Her Last Halloween

Summary

Podcast Summary: "20/20" Episode - "Her Last Halloween"

1. Introduction and Background

The episode "Her Last Halloween" delves into the tragic case of Karen Swift, a mother of four who vanished after attending a Halloween party in Dyersburg, Tennessee. Karen and her husband, David Swift, moved to Dyersburg from Pocahontas, Arkansas, in 2008 to provide better opportunities for their family. Despite appearing to lead a harmonious life, underlying tensions in their marriage hinted at deeper issues.

2. The Night of Disappearance

On October 30, 2011, Karen Swift attended an adults-only Halloween party at The Farms, a country club attached to a golf course in Dyersburg. Dressed in a striking, form-fitting black costume that resembled a cat, Karen was last seen enjoying the festivities with friends and fellow party-goers, including Bill Bona and Kathy Bowen.

Ashley Swift: "Karen Swift's Halloween costume was a very sexy black costume." [02:20]

As the night progressed, Karen left the party around midnight to grab some French fries from McDonald's with Bill and Kathy Bona. Shortly after, she received a call from her daughter, Ashley, requesting a ride home. Karen promptly left to pick up Ashley, returning to the Swift household around 2 AM.

3. The Sudden Disappearance

The following morning, Karen Swift was nowhere to be found. David Swift reported her missing after unsuccessful attempts by friends and neighbors to reach her. The discovery of Karen's abandoned and damaged SUV less than half a mile from her home transformed the case from a simple missing person's report into a sinister investigation.

Detective: "When they found Karen's vehicle, it had a badly damaged flat tire." [01:21]

4. Investigation and Emerging Suspicions

Investigators found two smashed cell phones near John Hogshooter's property, a neighbor with whom Karen had previously had conflicts. Hogshooter had been charged with animal cruelty for poisoning neighborhood dogs, including the Swifts' pet. This past altercation placed him under immediate suspicion.

Ashley Swift: "Why would her car be up there if she had come home?" [10:22]

However, alibis confirmed Hogshooter's innocence, leaving David Swift as the primary suspect. The investigation revealed strains in the Swifts' marriage, including Karen's desire for divorce and David's suspicious behavior, such as visiting multiple dating sites shortly after Karen's disappearance.

David Swift: "I saw the car sat there for a day or so." [10:17]

5. The Long Pursuit for Justice

For over a decade, the case remained unsolved, haunting the close-knit community of Dyersburg. In 2022, amid renewed efforts and advancements in digital forensics, David Swift was arrested and charged with premeditated first-degree murder. However, he was acquitted of first and second-degree murder charges and the jury hung on the voluntary manslaughter charge.

6. The Trial and Verdict

During the trial, the prosecution presented a theory that David Swift had murdered Karen by dragging her to the garage and inflicting fatal blunt force trauma to her head. They also emphasized the intentional deflation of Karen's tire as a method to mislead investigators. Despite these assertions, the defense successfully argued the absence of concrete evidence linking David directly to the murder.

Bill Bona (Prosecutor): "We submit that the defendant dragged her to the garage. Once inside the garage, the defendant stomped Karen on her head with such violence that it caved her skull in." [58:35]

The defense highlighted inconsistencies in the prosecution's case, including David's alleged knee injury that supposedly limited his mobility and countered claims about his controlling behavior.

David Swift (Defense): "She wasn't afraid of me. We never had no domestics, no violence." [49:24]

After two days of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty for both first and second-degree murder, with a hung vote on the voluntary manslaughter charge.

7. Aftermath and Ongoing Legal Battles

Following his acquittal, David Swift faced additional legal challenges, including accusations of stalking his second wife, Kelly Essman. Evidence suggested David had installed a tracking device on Kelly's car and engaged in harassing behavior post-divorce. These charges led to his bond being revoked and subsequent incarceration.

Ashley Swift: "This is a man I was married to that I shouldn't have been afraid of." [55:19]

As the Swift family grapples with the unresolved questions surrounding Karen's death, the community remains divided. While some jurors felt the prosecution failed to provide sufficient evidence, others remained convinced of David Swift's guilt based on his suspicious behaviors and the circumstantial evidence presented.

Ashley Swift: "I think that in a situation like this, I think that we have to unfortunately reconcile with the fact that there may not be justice." [81:16]

8. Conclusion

"Her Last Halloween" presents a compelling narrative of love, betrayal, and the elusive quest for truth. The case of Karen Swift underscores the complexities of domestic relationships and the challenges faced by law enforcement in piecing together fragmented evidence over an extended period. As David Swift awaits a retrial on the manslaughter charge, the Swift family continues to seek closure and justice for Karen.

Notable Quotes:

• Ashley Swift: "It was a really big deal. This beautiful blond headed lady comes up missing after a Halloween party." [00:43]

• John Hogshooter (Detective): "It was wild, to put it mildly. It's wild because the circumstances are just so unique." [01:39]

• David Swift: "She did the behavior she wanted to, and that's just a reality." [62:24]

• Ashley Swift: "David has missed out on a lot of special things... He has missed the birth of a grandchild, his daughter's graduation from dental hygiene school, his oldest daughter, Ashley." [81:45]

This episode offers an in-depth exploration of a haunting true crime case, highlighting the enduring impact on those involved and the relentless pursuit of justice in the face of uncertainty.

Transcript

[David Muir]

This episode is brought to you by Amazon. The holidays are here and you know what that means. It's time to get your friends and family the gifts they deserve. Take the stress out of shopping with Amazon's great deals and low prices on a huge range of items from toys to tech and much more. Whoever you're gifting for, Amazon has great prices on everything you need this holiday season. Shop. Black Friday week starting November 21st. A mother of four gone missing, then found murdered. It's the Karen Swift story.

[Deborah Roberts]

The woman last seen alive at a Halloween party and was a second woman also in danger. And all new 2020 starts right now.

[Ashley Swift]

It was a really big deal. This beautiful blond headed lady comes up missing after a Halloween party.

[Bill Bona]

It was just supposed to be a fun night out. Adults only.

[David Muir]

What's the overall view of this young mom who suddenly goes missing?

[Deborah Roberts]

People liked Karen. They liked being around her.

[David Muir]

Tonight, the shocking trial and the ex wife you'll only see on 2020.

[Ashley Swift]

This is a man I was married to that I shouldn't have been afraid of.

[David Muir]

But what about his first wife?

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

My mom was going out more, which made me start to question why.

[Detective]

When they found Karen's vehicle, it had a badly damaged flat tire.

[John Hogshooter]

It appears that this screw was mainly inserted into the tire.

[David Muir]

It was literally screwed into the tire. So this is where you found the.

[John Hogshooter]

Smashed cell phones in this area here.

[Detective]

Not one but two smashed phones.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

I thought maybe somebody saw her walking and grabbed her.

[Ashley Swift]

She doesn't hold back. I can see Karen going over there and letting him have it.

[Detective]

This case is wild, to put it mildly. It's wild because the circumstances are just so unique.

[Ashley Swift]

Karen Swift's Halloween costume was a very sexy black costume.

[Deborah Roberts]

Black skirt, black tights, black shoes. And she had a black kind of a Mardi Gras type mask that she was wearing.

[Ashley Swift]

I think she was supposed to be a cat. She had a skirt on. It was very form fitting.

[David Muir]

So it was va va voom.

[Ashley Swift]

It was.

[David Muir]

What began as an innocent night of Halloween partying was just the beginning of a tragic story that would engulf not only Karen Swift, but her whole family and almost everyone in this close knit community.

[Bill Bona]

There was going to be a costume party on October 29, 2011. It was held at a place here in Dyersburg that's called the Farms. It's a country club that's attached to the golf course.

[Detective]

Dyersburg, Tennessee is just a small hamlet in western Tennessee. It's not far from the Mississippi River.

