. You know like dependable for them her relationship with her husband david on the other hand was not so rosy.
00:10:23
Speaker
An article by Dennis Farrier for Fox 17 News revealed that it had their marriage, in fact, been rocky for quite a long time. And there wasn't any history of physical domestic violence, but there was a lot of toxic emotional manipulation on both sides, in my opinion.
00:10:44
Speaker
and that Fox 17 article noted that both Karen and David frequently had for quite some time cheated on one another and they had actually divorced once before and then remarried. So Karen having filed for divorce on October 10th would actually make the second divorce for the couple. Okay that's different but okay.
00:11:11
Speaker
Right. So, I mean, I guess, you know, they had too many differences before. And I guess that could explain the age difference of the kids, too. True.
00:11:21
Speaker
Karen's friend, Laura Jane, told David Law of the Huffington Post, quote, their relationship was pretty volatile. She wanted to leave with the kids and start over. She wouldn't leave her kids behind. That was the only reason she was still in that marriage. She wanted them to have a stable environment until she got her stuff together, end quote. Okay, so I feel like a lot of people maybe suffer through unhappy marriages for the sake of their children.
00:11:50
Speaker
But kids are smart, and so they probably had picked up on some of the unhappiness. Right. And it seems, based on an article that was in the International Business Times, David and Karen had already come to at least some of the agreements
00:12:07
Speaker
on things like custody. They had filled out the child support paperwork. So it didn't appear that there was any necessarily big conflict than is normal in a divorce proceeding. Okay, gotcha.
00:12:24
Speaker
Rumors, however, were swirling concerning Karen. And remember, this is a small town. People in small towns take sides and they talk. Yes. The rumors were that Karen had gotten involved with a couple who were known to be swingers and that she had participated in some activities that she herself was not proud of. OK, that's different.
00:12:53
Speaker
Right, and especially in a small town. You can see why rumors would fly if there's even any part of that that's true. Private investigator Heather Cohen noted that the rumors tended to center around accusations of Karen having sexual relationships with married men and also having taken risque pictures with other women.
00:13:20
Speaker
So again, most of the rumors are
The Night of Karen's Disappearance
00:13:23
Speaker
of a sexual nature concerning Karen. And some of the rumors were so specific that they said even like one rumor said Karen had a burner phone that was provided to her by that Swinger couple and that they would call Karen for sexual jobs and then pick her up and drive her to meet others. And again, these are rumors
00:13:48
Speaker
But I'm sharing them with you because some of the theories surrounding her death are related to those rumors. And I feel like, you know, we've talked about this before, people's past or rumors about them kind of define how
00:14:04
Speaker
their cases are covered or handled by police and it really shouldn't because at the end of the day, they're still a person and they still have a family. Exactly, exactly. And I guess that's where I'm torn with all of this because obviously I want to be fair to Karen and that's why I keep saying, you know, these are rumors. But then at the same time, I also want to be truthful with the information that's out there, you know,
00:14:32
Speaker
So here is what we do know. We know that Karen, again, was about to have to be able to afford everything on her own, because she's getting ready to go through this divorce, and that she was looking for additional income at the time. So if the rumors are untrue, that search for additional money could be like the impetus behind those rumors, like, oh, she needs money. She'll do whatever. Right.
00:15:02
Speaker
Karen had been a track athlete and she participated in 5Ks. Again, kudos to her. I get winded like walking from my living room to the core.
00:15:16
Speaker
But because she was so athletic and in shape, she had taken a job as a personal trainer at the YMCA. Good for you, Karen. Yes. And according to friends, though, obviously that salary wasn't going to be enough, affording things on her own. So she was looking for side jobs. And here's where the stories diverge. And the information that we get both ways, and again, both of these
00:15:44
Speaker
pieces of information could be true. But because they're coming from friends, I think that's another reason why a lot of the rumors continued. But one friend said that Karen had asked her about some potential cleaning jobs to earn some extra money on the side. And that friend just happened to need somebody to clean this Habitat for Humanity house that was in foreclosure.
