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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?
My mom was going out more, which made me start to question why.
When they found Karen's vehicle, it had a badly damaged flat tire. It appears that this screw was mainly inserted into the tire. It was literally screwed into the tire. So this is where you found the smashed cell phones? In this area here. Not one, but two smashed phones.
I thought maybe somebody saw her walking and grabbed her. She doesn't hold back. I can see Karen going over there and letting him have it. This case is wild, to put it mildly. It's wild because the circumstances are just so unique. Karen Swift's Halloween costume was a very sexy black costume.
Black skirt, black tights, black shoes. And she had a black kind of a Mardi Gras-type mask that she was wearing. I think she was supposed to be a cat. She had a skirt on. It was very form-fitting. So it was va-va-voom. It was.
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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.
Karen Swift went to the Halloween party with Bill Bona and Kathy Bona. The party was hosted by 15 to 20 different couples. The women kind of did all the decorations, put everything together. The guys just kind of showed up.
And it was just supposed to be a fun night out. Adults only dress up, have fun in a costume, and just socialize with one another. Karen arrived at the Halloween party probably around 8 or a little after 8 PM.
That night, Karen was in a pretty good mood. I mean, she was able to go out on the dance floor and talk to different people. People were drinking, having a good time, music was playing, people were out dancing. Karen was walking around, talking to several people. I remember seeing her on the dance floor at least one time.
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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.
Investigators believe that the tire had been manually deflated and that the screw had been intentionally inserted into the tire. Which begs the question, did somebody put it there on purpose to leave Karen stranded? When we observed the car, we noticed a screw in the tire. If you look at this very closely, it appears that this screw was manually inserted into the tire.
It was literally screwed into the tire. Literally screwed into the tire. And my theory was right once we sent it off for forensic analysis. It was mainly placed in that tire. And I wanted you to look at, show me this screw. This is one that you actually ran over. This is the screw I actually ran over in my patrol unit that went all the way up in the tire. And you can see where it was on the road.
Yeah. A lot of friction. A lot of friction. This screw has no friction. The lack of friction making investigators believe the screw hadn't been driven on. But how could that be? They had not been in Dyer County that long because they had moved there. Karen's from Pocahontas, Arkansas, which is about two hours from Dyersburg. And it was about four years later that she disappeared.
The Swifts seemed to have a great life in Pocahontas. They were young and in love and devoted parents, as their friend Holly Sutton tells us. We met through just public school and ended up being fast friends. They were excellent parents. They had rules. They were fairly strict. They did everything with their children.
We moved ultimately from my dad's job to Tennessee. It was just a better opportunity. I enjoyed it. It was very peaceful. I do think she was happy. I think that she wasn't necessarily fully herself in Tennessee.
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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. He had gained some notoriety in the neighborhood. He's kind of a rough around the edges fella generally. There was an issue where John Hogshooter had poisoned a couple of dogs in the neighborhood, and one of the dogs belonged to David and Karen Swift.
He put some poison, some sort of poison concoction out on his property. One of the Swift's dogs got into the poison and was also sickened. The Swift's dogs did not die. On October 7th, Karen actually went to this man's house to confront him about her dog being poisoned. John was eventually charged with animal cruelty in that case, and he actually pleaded guilty.
While one neighborhood dog did die from the poisoning, the Swift dog managed to survive after being rushed to the vet and having its stomach pumped, the incident creating bad blood between the neighbors. Anybody who owns a dog and they say their neighbor poisoned their dog, that would certainly be bad blood. I know Karen and the hog shooter guy, I knew of the fight they'd had.
She doesn't hold back. She doesn't hold back. Like, if she feels that she's got something to say, she's going to say it. When she was missing, he became one of the first suspects that the Sheriff's Department looked at.
Are you aware of what's going on out there where you live?
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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? It's locked up in an enclosed building. They impounded his vehicle. They got a search warrant, searched his house.
What I'm trying to say, if we want to look at your house, I'd rather for you not to go home before we got there. That's what I'm saying. Well, my clothes and stuff, I washed my clothes over at my daughter's house. So all my clothes, I'll probably go over there and take a shower and get my clothes for sure. I can't even get in because my key's in the truck. He's very relaxed.
He wasn't tense about it. It was obvious that, I mean, he wasn't nervous. I thought it was a good interview. There was no evidence in the end that pointed that John Hogshooter had any knowledge of this at all. But then investigators find Karen Swift's two cell phones, almost totally destroyed, near the property of John Hogshooter.
Finding these two phones very close to John's property was very concerning for the police. When we discovered the phones, they were damaged. They were crushed. Somebody might have stomped them and then pitched them there.
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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. So it was hiding everything here? Yes. And the body was found somewhere in this area, maybe near that tree stump.
The body was so badly decomposed, it was hard to tell how long it had been there. One thing was very clear, though. There was almost no way that this person just wandered off and somehow found themselves underneath these bushes and then somehow died. They certainly have an indication that it's a female, but they're not positive that it's Karen Swift. The body was found with just undergarments on.
Yes. What does that tell you? Well, it lets me know that she did not leave the house dressed like that. The body is sent to the medical examiner, and dental records make the identification official. It is indeed Karen Swift.
We went to the home to make the death notification. And we told David that we had found Karen. And his very words were, you found it. You know, and we all like, we found your wife, Karen. You found it.
I don't have any audio or statement that backs that up. But I don't know that that statement proves anything. I know that the officer was trying to make something of that, but it's in my opinion, not an admission or anything other than you found it.
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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.
If it's late at night and your kids are in bed and you're home after a work day, you know, you might understand why somebody would say, hey, what's going on? Or can I ask you some questions? I think David just wanted his wife to be at home where she should be with him and the kids. She claimed it was controlling. I don't think so.
But Karen let it be known she had had enough. She wanted another divorce. Karen wanted to file for divorce because she felt David was too controlling of her. Frankly, if we had to go to court, the inappropriate marital conduct would have been what I would refer to as kind of a stalkish behavior.
But Karen doesn't have enough money of her own to file for divorce. So her good friends, Bill and Kathy Bona, loan her the cash. Not only that, the Bona's say they gave Karen a second phone to use to get around her husband to talk to her divorce lawyer.
Karen told me that she had a secondary phone that the number that she was talking to me on was a secondary phone. And she did not want him to know that she was calling and talking to me about a potential divorce. Investigators understand why they found those two smashed and discarded phones.
She was afraid to be present when he was served. It was a substantial amount of money that she was asking for. So I think that had a big impact on David when he received that. And in the meantime, the couple continues to live together in the same house. She was living downstairs. David was sleeping upstairs.
I didn't notice anything different, you know. We all went about our business.
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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? The story of the same man, but two different women. One of them killed, one of them claiming she was stalked.
And there he was, in my backyard. in the middle of the night. This is too much.
The exclusive interview you'll only see on 2020.
They told me that my dad was got arrested. And in that moment, I was like, for what?
How big a deal was this trial in Dyersburg?
This trial was huge.
They didn't compare the fingerprints. They had tunnel vision. I'm sorry. It's all right. This is a man I was married to. that us shouldn't have been afraid of. Then why is this happening? Today we've intensified our search. We have combed through the areas again.
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