TN TN - Karen Swift, 44, Dyersburg, 30 Oct 2011 - #2

[Mikebr]

Yes, it's odd, especially since we know she drove her child home in that same vehicle. If the screw had been in the tire all day it surely would have been going flat by 1 a.m.

I think it's more telling if there was both a screw and a puncture in the tire. The screw might not be the thing that made the tire go flat, and so would be considered a red herring. Interesting!

Maybe the screw was the first attempt at the flat tire staging...didn't work since the tire tightened around it and he decided to cut the tire instead.

 

[AmyMarie222]

I think a huge clue in this will be whether or not Karen was sexually assaulted. If there were "apparent injuries" to her body, yet she was NOT sexually assaulted, then I think it greatly reduces the chance of a random predator, and increases the chances of domestic violence. If she was indeed sexually assaulted, then DNA could very easily rule David out. I just don't understand why a serial killer or random predator would stalk then beat a woman to death without robbing or sexually assaulting her. What's in it for them to do that?

The fact that her car was so close to their home is what I keep coming back to. Easy for somebody to plant (or hide) clothes then walk home.

 

[gitana1]

You don't have to hammer the nail in, just lean it up to the tire and drive the car over it...but they might be able to link that nail to the work site..but i am having an issue with this mother leaving the house in the middle of the night without telling her husband so he can watch the kids..this is an experienced mother...and the child is not a newborn..only an emergency would make her go get medicine in the middle of the night, and why not wake up the husband so he can go...and if she was going to help or meet someone, again she would say something or her first move upon gettting the flat would be to call that friend and say...i got a flat..so her phone should tell that story...i think the flat tire is staging and the husband did it.

But, these two were getting a divorce. She may not have felt the need to speak to him. Maybe she told her kid(s) where she was going and to tell Daddy. That happens in divorce cases.

Or maybe she did leave a note and LE doesn't want the husband to reveal it.

I do not believe this was random. The placement of the car indicates it was not. This was very likely someone she knew.

The info about going back early to the work site is a bombshell. But what it says depends on who knew she was going there or who might have been there if and when she got there. If she ever left the house that is.

About her kids, are they in the father's custody? Did grandma have them for awhile?

 

[AmyMarie222]

There is no way her cleaning job would have been before 5 AM. Let's not forget that her cell phone pinged near the river at 5 AM. If she knew she was going to work at 4-something in the morning, she would have told her daughter "sorry I wont be able to see you in the morning, I'll be at work."

 

[Mikebr]

But, these two were getting a divorce. She may not have felt the need to speak to him. Maybe she told her kid(s) where she was going and to tell Daddy. That happens in divorce cases.

Or maybe she did leave a note and LE doesn't want the husband to reveal it.

I do not believe this was random. The placement of the car indicates it was not. This was very likely someone she knew.

The info about going back early to the work site is a bombshell. But what it says depends on who knew she was going there or who might have been there if and when she got there. If she ever left the house that is.

About her kids, are they in the father's custody? Did grandma have them for awhile?

I don't think she would speak to him to get permission..remember its his kid too..so why would she not tell him she was sick or she had to leave them?..she would tell him for the sake of her children not for his sake..no way would she just drive off into the night leaving her kid alone without a word..she would wake the other adult in the house. but i think this was murder and i think the husband knows what happened. The only other scenario was that she was forced from the house by another person...but i doubt it.

 

[otto]

That is such a weird statement, that investigators are worried about "tunnel vision." That is something suspects or POI's usually worry about...also in a post above, where it says how cooperative Dad has been and has allowed "one of the children" to speak with LE-aren't there four children?

I think that investigators are always mindful of the danger of tunnel vision, although we are more familiar with defense lawyers using that claim as a defense tactic.

The point about the "one child" speaking with police suggests to me that one daughter was at home, and the other was a sleepover.

 

[AmyMarie222]

One thing I'm a little curious about would need to be answered by a doctor. On DS's FB page, he posted a picture of his leg injury on May 2nd, and described the injury as "torn Patella tendon." He was using crutches again when Karen went missing, and allegedly said it was a result of his injury from back in May. I'm just curious what a doctor would say about an injury like this not healing, and revealing itself again.

 

[nursebeeme]

looks like this will be covered by nancy grace again (she has up the bit about the people who discovered her speaking out... on her website that is)

 

[otto]

i have not been following this case, so have been reading posts and clicking links to get a quick study. I was thinking about a mother of two with one sick daughter suddenly leaving the home in the middle of the night scenario......if she just saw her soon to be ex in the house and say got a phone call from a friend needing assistance, or had to leave the house for any reason, wouldn't she tap on his door and say...keep an eye one the kids i need to leave the house?....so scenario b
Scenario b she gets a call or a knock on the door soon after putting the girl to bed and goes to the door to meet the person...either is abducted or lured to drive off to talk...not sure why the abductor would need her car though..he would have to have gotten there with his own...so i am not believing this scenario...

Likely scenario...
Husband and her get in a late night fight and she is mortally wounded...he begins the staging with placing her car along the road...slicing the tire....walks back home..dumps the body using his own car..goes to bed...plays dumb the next morning...the last report link on this page from the tv station says they gathered evidence at the house...well if she walked out of that house of her own free will, what evidence would there be at the house? i just don't see how it could be anyone else but the husband...you only need to stage when you have a connection to the victim you need to obscure...in the days of cell phones...why would a woman need to walk away from a car with a flat tire? or a man for that matter?

That's the way I'm looking at it right now too - for the same reasons.

 

[otto]

Sheriff Box talks about Swift investigation

"Authorities said nothing indicates Swift was killed in a different location"

Ok, so this makes it all more curious. The home, the place the car was found, the location her body was found.

If she was killed where she was found.... how did she end up there in the first place?