00:16:09
Speaker
And she said Karen jumped at the chance. And there's actually a text conversation to prove that they had talked about this Habitat for Humanity house. And this was like in the days leading up to Karen's disappearance. Karen had been working on cleaning up that home. Okay.
00:16:27
Speaker
And so the last full day before her disappearance on Saturday, October 29th, so again, her last full day where we know that she's alive, at 2 PM that day, Karen texted her friend that she was going to finish cleaning the house early in the morning, referring to October 30th, the morning that Karen actually disappeared. OK.
00:16:52
Speaker
So she had plans for that next morning. Okay. Obviously would indicate she hadn't just like run away. Yeah. The other story though, which was according to another friend was that Karen had told her that she was involved with a married man and that
00:17:15
Speaker
quote, some people had given her $10,000 to help her pay for her divorce, but that Karen wasn't necessarily happy about receiving that money. In fact, that friend, Erin Gray, told Dennis Farrier of Fox 17 that she had stated to Karen like something like, oh, that was nice of them to give you that money. But Karen's response was, quote, nobody is nice here.
00:17:44
Speaker
everything comes with a price. Yeah, so that is definitely ominous. Yeah, that makes me worried already. And Karen had actually told that same friend that she was caught up in like this tangled mess that she wasn't sure how to get out of.
00:18:08
Speaker
But she did, the friend did tell the reporter that this tangled mess had nothing to do with Karen soon to be ex-husband David. So whatever mess she's in, it's not related to her soon to be ex.
00:18:25
Speaker
So we have two different stories about where Karen is getting her money. Both could be true. We do have text evidence for the first one. And as for the second one, actually Maggie, several sources did say that Karen had received money from someone recently and all of those sources said that the total was $10,000. But that doesn't mean that she was like doing inappropriate things to get the money. She could have known someone who was wealthy and they just gave her the money.
00:18:55
Speaker
Right, and that is, I'm glad you said that, because to me, that gift of $10,000 indicates two things. Number one, that the person who gave it to her is wealthy, because who has $10,000 to just be like, here you go. Not me. Right? Yeah, me neither. And the second thing it tells me is that whoever gave it to her was close to her.
00:19:21
Speaker
Because $10,000 isn't something that you're just going to give to an acquaintance. Right. Unless you just have so much money, you don't know what to do with it. Right.
00:19:31
Speaker
So regardless, Karen Swift must have been obviously under a lot of stress because of all the recent events. And as I mentioned before, it's very likely that this Halloween party that was to be held at the Farms Clubhouse, this country club in the area, on that Saturday before Halloween on October 29th, again, this was the night before her disappearance, that the idea of a party would be a welcome distraction.
00:19:57
Speaker
So she got her Catwoman costume ready. Because she's going to look good as Catwoman. Good for you. That's right. Good for her because if I tried to, I'd look more like, you know, female Garfield. Yeah, I've had four sugar cookies today. So in fact, I ate one for breakfast. But for Karen, the party actually wasn't a distraction at all.
00:20:23
Speaker
Private investigator Heather Cohen found evidence that Karen, who had gone to the party with the couple, rumored to be swingers. Okay, that looks bad. Right. That she had texted a friend saying that she felt like a third wheel. So again, if the rumor's true and she is involved with this couple, that comment makes sense.
00:20:46
Speaker
even if that is really a rumor, the comment makes sense that she goes, you know, maybe doesn't really know anybody and feels out of place, whatever. But things went from bad to worse because Karen then got into an altercation with one of the other party goers, a female. And again, either because it's the truth or because rumors tend to compound,
00:21:16
Speaker
This young woman with whom Karen had gotten into an altercation is said to either be the daughter of someone with whom Karen had or was rumored to have a relationship or the wife of someone with whom Karen was believed to have had a relationship. But again, this is just rumor.
The Search for Karen Swift
00:21:34
Speaker
We don't know this to be true, correct? Like we know she got to a fight, but we don't know
00:21:40
Speaker
like who this woman was. Right. We don't know the extent of Karen's relationships with any of these individuals. Okay. So when Karen's daughter called her around 1 30 to 1 45 a.m. to say that she wanted to come home because she wasn't feeling well and needed her mom to pick her up, her daughter had been at a sleepover.
