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Nancy Grace
Body of Missing Tennessee Woman Found
Aired December 12, 2011 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live, Tennessee. An upscale Memphis-area neighborhood reeling when a beautiful young mom of four vanishes without a trace. Mommy picks up her 9-year-old little girl from a sleepover 1:45 AM. Mommy and the little girl go to sleep together, same bed. Four hours later, the 9-year-old wakes up. Mommy is gone. The white Nissan SUV abandoned, flat tire, quarter mile from home. Mommy in the middle of an acrimonious divorce, a real life "War of the Roses," with Daddy living in a separate part of the house mid-divorce.
Bombshell tonight. In the last hours, as we go to air, a female body discovered in heavy brush near a local graveyard. It`s less than five miles from the family home. And at this hour, we confirm these remains are those of young mom of four Karen Swift.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breaking news.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The search for Karen Swift remains in full swing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A body has just been found less than five miles away from missing mom Karen Swift`s home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You hope that it`s not her and she`s alive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are very concerned, very worried. And we want her to come home safe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A body was discovered along this rural road.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities find a body near a cemetery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m in total shock. But I keep hoping for the best.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reports say the body is decomposing as questions swirl.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoever done it, you say (ph) -- that`s the odd thing. Like, you shouldn`t do that someone (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Karen Swift picked up her daughter from a Halloween party in late October and hasn`t been seen since.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reportedly last seen by her husband inside their home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seems to have vanished without a trace.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Major developments in the mystery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re not ruling out foul play.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities now rushing an autopsy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need the evidence to point us there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please let us know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They wait and wonder whether or not the case of Karen Swift might be quickly coming to a close.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this missing mom of four Karen Swift?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. Upscale Memphis-area neighborhood reeling when a young mom of four vanishes without a trace. In the last hours, a female body discovered in heavy brush near a local graveyard. We now can confirm, as we go to air, we have learned these are the remains of young mom of four Karen Swift.
We are taking your calls. Straight out to Michael Board, WOAI. Michael, what do you know?
MICHAEL BOARD, WOAI NEWSRADIO (via telephone): Just moments ago, Nancy, Bureau of Investigations confirming that the body found in a patch of tall grass is the body of Karen Swift. Now, what`s creepy about this, Nancy -- this is right near a cemetery. Do you think that`s a coincidence that the body was found right near a cemetery in a tall patch of grass?
GRACE: To Nicole Partin, investigative reporter, also joining us from Tennessee right now. Nicole, this search has gone on and on. Finally, results tonight as we go to air. These remains discarded in heavy brush. It`s my understanding that snow and ice had surrounded the area and only when it melted just a tiny bit was the body observable to the naked eye. What do you know, Nicole?
NICOLE PARTIN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER (via telephone): Good evening, Nancy. Yes, very sad news that we just learned, the discovery of Karen Swift`s body. And do I believe (INAUDIBLE) contributed to this finding to the recent temperature change that we`ve had here in this area. Heavy frost, winter conditions have killed the vegetation, allowing them to discover this body.
And it`s also interesting to note that while her body has been there the last month or so and with a period of time when heavy rainfall surrounded this area for approximately four days, and that would contribute tremendously to the decomposition, and then of course, now the freezing temperatures freezing the body, freezing the vegetation around them to find this horrific discovery.
GRACE: Well, you know, C.W. Jensen, retired Portland police captain, we think the body has been here from the get-go. We don`t know that because very often we see bodies being moved from their original hiding place. Entirely possible. Weigh in on the scenario.
For those of you just joining us, we have been aiding in the search for a missing young mom of four. She was in the middle of a real life "War of the Roses," a divorce turning acrimonious, but the couple still living under the same roof, Daddy living in a separate part of the home.
The night she goes missing, her little 9-year-old calls from the spend-the-night party, deciding, as they so often do, they want to come home. 1:45 AM, Mommy goes and gets the little girl, comes back home. They go to sleep together. Just four hours later, the 9-year-old wakes up. Mommy is not in the bed with her. Mommy is gone.
Mommy, preparing for the divorce, had become an avid workout enthusiast, jogging. I confirmed also as we go to air, through friends, this was is not her jogging route. Repeat, not her jogging route.
In the last hours, a body found near a local cemetery in heavy brush. But in the last minutes, literally as we go to air, we learn a positive ID on the body of missing mom of four Karen Swift.
C.W., it means a lot to me that this is not her regular jogging route. And remember, C.W., her SUV found a quarter of a mile from her home in that neighborhood cull-de-sac. Look, even somebody totally out of shape like myself can make at it quarter of a mile, C.W., much less an avid runner.
C.W. JENSEN, RETIRED PORTLAND, OR, POLICE CAPTAIN: Well, it is a really strange circumstance when you have a divorce going on, so you know there`s tension and problems at the home. I would be looking at the tire. The tire on her SUV was flat. I would want to have that examined and figure out how did it go flat. Was it punctured, a knife, or did it have a blow-out? And then, of course, her body is found near that.