[Ashley Swift]

Dyersburg is a small, very closely knit town. Everybody pretty much knows Everybody, I think.

[Deborah Roberts]

The majority of the population still has that old southern hospitality kind of greet everybody, wave. If you know somebody when you're driving down the road, you wave to them.

[Ashley Swift]

There's only 38,000 people here. Most people have grown up here, lived here their whole lives.

[Deborah Roberts]

And I think that you take the word of mouth and you add the social media aspect to it now and everyone is almost always in everyone else's business.

[David Muir]

44 year old Karen Swift marries husband David in 1989. Originally from Arkansas, they moved to Dyersburg, Tennessee with their family about two decades later in 2008.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

When I first moved to Tennessee, I really liked it. I enjoyed it, it was very peaceful and getting to know all my new friends and you know, meet new people was fun.

[Bill Bona]

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.

[David Muir]

Together, David and Karen Swift had four kids, two boys and two younger girls, including their daughter Ashley.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

Growing up, my mom was very involved. She loved taking us to sports, dance, cheer. She just had that very caring and nurturing personality.

[Bill Bona]

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.

[Deborah Roberts]

Karen was always kind of a fun loving, bubbly type personality. Tried to, even when things were not going particularly well, tried to keep a positive attitude.

[Ashley Swift]

Her friends really liked her and she had a lot of friends. So she was someone who was beautiful. Someone appeared to be happy with her life and things appeared to be going very well for her.

[Deborah Roberts]

Karen was outgoing, gregarious, she made friends very easily. People liked Karen, they liked being around her.

[David Muir]

And on this cool, clear October night, Karen was headed out with her friends while her daughter Ashley, who was 9 at the time, was heading to a sleepover at her friend's house.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

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.

[Bill Bona]

Karen Swift went to the Halloween party with Bill Bona and Kathy Bowen.

[Deborah Roberts]

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.

[Bill Bona]

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 eight or a little after 8pm.

[Deborah Roberts]

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.

[Detective]

And she left with Bill and Kathy Bona around, probably around midnight that night. And they went to McDonald's to get some french fries.

[Bill Bona]

So they went through the McDonald's drive through and then went home to Kathy and Bill Bona's house.

[Detective]

While they're at Bill and Kathy's house, she gets a call from her daughter Ashley.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

When we were starting to go to bed, I decided that I wanted to go home. I called my mom and asked her to come get me.

[Bill Bona]

Karen immediately told Kathy, I've got to go, my baby's sick, I'm gonna go pick her up. So she did, she left. She went and picked up her daughter at a friend's house and then went home.

[David Muir]

By now, of course, it's around 1:30 in the morning. The next day, October 30th. On her way home, Karen texts her husband David to let him know she's heading back to their house.

[Deborah Roberts]

When she told him about going to pick up Ashley, he sent her a text in response about the garage door is close, come in the side door.

[Detective]

And then they arrive back at the Swift home around 2am that morning, Karen.

[David Muir]

Goes to sleep downstairs while her husband David is sleeping in a different bedroom upstairs.

[Bill Bona]

David did not get up until the next morning, around 10 or 10:30 when the girls woke him up.

[David Muir]

It's now that the Swift family's entire world turns upside down.

[Bill Bona]

The next morning, Karen was not at home. The girls were the first ones, according to David, to tell him that their mother was missing.

[David Muir]

Remember, Karen and Ashley had returned home around two in the morning and went to sleep. But now it seems that sometime after that, Karen had somehow disappeared.

[Detective]

Between the time of probably 10 and 11 o'clock, Kathy Bona, her friend, had been trying to call her. David Swift, her husband, had been trying to call her. And so now people are starting to get seriously worried that something's happened to her.

[John Hogshooter]

After Bill and Kathy Bonham didn't get a response from her, they kind of said, well, something's not right. So they, they called David and asked him, where is Karen? And then they called the sheriff's office and said that she was missing.

[Bill Bona]

Shortly after that, David made a phone call to the sheriff's department and reported that his wife was missing.

[David Muir]

Karen's disappearance quickly became a mystery. And it would begin with the discovery of her abandoned car. A key piece of evidence that transforms this from a missing person's case into something far more sinister. So she shows up missing.

[Ashley Swift]

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.

[David Muir]

The morning of Karen's disappearance, her car is discovered. Less than a half mile away from her home.

[Deborah Roberts]

At the corner of millsfield highway in harness in dyer county is where the broken down SUV of 44 year old Karen swift was found.

[David Swift]

I saw the car sat there for.

[Bill Bona]

A day or so.

[Ashley Swift]

Karen's gone and that's what's important.

[David Muir]

And we just want her to come back.

[Ashley Swift]

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.

[Deborah Roberts]

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.

[John Hogshooter]

It was in a normal state. He was parked on the side of the road. It had a flat tire to the. To the right side. The investigation revealed that it was a screw in the tire.

[Ashley Swift]

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.

[David Muir]

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. Was it there on purpose to leave Karen stranded?

[John Hogshooter]

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 mainly inserted into the tire.

[David Muir]

It was literally screwed into the tire.

[John Hogshooter]

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.

[David Muir]

And I wanted you to look at. Show me this screw. This is one that you actually ran over.

[John Hogshooter]

This is a 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.

[David Muir]

Yeah. A lot of friction.

[John Hogshooter]

A lot of friction. This screw has no friction.

[David Muir]

The lack of friction making investigators believe the screw hadn't been driven on. But how could that be?

[Ashley Swift]

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.

[David Muir]

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.

[Ashley Swift]

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.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

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.

[David Muir]

Karen wasn't acting like herself. And turns out there was a reason for it. Strains on their marriage. David's new job as a manager at a manufacturing plant and Karen's apparent change in lifestyle in Dyersburg worried those closest to her.

[Ashley Swift]

She had just mentioned to me that it was very different. She just said that. She says, I don't know that you would like it here. But she did say that she was meeting. Meeting people and getting out.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

I was used to her tucking me into bed every night or being home every night, getting up with her and going to the gym. And that kind of slowly stopped the longer that we lived in Tennessee.

[Ashley Swift]

That was not their lifestyle in Pocahontas. They didn't even social drink. We didn't need that. It was hard to hear because that was not them.

[Deborah Roberts]

As soon as she went missing, it was Chief McCrite's supposition that David at the very least had something to do with it.

[John Hogshooter]

We finally just decided that, hey, he's gonna be the only person that can really help us in this case to tell us about where his wife might have gone. He came in and gave my guys an interview. That interview didn't go very well, we didn't think.

[David Swift]

And I said, so were you going to a costume party or what?

[Deborah Roberts]

Are you.

[David Swift]

Are you all having a party? And she said, no, I'm just going to Kathy's. I said, well, okay.

[John Hogshooter]

He really wasn't concerned to me about where she might have gone.

[Bill Bona]

Okay.

[John Hogshooter]

Was there any kind of argument or anything down?

[David Swift]

No, I just. It was very brief. I wanted to make sure that Ashley was okay and that she was, because I questioned Karen about driving and getting her. I said, you know, if you can't drive, I'll get Ashley. And that was all the conversation was.

[John Hogshooter]

How close did you get to her?

[Deborah Roberts]

Could you tell whether she'd been drinking?

[David Swift]

Oh, yeah, you could tell. I could always smell she drinking.

[John Hogshooter]

You know, he was saying, like, you know, that she drank and she was pretty much an alcoholic, both drunk and been drinking.

[David Swift]

And she was so drunk once that she was. Had passed out. He was just so drunk that Sharon was drinking so much that.

[John Hogshooter]

So that was just, you know, I should, as a husband, be concerned about where is my wife? If you had to use an estimated.

[Bill Bona]

Guess right now, where do you think she is?

[David Swift]

I don't know. I'm so worried about her.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

I would say my dad's reaction was he was obviously very worried, but you have to think I was nine and my sister was five. So I think he was trying to put on a very brave face for us.