00:22:02
Speaker
Instead of that phone call being like a mood buster, Karen was probably excited because, you know, now she has an excuse to leave. Oh, listen, I'm not that big of a like party person or like, you know, big crowd type of person. So if I had an excuse like that, it'd be like, sorry, I got to go go pick up my kids.
00:22:20
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm sure Karen felt the same and she was said to have gotten her car from her friend's house and then left right away to go pick up her daughter.
00:22:34
Speaker
And Karen did pick up her daughter and brought her home. Her soon to be ex-husband David saw Karen come in the home and walk upstairs with their daughter. They had some sort of conversation as she was walking in. And Karen laid with her daughter for a little bit before carrying that daughter into the other daughter's bedroom so they could just kind of lay side by side.
00:22:58
Speaker
And according to a change.org petition from that private investigator, Heather Cohen, the nine year old daughter remembers the clock reading 3 a.m. OK. OK. But then the girls woke up at 6 a.m. on October 30th, only three hours after Karen had tucked them in together and the girls didn't see their mom, which is weird.
00:23:25
Speaker
Right, because if you remember, the mom was always there waking them up at 6 a.m., but not on this morning. This morning, she was not at home at all. So sometime in that roughly three hour span, Karen had left the home. David had gone to bed and he hadn't seen her leave.
00:23:51
Speaker
The girls were asleep. They didn't see her leave. But Karen and her car were gone. One of Karen's friends actually spotted her car, this white 2004 Nissan Murano, on the side of the road and had called the sheriff's office. The car was less than a quarter mile from her home. And unlike the Paige Wankowski case that you covered, Maggie, a couple of weeks ago,
00:24:20
Speaker
At least in this case, it was obvious why the car was stopped on the side of the road because one of the tires was flat. There was a screw in one of the tires. But it wasn't like turned on and running with her shoes in the car, like in Paige's case. Right. Right. But here's this car on the side of the road and the friends kept seeing it. So they call the sheriff's office about it. And again, this car is only about a quarter mile from Karen's home.
00:24:49
Speaker
Inside the car Maggie was her Catwoman costume from the night before.
00:24:55
Speaker
And some reports state that some other pieces of Karen's clothing, like a pair of jeans and a gray zip up, were found outside of the car in the surrounding bushes. Okay, that people could have got in her car. And true. Like, yeah, like scavenge. Yeah. And I couldn't find anywhere whether DNA evidence had proven that the clothing items belong to her. But
00:25:20
Speaker
Karen's friend Lauren Jane reported to Huffington Post that police had used Karen's mother's DNA and that the clothing was proven a match. But her purse was gone from the car.
00:25:38
Speaker
And obviously, so was Karen. But if you got a flat tire, you got to take your purse so that you have money to pay to get it fixed. That is true. What doesn't make sense about her not being there is that, I don't know if you remember, I mentioned this, Karen was a runner. And you know, again, as I said, for me, maybe having to walk a quarter of a mile back home would feel like a pain. Oh, I forgot that she was that close to home.
00:26:05
Speaker
How did she not just run back to her house? Exactly. Like she's a runner. She runs 5Ks all the time. She's a personal trainer for heaven's sake. So like a quarter mile jog back home would have been nothing compared to running a 5K because 5K is like a little over three miles. So this should have been easy for her, but she didn't come home. She wasn't seen anywhere by anyone.
00:26:33
Speaker
Hmm. That same afternoon of October 30th, because remember, that's where her car is found. 6 a.m., right? The kids wake up. She's not home. Friends spot her car on that same day on October 30th and call the police. So by that afternoon, when Karen hadn't returned home, David Swift actually called to report her missing after he had called like family members and friends that morning and nobody had seen Karen.
00:27:03
Speaker
OK, well, good job, David. Right, especially, you know, given the circumstances. A search party was organized on November 10th when she hadn't returned by then. So by that point, we're like 11 days out. Yeah. But they found nothing. And a few more weeks passed, no word from or about Karen.
