More than a decade has passed since mother and wife Karen Johnson Swift disappeared in her hometown of Dyersburg, Tennessee, after attending a Halloween party. Merely two miles from her residence, her corpse was discovered six weeks later.
The fact that someone so thoughtlessly flung her daughter into kudzu like a rag doll, according to Karen’s mother Carol, broke her heart to pieces.
Three weeks before Karen vanished, she filed for divorce from David Swift, her spouse, and investigators investigated her home and spoke with him.
Investigators were informed by David that he was the last person to see his wife on the evening of October 29, 2011, the night she disappeared. David claimed that she had left an early Halloween party to pick up one of the couple’s daughters from a sleepover due to the child’s fever. David claimed that when Karen got home after midnight, he had a little conversation with her. David reported Karen missing to the local police station the next morning.
Police found Karen’s 2004 Nissan Murano a few miles from her house that same morning. Her Halloween costume was still inside the abandoned SUV, one of the tires was torn, and Karen’s purse was gone. Then, not too far from her residence, Karen’s body was found next to a cemetery over six weeks after she was reported missing.
Husband David Swift was charged with premeditated first-degree murder more than ten years after the incident. David Swift was arrested in July 2023 in Jefferson County on charges of stalking his now ex-wife. Swift is back in custody after being released on bond. In the spring of 2024, he is scheduled to stand trial for the murder of his first wife.
What person, in your opinion, did this illegal act? Could it be that someone else—someone other than David Swift—committed the crime?