[David Muir]

As the search for Karen Swift continues, investigators are reminded of a horrible incident Karen had with a neighbor just months before.

[Bill Bona]

There was an issue where John hogshooter had poisoned a couple of dogs in the neighborhood. One of the dogs belonged to David and Karen Swift.

[Ashley Swift]

Anybody who has a dog and they say their neighbor poisoned their dog, that would certainly be bad blood. She doesn't hold back. If she feels that she's got something to say, she's going to say it.

[David Muir]

A suspect emerges for investigators. As the search for Karen Swift continues, investigators cast a wide net for suspects and leads.

[Deborah Roberts]

There was a man that she had met at a concert about 20 miles from Dyersburg across the Mississippi river.

[Bill Bona]

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.

[Deborah Roberts]

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.

[John Hogshooter]

Found out where he was at the time of her disappearance, and that alibi checked out.

[David Muir]

But investigators have another possible lead to follow as they learn of a terrible conflict between Karen Swift and one of her neighbors.

[John Hogshooter]

John hogshooter lived across the road, diagonal.

[Deborah Roberts]

From their residence, Caddy cornered, probably not more than 150ft from their home. Mr. Hogshooter 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 fellow, generally.

[Bill Bona]

There was an issue where John hogshuter had poisoned a couple of dogs in the neighborhood, and one of the dogs belonged to David and Karen Swift.

[Deborah Roberts]

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.

[Detective]

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.

[David Muir]

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.

[Ashley Swift]

Anybody wants a dog and they say their neighbor poisoned their dog, that would certainly be bad blood. I know Karen and the hog shooter guy, they 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.

[Bill Bona]

When she was missing, he became one of the first suspects that the sheriff's department looked at.

[David Muir]

Investigators want to talk to John Hogshooter. He'd been poisoning neighborhood dogs, including Karen's. They bring him into this interrogation room, and they have some questions to ask.

[John Hogshooter]

Jenna. When I want to talk, I'm gonna just shoot straight from the hill. Are you aware of what's going on out there where you live?

[Deborah Roberts]

Yeah, I'm well aware of what's going on.

[John Hogshooter]

What I'm trying to do is clear people, and I know that the incident that happened with the dogs out there, I know all you know about that because of the prior investigator that had been working that case. What I'm trying to do is find out your whereabouts on the 31st that Saturday. We interviewed John and asked him that he. Of course, you know, we've interviewed about the dogs, but we wanted to know, did he know Karen?

[David Muir]

His memories of Karen Swift differs from what others have said about the tension between the two of them.

[John Hogshooter]

What we want to do is make sure you had no involvement in Karen's disappearance.

[Deborah Roberts]

I don't know.

[Bill Bona]

The only way I even seen a.

[Deborah Roberts]

Picture of this lady is my wife showed me a picture of her.

[Bill Bona]

I was like, oh, is that what she looks like?

[Deborah Roberts]

The only other time I've ever seen her is out mowing her grass in.

[Bill Bona]

The summertime from my house.

[John Hogshooter]

Had he ever had any contact with Karen? Had he spoken with her? What kind of involvement had he ever had with Karen or David or anybody else in that neighborhood?

[David Muir]

Go up there and talk to him.

[Deborah Roberts]

And sit out on the porch from that area, from my house or his house, is the only time I've ever seen that lady out there. She in a bikini.

[Bill Bona]

What do you think?

[Deborah Roberts]

You know, everybody's going to be.

[John Hogshooter]

That's right. I understand. We're men, you know, You're a man. You gonna look at her?

[Deborah Roberts]

Yeah, but you know, just like, yeah.

[Bill Bona]

She'S in bikini up there, you know, that's it.

[Deborah Roberts]

And that's the only time I've ever seen her.

[John Hogshooter]

And he said no, he just saw her one time out in the yard. You know, like a neighbor waved or something to the nature of that. When did you find out that this woman was missing? When did you eat? Nobody. I would say probably somewhere in the.

[Deborah Roberts]

Middle of the week.

[John Hogshooter]

This past week?

[Deborah Roberts]

Yeah.

[John Hogshooter]

Or whenever she.

[Deborah Roberts]

Whenever she came out missing.

[David Swift]

Probably middle of the week.

[John Hogshooter]

Somebody tell you or you see it on the news or. How did I find out?

[David Muir]

Maybe it might.

[Deborah Roberts]

Well, I don't have tv, so I don't. I don't watch tv, so I don't.

[John Hogshooter]

Know how to find out.

[Deborah Roberts]

My wife may have told me or I don't remember. I think it's because I honestly don't know.

[Bill Bona]

As soon as they started talking to him, he was extremely cooperative.

[Deborah Roberts]

Where is my truck?

[John Hogshooter]

It's locked up and impound in an enclosed building.

[Deborah Roberts]

They impounded his vehicle. They searched. They got a search warrant, searched his house.

[John Hogshooter]

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. That's what I'm saying. Well, my clothes and stuff. I wash my clothes over at my daughter's house. So all my clothes.

[Deborah Roberts]

I'll probably go over there and take a shower and get my clothes for sure. I can't even get in. Cause my key's in that truck. There's a gold key in the.

[John Hogshooter]

Where the ashtray thing goes right there.

[Deborah Roberts]

There's a gold key that's on the way. I can get in and get my clothes to.

[John Hogshooter]

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.

[Deborah Roberts]

There was no evidence in the end that pointed that John Hogshooter had any knowledge of this at all.

[David Muir]

But then investigators find Karen Swift's two cell phones almost totally destroyed near the property of John Hogshooter.

[Detective]

Finding these two phones very close to John's property was very concerning for the police.

[John Hogshooter]

When we discovered the phones, they were damaged. They were crushed. Somebody might have stomped them and then pitched them there.

[Deborah Roberts]

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[Ashley Swift]

So you've got the investigators, they don't know where Karen Swift is. They know she's missing. Her phone was not in her car. They didn't see it around the car. So they start searching for the phone.

[John Hogshooter]

So we said we were going to do a grid from where her car was found back to the house.

[David Muir]

So this is where you found the smashed cell phones in this area here?

[John Hogshooter]

Phones were found?

[David Muir]

Yeah.

[John Hogshooter]

They found 580 something feet from their driveway. From Karen's driveway to this location, a.

[Detective]

Highway patrolman comes across not one but two smashed phones.

[David Muir]

This is images of them, right? They were shattered.

[John Hogshooter]

That phone was shattered before it even went there. Because if you have thrown it in that grass, you will never get this damage to this phone.

[David Muir]

But as close to the Swifts home as the phones are, they're also very close to John Hogshooter's home. That neighbor, the Swifts, say they had a confrontation with.

[Detective]

Finding those two phones within proximity of John Hogshooter's house raises many, many questions for investigators in this case. For obvious reasons.

[Ashley Swift]

Investigators found out that Hogshooter was at this church event.

[John Hogshooter]

We knew where he was on her day of disappearance, and we were able to establish his alibi.

[Deborah Roberts]

There was no evidence in the end that pointed that John Hogshooter had any knowledge of this at all.

[Bill Bona]

A thorough investigation was done and he had alibi witnesses, and we were able to pretty quickly eliminate him as a suspect.

[David Muir]

With Hogshooter cleared, the investigation continues. At this point, the most important unanswered question where is Karen?

[Detective]

Some people just walk away from their lives. It happens all the time. Without a body, they don't know that a crime been committed.

[John Hogshooter]

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.

[Bill Bona]

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.

[Detective]

Bledsoe Cemetery is very spread out. Some of the headstones There are over 100 years old and even older if 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.

[David Muir]

Karen Swift has been missing for six weeks. At this point, the police arrive and head to this nearby area full of kudzu.

[Ashley Swift]

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.