00:27:25
Speaker
And Karen's father actually reported, and this breaks my heart Maggie, that her youngest daughter, remember she's only seven, just cried continually and wouldn't eat because she was so worried about her mom. That's so sad. I know.
00:27:43
Speaker
And it wasn't until around six weeks after Karen's disappearance that her body was discovered about three miles away from her home in a cemetery in Dyersburg just off of Harness Road and Burnt Mill Road.
Autopsy and Theories on Karen's Death
00:28:01
Speaker
And again, as I mentioned in the intro, decomposed and covered in those kudzu vines.
00:28:08
Speaker
But when the autopsy results revealed that this was the body of Karen Swift, a judge actually sealed the case, including the autopsy results and therefore the cause of death. So her family know that she's dead, but they don't know how she died. Right. And I thought that was weird. Even to this day?
00:28:29
Speaker
they do know now. See, in my mind, I thought that autopsies were public record. Well, if you remember the one case, I believe it was Haley Dunn, that her family, they don't know how she died. That is, yeah. I thought that was super bizarre. So I did some research into like why autopsies might be sealed. And I actually found that there are several reasons.
00:28:55
Speaker
Um, one is if it would outrage the public and obviously I don't want to be gruesome here, but for example, like if someone were raped by a foreign object, you know, things like that, that are kind of gross, like super gross. Yeah. Um, a second reason would be if it would influence potential juror. A third is,
00:29:21
Speaker
because of the difficulty for family members of the dead. So like if an autopsy being released would reveal sensitive family medical conditions, then maybe you wouldn't want the public to know.
00:29:35
Speaker
So in that case, it would directly affect the living because it might reveal private information. Like an STD or something like that. Exactly. Yep. Things like that. And the last reason, and this was the big one, was if releasing the records would impede the criminal investigation.
00:29:55
Speaker
So makes sense. But so for several years, no one knew what was in that autopsy because remember Karen died in 2011.
00:30:07
Speaker
And it wasn't until seven years after Karen's death in 2018 that a journalist for the Tennessee River Valley News, a man by the name of Burton Staggs, made an open records request to the state examiner's office for Karen Swift's autopsy report, and they sent it to him. Just, okay, here you go.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, apparently there was a miscommunication about whether it was closed or whether it was open access. And so they sent him the autopsy and that's how we gained some more information about the case. So the autopsy showed that Karen had died from blunt force trauma to the head.
00:30:54
Speaker
she had no defensive wounds, which makes us infer that either she knew her killer or she was at least taken unawares. And while she did suffer several skull fractures, the wound patterns to like her frontal lobe and temporal lobes made it obvious that she had been facing her attack. Okay, so clearly she had to have known this person
00:31:21
Speaker
because you can't really be taken unaware if they're facing you. Right. According to the sheriff in an article for ABC News, there was no indication that she had been killed in a different location, which to me
00:31:38
Speaker
makes me think, cause remember her car is only a quarter of a mile away from her home, but her body is in a cemetery that is three miles away from her home. So she somehow got from the car that is broken down three miles away. So did she run to the cemetery? I don't know. Like, I don't know if like somebody stopped and offered to help because her tires flat.
00:32:08
Speaker
And she rode in someone's car to that. But again, like you said, I feel like I would just be like, no, I'm fine. I can walk back to my house. Right. Or like, but she had to have left her house for a reason too. Yeah. Maybe she didn't want to go back. Right. So I don't know if she was going to like meet somebody, if she was going to go back to the party, if I don't know, we don't know.
00:32:37
Speaker
Um, so she could have even like called a friend and, or again, if the rumors are true, she could have called one of those people and then something happened. Right. Um, and that person turned on her. Like we.
00:32:56
Speaker
Basically, the only details we have is that her car was a quarter of a mile away, her body was found three miles away, and the sheriff does not believe that she was killed in a different location. So, believes that she was killed in the cemetery. Okay. She was found, this is again an autopsy, partially clothed, found only in a pair of black underwear that was pulled down around her thighs.
