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Chapter 1: What happened to Karen Swift after the Halloween party?
Hi, I'm Brad Milkey. I'm the host of The Crime Scene Weekly, a new show from ABC Audio about the latest headlines in true crime. This week, I'm talking about the shocking allegations against the Alexander Brothers, once the golden boys of luxury real estate, now facing serious sex crime charges. Listen to The Crime Scene Weekly on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
A mother of four gone missing then found murdered.
It's the Karen Swift story. The woman last seen alive at a Halloween party and was a second woman also in danger and all new 2020 starts right now.
It was a really big deal. This beautiful blonde headed lady comes up missing after Halloween party.
It was just supposed to be a fun night out, adults only.
What's the overall view of this young mom who suddenly goes missing?
People like Karen. They like being around her.
Tonight, the shocking trial and the ex-wife you'll only see on 2020.
This is a man I was married to that I shouldn't have been afraid of. But what about his first wife?
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Chapter 2: What evidence was found in Karen Swift's case?
They didn't know anyone in Dyer County, and they made the move here. apparently for the schools. There are some good schools in this area.
Together, David and Karen Swift had four kids, two boys and two younger girls, including their daughter Ashley.
Growing up, my mom was very involved. She loved taking us to sports, dance, cheer. She just had that very caring and nurturing personality.
She was just a wonderful mother. She would do anything for her children. They were number one in her life. They came before anything else.
Karen was always kind of a fun-loving, bubbly type of personality. Tried to, even when things were not going particularly well, tried to keep a positive attitude.
Her friends really liked her, and she had a lot of friends. She was someone who was beautiful, someone who appeared to be happy with her life, and things appeared to be going very well for her.
Karen was outgoing, gregarious. She made friends very easily. People liked Karen. They liked being around her.
And on this cool, clear October night, Karen was headed out with her friends, while her daughter Ashley, who was nine at the time, was heading to a sleepover at her friend's house.
I remember I was staying at a friend's house, and my mom was going to a Halloween party with some of her friends, and my dad was going to stay home with my sister.
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Chapter 3: Who were the main suspects in Karen's disappearance?
So she shows up missing. There was a lot of different theories about what was going on. There were many clouds of suspicion. It was a really big deal. This beautiful, blonde-headed lady, mother of four, comes up missing after a Halloween party. Everybody was talking about it.
The morning of Karen's disappearance, her car is discovered less than a half mile away from her home.
At the corner of Millsfield Highway and Harness in Dyer County is where the broken down SUV of 44-year-old Karen Swift was found.
I saw the car sit there for a day or so.
Karen's gone, and that's what's important, and we just want her to come back.
You could walk to it. It wasn't that far away on the highway, and it was there with a flat tire. So that's a clue. Her car's there.
Karen's vehicle was on the side of the road on Millsfield Highway right next to Harness Road. That's the road that Karen had lived on. Karen was not there.
It was in a normal state. It was parked on the side of the road. It had a flat tire to the right side. The investigation revealed that it was a screw in the tire.
Why would her car be up there? If she had come home, there was no one who said Karen walked home from up on the highway. So it would appear that Karen had left. But it wasn't very far for her to suddenly get a flat tire either.
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Chapter 4: How did the community react to Karen's disappearance?
A suspect emerges for investigators. As the search for Karen Swift continues, investigators cast a wide net for suspects and leads.
There was a man that she had met at a concert about 20 miles from Dyersburg across the Mississippi River.
It never grew into a full romantic relationship. It was more of an acquaintance. I think they talked on the phone a few times, maybe sent text messages back a few times, but it never developed any further than that.
His last text to Karen was she told him that she was at the Halloween party hanging out with some friends. And his last text was something essentially, great, text me sometime, I'd love to take you out to dinner. And we quickly concluded that, you know, obviously it didn't sound like somebody who was obsessed and he was ruled out as a suspect.
Found out where he was at the time of her disappearance and that alibi I checked out.
But investigators have another possible lead to follow as they learn of a terrible conflict between Karen Swift and one of her neighbors.
John Hogshear lived across the road diagonal from their residence.
Caddy cornered probably not more than 150 feet from their home.
Mr. Hogshear had previously had a criminal matter charged against him regarding some sort of issue with one of their dogs.
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Chapter 5: What clues pointed to foul play in Karen Swift's case?
I would say probably somewhere in the middle of the week.
This past week?
Yeah.
Whenever she came up missing, probably in the middle of the week.
Did somebody tell you?
Did you see it on the news?
How did I find out? Well, I don't have TV, so I don't watch TV, so I don't know how I found out. My wife may have told me. I don't remember. I think because I honestly don't know.
As soon as they started talking to him, he was extremely cooperative.
Where is my truck?
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Chapter 6: What were the circumstances surrounding Karen's death?
With Hogshooter cleared, the investigation continues. At this point, the most important unanswered question, where is Karen?
Some people just walk away from their lives. It happens all the time. Without a body, they don't know that a crime's been committed.
We constantly relied on getting them to the media. Of course, the sheriff would make press releases, social media. Everybody knew that we were trying to locate her.
There's a landmark in Dyer County, and it's a large cross where you can see it from a good distance. And near that within a few hundred feet is a cemetery.
Bledsoe Cemetery is very spread out. Some of the headstones there are over a hundred years old and even older. It's a very rural area. A local pastor and a congregant were in Bledsoe Cemetery on December 10th examining overturned headstones. And as they're surveying this type of damage, they notice a human body part coming out of some kudzu bushes.
Karen Swift has been missing for six weeks at this point. The police arrive and head to this nearby area full of kudzu.
Kudzu, they're vines, and kudzu can cover everything. It can cover very large trees and hang down. Kudzu can cover everything that it crawls across, and it crawls across almost everything.
And this is the kudzu that was... This is the kudzu area.
And all of this was in kudzu. Every bit of this was in kudzu.
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Chapter 7: How did the investigation unfold after Karen's body was found?
It didn't seem like David was happy with those friends, and they weren't especially happy with David either.
It was clear that once she started this friendship with these new friends, that she was moving away from David.
It was midnight. I heard her sneaking out of there.
He talked about it in that police interview.
It did get to a point where I feel like there was a little bit of shift in my family and my mom was going out more, which made me start to question why.
As investigators learn details about what was going on, questions are raised about the nature of David's behavior towards Karen and if his alleged behavior crossed a line.
When David got upset is when Karen would be absent from the house. He wanted to know where she was.
He would wake up. She would be gone. And he would get out to see where she was at.
David might be following her, but to him, it made perfect sense. He told people he had reason to worry about her and their kids. And his attorney says he thought she might be cheating on him.
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Chapter 8: What was the outcome of the trial related to Karen Swift's murder?
It was only 20 days after she filed for divorce that Karen went missing.
To investigators, it's a lot of smoke. But the truth is, there is simply no hard evidence linking David Swift to the crime. And the district attorney general in office at the time is not willing to charge him.
I think he was concerned that you only get one chance to try the case.
For more than a decade, the town wonders, is there a killer walking free? Then in 2022, finally, an arrest. Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me. And I got a chance to talk to that man from behind bars. Did you ever feel like you had a cloud of suspicion over you? Am I talking with the killer? And another woman emerges with a harrowing account.
How would what she says affect the Karen Swift case?
The night that Karen was last seen, she went to a Halloween party.
I mean, the body was here for a month.
Undetected.
They investigated and they investigated, and everyone was like, when are you going to find a suspect?
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