212: Was it the Husband? | The Shocking Death of Karen Swift

44-year-old Karen Swift mysteriously vanished in the early morning hours of October 30th, 2011 after arriving home from a Halloween party in Dyersburg, Tennessee. Karen’s body was discovered about six weeks after she vanished in a cemetery about two miles away from her home. For years, the community was stunned as to what really happened to Karen Swift as the investigation went cold. But then there was an unexpected break in the case… AudibleSign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit https://www.audible.com/serialously Omaha SteaksGo to https://www. OmahaSteaks.com to get 50% off sitewide on unforgettable gifts and more. And use Promo Code AE at checkout for an extra $30 off. Thanks to our advertiser, Omaha Steaks! Athena ClubGo to https://www.athenaclub.com with promo code AE for 30% off! SimpliSafeThis week only, get 60% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan—this is their best offer of the year! Head to https://www. SimpliSafe.com/serialously QuinceHead to https://www. Quince.com/ae for free shipping and 365-day returns Shop the Merch:www.annieelise.com Follow the podcast on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serialouslypodcast Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serialouslypod/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_ SERIALously FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/SERIALouslyAnnieElise/ About Me: https://annieelise.com/ For Business Inquiries: [email protected] Sources: ABC 24Law and CrimeCourt TVAction News 5WBBJTVAudio Sources:ABC 24Law and Crime

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Annie Elise?

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• 0:42Annie Elise?

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• 1:09Speaker 01

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• 1:39Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Sleep.

• 2:02Annie Elise?

  Hey everybody. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistically with me, Annie Elise. Hope you are ready to start your week with some true crime because today's case is definitely a wild one. Some of the clips that I will be playing for you also are unnerving, bizarre, kind of scary, I guess would be a good word to describe it, but it's one of these cases that it's kind of been going pretty viral recently. I've been seeing it all over my socials. I'm sure you guys have seen it at one point or another on yours as well, but the more that I've been diving into it and researching it, I'm just left kind of being like, I need to talk to somebody about it. I need to share my thoughts about this case and the details about this case. So why not jump on the mic and talk with all of you

• 2:46Annie Elise?

  about it. So if you haven't guessed by now, or if you haven't seen it on your socials and you are like, Annie, I have absolutely no idea where you're going with this. What are you even talking about? It's the story of Karen Swift. Karen was one of those people who gave to everyone around her more than she got. She was completely devoted to her four children. She was also one of those people who always wanted to make sure that everyone around her was comfortable and having a good time. She put everybody ahead of herself. And she also loved to let loose as well, but only if she wasn't going too far and maybe crossing a boundary for somebody else. But if you were hanging out with her, Karen was the kind of person who would regularly check in with you to make sure that you were the one having a good time because truly, she wasn't having fun unless everybody else

• 3:29Annie Elise?

  was. In 2011, Karen had been married to her husband, David, for 22 years. Their relationship wasn't without its rough spots, though. In 1999, about 10 years into their marriage, they went through a temporary separation, but they ended up getting back together. By 2011, they lived in Dyersburg, Tennessee, and they had a pretty decent social circle as well. It was kind of like your typical suburban family. They had a good group of friends. They were friendly with their neighbors and things seemed to be going well for them. And on the night of Saturday, October 29th, Karen went out to a Halloween party. Didn't join her, but Karen decided to invite her friends Bill and Kathy with her instead, and it was going to be a fun night out like she did so often. Now Karen was very close to Bill and Kathy Bona.

• 4:14Annie Elise?

  She and the Bonas had only known each other for about a year and a half since early 2010, but she hung out with them all the time. It also wasn't unusual for her to invite them to go to a party with her. I mean, definitely not at all. Except there had been a little bit of tension between the couples. See, Bill and Kathy were apparently pretty easygoing. They liked throwing parties, they liked going to bars and concerts, really drinking, letting loose. But David, Karen's husband, didn't approve of that sort of thing. He was worried that they were a bad influence on Karen, encouraging her to make decisions that weren't good for her in the long term. Now as for Bill and Kathy, they saw David as pretty uptight. They knew that he didn't approve of their lifestyle,

• 4:56Annie Elise?

  and they thought that he just needed to loosen up and leave them and Karen alone. Like, let us all go out, let us all have a good time. Why are you so uptight? Now I'm going to assume that Karen was siding with Bill and Kathy on all of this, since she kept seeing them and also invited them out to that party that night. And from the sounds of things, Karen was wanting to let loose again at this party. So much so that she fully expected not to go home, and she had already gotten permission from Bill and Kathy to sleep over at their place instead. Except, things didn't go according to the plan. In fact, sometime after midnight, meaning it's now October 30th, Karen got a phone call from her daughter Ashley, who was also spending the night out with a friend. But Ashley was now feeling homesick. She wanted her mom Karen to come and get her.

• 5:40Annie Elise?

  And the thing about being a mom, I can tell you from my firsthand experience, because I'm a mom of two, it's that you don't always get guaranteed breaks. No matter what, even if you think you're clocking out for the night, you're going out, you're having a good time with your friends, it's never guaranteed. Something may happen, something may come up, you're always on duty. And even though Karen just wanted to go out and have fun that night, she of course couldn't tell her daughter no. She felt bad, being a mother was her number one priority. She also hadn't had anything to drink, so she was okay to drive. So, she left the party, and she went and picked up her daughter Ashley. Ashley. Karen got home with Ashley around 2:00 a.m. on October 30th. Now, I want to jump ahead to the next morning because her husband David woke up around 10:00 a.m.

• 6:23Annie Elise?

  And when he got up, David noticed that Karen wasn't anywhere in the house. She wasn't in bed, she also wasn't with the kids. Her car was gone, but where could she have gone since 2:00 in the morning? Where would she already be out and why would she have left again? And as a matter of fact, it was definitely weird enough that David called the police right away. Right off the bat, he reported her as missing. But here's what's interesting. It wasn't a surprise to the police at all because he actually wasn't the first person to report that Karen had disappeared. Bill and Kathy had also already noticed that she wasn't around. When Karen had left the party the night before, she promised that she was going to text them first thing in the morning. However, they never heard from her since she had left.

• 7:05Annie Elise?

  And she also wasn't replying when they tried calling her and texting her either, so they had called and filed a missing persons report on her as well. So right away, the police took Karen's disappearance very seriously. And since they thought that she might have been abducted, they had their pick of suspects to choose from, especially once they realized that Karen had actually filed for a divorce from David just three weeks earlier. Now, as if that timing wasn't suspicious enough, the circumstances around how Karen made that filing were pretty alarming on their own. She couldn't afford a lawyer to draw up the paperwork for her, so she borrowed $2,000 from her good friends, her good friends Bill and Kathy. This was so that she could cover the fees and filing. They also gave her a second phone.

• 7:48Annie Elise?

  I guess this was so that she could talk to the lawyer without her husband David realizing, maybe trying to go under the radar. And apparently, after she filed, she did tell them that she was afraid to be home the day that David got the paperwork. I guess she already did see him as somebody with a lot of potential to be violent when he was angry. So Kathy and Bill invited her on a trip out of town that day. Stay away, keep safe, don't be there when he gets the paperwork, like let him cool down after he receives it. And in fact, Karen spent a week on vacation with Bill and Kathy and with her daughters. But at the end of that week, on October 17th, she and the girls went back Karen was still living with David and she was in that house that they shared two weeks later on the night that she went missing.