00:33:26
Speaker
which to me suggests sexually motivated crime. Yes. Or like humiliation. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Her body was too decomposed to tell if there had been a sexual assault, but I did read that her body was found in a quote, unusual position. So was she like buried?
00:33:55
Speaker
No, the vines had covered her. But remember, and that's why I kind of mentioned it at the beginning, how quickly these vines grow. And so she was concealed by the vines and she was not buried. Yeah, I literally watched them like the house across the creek from where we live. The people moved out and like just nobody moved in and the house eventually burnt down. And within one summer Kudzu vines covered like the pool that they had, like everything that was over there. Oh yeah. And
00:34:25
Speaker
I thought that detail too about her body being found in an unusual position. Like I have no idea what that position was or like what an unusual position would be. Well that again just kind of makes me think sexually motivated because what like that's the only thing I could think of unusual position would be used for. Yeah.
00:34:51
Speaker
But then we have to ask like, who would have acted in so much rage against Karen? Why was her body found roughly three miles away from where her car was left parked on the side of the road? Why had she gone in that direction instead of the direction of her house, right? And like, at least if you got a flat tire, think, okay, well, I'm going to go back home and call someone. Well, have we, have we given a lot of picture tests to David?
00:35:21
Speaker
You're probably gonna talk about it. I will talk about it. I will go ahead and tell you I did not read anything about a lie detector test, but we'll talk about the suspect. Okay. So there are actual several, actually several theories about who might have had enough anger to commit the crime. So I'm going to go through four main theories with you, Maggie, and with you, Sleuthhounds. So number one theory is the neighbor.
00:35:52
Speaker
So while authorities were searching the wooded areas for Karen's body, they actually came across a man who had been arrested for aggravated animal cruelty. First on that you are a psychopath. Right. And like, I didn't know exactly what that, like the legal definition for that
00:36:11
Speaker
um charge was. So I looked it up and the animal law statutes for Tennessee defined aggravated animal cruelty as this Maggie quote conduct which is done or carried out in a depraved and sadistic manner in which tortures or maims an animal resulting in substantial risk of death or death end quote. Yeah so you're a psychopath.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yes. Well, this man, this neighbor had allegedly, and again, because these are allegations and not convictions, is why I'm not saying his name, had allegedly intentionally poisoned two dogs. And one of those dogs belonged to the Swift family. Oh, if someone poisoned Emma, Anthony would literally go berserk.
00:37:09
Speaker
He would be arrested. Yeah. And I mean, several sources that I read noted that Karen had actually gone to this neighbor's house to talk to him about the poisoning. But most of those sources said that when she went there, that he wasn't home. But that leads us to question like, could he have found out, you know, that she had come by and he felt, you know, confronted by her and he wanted to get revenge?
00:37:38
Speaker
But once he was questioned and his vehicle was impounded, there was no solid evidence to link him to Karen's death or to her disappearance. Yeah, I don't like this theory mainly because
00:37:52
Speaker
I just don't feel like he would be angry enough to kill her. If anybody was going to be angry enough to kill someone, it would have been Karen. You just poisoned her dog. Right. Exactly. Theory two is the husband. Obviously, Maggie, you and I talk about this a lot in almost any investigation of a missing spouse, especially one that is about to be an ex-spouse. Again.
00:38:18
Speaker
Yeah, the living spouse will likely be the prime suspect. And Karen's case was no exception, right? He's like the number one suspect for most people. According to source, wreg.org, Dyer County Chief Investigator Terry McCrate believed that since David hired like a high profile lawyer, that he was being, quote, uncooperative.
00:38:46
Speaker
McCraid actually stated, quote, he has never assisted us in searching for her. I mean, he has never assisted, nor has he helped in trying to locate her during that time. End quote. Okay. So the high profile lawyer, I can justify because you are going to be the prime suspect. So you need a good lawyer. The not
00:39:09
Speaker
assisting in the search for, I mean, even if she's not your wife, you don't love her like that, she's still the mother of your children and you should do that for them. Right. And there are other things
00:39:23
Speaker
other reasons why people suspect David. He was, self-admittedly, like he says he was the last person to see her alive, right? So that's another reason he's on the police radar because he said like he talked to her that night. So he's the last person to speak to her.