[David Muir]

And this is the kudzu that was.

[John Hogshooter]

This is the kudzu area. And all of this was in kudzu? Every bit of this was in kudzu.

[David Muir]

So it was hiding everything here?

[John Hogshooter]

Yes. And the body was found somewhere in his area, maybe near that tree stump.

[Detective]

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.

[Ashley Swift]

They certainly have an indication that it's a female, but they're not positive that it's Karen Swift.

[David Muir]

The body was found with just undergarments on?

[John Hogshooter]

Yes.

[David Muir]

What does that tell you?

[John Hogshooter]

Well, it lets me know that she did not leave the house dressed like that.

[David Muir]

The body is sent to the medical examiner and dental records make the identification official. It is indeed Karen Swift.

[John Hogshooter]

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.

[David Swift]

I don't have any audio or statement that backs it 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.

[David Muir]

The 44 year old's body was found near Bledsoe Cemetery, just two miles from her Dyer county home. Police identified Swift's body Sunday using dental records. They're not saying how she was murdered. No suspects have been named.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

Maybe it was just my dad who sat me down and told me that they found my mom. But I remember my dad being kind of very calm. He explained it in a way of mom's not coming back home. And this is a new reality. And I think that he was trying to say it in the best way possible, but there's not really a best way possible to say that.

[Ashley Swift]

It was one of those days where you just go numb and you just cannot believe that this is what it came to and why I was very upset when her body was found because of the kids and also David, and he was wondering what in the world could have happened.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

I thought maybe, you know, maybe somebody saw her walking and, you know, grabbed her or things like that. But the more I thought about it, I thought there had to be a little bit more to it.

[Bill Bona]

The autopsy revealed that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. One thing that we were not able to tell was whether there was strangulation involved.

[David Muir]

Investigators may not be certain how, but they are now convinced Karen Swift was murdered as they try to figure out who did it. What did they find under a spare tire? As investigators in Dyersburg look into what is now a murder case, they learn some messy details about Karen and David Swift's marriage. Remember, they had moved here to Tennessee from Pocahontas, Arkansas.

[Detective]

Karen and David met in Pocahontas. They got married in 1989. Karen and David had what could be best described as a tumultuous marriage.

[Ashley Swift]

I know that maybe there were some affairs going on in Arkansas.

[Bill Bona]

He ended up having a marital affair with this lady, and a child was born as a result of that affair, and they divorced at that time.

[David Muir]

For a lot of couples, that might have been the end. But David and Karen are able to reconcile. They're divorced for only about seven months when they remarry in 2000 and continue raising their two sons together.

[Detective]

And so then David and Karen go on and have their daughters, Ashley and Keeley. Now, Sometime in the mid 2000s, Karen has an affair. David finds out. He forgives her for this. They reportedly move on.

[Deborah Roberts]

He decided to quickly move the family to Dyersburg.

[David Muir]

So it's David and Karen living in the new house with three of their four younger children. The oldest son was now in college.

[Ashley Swift]

He felt like if they didn't get away from the problem they were having in Arkansas, their marriage would never work. And it did. You know, I mean, they had alone for quite some time, and then things went from bad to worse.

[David Muir]

That's because once the couple moves from Arkansas to Tennessee, more problems spring up. Karen makes new friends. And David and Karen have very different views about what happened next.

[Ashley Swift]

It didn't seem like David was happy with those friends, and they weren't especially happy with David either.

[Detective]

It was clear that once she started this friendship with these new friends, that she was moving away from David.

[David Swift]

It was midnight. I heard her sneaking out of the house.

[David Muir]

He talked about it in that police interview.

[David Swift]

You know, I've seen nights that she would speed down and Ashley's chasing after and stuff, not wanting her to leave.

[John Hogshooter]

Go out and drive.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

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.

[David Muir]

As investigators learned 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.

[Deborah Roberts]

When David got upset is when Karen would be absent from the house.

[Bill Bona]

He wanted to know where she was.

[Ashley Swift]

He would wake up, she would be gone, and he would get out to see where she was at.

[David Muir]

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.

[David Swift]

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?

[Ashley Swift]

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.

[David Muir]

But Karen let it be known she had had enough. She wanted another divorce.

[Deborah Roberts]

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.

[David Muir]

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 say they gave Karen a second phone to use to get around her husband to talk to her divorce lawyer.

[Deborah Roberts]

Karen told me that she had a secondary phone with a 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.

[David Muir]

Investigators understand why they found those two smashed and discarded phones.

[Bill Bona]

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.

[David Muir]

And in the meantime, the couple continues to live together in the same house.

[John Hogshooter]

She was living downstairs. David was sleeping upstairs.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

I didn't notice anything different. You know, we all went about our business.

[David Swift]

She chose to live in the home. And my take on it was that she wasn't afraid of him. She didn't ask for order of protection because there had been no issues of physical violence.

[Deborah Roberts]

David continued to say things to Karen, wanting to call the divorce off.

[Ashley Swift]

He wasn't happy about the divorce.

[David Muir]

To prosecutors, the possible divorce and the issues in the marriage are reaching a boiling point.

[David Swift]

I believe that he had the attitude they had reconciled before or had problems before and perhaps they could just talk through it and continue on with their life.

[Ashley Swift]

And he said she wasn't having it. He said there was just no way.

[David Muir]

Was it enough of a motive for murder. Investigators had some evidence, including those smashed cell phones found here. And there were those divorce papers that David seemed to have hidden under the spare tire in his car.

[John Hogshooter]

This here is not adding up. Because if I'm getting a divorce, why do I need to hide them in a car, in the trunk, under a spare tire?

[David Swift]

I don't have an explanation. If he had just stuck them there or he had inadvertently set him there.

[Detective]

It was only 20 days after she filed for divorce that Karen went missing.

[David Muir]

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.

[Deborah Roberts]

I think he was concerned that you only get one chance to try the case.

[David Muir]

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?

[Bill Bona]

The night that Karen was last seen, she went to a Halloween party.

[David Muir]

I mean, the body was here for a month undetected.

[Ashley Swift]

They investigate and they investigated. And everyone was like, when are you going to find a suspect?

[David Muir]

The story of the same man, but two different women. One of them killed, one of them claiming she was stalked.

[Ashley Swift]

And there he was in my backyard in the middle of the night. This is too much.

[David Muir]

The exclusive interview you'll only see on 2020.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

They told me that my dad got arrested. And in that moment I was like, for what?

[David Muir]

How big a deal was this trial in Dyersburg?

[Ashley Swift]

This trial was huge.

[David Swift]

They didn't compare the fingerprints. They had tunnel vision.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

I'm sorry.

[David Swift]

It's all right.

[Ashley Swift]

This is a man I was married to that I shouldn't have been afraid of. Then why is this happening today?

[Bill Bona]

We've intensified our search.

[Deborah Roberts]

We have combed through the areas again.

[David Muir]

Karen Swift is a 44 year old housewife, mother of four in Dyersburg, Tennessee. And she disappears in October 2011. Her car turns up not far from her house.

[Deborah Roberts]

Car was locked here. There was no signs of foul play in the vehicle.

[Ashley Swift]

It was puzzling. I really didn't know. I didn't know what to think.

[Detective]

So after Karen goes missing, the police talk to her husband, David.

[David Swift]

I just ordered him home.

[Detective]

And they learned that there are serious problems in the Swift marriage.

[Bill Bona]

Have you filed for divorce?

[David Swift]

She filed on the 5th.

[David Muir]

Six weeks after she disappears.

[John Hogshooter]

Body was found somewhere in his area, maybe near that tree stump.

[David Muir]

Karen Swift has been found. Police identified Swift's body using dental records for the Dyer County Sheriff's office. This case turns into a murder investigation, but they don't have enough evidence against Karen Swift's husband, David, or anyone else for that matter, to make an arrest for more than a decade. There seems to be a question that lingers in the air in this. Will Karen Swift ever get justice?