• 8:30Annie Elise?

  So basically, right off of the bat, the police knew that David had a motive to possibly hurt his wife, right? She was afraid of him, she was going to all of these lengths to hide the fact that she was leaving until she was, you know, right then, ready to file the paperwork. And he had access to her after she got back home a few hours after midnight on October 30th. It's the scenario that made the most sense, right? We also know from cellphone pings that Karen's phone left her house at 4:38 that morning, the same day that she disappeared. Now that was two and a half hours after she and her daughter got home. It was way too late for her to be going back to that party. She wasn't gonna be meeting anyone at that time, so why did she leave at 4:38 in the morning? It seemed like there were three possibilities.

• 9:13Annie Elise?

  One, Karen snuck out for some reason, possible but unlikely at that hour. Two, somebody broke in and abducted her, all without David or the kids noticing, also possible but doesn't seem very likely. Or three, David did something to get her out of the house. And then, who knows? And that possibility fit the evidence the best so long as the police officers were concerned. So, they called David in for questioning.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  (mumbling)

• 9:45Speaker 03

  Well, it was, um, Easter morning, I had to have knee surgery. I had to have a total quadriceps, a tele-tendon fracture.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  At my daughter's soccer game and, uh, and, uh, had to be taken by ambulance and had to have surgery the next morning. And about a week ago, it's been giving me a lot of problems, I haven't been able to, you know, stay here and stuff like that because I had to pull sutures and drill holes in kneecap, it's restricted, but a little about a week ago, I got work and turned wrong and it's, so I had an appointment today with another specialist to get a second opinion, but almost always my business.

• 10:30Annie Elise?

  This is something I've talked about before. A lot of the time, when someone is planning on lying during an interrogation, they will just talk and talk without stopping. And I promise that that clip that I just showed you was from the very start of the session. He hadn't been read his Miranda rights, not that he had any intention of remaining silent, obviously, but he was just talking and talking and talking. But it kind of comes across right from the get-go like he was almost trying to take control of the questioning, you know, signal that he was the one who was going to be setting the agenda and talking about what he wanted to talk about. In fact, before the interrogation even begun, again, still before he was ever even read

• 11:14Annie Elise?

  his Miranda rights, David started laying the groundwork to point the finger at two of his least favorite people in the entire world, Bill and Kathy.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  That's the one that we've had, you know, that she's had on the rise in the county that I pay for.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Right. Any others, you know, uh?

• 11:33Speaker 03

  That she has, that she would have? Well, I found out yesterday that Bill and Kathy Bono had given her another cell phone she'd been using it for.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Any idea what that number is?

• 11:44Speaker 03

  I'd suspected because she'd been known in the past to have multiple phones, you know, prepaid phones and stuff like that. About a year and a half ago, she had one. Then I failed to question her about it. She knocked in front of Jamie Gurren.

• 12:07Annie Elise?

  And from there, the interrogation just kept going like that. David talked to the police for over an hour, and I do mean David was the one talking, because they barely even had to ask him anything. He spent the entire time just rambling about what terrible people Bill and Kathy were, how Karen had been out of control lately, and basically how all of her friends were apparently just terrible influences on her life.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Wanted to clean it. She's just, she hadn't worked in years, but since all this, she's wanted to get some jobs and work, and she's just recently started doing the YMCA, doing some training there. So, and then Kathy and Bill pay her to come on Mondays to clean their house and pick up their kids, and she stays, she just stays there till 8:30, from like 12:30 or 1 until 8:30, and then... She does landscape form and stuff and.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  But listen back for a second, where's his house in trouble?

• 13:06Speaker 03

  It was two oh three Walnut.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  And she, um, her Karen became really close friends, you know, our, our daughters went there and danced and then she, um.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  She was over there, you know, all the time. She was here and started, oh, sneaking out of the house and, um, she'd go, um. To be with Kathy and Bill and I know even this past summer, um.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  Now, when you say go to the beach with them, what do you mean, go to party with them, go?

• 13:42Speaker 03

  Go party and I find them.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  Naked in the hot tub in the backyard. I found Karen naked in bed with Kathy one night.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  This was after, there was once after Kathy's birthday party at the country club and we all went over to Dylan and Kathy's house. And Karen, there were several that just got naked in the hot tub and, um.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  Anyways, we couldn't find Karen and Robin Alfred said, where'd Karen go? So she went in the house to go find Karen, but Bill. But I know had already gone in there in the house. And so Karen said, I'm gonna, or Kathy, Robin said, I'm gonna go check on.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Karen. And Karen was, um, so intoxicated, she passed out.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  She was on the, the couch naked. And so we all went in there and we said, where'd I go? And.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  They, they had to get her dressed. Well, Robin Alfred told me later that she prevented Bill from raping Kathy. Said he was trying to take advantage of her. And said she's the one that put the towels on her and everything. And after that all happened, I tried to pull Karen out of the situation. I said, listen, there, it's not good to be over there. I said, I see what's going on now. There were school teachers that were over there that was involved, Brian and Shannon and Lee. They were naked in the hot tub, everybody was. And I didn't think anything about it at first. I thought, you know, and. Yeah, I just thought, you know, but then when I realized what was going on and I tried to pull Karen out of it. Mm-hmm.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  And then I called her over there another time, um, in the back in the hot tub. And Dustin would come home at night and I'd say, I need to go check on your mom because there'd be times that somebody'd have to drive Karen home. Or, huh. Right. Or I'd have to go get her and drop her home, they'd call me. And so, I was always concerned and worried about her. And so, whenever, the night that it was a, she went to the country club with Kathy and Bill, or she told me just Kathy, but I found out later Bill went too. But, um, she'd promised me she'd never go get in the hot tub again, that was bad judgment. I even confronted Kathy about it.

• 16:18Speaker 03

  Okay? And Kathy said, oh, I said, I won't go that way, you know, we don't, we decided not to do that anymore. But anyways, at, Dustin got home. Matter of fact, I think he might even, he might have been over here, your son or something, but he, he got home, I said, Dustin, I said, I need to go check on your mom. I said, it's almost one o'clock and I can't, don't know where she is. So, I went to, down the road, I went to Bill and Kathy's, their backyard, and went around and I'd heard people in the hot tub and everything, and there's Brian, Shannon, Lee, it looked like they were engaged and sexual activity, they were totally naked, and Bill was getting

• 17:02Speaker 03

  out of the hot tub, but I heard Shannon say, where did Karen go? And I thought, oh my God, you know, she promised she'd never do this again, and, and so I just went and inside the door, Bill and her going inside, I said, Bill, we're inside this door, and I said, Bill, where's Karen, it's one thirty in the morning, I'm worried about Karen. Oh, she's upstairs talking to Kathy. I just went on upstairs and I stood there in the doorway, and I heard Karen, and I could see Karen was in the bed here and Kathy was over here, and, you know, they were talking and... And I heard Kathy say, "Well, I think it's Bill coming up here or something back." And Karen said, "Oh, well, if he wants to bed," said, "or wrecking bed or something, he can kick me out of there." So I finally see Karen, I said, "What are you doing?"

