Trial begins for David Swift, accused in wife’s 2011 death

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WEAKLEY COUNTY, Tenn. — More than 12 years after a Tennessee woman’s remains were found in a Dyersburg cemetery, the trial began Tuesday for her former husband, who is accused of her murder.

David Swift was indicted on a charge of premeditated first-degree murder in August 2022 in the death of his wife, Karen Swift, a 44-year-old mother of four. He has previously pleaded not guilty.

Karen Swift’s husband indicted more than a decade after her death

The jury was seated before noon on Tuesday, and the trial began with jury instructions at 1:30.

In opening statements, state prosecutors said David and Karen Swift were married in 1989. They were divorced in 2000 following an affair by David Swift, but remarried later the same year. That was followed by an affair by Karen Swift, prompting her husband to move the family from Arkansas to Tennessee.

Prosecutors say in 2011, Karen Swift took the children on vacation and left her husband a note that she had filed for divorce. Her husband was served Oct. 10.

Karen Swift was reported missing on Oct. 30, 2011, after attending a Halloween party at a Dyersburg country club.

Prosecutors alleged Tuesday that Karen Swift arrived home just after 2 a.m. Her head was stomped on concrete at her house.

They say David Swift cleaned the scene with bleach, put his wife’s body in a car and dumped it in a cemetery before putting a screw in his wife’s car tire and driving it to another location, then crushing her cell phone.

The defense said David Swift injured his knee and was seen by witnesses on crutches before his wife was killed. They say Karen Swift was back living in the house with her husband after the divorce was filed, and may have left the house on the morning of her death.

“It’s not unlike Karen to get up and leave,” the defense suggested, explaining why David Swift may not have immediately called law enforcement to report her missing. The attorney said there was no forensic evidence to support the state’s allegations.

Swift’s car was found with a flat tire on the side of the road about a quarter of a mile away from her home. Her partially sketalized remains were found by hunters in December, according to an autopsy report.

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The autopsy report, which was released in Nov. 2018 after being sealed for seven years, said that she was killed by blunt force trauma to the head. She also had multiple bone fractures and was partially clothed.

David Swift, who had since moved to Alabama and remarried, was arrested after his indictment in 2022.

The trial was moved to Weakley County, about 50 miles northeast of Dyer County.

WREG was in the courtroom for Tuesday’s opening statements:

The trial will resume at 8:15 Wednesday morning.

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