So it`s obvious -- if somebody took her from the house, say her husband, damaged the car and then dumped her, that would be easy to do in that timeframe.
GRACE: Now, of course, the husband has not been named a suspect. Repeat, not been named a suspect.
To Bonnie Druker, our producer on the story. Bonnie, what details do we have right now? For those of you just joining us, a positive ID on female remains found at a local graveyard. They are the remains of missing young mom of four Karen Johnson Swift. What do you know, Bonnie?
BONNIE DRUKER, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, we are not sure at this point, Nancy, if David Swift has taken a polygraph. We do know that Karen`s mother has given DNA and the brother has given DNA. I did speak to some friends today and they said that Karen Swift would never just disappear. She would never leave her kids. And that`s why they knew something was up, Nancy.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Out to Victoria in Alabama. Hi, Victoria. What`s your question?
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Hello, guys? What`s your question, Victoria.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: Hi. What is your question, dear?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. I understand that someone -- that the husband likes to watch "CSI" and "America Most Wanted." Has he been arrested? And who has the children?
GRACE: He has not been arrested. He has not been named a person of interest. And it`s my understanding, Michael Board, WOAI, that Daddy has the children.
BOARD: Daddy does have the children right now, but police definitely need to take a look at him. You know, you look at a map of where this happened, where the body was found, where the car broke down. It would make sense that if she did have a flat tire less than a quarter of a mile from her house -- it would make sense in the early morning, you would maybe call your estranged husband, say, I need help. It`d be a lot easier to call him than call a friend who`s halfway across town to come get you.
Now, the cemetery where the body was found was three miles away. Why would you go three miles out of your way when your car has broken down? It doesn`t make sense, Nancy.
GRACE: Michael, what more can you tell me about the ID of the body? I understand that at first, they couldn`t make an ID and they were actually using dental records? Is that how they identified her?
BOARD: That`s how they identified. It was so decomposed that they have to -- you can`t do fingerprints or something like that when a body is this decomposed. So they have to go to the next thing, which is dental records. It`s fairly easy with dental records to make a positive ID, especially in a case like this. So we are confirming that this is Karen Swift just now.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. Joining us, Pilar Prinz, defense attorney, Atlanta, Alan Ripka, defense attorney, New York. Also with us, Kelly Saindon, former prosecutor, joining us out of Chicago.
Kelly, weigh in.
KELLY SAINDON, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, the thing about it is the husband is definitely going to be a person of interest. You`re right, there`s an acrimonious divorce. He`s familiar with the area. Three miles away is not far for him to know.
And I believe that if that body -- if it wasn`t moved, being disposed of in that area leads me to believe it was someone who was in a hurry. It was probably heat of the moment. It wasn`t planned out because he dumped it. But you had to know, or whoever dumped it, that it was going to be discovered, that this wasn`t buried, it wasn`t tied with weights and sunk in water. This was just in a field. So you would understand that somebody`s going to find that.
GRACE: Pilar, weigh in.
PILAR PRINZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, one third of female murder victims are killed by their spouses or their intimate lovers. That means two thirds are not. And so while the police are doing the right thing looking at the husband in this case, they certainly can`t stop there.
GRACE: You know, I question your stats, Pilar. Where did you get those stats?
PRINZ: From the FBI, Nancy.
GRACE: OK. You know what? C.W., I don`t think that that figure that she just threw out right there -- I don`t think that`s accurate. I don`t believe that just one third of all homicides related to females are husband/lover. I think it`s greater than that. Clark, get on it. I want that stat. I don`t believe Pilar`s right on that. Pilar, I`m going to bust you.
Alan Ripka, weigh in.
ALAN RIPKA, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It`s really unfortunate that because people are having a bad marriage, all of a sudden, you blame the husband. It would mean that he had to pluck her out of bed, from being in bed with her daughter, take her outside, kill her, drive her somewhere, dump her and then come back to the house to.
GRACE: So?
RIPKA: The police don`t suspect him. There`s nothing on him. He`s not -- he should not be a suspect.
GRACE: You know, Ripka, why does that scenario bother you so much? We have murders go down in broad daylight in front of crowds, so why does that bother you?
RIPKA: It bothers me because you have no other evidence about the guy. But if you`re in a bad marriage, it means you`re a murderer?
GRACE: No.
RIPKA: Why should that be the case?
GRACE: No, that`s not what it means. Look at the stats. Even the paltry stats that Pilar just gave us, nearly a half, over one third of murdered women, the suspect turns out to be the husband, boyfriend, lover.
Everyone, in the last hours, the body of missing mom of four Karen Swift has been identified. Her remains have been found there in the tall grass near a local graveyard.
The police being tight-lipped. Nicole Partin, do we have a cause of death right now?