• 17:47Speaker 03

  I said, "It's one thirty in the morning, I'm worried about you." And she said, "Oh, just going home, I'll be there in a little bit." I said, "Why aren't you in bed with Kathy?" I said, "What's going on?" I said, "Have you been in the hot tub?" She said, "No." And then she got upset and started cussing, and she was... And so, I said, "Well, get up, I need to talk to you, I need to make sure you're okay." And she said, "Just leave." Said, "I'll be home in a little bit, I'm tired of you always checking on me, blah, blah." So I went over there to the coverers and I pulled them back. And she was, you know, wet. She did have a towel, but she was totally naked. And I asked her, "Why aren't you in bed naked with Kathy?" And, um, later on, I confronted Kathy about that, too.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  And there was just a lot of stuff that's been going on that people have told me, you know, wrong and out.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  When you confronted Kathy, what was her attitude?

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Oh, no, I'm not that way. It was by phone and, um, that, you know, it was just bad judgment.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  You didn't say anything to her that night?

• 18:52Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, she wouldn't say nothing. She wouldn't, you know, she was just over there. But, you know, they were all over drunk and been drinking. And that's what always happens over there, is to the point of all the partying. Then another time, and I've got dates, you know, when she did this. But Karen snuck out, it wasn't that long ago, um, it's one and a half ago, two months, I'm somewhere in there. Karen was, uh, sneaking out of the house again. And she, um, which I'm upstairs. And even since I worked the third shift, and we haven't slept together in years. The marriage was not bad until recently, until all this happening with Bill and Kathy.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  And that's whenever I confronted the situation, I got shunned, Robin Alfred got shunned because we confronted what always going on over there. And that's whenever, you know, we got, "You're not welcome no more, blah, blah." And, um, Robin confronted him, too. And she...

• 19:56Annie Elise?

  Now that clip had some pretty intense allegations in it and they weren't completely untrue. I'm not saying that everything that David said was credible, not at all, but there was a grain of something real there.

• 20:14Annie Elise?

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• 20:53Annie Elise?

  They have everything from chai and matcha to chocolate mint and even their new salted caramel, which that has become my new favorite, especially in the morning. I know you're not supposed to have dessert in the morning, but for me, it feels like I am having a little sweet treat to start my day. And I think it's great when you're craving something sweet and salty, but for me, it's like a great way to start my morning routine. I love it. Embrace your salty side. Go to kachava.com and use code AE for 15% off your first order. That's kachava, K A C H A V A dot com, code AE. I know that at least one time, possibly more than once, Karen did go over to Kathy and Bill's place and they all decided to get into the hot tub together.

• 21:34Annie Elise?

  And it wasn't an issue that Karen hadn't packed a swimsuit because Bill and Kathy just had the idea that they could all get in this hot tub naked together. Now, in fairness, apparently this was something that they did with a lot of their friends. Sometimes they had people over or one or more of them didn't have anything to wear to go swimming in. So they would just kind of strip down to their bra and underwear and get in or get in completely naked, one of the two. One friend even told the police that they were at a party once and Karen was in the hot tub in her bra and underwear. And I guess she was feeling pretty good because she ended up kind of just like whipping her. Bra off, sort of tossing it away while this friend watched, just going completely topless, which, fine, your choice, you are prerogative, do you? And apparently, this wasn't something that Bill or Kathy or any of the others saw as

• 22:17Annie Elise?

  particularly sexual or inappropriate. But everybody has their own personal opinions on that, right? I mean, I don't know, thinking for yourself, if there's a shortlist of people who you would be willing to skinny dip with, or if you're more, you know, absolutely not, never in a million years. I think that, for me personally, I probably would not skinny dip with somebody who was not my husband, that's just my personal preference, but again, everybody's different. Anyway, at least one time, while Karen was at Bill and Kathy's place, she did suddenly start feeling dizzy and woozy. She needed to go lie down, so she climbed into bed with Kathy, who was already trying to go to sleep for the night. And later on, Kathy gave conflicting statements to the police about whether Karen had anything on when she got into bed or not. But you heard David's statement just now.

• 23:02Annie Elise?

  He said that he went to Bill and Kathy's house and found Karen naked in bed with Kathy. Clearly, in David's mind, whatever happened in the bed between Kathy and Karen, it was a sign that she was cheating on him, or at least gearing up to cheat on him soon. And let's also talk about that other allegation that David made. According to Bill and Kathy, one night Karen was at their house pretty late, not wearing any clothing, maybe after one of those naked hot tub parties, I'm not sure, but in any event, she passed out before she remembered to get dressed. So Bill found her lying there, naked, and just covered up with a towel. Again, Kathy and Bill both insisted that nothing shady ever happened. There was nothing sexual, certainly no attempted rape, but David clearly suggested that Bill wanted to take advantage of Karen in that situation.

• 23:46Annie Elise?

  And I guess another person in their friend group also was spreading rumors to that effect as well. Now, just for the sake of argument, let's assume that Bill and Kathy were telling the truth. Their house parties were all just in good, clean fun. As somebody who has been to a lot of parties, and my own fair share of parties, nothing about this sounds too over-the-top crazy to me. Sure, if you were going out every night, passing out naked with strangers, that might, yes, be a red flag, but sleeping over with good friends? Undressing in front of them? Not so much, it feels like something- That's not that big of a deal, again, in moderation. But if it is happening all of the time, every time Bill and Kathy had couples over, then yeah, I definitely do see the red flags there. And if there was something to those allegations that Bill was maybe into Karen and maybe willing

• 24:31Annie Elise?

  to take advantage of her, then she disappeared right after she was supposed to spend the night at his place, then canceled last minute? Something feels weird there as well. So I could see why David would think that that was worth sharing with the police. It all just came down to who was more believable? Bill and Kathy? Or David? It really does sound to me, and this is just my opinion, of course, because I can't prove it, but it does sound to me like David was pointing the finger as hard as he could at Bill and Kathy. He might have done it because he didn't want anybody looking too closely at him, sure. I mean, all of the signs were there, the rambling, the repeated insistence that Bill and Kathy were the real problem in this. All of those are signs that somebody could be lying, right?

• 25:14Annie Elise?

  I also think it's interesting just how calm and collected he sounded during his interrogation. I know that everybody grieves and panics differently, and we definitely shouldn't accuse somebody of being guilty just because they're not crying or they're not into full-blown hysterics when somebody they love goes missing. But after about an hour of him being very, very calm, very strategic, and talking and blaming everybody else, it almost felt like David suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be sad and scared. Because right as the interrogation was wrapping up, out of complete nowhere, he just turned on the waterworks.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Okay, let's, let's take this also into consideration. What if she has left with somebody?

• 26:00Speaker 02

  How are you gonna take that?

• 26:01Speaker 03

  I just want her to come, come home and to, you know, be a mother. She don't want to be a, a wife? You know, that's her decision, I can accept that. But, um, if there's someone else, you know, as long as, um, they're not hurtful or harmful, but, you know, to the girls or whatever, I mean, I just have to accept it, but, I mean, I...

• 26:29Speaker 03

  You know, that's not something that I want, or something that it'd be hard.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Have you filed a divorce?

• 26:35Speaker 03

  She filed on the 5th.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Who's her attorney?

• 26:37Speaker 03

  Uh, Creasy.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  Okay, that's incredible. Do you have an attorney?