00:39:42
Speaker
And you know, you add those things to the fact that they're getting ready to get a divorce. And investigators did find out that Karen had been seeking a
Party Altercations and Suspects
00:39:52
Speaker
split of the marital property, which included the home, which would likely mean the home would have to be sold, that she was seeking permanent alimony.
00:40:04
Speaker
and was wanting portions of the two large bonuses that David was set to receive from work. And you see why he's an easy target. And additionally, he took
00:40:21
Speaker
And I can't remember reading how long after she was found. He took the girls and he moved from Tennessee to Arkansas. Okay. But I don't think that necessarily like says I'm guilty. I'm guilty. Like that says my kids are young and they need to leave this trauma behind. So we're moving. I completely agree because
00:40:46
Speaker
Like just as there are clues that seem to implicate David, there's also details that seem to prove his innocence and why I personally am inclined to think that it wasn't him.
00:40:59
Speaker
So here's what I read about that make me think it was not David. Okay. So David stated that he moved his family actually because they were being harassed, which again, small town, I do believe by those who thought he was guilty. Yeah. Or just even nosy people or the media. Yes. I 100% agree. And I wouldn't want to be raising my children around people who are constantly spreading rumors telling them that their daddy is a murderer.
00:41:30
Speaker
Right. Second, at least he was honest about having spoken with Karen that night when she came home, right? Even though he knew that made him the last person that spoke to her. Yeah, he still said it. And one report said that he had actually withdrawn his 401k to pay for Karen's funeral and that he also had to make additional payments to cover the full cost. So you're not going to do that. So that isn't, yeah.
00:41:59
Speaker
Third, David had had surgery right before Karen's death and he was on crutches at the time. So like it's unlikely that he would have been able to commit the crime. Unless he hit her with the crutches on the head. Do we know what type of object? Well, they said it was something like heavy metal, like a tire iron or a hammer. Okay. Something like that.
00:42:25
Speaker
But fourth, again, I don't know exactly what this means. But David's high profile attorney that he hired argued that all of the evidence against David was only circumstantial. But here's the part that I'm not sure what it means. So this attorney also said that while he did not, quote, want to speak badly about Karen,
00:42:51
Speaker
there were some things going on that were quite unusual," end quote. I know. So things that the public doesn't know about, obviously. So a stranger than possibly being involved with swingers? Well, I'm wondering if that is what he's referring to. You never want to speak badly either of the victims.
00:43:20
Speaker
But I mean, again, they're still victims. We talk about this all the time. And you just mentioned it earlier, no matter what they were battling in their personal lives. Yeah. So even if these rumors are true, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Like she still deserves justice. Exactly. But the fifth reason I don't believe David did it is because detectives searched the family home on three separate occasions after Karen's disappearance and they found nothing.
00:43:48
Speaker
And then the final reason was something that this writer Ted Bauer said in his defense of David Swift, and I just thought this was a really interesting way of looking at it, but he said, quote, most husbands get caught in these cases because they make some grievous mistake because they're not killers. They're just husbands at the end of their rope who do something hideous, end quote.
00:44:16
Speaker
So like, there would have been a slip up. I mean, yeah. Like he's not a professional killer, so he's probably going to have some type of mistake that's going to indicate that it was him. Theory three is a stranger.
00:44:29
Speaker
Karen Swift was this petite five-foot-five woman with blonde hair, green eyes, and there are those out there who believe, due to a similarity of appearance, that she could have been a victim of the same perpetrator who abducted a nursing student named Holly Bobo from a town only 80 miles away.
00:44:53
Speaker
And I mean, she did get a flat tire, so potentially anyone could have stopped. Like, it could have been a stranger who said, hey, I'll give you a lift. Where are you going? Yeah, but I mean, I still feel like if she sensed danger, she would just run. She's a runner. She could outrun anyone.
00:45:11
Speaker
I agree. And the fact that she was killed in a cemetery in a small town, like that seems to tell me that this wasn't likely a stranger to the town. Yeah. And it's, I know her body wasn't covered up. I know it was left there, but the fact that she's found in a cemetery and there's a belief that that is where her murder took place.