[Ashley Swift]

When it didn't happen right away, it almost felt like that there was nobody trying. Somebody did this. So who? I'm 100% sure David did not do this.

[John Hogshooter]

And we kept working this case. We never gave up on it. And there was always little bits and pieces that we could piece and put together.

[David Swift]

David, anytime law enforcement or the DA's office reached out to him, he answered their questions. He cooperated because he wanted to find out what happened to his wife.

[Ashley Swift]

They investigated and they investigated and Everyone was like, when are you going to find a suspect? When are you going to charge someone?

[Bill Bona]

So for 10 years, 11 years, it was the hot topic in town.

[David Swift]

It became an election year issue about no swift justice.

[Detective]

And a lot of people were upset about Karen's case not being solved.

[Bill Bona]

It was always the number one thing that came up.

[David Muir]

And in 2018, promising to look the case again, Danny Goodman is elected as the new district attorney general. Later, the sheriff hands the entire case file over to him.

[Deborah Roberts]

And we, of course, had a regular caseload, but it wasn't something that we could just drop our normal caseload and start going through.

[David Muir]

By then, David Swift has left town. He has a whole new life and a new wife. Kelly Essman, Single Christians good [e-mail] I.

[Ashley Swift]

Met David on Christian Mingle in January of 2014, and we dated for about two and a half years, and then he moved to Alabama when we got married.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

My relationship with my dad during this time period was very good. He made sure that we still had as normal as a childhood as we could, even into our teenage years.

[Ashley Swift]

You know, he did start telling me a little bit about Karen and the fact that she had come up missing. He actually asked me to run a background check on him, and the background check comes up clean. You know, none of the news stories showed that he was a person of interest. They didn't say that he was a suspect. It was okay. I think they had a wonderful relationship. Everybody got along.

[David Muir]

It may have started out that way, but Kelly says cracks started to form in the marriage over parenting issues. And she says David never wanted to discuss her concerns. Over the years, she says, it grew worse and worse.

[Ashley Swift]

There were challenges, and with all blended families, there are, you know, and that's where it started going downhill. We both went therapy. So I finally just decided, I can't go back. This is too much. He finally said that he would file for divorce.

[David Muir]

But they have no idea that back in Dyersburg, there's been a break in the Karen Swift investigation thanks to something completely unrelated, the COVID pandemic.

[Bill Bona]

It was actually good for this case because at that time, we were not allowed to have in person court. We were not allowed to have jury trials. So we had a lot of time. There was just downtime in the office.

[Deborah Roberts]

We were alone in the office for, I want to say it was around six weeks. Looked at every page that was compiled by the sheriff's department, and that's how.

[Bill Bona]

The case basically was rejuvenated. And we started back with a lot more Detail.

[Deborah Roberts]

Looking into it, we just basically came to the same conclusion that, yes, David Swift did it.

[Bill Bona]

We noticed maybe that there were a few things that we would like to have to prosecute the case that were not there.

[David Muir]

In particular, they say they want information stored on Karen Swift. Cell phones found smashed not far from her home. After a year of trying, experts can't recover that data. But prosecutors say they do come up with more digital evidence from David Swift's computer.

[Detective]

In the days and weeks after Karen vanished, they found that her husband had been visiting all of these multiple dating sites. Why is David looking at dating sites when she hasn't even been found?

[David Muir]

David Swift's lawyer claims other people in the house may have been using that computer and accessing those sites. The prosecutors decide they have enough to take the case to a grand jury. David Swift is indicted.

[Bill Bona]

We would never take a case to trial that we did not feel like we could be successful with prosecution. And at that point, we felt that we could.

[Deborah Roberts]

An arrest has finally been made in the 2011 murder of Karen Swift.

[Bill Bona]

David Swift was arrested today in Alabama, where he was living with his new wife.

[Deborah Roberts]

David Swift is charged with premeditated first degree murder.

[David Swift]

He was shocked.

[David Muir]

Swift is brought back to Tennessee, where he later pleads not guilty to first and second degree murder and manslaughter. The sheriff posts on Facebook, today is a good day for law enforcement. David was always a suspect because all the evidence points to him.

[John Hogshooter]

Certainly it was enough evidence to take him into custody and bring him to trial.

[Bill Bona]

Every rumor, every piece of information that came in, we followed up. No one else had a motive. No one else had the opportunity, and he had all of those things.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

They told me that my dad got arrested. And in that moment, I was like, for what?

[Ashley Swift]

What could they possibly have that they arrested him for something that happened so long ago? I think they just wanted to make an arrest to say we got somebody because they were getting so much black from people.

[David Swift]

There was nothing groundbreaking, no scientific evidence or anything other than what was in the file. Now, I'm not saying that Danny Goodman or his office did anything unethical or improper, but sometimes when pressure is applied or pressure is present in a situation, decisions get made. And we just disagreed with his decision to charge David Swift.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

I remember getting that first phone call from him after he was in the jail, and I remember his first words worked. You know, they weren't about him. They were about us and that everything was going to be okay.

[David Muir]

I spoke to David Swift in a jailhouse interview. David, because this is the Moment to clear the record. Did you kill your wife?

[David Swift]

No, absolutely not. She wasn't afraid of me one bit. We never had no domestics, no violence.

[David Muir]

Because of the pending criminal charges, Swift says he couldn't talk about the details of the case, but he denied any violence in the marriage. So you said no domestics, meaning you never hurt Karen?

[David Swift]

Never.

[David Muir]

Never raised a hand to her and.

[David Swift]

On no female ever. And I sure wouldn't do it to my wife or the mother of my children, but, you know, I loved her, and I still love, you know, her today.

[David Muir]

But before he goes on trial, accused of killing Karen, a truly shocking development. New details emerge about David Swift's alleged behavior with another woman. And he faces another criminal charge.

[John Hogshooter]

Fifty years ago, a young woman named Karen Silkwood got into her car alone.

[Bill Bona]

She was reportedly on her way to.

[Deborah Roberts]

Deliver sensitive documents to a New York Times reporter.

[John Hogshooter]

She never made it. And those documents she'd agreed to carry were never found.

[David Muir]

Do you think somebody killed her?

[David Swift]

There's no question in my mind that someone killed her that night. I think they were trying to stop her in order to get the documents.

[Deborah Roberts]

A new investigation into the life and death of America's first nuclear whistleblower. Listen to Radioactive the Karen Silkwood Mystery from ABC Audio.

[John Hogshooter]

Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bill Bona]

Now.

[John Hogshooter]

@ T Mobile.

[Deborah Roberts]

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[David Swift]

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[Deborah Roberts]

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[David Swift]

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[Bill Bona]

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[Deborah Roberts]

Using debit or bank account.

[Bill Bona]

$5 more per line without autopay, plus.

[Deborah Roberts]

Taxes and fees and 10 device connection.

[Bill Bona]

Charge phones via 24 monthly bill credits for wealth qualified customers. Contact us before canceling entire account to.

[Deborah Roberts]

Continue bill credits or credit stop and.

[Bill Bona]

Balance on a required finance agreement due. Bill credits end if you pay off devices early. CT mobile.com.

[David Muir]

Weeks after David Swift is arrested and charged with his wife Karen's murder, he's released after posting a $200,000 bond. But in a truly wild turn of events, Swift's legal troubles follow him home to Alabama, where he faces accusations of stalking, this time from his estranged second wife, Kelly Essman.

[Ashley Swift]

I was not afraid of David during the marriage. Towards the end of my marriage, I was not necessarily afraid of him. After I separated, there were periods of time when he would call me, asking me, you know, where are you going? You know, I would tell him, hobby Lobby or, you know, just a target or whatever. And he always seemed to be Calling exactly when I would be going to that place.