• 26:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I got one, uh, in fact, Tim Nathy.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Nathy?

• 26:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was, um, he was there the night. He's the brother to Chris Nathy, that, their dog.

• 26:51Annie Elise?

  I think it's so wild that he was wiping his eyes like he was tearing up in that last clip, and it's not even clear to me if he actually was crying, or if he was just trying to force it. But either way, needless to say, the police were definitely suspicious. And it didn't take long for them to feel even more suspicious. Because on October 30th, the same day that Karen had been reported as missing, some of Karen's friends found her car. But Karen wasn't inside of it. And in fact, this car was not in good shape by the time they called the police to come and check it out. It had been parked and completely locked up, but some of Karen's clothing was still in the backseat. And you know what else was sitting right there, smack dab center on the seat in the car? Her divorce papers for David.

• 27:34Annie Elise?

  When the police officers managed to get the door open, he noticed that he had absolutely no problem sliding into the driver's seat. Which, he's an adult man, so think about that for comparison. On average, most men are bigger than most women, right? So the fact that he didn't even need to adjust the seat at all, push it back, make it more of an open space for him, it may have indicated that Karen wasn't the last one to drive the car. Another interesting detail was that one tire was totally flat. There was a screw in it, as a matter of fact. And when a tire expert took a closer look at the tire, they said it didn't look like Karen, or whoever was driving, had gone over this screw by accident. It was more like somebody had actually screwed it into the tire on purpose.

• 28:17Annie Elise?

  And by the time the car was found, the tire was then completely shredded. Now, there were no obvious signs of violence in the car. There was no blood, or anything that was ripped, or spilled, nothing like that. No clear indication that maybe a struggle had occurred. But clearly, the fact that her car was abandoned like this, it didn't look good for anyone who was still hoping that Karen would be found alive. And no surprise, right from the get-go, David was right at the top of the suspect list for the police. And not just because of the divorce, but also some very interesting details that came to life about their relationship. There were a lot of allegations of violence and very alarming controlling behavior when it came to their marriage. I mentioned before that David and Karen had separated for about seven months back in 1999.

• 29:02Annie Elise?

  The reason for that was because David had cheated on her and Karen found out. She wanted to leave him, but David wouldn't let things end that way. He couldn't stand to let her get away. According to some text messages that Karen had sent to her friends later on, she said that David threatened to kill himself if she ever left him. He literally put a gun to his head and said he would pull the trigger unless she took him back. And that worked. I mean, I guess, because the two of them didn't just get back together, they had an entire new wedding ceremony on their anniversary. However, their marriage didn't magically get better after that, not at all. According to a whole bunch of Karen's friends, David was very controlling. When she was out having fun, he would call her over and over again, just expecting her to always tell him where she was, who she was with, when she would be back home.

• 29:47Annie Elise?

  Sometimes if she didn't pick up those calls, he would just keep calling over and over and over again. I am talking 25 times in 30 minutes. That's a overkill, right? And just picture that for a second. I know that we have all had those times where we're trying to get a hold of somebody, sure. Especially if you've been drinking. I am definitely had my fair share of drunk dials in the past with past relationships, no doubt. Maybe you're angry, maybe you know that you're acting a little bit crazy, but you know, you don't care. But imagine calling somebody. You go to voicemail, you hang up, you hit redial immediately, the same thing happens, so you do it again, then again, and then you do it 21 more times after that. Because you can't even take a breather when you're trying to make 25 phone calls in a half an hour.

• 30:32Annie Elise?

  That is not normal or sane behavior. That on its own is just a massive red flag. And for anybody listening right now who is in a relationship where your partner or your significant other is calling you like that all of the time when you're out or when you're not with them because With friends, that definitely can possibly be a form of emotional abuse. So please take note of it. See if there's other red flags going on in your life because that is not healthy behavior. And that's not all that David would do. If he couldn't get Karen on the phone, he would sometimes just show up at her friend's house completely unannounced and uninvited. A few of her friends would notice him and they would think that it's weird that he would just come to these parties that he hadn't even been invited to. And sometimes he would arrive super late at night, right?

• 31:17Annie Elise?

  When everybody was about to head home anyway, almost like he was there to grab Karen and just like drag her back home to make sure that she got home at an early hour or a decent hour according to him. And you know who else definitely noticed him acting like this and essentially being a walking red flag? Karen's good friends, Bill and Kathy. David said that he didn't like them because he thought that they were a bad influence on Karen. But to my mind, it sounds like the real issue was that they were a good influence or that they were an outlet for Karen. She was able to confide in them. They offered to help her with those divorce paper fees. They got her a second phone so that she could safely navigate all of that. And I can see if somebody is very controlling and possessive, they certainly wouldn't like

• 32:01Annie Elise?

  anybody who's coming into the equation and interfering with their ability to control a situation. And someone like that certainly wouldn't like people being around that help remind Karen what a normal, healthy relationship looks like. So again, assuming they really were just a couple who liked partying, liked having a good time and they weren't rapists or swingers, which is what some of the local rumors were saying, they just were good friends. But honestly, even if they were swingers, so long as everything was consensual and nobody got hurt, what was the harm in that either? Who cares what their personal interests, habits, or choices are? Karen was a friend to them and they were allowing her to stay at their house when she was afraid of David. They were helping her with those fees, as I mentioned, with the phone. They really were trying to protect Karen.

• 32:45Annie Elise?

  And because of his weird possessiveness and his habit of just showing up at friends' houses unannounced, looking for Karen, Bill and Kathy were apparently actually pretty afraid of David as well. But like I said before, David Basically acted like Bill and Kathy were dragging Karen into this world of, you know, drunken, wild sex parties, corruption, all of these things. He told the police about that incident where Bill covered her up so that people, you know, wouldn't see that she was naked, and he said that it was predatory in some way. Which, to me, and I wasn't there, so I don't know, but it doesn't sound predatory. It sounds like the opposite. Like, he wanted to make sure that Karen's visible naked body wasn't just on display for everybody at the party to see. But again, I wasn't there, and David's gonna say what he's gonna say.

• 33:30Annie Elise?

  Now, even if we do wanna say, okay, there is, though, a little bit of a gray area here. It does sound like Karen might have been letting loose a bit more than what was responsible around her new friends. If that was out of character for her, I could see how her husband would have grounds to worry, certainly. That said, Bill and Kathy weren't the only ones who said that David's crazy and possessive behavior was way over the line. You also have Karen's neighbor, a woman named Jennifer, who said that Karen came over one day. But before the two of them could even relax or enjoy themselves, David just showed up acting like he owned the place. And he refused to leave until Karen came back home with him. Another friend said that she went with Karen when she got a new tattoo once.

• 34:12Annie Elise?

  And David absolutely flipped his shit entirely when he heard about it, because he didn't want Karen getting a tattoo with a friend. He wanted to be there himself. He wanted to be with her. Just another illustration of possessiveness, of control. Then, there were so many people, I mean, so many, who came to the police after Karen disappeared. And they all said that they thought that David was actually stalking Karen. They saw his car on the street when she was out running errands, anytime she was out hanging out, just kind of always lurking in the shadows. Kathy and Bill's neighbor even came forward to say that David came over one day and asked if he could just hang out in her yard. Like, he wanted to just eavesdrop on all of the things that happened at Kathy and Bill's house while Karen was there and he wasn't.