00:45:41
Speaker
is almost like the killer, it was intentional that was there versus like a crime of opportunity, which I would be more likely if it's a stranger. The final theory, theory four, and you won't know what I mean by this yet until I describe it to you, is the distinguished gentleman and or his wife.
00:46:10
Speaker
We know that there were reports that Karen had gotten into an altercation with a woman at the Farms Clubhouse Halloween party. Remember that? Yes. I mentioned she got into an altercation. Okay. Other reports actually state that there were two separate altercations at that party.
00:46:30
Speaker
one from the wife of a man with whom Karen was rumored to be having an intimate relationship, and the other woman, a daughter of a prominent man in the community with whom Karen had been involved. So instead of it being questionable which one of the women she had an altercation with, other stories state that she had altercations with both women. Oh, okay.
00:46:58
Speaker
which would again imply that Karen was having multiple sexual relationships with people. Because the one altercation was a wife. And the other was a daughter. And the other was a daughter of a man with whom she was rumored to be involved. But since these altercations took place at the clubhouse at this country club, they would have been recorded on the club's security footage.
00:47:23
Speaker
But the police can't use the footage as a clue Maggie and you want to know why? Has it been deleted? Pretty close because 10 days after that Halloween party somebody broke into the country club and the only thing they stole? The security cameras. Oh, that's fishy though. Yep.
00:47:47
Speaker
Yep. So there are employees at this country club who confirmed to private investigator Heather Cohen that they had witnessed the altercations, which is why we know that they happened. But these employees were told that if they were asked about it, they were to deny any knowledge. So again, Fishy.
00:48:14
Speaker
There was a member of the community who also told the investigator that he had gone to the police to report seeing a man who might have been involved in the case but was told, Maggie, that he must have been dreaming and was sent on his way.
00:48:33
Speaker
And that man provided audio to that private investigator to back up that claim. So have like the FBI or some national force taken over this case so that it's out of the hands of small town politics.
00:48:49
Speaker
No. There is now the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation involved with the local sheriff's department. Most interesting though with this theory is that there were actually three independent witnesses and we've talked about how important that is. So three people who do not know each other, three independent witnesses who saw the same quote prominent man in the community.
Investigation Challenges and Ongoing Case
00:49:17
Speaker
with a metal detector in the cemetery near where Karen's body was later discovered. Like he was in the cemetery before Karen's body was discovered with a metal detector. Correct. And obviously that seems a strange spot to be searching for anything with a metal detector.
00:49:38
Speaker
Investigator Cohen reports that Dyersburg officers wouldn't even take the statements from those three individuals, nor would they even interview the quote, prominent man. And that private investigator Cohen actually made some serious allegations of corruption in the town that led to what were potentially threats against her life.
00:50:04
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. So this is, again, gets dirty pretty quickly in small towns. But police have reported that they are still investigating Karen Swift's case. In fact, police did disclose that Karen had last accessed her phone at 5 a.m. that Sunday morning on the 30th to get on the internet. Now, what she looked up is not public information.
00:50:34
Speaker
But we at least know that she, I guess, maybe based on what she looked up, they figure it was her. Yeah, I was gonna say happy to. Right. And the district Attorney General Danny Goodman Jr. actually stated the following quote,
00:50:52
Speaker
The file, talking about Karen Swift's file, is very expansive. It actually starts from the birth of Karen Swift and goes from the date of her death and even information after that. It's a very large file, lots of volumes. It's going to take me a while to get through everything we have." End quote.
00:51:14
Speaker
And I just want to end by breaking down that statement and adding to it a couple of other weird coincidences. Like first, that comment is super odd to me. Like why would her file start with the date of her birth? Yeah, unless there are things in her past that would maybe connect to her death. Maybe.
00:51:39
Speaker
Maybe like, why would it be so expensive? You know, because I've told you everything that we know and rumors, right? So like, is this district attorney general just saying this, you know, so the public like gets off of the back of law enforcement, you know, and, and really they have nothing or do they actually have so much
00:52:06
Speaker
But if so, why hasn't there been an arrest? This reminds me a whole lot of the Crystal Rogers case, which we haven't covered but has been covered eight.