[David Muir]

After David's arrest, Kelly claims she found proof that she was being followed and filed for an emergency restraining order.

[Detective]

Kelly alleges that in the midst of all of this turmoil with David, that she came into some information that he actually had purchased a tracking device.

[Ashley Swift]

And right then I knew that's how he knew where I was going. So I knew there's a tracking device somewhere on my car. And we did find the tracking device.

[David Muir]

Kelly also claims in her motion that David started reaching out to her, sending repeated messages via text and email.

[Ashley Swift]

I repeatedly asked him to stop. It started with us trying to work out the details of the divorce, but it turned into a lot of. A lot of random, harassing emails on various topics.

[David Muir]

Kelly files for that emergency restraining order, reporting that she was afraid for her safety, that she believed she may be in danger, and that David's stalking and harassment had become egregious. The judge made no findings on those claims, but the restraining order was granted.

[Ashley Swift]

I just. I wanted him to leave me alone. That's all I wanted. Just leave me alone.

[John Hogshooter]

Even with this new wife that he had and got a divorce, his M.O. was the same. Following her around there in Alabama, Karen.

[Detective]

And her friends and family said that David often would follow Karen around, that he was monitoring where she was at, that David would call her.

[John Hogshooter]

He even told us he followed her to a local store and got into the back of the car.

[David Muir]

As for Kelly, she filed a police report after she claimed David's alleged harassment can in coordination with Alabama authorities. Investigators back in Tennessee check up on what David Swift has been doing.

[John Hogshooter]

When he was put on a bond, judge allowed an ankle motor to be put on him. That brought to light data showing that he had been to her house on several occasions and following her.

[Ashley Swift]

And the sergeant calls me, and I'm like, how's that possible that he knew where I was going? And he said, we think he's got a tracking device on your car.

[David Muir]

And I'm like, again, police pore over Kelly's car looking for a tracking device. They don't find one. But Kelly says she does find something chilling on her security camera system, which 2020 was able to obtain.

[Ashley Swift]

I pulled up the feed from that night, and there he was in my backyard in the middle of the night. He had to drive 40 minutes one way to get to my house, and that one of the times he saw him at my house was in the middle of the night for an hour and a half. When I see the video, that's when I become very confused, fearful. And why is this happening? Why is he doing it? I didn't give him any reason to. This is a. This is a man I was married to that I shouldn't have been afraid of.

[Detective]

David's charged with felony stalking in Alabama and his bond in the Karen Johnson Swift murder case was revoked.

[Ashley Swift]

Things moved pretty quickly after that. After they got the indictment, they arrested David. There are pictures of him getting in the car.

[David Muir]

With his bond revoked, Swift is brought into custody and sent to Tennessee.

[John Hogshooter]

He's been charged with stalking down there. They're going to handle those charges once we dissolve this case here.

[David Muir]

David Swift has yet to enter a plea to the stalking charge. His lawyer handling the case hasn't responded to 20 20's request for comment. With Swift sitting in, attention turns back to his fast approaching trial for Karen's murder. The case is big news in a small town and both the prosecution and the defense are about to pull back the curtain on the Swift's private lives.

[Bill Bona]

Did anyone have no clothes on in the hot tub?

[David Muir]

What exactly was going on at those hot tub parties and what did they have to do with Karen's case? A man accused of killing his wife more than a decade ago is back in Tennessee. We'll bring you inside of the courtroom as both sides prepare for trial. News of David Swift's trial puts Dyersburg on the map in a way locals have never seen.

[Detective]

When there was finally an arrest in Karen's case, you had TV crews, newsprint media, all these people flooding in to Dyersburg.

[David Muir]

How big a deal was this trial in Dyer?

[Ashley Swift]

This trial was huge. It was high profile. It's been the number one trial of public interest in Dyersburg.

[David Muir]

Interestingly, Karen Swift's murder trial doesn't take place here in Dyer County, Tennessee. Instead, a judge issues a change of venue and David Swift is tried for murder 50 miles from here in Weekly County, Tennessee. As opening statements begin, the prosecution makes it clear that there is no smoking gun against David Swift.

[Bill Bona]

You are not going to see fingerprint analysis. You're not going to see ballistic testing. We will, however, give you several pieces of a puzzle. And when we get through giving you all of those, we think that we're going to have a complete picture. We knew that a jury would want to see some type weapon that was used for the murder. And it was just we were never going to have that in this case.

[David Muir]

But the prosecution lays out their theory that David Swift didn't actually need a weapon.

[Bill Bona]

We submit that the defendant dragged her to the garage Once inside the garage, the defendant stomped Karen on her head with such violence that it caved her skull in.

[Ashley Swift]

I was shocked when I heard that because I had not heard that before. And I'm like, okay, we'll see the evidence of that.

[Bill Bona]

The autopsy showed that there was starburst fracturing on the left side, which indicated that her head was against something solid and then was struck from the other side. And our theory is that solid object was the concrete in the garage.

[David Muir]

The defense counters that the investigators never found any evidence in the garage to back up this theory.

[David Swift]

So you actually walked around the garage and looked at it when you first went out there with Mr. Swift?

[Bill Bona]

Yes, sir.

[David Swift]

All right. You didn't see any blood or smell of strong bleach, did you?

[Bill Bona]

I did not.

[David Muir]

The prosecution then switches gears to focus on Karen's abandonment car. Remember, investigators say that her tire appeared to have been deliberately punctured.

[Deborah Roberts]

The flat tire, I think, is one of the more significant pieces of the puzzle in this case.

[David Swift]

One thing I did observe was a.

[Deborah Roberts]

Screw that was in groove number three.

[David Swift]

The screw was slightly below the tread surface.

[Deborah Roberts]

Does that have any significance to you in your examination?

[David Swift]

Yes.

[Deborah Roberts]

When a object punctures the tire in.

[David Swift]

The tread area, it will actually rebound as it goes through the tire because of the elastic nature of.

[Deborah Roberts]

And the structure of the tire. Could you imagine a situation where a screw entered the tire in service like this, where it ran over an object, perhaps a pebble or a stone, that could have forced the screw head beneath the tread surface?

[David Swift]

Well, I wouldn't say it's impossible, but. But I would say extremely improbable.

[Detective]

It was their contention that the tire was intentionally deflated as a ruse to make people believe that Karen had actually suffered from a flat tire, and that's why her car was there, when in fact, that was not the case.

[David Muir]

But the defense brings in their own expert who testifies that the screw could have accidentally punctured that tire.

[Deborah Roberts]

There's other vehicles could kick up screws or nails. You know, say you're following a construction vehicle and some are on the back of the trailer, and they bounce off, and you just happen to be behind it. Who knows what angle it's going to strike your tire at as you're going down the roadway.

[David Swift]

My expert actually did test on a light tire on a similar wheel and, you know, tried to recreate that and explained it to the jury. And I think the jury has to decide which they believe.

[David Muir]

The prosecution also calls Karen's friends, Bill and Kathy Bona to the stand. To testify about how they viewed Karen and David's relationship.

[Ashley Swift]

She finally started taking action when she started getting the confidence to say, I'm just done.

[David Muir]

I can't do this anymore.

[Ashley Swift]

And the controlling and accusations. She was ready to be done with the marriage because she needed to get out.

[David Muir]

The defense argues that Karen had full control of everything she did.

[David Swift]

She did the behavior she wanted to, and that's just a reality. And as we move on, closer to the time she got a divorce, she would come and go as she wished.

[David Muir]

Prosecution asked the bonas about Kathy's 40th birthday celebration, where they hosted an after party with a group of their friends, which included the use of their hot tub. The bonus testify that this party led to a confrontation with David Swift.

[Bill Bona]

How were people dressed? Some people had swimsuits.

[David Muir]

Couple people did not.

[Bill Bona]

When you say they did not, did they have anything on?