• 34:55Annie Elise?

  Just kind of almost like, not a peeping tom, but just like, watching, just witnessing everything, which, bro, you're not invited. You weren't invited for a reason. Like, back off, right? Give her some room to breathe. No one- She felt suffocated and that she could potentially be in danger if she was filing for divorce, right? I mean, truly, this behavior just has a red flag written all over it. So as all of this came to light, it was enough that David got yanked into a second interrogation just one day after the first one. In a lot of ways, it was pretty repetitive. It was more of him talking nonstop, barely letting the police get a word in, more of him acting like he thought Bill and Kathy were the real dangers in this situation. And in fact, when they asked David about how he even reported Karen is missing, he insisted

• 35:39Annie Elise?

  that he called 911 before Bill and Kathy ever did, which wasn't true. It's very easy to look at the call records and see when everybody called in. But David just really needed to be the first one, I guess. And he basically tied himself over in knots, trying to explain that he actually beat Bill and Kathy to the punch in calling and reporting Karen is missing.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  To Kathy that her vehicle's, and I'm worried her vehicle's got flat.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  And that's when she's, well, Bill's calling right now. Well, when I realized that Karen wasn't with Kathy, or that she hadn't heard from her all morning.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Was Bill calling you on the cell phone or landline or?

• 36:20Speaker 03

  No, Bill called direct to the sheriff's or police department, I guess.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Oh, so what you're saying, you and him never had a conversation?

• 36:28Speaker 03

  No, we never had a conversation. I didn't talk to Bill at all. It was just with Kathy.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, how did you find out that he was on the line? Just when you talked to Kathy?

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Well, I was on the phone.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  She called you?

• 36:39Speaker 03

  No, I called.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  Them?

• 36:42Speaker 03

  Kathy.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I asked where is Karen?

• 36:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. I asked if she'd seen Karen, that her vehicle was got a flat, Jennifer told me about it.

• 36:50Annie Elise?

  From there, it just sort of went on with all of the rambling and all of the blame gaming. And just like during the first interrogation, it felt like all of a sudden, at the very end of this session, David just remembered that he was supposed to be sad and worried about Karen. Because again, he got teary eyed and emotional. But when the police got up and left the room, it's almost like he turned those feelings off like a light switch.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Trying to protect her. I was worried. I was, you know, when she'd get up and, you know, leave at night and I would see it and, and, you know, one night she,

• 37:30Speaker 03

  she, I asked where she was going and she said, I'm gonna go ahead and go to Walmart. I said, um, this late? And I said, no, I said, you're probably really going to Kathy's, aren't you? And she said, um, no, I'm not.

• 37:43Annie Elise?

  Now, I've got to say, I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Robert Durst case, or if you watched The Jinx, I think it was on HBO. But this totally gives me vibes of that. And if you haven't watched it, you absolutely need to do. It is a great documentary. I think it's a docu-series, actually. But I had followed that case for years and years before The Jinx ever came out. And they catch him in one moment where he's talking about how he's innocent, how he had nothing to do with anything, not realizing he's still being recorded. And as soon as these investigators leave the room, I don't remember if it was in the room or the bathroom or what, he basically says, "I killed them all. Of course I killed them all." And I'm paraphrasing there. So it feels almost as though, even though there wasn't an admission or a confession,

• 38:28Annie Elise?

  once the police left, it was like the emotions just dried up and he was back to, you know, unemotional. Now, the thing that really stands out to me in terms of absolute creep behavior came on November 14th, just a couple of weeks after Karen's disappearance. This is when the police seized David's computer. They looked up all of David's browsing history and everything that he had been doing on his computer since Karen was first reported as missing. And what they found on his computer and those searches was about to paint a true picture of who David was and what really happened to Karen.

• 39:07Annie Elise?

  Okay, can we just talk about holiday gifting for a second? There's nothing like having those pieces in your closet that you absolutely love, that you know you can count on for any occasion. For me, it's like this nice little silk two-piece jumpsuit. It's like a pant and a nice little, like, top blouse, because I'm not really a dress person. And I feel like- The best part is like, maybe give somebody else that feeling, having that staple to go to in their closet that is high quality, that looks great, that they can wear for any occasion. So this holiday season, I've not only found those pieces for myself in the past at Quince, but I am paying it forward and I am gifting the gift of Quince this season. Everything there is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly

• 39:51Annie Elise?

  with ethical factories and they cut out the middleman. So you're giving luxury quality, but without that luxury price tag. I've told you before too, if like you wanna maybe not branch out and do clothes because that's a little bit personal of a gift, their cashmere throw blanket, I'm telling you, you will be the favorite daughter-in-law, favorite son-in-law, favorite friend. It is the best gift you could give. Cashmere throw blanket. Mark my words. So go ahead, go check it all out at quince.com. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the

• 40:33Annie Elise?

  UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know that it was Serialist Lee that sent you. It is the best way to support the show. Police seize David's computer and they start going through his browsing history, his past searches. I mean, everything that he has done. And between October 10th and November 14th, so beginning just a few weeks before Karen went missing and then ending two weeks after she disappeared, which was the day that the police took the laptop, he visited the dating site match.com. And he didn't just visit this site. He visited it over and over again. I don't mean like a handful of times, like three or four, even 10 or 11 times. No. In

• 41:13Annie Elise?

  those 35 days, David went on match.com and other dating websites 280 times. 280 times. And the first visit was that very same day that Karen served him with the divorce papers. And at the end of that window of time, his wife had been missing for all of two weeks, yet he was still searching match.com and perusing all All these other dating websites. And even if you think, okay, yeah, but she had filed for divorce. He knew that even if she did end up being found safe and alive and returned home, they probably weren't going to stay together. So he was just checking out his options. But still, you would think that he would feel some type of worry or fear about her well being.

• 41:55Annie Elise?

  I mean, finding a new girlfriend wouldn't be at the forefront of somebody's mind necessarily if they actually cared about their wife or their missing wife. That's my opinion at least. Just on a human level alone, even if he wasn't completely in love with her anymore, if you're looking for your missing spouse, how are you also finding time to be curious about other people and like perusing all these dating websites? It just does not make sense to me. And in another very bizarre thing, in those interrogation clips that I played earlier, you might've seen that David was walking on crutches during the police interrogations. Well, apparently the day before the Halloween party, David went over to a friend's house to help him do some chores all around the farm. And apparently it was very, very labor intensive. I mean, difficult work.

• 42:37Annie Elise?

  He was lifting and carrying these 65 pound bales of hay and he was just fine. He had no trouble with it whatsoever. Kathy also spent some time with him and Karen that weekend and she thought that it was weird at just how easily David was getting around, even though he talked this huge talk about how he needed these crutches to walk. So the police went and talked to David's doctor, who said that there wasn't anything seriously wrong with David's legs. Although he did, yes, have a minor injury to his knee, but all to say, he didn't really need crutches. So was he faking this injury to make the homicide detectives think that he wasn't physically up to abducting his wife or harming her in some type of way? It definitely looked that way.

• 43:19Annie Elise?