00:52:16
Speaker
Mainly because it has been covered so much in Kentucky. But this reminds me a lot of her case. Yeah. And again, with police involvement here, there are also allegations of the county's Sheriff's Department of removing yard signs, questioning Karen Swift's death.
00:52:39
Speaker
Like there were reports that people would put yard signs up, like asking what happened to Karen Swift and like calling out law enforcement, only to have law enforcement take down those yard signs.
00:52:50
Speaker
There's one report that alleged that there had been attempts to subpoena local law enforcement because of a potential relationship between Karen Swift and a high ranking law enforcement officer in the area to which another officer stated to the investigator, quote, I will only answer that question if I'm under oath, end quote.
00:53:21
Speaker
Wow. So was she involved with a law enforcement officer and that law enforcement officer doesn't want it to come to light? You know, but again, we kind of need to know everything that we can because we're, this is a murder investigation. Yeah. What are your thoughts, Maggie, of those theories? I don't know that it was really any of those people. Who were you thinking?
00:53:51
Speaker
Like I don't believe the stranger or no, I don't believe the stranger theory. I don't leave the neighbor theory. I don't think that it was her husband. I don't think that it necessarily was a prominent man. Like if you're that prominent in society, like I don't think that at least in Maggie's world, like you wouldn't risk like your reputation by murdering someone. But I do kind of think that it had to have been
00:54:18
Speaker
Maybe somebody at the party. I totally agree.
00:54:23
Speaker
Oh. I believe, and that's what I was going to say, I don't want to allege that the murderer was that prominent man. I mean, he could have been involved, but he could have also just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I do believe what you just said with every ounce of my being that the guilty person was at that party, because why else would the cameras have been stolen? Yeah, that was the big thing for me.
00:54:53
Speaker
was the cameras being stolen. And the employees like sworn to secrecy basically. Yeah which I mean I guess kind of points to like someone that would be more prominent in the community but I just like again like I don't like you said I should think he was maybe in the wrong place wrong time. Well like we said Maggie though somebody at that party knows who did it.
00:55:24
Speaker
And it's kind of like that game of clue where each person has to be ruled out one by one until there's only one left. While Karen Swift cannot speak and call out her attacker, perhaps she can still provide evidence that will lead to closure for her family.
00:55:48
Speaker
While details have not been released to the public, the Tennessee Valley News reported that evidence was recovered from Karen's hands. My assumption is that it is DNA evidence, either skin or hair.
00:56:04
Speaker
Additionally, Sheriff Jeff Box has stated that there were items taken from her car that could be key to solving her murder, that some of the items contained DNA evidence, and that he had sent for records for the GPS tracker on her phone to know exactly where she went after that Halloween party. Her purse is still also, from my understanding, missing. Where is it?
00:56:33
Speaker
and what additional secrets might it be holding? But for now, we wait. Karen's family waits. Carol Johnson, Karen's mother, told WMCA and NBC affiliate station, quote, I think if I could know who to be angry at, I think I could start to heal. But as it is, it's just an open wound every day, end quote.
00:57:01
Speaker
She waits for closure, for the soothing salve of information. And we wait too, Sleuthhounds. We wait for more clues to come to light, potentially from those who heard something, saw something, know something.
00:57:20
Speaker
Luckily, guilt has a way of growing just like that kudzu plant until it feels like it's killing the happiness and peace of the one it's growing inside. And the only thing that can kill that sense of guilt is finally, urgently speaking the truth before it's too late.
00:57:48
Speaker
Anyone with information in Karen Swift's case should contact the Dyer County Sheriff's Office as 731-285-2802 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND. That is 1-800-824-3463.
00:58:16
Speaker
Again, please like and join us on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and to see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Instagram at Coffee Cases podcast and on TikTok at Coffee and Cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to Coffee and Cases podcast at gmail.com.
00:58:37
Speaker
Please tell your friends about our podcast so that more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to write our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon. Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.