[Ashley Swift]

No.

[Bill Bona]

They were nude?

[David Muir]

Yes.

[Bill Bona]

You know, Ms. Swift was in the hot tub.

[David Swift]

She was, yes. I mean, I don't remember specifically seeing her, but if she enjoyed when she came over, you know, in the wintertime when it was cold. So I'm sure she was.

[Bill Bona]

Was Mr. Swift present that night?

[David Swift]

He wasn't at first, and he wasn't invited, and he wasn't welcome.

[Bill Bona]

Mr. Swift burst into the door, you know, there and startled me and asked where Karen was. What was his demeanor at that time?

[David Swift]

He was agitated, I would say. But I would also say it really caught me off guard. I thought, I don't like this.

[Deborah Roberts]

And I went to get out of.

[David Swift]

The chair to go, you know, ask him to leave, basically, and he came.

[Ashley Swift]

Down the stairs and left.

[Bill Bona]

How did he appear when he came down, as far as his attitude and demeanor?

[David Swift]

I mean, he came down the stairs and left abruptly and left through the door, you know, quickly enough where I couldn't even really get a word in edgewise.

[David Muir]

The prosecution plays David's full police interview in court, where he confirmed that he would sometimes follow Karen to the Bona's house.

[David Swift]

Karen started sneaking out of the house, and she would go to be with Kathy and Bill.

[Bill Bona]

Now, when you say go to be with them, what do you mean going to party with them?

[Ashley Swift]

Go.

[David Swift]

Go party naked in the hot tub in the backyard.

[Ashley Swift]

There was a lot of information about the hot tub parties and all of that, so it kind of verified the rumors that were going around that something somewhat wild was going on.

[David Muir]

And there is key testimony still ahead as one emotional witness makes waves. Ashley Swift and David's own daughter prepares to testify at her father's trial. What will she say when she takes the stand? Inside the weekly county courthouse, attorney Daniel Taylor dives into one of the most memorable cases of his career.

[David Swift]

I've been a trial lawyer for 32 years, and it's the most media attention on any particular case that I've had. This is 2011. After all those years, there's been no scientific breakthrough or anything. There's been nothing new that's come in or anything. After all this time, there was a charge.

[David Muir]

The defense contends that the reason David would follow Karen was because he was worried about what was going on at those hot tub parties.

[David Swift]

There were issues about conduct and things that were going on, adult parties, things about hot tub parties, and just some things that maybe some others considered not appropriate.

[David Muir]

They call her friend Robin Alford, who testifies that she saw Karen passed out at Kathy Bona's birthday party.

[David Swift]

Did you see Karen Swift leave the hot tub and go into the house?

[Ashley Swift]

I did. I witnessed her get up. She looked to me as if she was hot, noisy, kind of feeling when I walked in, and I witnessed her laying on the floor.

[David Swift]

Did you. Were you aware whether or not when you first met the Swifts, that they drank alcohol or not?

[Ashley Swift]

Karen never drank before she come to Dyersburg. Never. And I don't think that she can handle her alcohol at all.

[David Muir]

The defense points out that in his police interview, David did express concern for Karen's welfare.

[David Swift]

I'd have to go get her and drive her home. They call me. And so I was always concerned and worried about her. There was several times I found her in compromising situations, and I did get upset. I said, karen, police, you know, why are you doing this?

[Detective]

The defense was simple. David Swift did not kill Karen Swift. They said it could have been a random act by somebody who was just passing by, either in a car or on foot.

[David Swift]

They didn't compare the fingerprints. They just tested David Swift. They had tunnel vision.

[David Muir]

The defense also argues that David had a serious knee injury affecting his mobility, so he wouldn't have been physically able to dispose of Karen's body.

[Detective]

They said he had this injured leg, so he could not have possibly picked her up and placed her in the cemetery.

[David Swift]

Did you notice anything about his leg or how he was walking?

[Bill Bona]

He had a knee brace on and he had crutches.

[David Muir]

Multiple witnesses for the prosecution dispute the seriousness of David's knee injury.

[Bill Bona]

Was he using crutches?

[Deborah Roberts]

I never seen no crutches on Saturday.

[Bill Bona]

Did he appear to be injured in any way?

[Deborah Roberts]

You could see him using his crutches.

[John Hogshooter]

While he was talking.

[Deborah Roberts]

But after he got done talking and they went in the house, he just walked like he didn't needed crutches anymore. I thought that was strange.

[Detective]

Even if he is faking it, there's a visual there. The jury is repeatedly seeing people get on the stand and say, yes, I saw him on these crutches. Yes, I saw him on these crutches.

[David Muir]

The defense also disagrees with the prosecution's account of what happened inside the Swift home on the night of Karen's murder.

[Detective]

So part of the prosecution's theory of the case was that David comes into Karen's room, takes Ashley, the daughter, out of the bed and goes and puts her in bed with the sister, Keeley. He returns to the room, and Karen is either asleep or in a very incapacitated state. And then something happens where he ends her life.

[David Muir]

Then the defense calls an essential witness to challenge that theory.

[David Swift]

Would you tell everybody your name?

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

Ashley Swift. I was nervous to go on the stand, and they decided to call me early. And so in that moment, I did freak out a little bit just because I hadn't mentally prepared myself.

[David Muir]

Ashley, who was only nine years old when she saw her mom for the last time, describes what she remembers about the hours before Karen disappeared.

[David Swift]

You're not used to testifying, so let me just ask you a few things. Okay?

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

Okay.

[David Swift]

When your mother picked you up, did she pick you up in her car?

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

She did.

[David Swift]

And where did y'all go after that?

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

We went home, back to our house where my sister and my dad were.

[David Swift]

And do you recall getting out of the car or going to the house? Do you recall everything about that night?

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

Yeah, we came into the house and we went to sleep in her bedroom. I didn't really prepare for trial. Whatever was asked was what was asked. And however I answered was however I answered. And I told the truth in everything that I said.

[David Muir]

And Ashley testifies that it wasn't her father who moved her from the bed.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

Oh, I know it was my mother.

[Bill Bona]

How do you know that?

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

It's instinct to know your mother versus somebody else. I just. You have that bond with that person and you know who it is.

[Bill Bona]

But you didn't actually see her.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

No, but I felt her. There were some times during my testimony where they were trying to, I think, trick me into thinking that what I felt and knew was something else. And I made sure to own that it was my testimony.

[Bill Bona]

So you actually don't know for sure then, do you?

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

I mean, I have a pretty good instinct to feel what my mother feels like.

[David Muir]

Seeing his Oldest daughter take the stand becomes a visibly emotional ordeal for David.

[David Swift]

I know that it was physically tough, and he knew it was difficult being asked questions.

[David Muir]

And finally, after two weeks of heated exchanges and moving testimony, there are fireworks inside the jury room where lines are drawn in the sand.

[Bill Bona]

It was divided pretty much down the middle. It was basically the guys against the girls.

[David Muir]

As the courtroom holds its breath for a verdict.

[Ashley Swift]

In the dry states of the Southwest, there's a group that's been denied a basic human right in the Navajo Nation.

[David Muir]

Today, a third of our households don't.

[Ashley Swift]

Have running water, but that's not something they chose for themselves. Can the Navajo people reclaim their right to water and contend with the government's legacy of control and neglect?

[John Hogshooter]

Our water, our future.

[David Muir]

Our water, our future. That's in the next season of Reclaimed.

[Ashley Swift]

The lifeblood of Navajo Nation. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Muir]

After six days of emotionally charged testimony in David Swift's murder trial, it was time for the lawyers on both sides to make their final plea to the jury.

[Deborah Roberts]

Karen and David Swift's marriage ended sometime around 3:30am on October 30, 2011. Sadly, it didn't end the way Karen had envisioned it might when she filed for divorce earlier that month from David. My job and closing argument was to convince the jury that there was only one person that could have done this. And that's what I attempted to thread all the evidence together and, you know, present them with a coherent theory of what happened that evening. There was only one person in the planet that could have killed Karen Swift, and it was David.