  It felt a little performative, almost like he had this prop to make people think, oh, we gotta rule him out. It certainly couldn't have been him. He's on crutches. How would he murder somebody, dispose of them and do all of this? Definitely not. So they were now trying to piece the puzzle together. And during all of these interrogations, everyone in the town, investigators, the public, everybody came together to do these massive searches, really just trying to find Karen either dead or alive. Hopefully alive, of But the police did bring in cadaver dogs along local rivers just in case. And sadly, a month and a half after she first went missing, on December 10th, Karen's body was found. Now where Karen's remains were found was more bizarre than I think we have covered in a lot of cases.

• 44:04Annie Elise?

  See, Karen's remains were in a cemetery. Obviously, not in a grave, but it was like somebody had just dumped her in this cemetery. And an autopsy revealed that she had been killed by a blunt force blow to her head. Literally, her head was bashed and bleeding when she died.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  The 17-page autopsy report found Karen Swift's cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, possibly caused by a hammer.

• 44:29Speaker 05

  The consensus of the people I speak to is this was a personal crime, not a random crime. They think they know who did it, but they just don't feel like they can prove it.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  Swift's autopsy report says she was found naked with her underwear around her thighs. To this day, it's unclear if she was sexually assaulted. According to the toxicology report, Swift had Benadryl, Tylenol, and caffeine in her system, but no illegal drugs or alcohol were in her system when she died.

• 44:58Annie Elise?

  So obviously, this was not accidental, right? Karen did not die in an accident. Karen had been murdered. As you heard, Karen's body was found completely nude below the waist. Her underwear had also been pulled down. However, there was no male DNA in her groin area at all. No semen, no pubic hair, nothing like that. There was also nothing underneath her fingernails. I mean, the way that you would expect if she tried fighting off her killer or having defensive wounds. So basically, all the police had on David was circumstantial evidence. The fact that he was abusive, controlling, that he acted sketchy as hell after the disappearance and even during those interrogations. But there was absolutely nothing that proved that he was responsible for this. Was he?

• 45:42Annie Elise?

  Now David looked pretty guilty, I will say that. I mean, seriously, I can't imagine anyone looking at all of this and thinking that there's a chance in hell that he did not do something to Karen. But one thing that we will see time and time again is that the police... Police investigations can take a very long time. Sometimes it just takes a little while to get all of the evidence together, all the pieces of the puzzle. Sometimes they're just waiting for the right smoking gun to turn up, to make them feel like they have a real shot at getting a conviction. And in this case, from the time that Karen's body was found until they made an arrest, it was 11 years. I don't know exactly why it took so long. The police have not spoken out much publicly about what they were waiting on, but what

• 46:24Annie Elise?

  I do know is that on August 8th of 2022, David was arrested and he was charged with premeditated first degree murder.

• 46:34Speaker 06

  Still a little in shock. I had kind of given up. Even though Karen Swift died in 2011, Janet Ross still remembers her friend's personality vividly and fondly. She was just the kind of friend you want to have. She was a lot of fun. She was witty. She was kind. That's why Swift's unsolved murder affected Ross so greatly for so long. For the first few years, it just like, it consumed me every day. That's all I could think about. And I knew that wasn't good for me or my health or my family. We're glad that it looks like maybe justice is being served, but this, this is very traumatic for their children. Dyer County Sheriff Jeff Box said, "We have literally spent thousands of hours

• 47:19Speaker 06

  on this case, and a lot of that time was spent dispelling false information and rumors. Our investigators never gave up and just kept going through the evidence, and I want to sincerely thank them for their diligence in this case." The authorities in Diersburg had, all of these years, had been telling Karen's mother that this was not a cold case. They were still working on it, that there would be justice. Still for Ross, David Swift's arrest felt bittersweet. Wheat, considering the four children involved. They lost their mother 11 years ago and now it looks like they could be losing their dad. And this is not really a happy day.

• 47:56Annie Elise?

  Now, a lot can happen in 11 years. In David's case, by 2022, he had married somebody new. Then he had also separated and gotten divorced. And just like history was repeating itself like we see so often, he allegedly was stalking his ex-wife. Now, to lay this out a little more clearly, David's divorce for his second marriage was finalized in June of 2022. He was arrested for Karen's murder just two months later in August. He ended up bailing out and getting out, but then about a year later in July of 2023, he was arrested for first degree stalking. Now, this time around, the judge decided to not let him post bond because clearly, I mean, this guy couldn't behave himself whenever he was free. And this, I think, is really telling.

• 48:38Annie Elise?

  The saying goes, "A tiger doesn't change its stripes," right? And it sounds like David never stopped being a controlling, abusive, just shipbag to his partners. Even when he was facing literal murder charges for his ex-wife, he allegedly just could not hold himself back from terrorizing his second wife. Could not do it. So his murder trial began a little under a year after that second arrest. Officially, it began on May 28, 2024. And I have to say this, but usually when I'm doing these deep dives, I don't get around to talking about the trial until pretty late in the episode. All because there's usually so much to talk about in terms of the evidence, the interrogation, all the things. But this time around, I mean, the stuff that came out during the trial,

• 49:22Annie Elise?

  it was so out there, ridiculous, crazy, whatever you want to call it, that I just really need to pause and now get into this in a very big way. Because you'll remember how while the police were interrogating him, David tried to make Bill and Kathy look like they were the guilty ones. He even suggested that Bill was a rapist who had attacked his own wife, who might have also wanted to hurt Karen. Well, those interrogation tapes were played during the trial by the prosecution. My guess is that they were thinking the same thing that I'm thinking right now. Namely, that David wasn't doing himself any favors, just rambling on, pointing the fingers and basically acting like he could. Throw the police off his trail, but the defense took that footage and they ran with it. They really did try to make Kathy, to some extent, and Bill, to much bigger extent,

• 50:07Annie Elise?

  seem like these dangerous violent people. In particular, they tried to make it sound like Bill might have had a reason to want to hurt Karen. And they aren't the only alternative suspects that the defense put forward in order to say like, hey, maybe David didn't do this. There was reasonable doubt. Look at these people. Look at these people. I know that this all sounds outlandish, but just three weeks before Karen's murder, she and David actually called the police because they thought somebody had poisoned their dog. I guess someone else in the neighborhood had a dog that got sick and then died, and that neighbor could tell that the dog had been poisoned. So then, on October 7th, just a few weeks before Karen went missing, she and David had learned that their dog had wandered over to a home that belonged to a man named John Hogshooter. Now, I'm sorry, but I just

• 50:52Annie Elise?

  got to say this. If the name Hogshooter doesn't tell you right away that this is not a safe person to have around your animals, I don't know what to tell you. But anyway, when the dog came back from John's house, it was very, very sick. So Karen went over to John's place, just to kind of ask like, hey, what's up? Did you see anything that happened? Do you know anything? And she saw that John had left out this like pan of food, almost as though he had given it to the dog. But the food had obviously been tampered with, and Karen could see that there was this residue, this crusty blue stuff that obviously was not supposed to be edible. So Karen headed straight back home and said that she thought that the dog had eaten some type of poison. She and David rushed to the vet, and luckily, they got the dog the treatment that the dog needed, and it survived. But it does make

• 51:36Annie Elise?

  you wonder, if somebody is willing to poison and kill their neighbor's pets for literally no reason at all, that's a pretty clear sign that they're capable of violence, right? I mean, there's not a clear line connecting John to Karen's murder, not by any means. Karen's dog wasn't even the only dog that he had hurt, so it's entirely possible that this guy just hated animals and was lashing out at random. But I do know that John was arrested in November of 2011. The story about the dog poisoning came out while the police were investigating Karen's disappearance. And the testimony was enough to charge him with aggravated animal cruelty. He pleaded guilty to the charges, but when he got called to testify during Karen's murder trial, years and years and years and years later in 2024,

• 52:19Annie Elise?

  he definitely tried to make it sound like the entire dog poisoning incident was just some kind of honest mistake.