There are conflicting statements. The Sheriff has also said that she was moved to the location where she was found after she was murdered. I understand that to mean that there is no crime scene anywhere else, but she appears to have been murdered elsewhere.

 

[ThoughtFox]

There is no way her cleaning job would have been before 5 AM. Let's not forget that her cell phone pinged near the river at 5 AM. If she knew she was going to work at 4-something in the morning, she would have told her daughter "sorry I wont be able to see you in the morning, I'll be at work."

Right, and from all statements it would appear that the children expected their mother to be at home in the morning.

Plus the friend told her not to bother coming back on a Sunday morning to clean the stove and refrigerator because new ones for the Habitat House had been ordered anyway.

Maybe there's an outside chance that the Mom was wide awake and on a whim decided to drive to a store to get something good for breakfast or something like that. Anything is possible, but she never made it there, so it all comes back to who else was awake in that neighborhood, and her husband is one possibility, and the most likely person to have interacted with her.

 

[otto]

With all due respect:

Kids can come down with illnesses at any time, doesn't have to be too much candy. What does the part I bolded have to do with anything? If a child has a fever at 2 a.m., a mother isn't going to worry about getting medicine until her normal wake up time at 6? My kids always slept when they had a fever but they still needed to be given something to bring it down. We don't know that the girl went to sleep and didn't wake up again until 6, she could have roused enough for mom to realize she was out of Tylenol and then went right back to sleep, never knew mom left to run to the store.
I think it would be wise to think outside the box and not assume too much. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the most reasonable. For whatever reason, she was on the side of that road with a flat tire, someone came along and snatched her, took her to the location she was found and murdered her. I think I remember reading early on that LE believed she was headed the other direction, and made a U-turn to park on the other side of the road pointed towards home. Which could explain why she never made it to the store or wherever she was going.
It could have been the husband... or it could have been a stranger.

I think the simplest explanation regarding whether Karen thought her daughter needed medicine is that, if she needed it, Karen would have bought it on the way home rather than go home and then go out again.

 

[otto]

bbm

In that photo they actually marked the spot where she was found with an "X"

That's exactly the spot marked on maps made earlier.

 

[belimom]

There are conflicting statements. The Sheriff has also said that she was moved to the location where she was found after she was murdered. I understand that to mean that there is no crime scene anywhere else, but she appears to have been murdered elsewhere.

bbm

Maybe I'm reading too much into these statements by LE, but - that leads me to believe that she was murdered in a violent way... ... in a way that LE thinks there should be evidence somewhere (rather than strangulation, etc).

 

[SNOWINMEMPHIS]

Sheriff believes Mid-South mom was murdered
December 14, 2011

snipped...

Her car was discovered, with a tire off the rim, pulled over about a quarter of a mile from her home. Swift had been to a Halloween party and brought her young daughter home from a sleep over when she disappeared.

Box said her tire had a puncture in it and a sheet rock screw in it. The TBI crime lab is conducting more tests on the tire.

...Box said there was never an organized grid search in the area where Karen Swift's body was discovered.

http://www.wmctv.com/story/16319091/sheriff-believes-mid-south-mom-was-murdered

I grew up in a family involved in construction.
A sheetrock screw can be picked up by a tire just about anywhere and if it stays there the tire may not go flat.
Actually it probably wouldn't.
The description in the article you posted makes me wonder if Karen was driving and the tire was disabled.
Maybe by a bullet? Or by a compound bow arrow?
It was hunting season.
It's possible that she was stalked and followed or maybe the unlucky victim of a serial killer.
I can't just focus on the husband since I don't think LE are doing so.
And they say they have eliminated the man who poisoned the dogs, one of them belonging to Karen.
But then in other articles they seem to say they haven't eliminated anyone.
JMO

 

[otto]

I agree. The question is why there? Does that road lead to anywhere? A highway? Not knowing the area I have no idea.

If the husband did it, why would he have chosen this area?


Any thoughts?

The road goes to the cemetery and that's it.

The cemetery is old and probably not used often ... and with the kudzu in full leaf, she was impossible to see even though she was close to the cemetery access road. It seems like an excellent spot ... away from the acreages in their small community, close to highway 78, fairly deserted.

 

[otto]

http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-dyer-sheriff-swift,0,5848889.story



How do y'all take that thorn in the side comment? I am taking it that it means he has asked no questions, is not asking for answers, is not demanding justice - nothing, nada.

I take it two ways ... he's not pestering them, and he's not refusing to cooperate. Basically, it sounds like he's laying low and not trying to draw attention to himself.

 

[LindaG]

Exactly, I agree.

Just moo-
What if after Karen got home, husband went out and flattened her tire, then went inside and said 'come see your car, there is a problem'.

When she went outside to look at her car, he attacked her, then took her to the cemetary and finished the deed. He came back home, and drove her car down to where it was found, at the side of the road.

 

[otto]

I wonder if the the tire off the rim is the same tire that had the puncture in it? So her tires weren't slashed as was said earlier on?

I find nothing suspicious about a sheet rock screw in a tire. Honest to goodness, I just had that happen to me a couple of weeks ago. Flat tire and had to have it repaired.

If the tire was off the rim, would Karen have tried to fix it herself? Perhaps replacing it with a spare? This is a very interesting revelation.

Slashed tires would've been more concerning than a flat tire with a screw in it.

hmmmmm

The screw will be part of a batch ... so if there are similar screws at home or in one of the homes she was cleaning, that will help figure out what happened. If the tire is off the rim, wouldn't that suggest that someone drove quite a distance with a flat tire?

 

[radiator]

did LE completely rule out the neighbor who allegedly poisoned their dog?

the news about the sheetrock screw and tire partially off the rim make me think she really go out for some reason and pulled over because of the flat.