[David Muir]

How do you think the prosecution did in presenting its case to the jurors?

[Ashley Swift]

I think that General Goodman had a very, very difficult case. It was an inherited case. It was very old evidence. I think that he did the absolute best that he could to try to bring justice to Karen Swift.

[David Swift]

The prosecutor said that he would put the puzzle together, but the puzzle was incomplete. And so that's exactly what I argued, and that his version of the offense and what he claimed happened was incorrect or inconsistent with what was proven. There is no proof to support the state's theory in this case. You have heard all of my questions. You have heard all of the witnesses. The state said that this was a puzzle that they would put together for a complete picture. There is no complete picture. In order to return a verdict, it.

[Bill Bona]

Is necessary that each juror agree there, too, your verdict must be unanimous.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

As it was going to the jury, we all kind of sat around and hugged a bunch of family, friends, showed up. And we were sitting there trying to figure out, oh, what if the jury's saying this? What if they're saying that? But we really didn't know what was going on in that jury room.

[Bill Bona]

We started deliberating. Why don't you think he's guilty? Why do you think he's guilty? We took an initial vote just to see where everybody was, and it was divided pretty much down the middle. It was basically the guys against the girls.

[David Muir]

According to juror David Liggins, some of those male jurors felt there just wasn't enough evidence to convict David Swift.

[Bill Bona]

If you stomp somebody's head on concrete good enough to fracture her skull like it was fractured and busted, and then he can beat every law enforcement and science in the state. I don't believe that's possible. This day and night, no physical evidence.

[David Muir]

But for other jurors, they say David Swift's behavior towards Karen couldn't be ignored.

[Bill Bona]

In my heart, I really thought he did something. When he knew where she was at and what she was doing because he was following her, that made me think that, yes, he did something.

[Detective]

As the jury was deliberating, things were very tense, and you could sense the tension minute by minute.

[Bill Bona]

I actually was not surprised that the jury was deliberating as long as they did. Anytime you have a circumstantial case, you're going to have a lot of discussions. You're going to have a lot of opinions.

[David Swift]

When the jury went out, it was tense on both sides. Both sides were just waiting. You have no choice other than to talk to your client, talk to his family. And so he obviously was nervous. And it could mean either him going home or either him staying, you know, in custody.

[David Muir]

After hours of fruitless deliberations, the jury tells the judge they were unable to reach a decision. He instructs them to keep trying.

[Bill Bona]

After 10, 11 hours, you're getting tired, mentally exhausted. Everybody was so tired they couldn't reach a decision.

[John Hogshooter]

So they stayed and they went home, and then they came back.

[Bill Bona]

It got a little heated, but anytime you got different difference of opinions, it's eventually gonna get a little hated.

[David Muir]

Finally, after two days of deliberation, the jury announces it has reached a decision.

[Bill Bona]

When we walked back in there, everybody was looking. Of course, they're gonna see if they can tell whether you voted not guilty or guilty. Anybody would have voted like we did. But I do remember looking out in.

[Detective]

The gallery, I saw one lady, she was shaking, and the longer it took, it was obvious to me that she was becoming more Nervous. And this was pretty much the scene inside the courthouse.

[Bill Bona]

I just prayed we had done the right thing. Madam, for person. Has a jury reached a verdict in this case?

[David Muir]

After two days of grueling deliberation, the jury has come back in David Swift's murder trial.

[David Swift]

Has the jury reached a verdict in this case?

[John Hogshooter]

No, you, Honor.

[David Swift]

Do you feel like that it is likely that the jury on continued deliberations.

[Bill Bona]

Will reach a verdict?

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

No, sir.

[Detective]

I think the best word to describe what happened as the verdicts were being read was shock.

[David Swift]

Does the jury agree on the highest.

[Bill Bona]

Level of offense that the defendant is.

[David Swift]

Either guilty or not guilty?

[Bill Bona]

Yes.

[David Swift]

What is the verdict in that?

[David Muir]

Not guilty.

[Bill Bona]

The jury came back not guilty on first degree murder, not guilty on second degree murder, and they were hung on voluntary manslaughter.

[David Swift]

Do you all believe that the jury is hopelessly deadlocked with respect to the.

[Bill Bona]

Charge of voluntary manslaughter?

[David Swift]

I see everybody nodding their head yes.

[John Hogshooter]

I was just sitting there in the chair. I was just kind of just numb. I was like, I can't believe this. We spent all this time presenting the facts, and apparently they just didn't get it. The jury didn't get it.

[Bill Bona]

The first two officers on the scene said that they did walk into the garage that day. I'm sorry. You could smell bleach. If he had bleach in there. You could see the blood if he.

[John Hogshooter]

Ain'T cleaned it up yet.

[Bill Bona]

When they gave me a scenario, that's where he done it. And then they can't find nothing. That ended the case. For me, I think it stopped at manslaughter because I felt like he did something. In my heart, I really thought he did something.

[David Muir]

When the verdict came in, your reaction?

[Ashley Swift]

Honestly, I really was not surprised. Reasonable doubt was everywhere.

[Deborah Roberts]

I think the way that the prosecution laid it out was the only person that could have done it was David Swift. They didn't present proof that said that it it was David Swift. If I removed myself and my knowledge of the case and I was an independent person, I would have had to have rendered a verdict of not guilty.

[David Muir]

One detail that the prosecution wasn't allowed to introduce a trial, David's indictment for allegedly stalking his second wife, Kelly. But some jurors say hearing about that accusation wouldn't have made a difference.

[Bill Bona]

No, in my opinion, that would have changed my outcome. Was the scenario the prosecution gave, yes, that woman was beat to death, but they can't convince me that David done it.

[David Muir]

Let me take you to the penultimate moment, which is what was it like to hear the jury say, not guilty.

[David Swift]

Man, it was. It was great. I thought, finally, it was overwhelming.

[David Muir]

Although he was acquitted of murdering Karen, David Swift's legal ordeal is far from over. He's still facing that charge of stalking his second wife and remains in jail as he faces retrial on that voluntary manslaughter charge.

[David Swift]

I have disappointment that the jury didn't reach a decision that I thought they should as to all the offenses, and that's the jury system, and that's why we'll have a retrial.

[Bill Bona]

We were confident going into the first trial. We're equally confident for a second trial. And I think that it's something that we can't give up on. It's just something that we have an obligation to do.

[Ashley Swift]

I'm not really sure what you expect to get out of a retrial when we've already seen the presentation of all this evidence before and everybody has pretty much already formed a decision on.

[David Muir]

And today, 13 years after her mother disappeared, Ashley Swift, Karen and David's daughter, still steadfastly believes in her father's innocence.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

Moving forward. I'm not exactly 100% sure what's going to happen. I hope that we can get my dad home soon. He is currently sitting in jail for something that, you know, he shouldn't even be in jail for.

[Ashley Swift]

David has missed out on a lot of special things. He has missed the birth of a grandchild, his daughter's graduation from dental hygiene school, his oldest daughter, Ashley. He has missed Keely graduating high school.

[David Muir]

What does justice for Karen Swift look like?

[Ashley Swift]

I think that in a situation like this, I think that we have to unfortunately reconcile with the fact that there may not be justice. I will always remember Karen, and I think everybody should remember Karen by her love for children, that she was a great mother and she was a great friend.

[Karen Swift's Daughter]

I think one of the things I want people to know most about my mom is she's a very caring and nurturing person, and she would do anything for any of us kids or my dad. I would love to have my dad around again and, you know, really fight for justice for my mom.

[Deborah Roberts]

That's our program for tonight. I'm David Muir.

[David Muir]

And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night.