• 52:26Speaker 07

  Was tearing up my yard, so I, um, just kept going, you know? Okay, so after you asked them to keep the dogs in the yard, did they do that? They did not. Okay, so what'd you do next? Uh, I was having a bad fly problem in my house because of the dirt being hauled in, because I was building a house there, and they was building a new school at Fifth Consolidated, and I would ask them if they could dump all their concrete, dirt, and debris there at my place, and they said, "Yeah, well, the dirt attracted the flies and then dogs, I guess", and so I put out some fly bait, was trying to kill off all the flies, and the Navy's dogs got into the fly poison. Okay, and where did you put that fly bait? Outside by my front door.

• 53:12Speaker 07

  Okay, um, did Mr. and Ms. Swift's dog also get into that poison? I was told that they did. I, I wouldn't know what their dog looked like. Okay, did you ever talk to Mr. and Ms. Swift about that? I did not.

• 53:26Speaker 07

  Did you ever have words with them, or any discussion about the, the dogs being poisoned? I, no, I did not, uh, it was, I know it was the Navy's dogs because they went to their house. It, it was just two big dogs. I never, that's all I ever seen was their dogs. Okay.

• 53:44Annie Elise?

  So let's just unpack that for a second here. John's neighbor's dog is bothering him, so he goes to the neighbor to complain, and it doesn't fix the issue. Then, by a pure coincidence, he also has a fly infestation, and he just decided to put fly poison all outside of his house, outside his house, not inside, but outdoors, by his front door, at ground level, not somewhere high up where only flies would get to it, but accessible for anything, any creature on the ground. And dogs are big, right? Flies are little, so you don't need to be putting out quantities of this poison that are big enough to kill one dog and make another dog sick just to kill flies. Again, flies that are outside and not actually inside your house.

• 54:27Annie Elise?

  So, yeah, I don't really believe that at all, that John just accidentally poisoned those dogs. It sounds to me like this is somebody, for whatever reason, intentionally set up- ...this poison because he wanted to kill his neighbor's dogs. But as we know, if you're violent in one way, say by killing an animal or killing a dog, it's reasonable to think that you might be violent in another way, too. That's also one of the telltale signs of escalation. Usually, it starts by hurting animals. Now, you're probably thinking, okay, Annie, isn't that a bit of a stretch? Can we really say that this John guy might be a murderer just because he hurt one dog and killed another one? Well, let's look at some of John's other sketchy behavior. Remember how I said that it was suspicious that David spent his whole police interrogation basically trying to blame Bill and Kathy for Karen's disappearance?

• 55:12Annie Elise?

  Well, when John came to testify during Karen's trial, he was pointing fingers as well. He said that he was absolutely sure that David, who he apparently had never even met before, definitely was suspicious and that he probably did it.

• 55:26Speaker 07

  Can't remember, it was right at dark. And he was talking to him and you could see him using his crutches while he was talking. But after he got done talking and they went in the house, he just walked like he didn't need his crutches anymore. I thought that was strange. I just didn't think nothing about it at the time, but I was like, well, maybe his leg ain't hurting no more, I don't know.

• 55:46Speaker 05

  And that was after everyone else went inside?

• 55:48Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 55:52Speaker 05

  Do you remember the TBI showing up at Mr. Swift's house and doing a big search?

• 55:57Speaker 07

  Yes, sir.

• 55:58Speaker 05

  Were you at home at that time?

• 55:59Speaker 07

  Yes, sir. I think they was actually there twice.

• 56:03Speaker 05

  Okay. Did you notice anything strange about Mr. Swift's house before the search happened?

• 56:09Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 56:10Speaker 05

  Tell me about that.

• 56:14Speaker 07

  If it had just been ordinary routine, run of the day, just seeing somebody on crutches, I probably wouldn't remember. Later that night, I went outside and noticed a industrial chemical smell in the air. That was really super weird. And so weird, I went over to my friend's house that lived... David lived that way and he lived right over this way. I went over and got him and said, man, can I smell this? And it was just a real odd smell.

• 56:44Annie Elise?

  Now, this testimony was especially surprising because from the sounds of things, John remembered this very specific damning behavior from David, but literally nothing else. Look at the front page and look into it.

• 56:58Speaker 06

  Now, the night of October 29th through October 30th, you're not saying you heard any strange noises or screams or anything like that, did you?

• 57:09Speaker 07

  Sir, it was a busy weekend for me and I was exhausted, so I didn't hear nothing.

• 57:15Speaker 06

  Alright.

• 57:15Speaker 07

  I was at bed. I just didn't hear anything.

• 57:19Speaker 06

  Alright, you didn't hear any noises like a flat tire going by or anything?

• 57:24Speaker 07

  No, sir.

• 57:24Speaker 06

  Alright.

• 57:25Annie Elise?

  So this guy didn't remember getting questioned by the police. Even though he eventually got arrested and charged with animal cruelty, he couldn't remember when any of this happened. But it stuck out in his mind 12 and a half years later that one time his neighbor was walking around with crutches, but he didn't seem to really need them? Something isn't really adding up here. I don't buy that this was just the one thing that John coincidentally was able to remember. Again, I'm not saying that I believe that he was automatically the real murderer in this situation, but it's pretty clear that Karen and David were surrounded by some weird people, some interesting people. They had John, the dog killer, Kathy and Bill, the naked hot tub party hosts. It just, there were questionable people around. I mean, enough to create some doubt.

• 58:10Annie Elise?

  If not for the fact that David was acting like a possessive nightmare stalker, I could even see somebody looking at any one of those other people as a potential suspect. And it's worth mentioning again, there was no physical evidence that physically connected David to this crime. Every single thing was circumstantial, which might explain why it took them 11 years to get around to actually making the arrest. And sadly, even though they were making the absolute best argument that they could in the courtroom, they just didn't have much in the way of physical proof. So given the evidence here, or lack thereof, if you were a juror on this jury, would you convict?

• 58:50Annie Elise?

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• 59:35Annie Elise?

  Chime is a fintech, not bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details. So after deliberating for a day and a half, the jury came back with a verdict.

• 59:51Speaker 04

  Does the jury agree on the highest level of offense that the defendant is either guilty or not guilty?

• 59:57Annie Elise?

  Yes.

• 59:59Speaker 04

  What is the verdict in that?

• 1:00:01Annie Elise?

  Not guilty.

• 1:00:02Speaker 04

  Okay. So the jury has found the defendant not guilty of first-degree murder?

• 1:00:06Annie Elise?

  Yes.

• 1:00:08Speaker 04

  Okay. Has the jury considered the second level of offense, attempted first-degree premeditated murder?

• 1:00:17Annie Elise?

  We did consider that.

• 1:00:19Speaker 04

  Is there an agreement that the defendant is not guilty as to that offense?

• 1:00:24Annie Elise?

  Yes, sir, there is an agreement.

• 1:00:26Speaker 04

  Has the jury considered the level of offense, second-degree murder?

• 1:00:30Annie Elise?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:00:31Speaker 04

  Is there an agreement that the defendant is not guilty as to second-degree murder?

• 1:00:37Annie Elise?

  Not guilty.

• 1:00:41Speaker 06

  I'd ask you specifically, but are all of these agreements unanimous as to these levels of charges?

• 1:00:46Annie Elise?

  Yes, Your Honor.

• 1:00:48Speaker 06

  Okay. Has the jury considered the next level of charge, attempted second degree murder?

• 1:00:55Annie Elise?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:00:57Speaker 06

  Do you all find the defendant not guilty of attempted second degree murder?

• 1:01:02Annie Elise?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:01:03Speaker 06

  Does each of you? Mm-hmm. Ma'am? Yes. Okay, I'm looking at you because I want to see, I want to see, and if you disagree, just let me know, okay? Now, let's go back. We did not do this as a first degree murder charge that I'm told you found him not guilty of. Is that correct? Okay, I see, head nodding affirmatively, and attempted first degree murder. Is that correct as well? Okay. Has the jury considered the charge of voluntary manslaughter?

• 1:01:38Annie Elise?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:01:39Speaker 06

  Is there, is there an agreement, or has the, has the jury found the defendant not guilty of voluntary manslaughter?

• 1:01:46Annie Elise?

  There was no agreement.

• 1:01:48Speaker 06

  No agreement? Is that the level of the offense at which there is disagreement?

• 1:01:52Annie Elise?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:01:53Speaker 06

  Is that correct, ma'am? All right.

• 1:01:59Annie Elise?

  For manslaughter, the jury was deadlocked. They could not come to an agreement. That was probably one of the main reasons that they had been in deliberation for so long, that the judge had to declare a mistrial, meaning that David was convicted of absolutely nothing. When that was read out, David looked beyond shocked, and I've got to say, his tears looked way more authentic to me than those ones that he had squeezed out during his interrogation. It was almost like he was happier now about saving his own life than he was about his wife, who had been missing. And it really does seem, and this is just my interpretation, I'm just speculating here, but it looked like David did not expect to be found not guilty for the majority of those charges, like he truly, genuinely didn't believe that anybody bought that story about

• 1:02:43Annie Elise?

  how Kathy and Bill were seducing Karen into this life of sex and alcohol and may have gotten her murdered. But was this the right verdict? Or was everything completely backwards?

• 1:02:55Speaker 05

  I'll go back, talk with my staff, I'll talk to Mr. Taylor, and we'll make a decision at that point. So, we're disappointed that we didn't get to complete the case, one way or the other, but we're still thankful for what they did. Defense attorney Daniel Taylor says they are going

• 1:03:08Speaker 06

  To reevaluate the case and go from there. Obviously, both sides would like to have this decided on all issues, but that's not the situation. So it's possible we will have to retry this case. And we appreciate the jury for the decisions they've made.

• 1:03:27Annie Elise?

  Well, two weeks later, a grand jury indicted David on voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault. Again, but there's a twist. At the hearing to talk about a retrial, his lawyers tried to dismiss the entire thing. They said that the statute of limitations on voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault had expired. And if the court agreed, David would walk free. Well, the judge didn't agree. And so now they are setting a new date for a new trial. But honestly, even if they do take him back to court, and even if they do end up getting a guilty verdict, it might not make a whole lot of difference. Because in Tennessee, the minimum sentence for manslaughter is three years. Given that David has already been in jail for almost two years waiting for this first trial, it could be a while

• 1:04:11Annie Elise?

  before the second one gets going. So he could possibly get out on time to serve, even with a guilty verdict. Depending on how things go with those stalking charges, though, which are still pending, it may not even be worth the bother. So could David end up behind bars for other reasons? Possibly. Of course, that doesn't automatically mean that that's what's going to happen. The maximum sentence for voluntary manslaughter is 15 years. So he could still go away for a while, too. And I personally think it's worth trying, but of course, that's not my call. But I do have to say, I find it weird that manslaughter was the charge that everybody was deadlocked on. I don't see any way that Karen's death was an accident, not any way, shape, or form. I don't think it's possible to leave someone

• 1:04:52Annie Elise?

  that badly beaten unless you're meaning to kill them. Also, she was naked from the waist down with her underwear pulled down. I mean, maybe if the argument was that he got so angry that he beat her up, but he didn't mean to kill her. But that wasn't the defense that David made. He said that he had absolutely nothing to do with her death. I almost wonder if the jurors felt like he did it, but they also felt like there was enough reasonable doubt with all of the shady neighbors that maybe they couldn't give a Guilty verdict on the more serious charges. I could see someone saying guilty for manslaughter if they saw it as almost like a compromise because they were split on murder. But I don't know. That's not how it's supposed to work, but sometimes people do things that they're not supposed to do. We certainly know that.

• 1:05:34Annie Elise?

  I could be way off and I could be completely wrong and I'm just speculating, but I feel like it's the only way that that verdict even makes sense to me. That said, I do want to hear what everybody else thinks. So, sound off in the comments. Do you think that David did this? Do you think that he didn't? Was it somebody else? It looks like he has filed for an appeal on grounds that he can't afford an attorney and we'll get in a decision on that in early November. So, I certainly will be following this case, but let me know what you think. I will say, one of the theories out there, I'm not agreeing with it, I'm not cosigning, but I just want to put it out there before you comment and tell me what you think. Some people do suggest that perhaps one of these parties, the party that she was at with Bill and Kathy, went a little too far.

• 1:06:18Annie Elise?

  And that maybe she had taken something, maybe the blunt force trauma was a cover up. I don't know what the tox report said, but something to that effect, that she died at the party. That of course, wouldn't align with her dropping her daughter back off at home unless she went back to that party and that's when it happened. But the reason people are suggesting that is because she was found nude from the waist down. And had something happened at that party, would they dispose her just like that with the clothing? Again, I don't think at all that that is the scenario, but I just wanted to throw it out there as another theory that's out there before you guys sound off in the comments. So, let me know what you guys think. Did David do this? Did he not? What do you think will happen at the trial? And what do you think the motive was?

• 1:06:59Annie Elise?

  If he did do this, was it because he realized that he was losing grasp over Karen and that he couldn't control her anymore? She was leaving, she was filing for divorce, she was out of there. And did he just snap? He clearly had similar patterns and behaviors with his next wife. So, let me know what you guys think and thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Serialishly. As a reminder, I will be back on the mic with you Thursday morning with everything going on in headline highlights this week. That episode is exclusive to the podcast. So, if you're watching this on YouTube to get access- To that episode, you have to listen to the podcast, but we do that every single Thursday. They are podcast exclusive episodes. And if you guys do have an extra 30 seconds and you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple, I would greatly appreciate it if you would leave a rating and review.

• 1:07:42Annie Elise?

  Let me know what you want us to cover in the next case. Let me know if you like these deep dives more so that we can cater this podcast to the information and the material that you enjoy hearing. All right, thank you guys again, and I will be back on the mic with you in a couple of days. All right, bye.

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