PARTIN: We don`t. We`re still waiting on that. We do know that it is confirmed that this indeed is her body, but we`re waiting for the cause of death to be released. Also, we have just been told moments ago, news being released that these tires, we`re being told, were slit (ph). So this was not a flat tire, this was not running over of a nail or something like that. We`re being told, confirmed by police...
GRACE: All right. There you go...
PARTIN: ... these tires were slit.
GRACE: ... C.W. Did you hear Nicole, what she said? We`ve been wondering that from the get-go. Were the tires automatically -- did someone let the air out of them on purpose to make it look like a flat? Now we find they`ve been slit. C.W., also, more than one tire. Someone wanted that car to look like it had flats.
JENSEN: Well, and somebody didn`t realize that it`s very easy to tell how a tire gets flat. So that was done by someone (INAUDIBLE)
GRACE: Well, this says to me that this was not a random murder because who would go to the trouble to try to ambush (ph) the fact of a flat tire? If this were a random killing, she would have just been left by the side of the road.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They wouldn`t have the roads blocked off this long and stuff like that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Curiosity is about to get the best of them as they wait and wonder whether or not the case of Karen Swift might be quickly coming to a close.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If anyone has any information about her, please, please let us know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Preston Swift has been making a desperate plea for help ever since his mother vanished.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Early this afternoon, a body was discovered along this rural road.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Karen Swift was reportedly last seen by her husband, David Swift, with whom she was in the process of divorcing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoever done it is sick. That`s how I think. Like, you shouldn`t do that to someone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A mother of four, Karen Swift picked up her daughter from a Halloween party in late October and hasn`t been seen since.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is unbelievable that she`s gone right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love you, Mom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. As we go air, the body of Karen Johnson Swift has just been identified.
Let`s go for the back-up. Bonnie Druker, give me the back story. What`s been going on inside that home? Repeat, Daddy not a formal suspect. Go ahead, Bonnie.
DRUKER: Well, Daddy is not a former (SIC) suspect, as you mentioned, but we understand that he is very, very controlling from friends that I spoke with. He controlled the cash in this situation, Nancy. We understand that even recently, he got a bonus from work and would not even share it with Karen.
GRACE: Out to the lines. Tera in Texas. Hi, Tera. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I have actually a two-part question. Was Karen -- was she involved with anyone else at this time -- well, during the divorce proceedings? And also, is it true that she left her purse behind?
GRACE: Good question. Nicole Partin, what do we know about her purse?
PARTIN: We do know that her purse was left. We know that her cellphone has not been found. A close friend said that she always had this with her. She kept a close contact her family members via her cellphone. That was not located.
We also know that there`s no known evidence or proof that she was involved in a relationship with anyone. Family and friends say she focused on her four children. She was working. She had actually picked up extra jobs to make extra money for her children, and indeed, had -- was going to finish a job Wednesday when she was missing on Sunday, had told relatives and friends that she was going to be taking up a cleaning job on that following Wednesday, a woman who had her entire life ahead of her and focused on her family.
GRACE: You know, C.w., when you analyze what`s happened, this woman on the brink of a divorce trying to start a new business life for herself, ready to start over in many ways -- it`s my understanding there`s no affair going on, in answer to Tera in Texas`s question.
But let`s just look at the facts as we know them, C.W. And anybody with any different facts feel free to break in on us. She goes missing between 1:45 AM and 6:00 AM. The husband says he heard her going out the front door, looked down from the top stairs and said, Where are you going, and she didn`t answer and walked out. This is between 1:45 -- 2:00 AM and 6:00 AM
She either ran, C.W., jogged, or she went to the YMCA. I checked myself, and on that day, a Sunday morning, the Y does not open until 1:00 PM, so she wasn`t going there. And where her body was found was not her running route. And I`ve confirmed that with her friends.
Also, C.W., when she would go jogging, she would typically walk out the door and start running, like most of us, not drive her car to a park or a playground or a running path. She`d walk out the door and start running. So all of that says to me she was not on her way to work out. Her cellphone does not suggest she was meeting anyone. So what do you see, C.W.?
JENSEN: Well, I`ll go back to the statistics that the attorney mentioned. When I worked homicide and when I worked the street, women are assaulted by their partners, husbands, the majority of times. Women are overwhelmingly killed by a husband or intimate partner. That`s just a fact (INAUDIBLE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A body has just been found less than five miles away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My dad called me concerned. Immediately, he called me back later and told me that they had reported her missing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened to mom Karen Swift?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Deputies found her car with a flat tire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did this flat tire take place? Was it shot out? Does anybody know how the flat tire took place? Was she set up? Was she kidnapped?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The dog where her vehicle was didn`t pick her scent up out of the alley area. I`m thinking that somebody else drove that vehicle there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she`s going to have DNA in the car. It`s her DNA. But is there blood in the car?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The body has just been found less than five miles away from missing mom Karen Swift`s home. Is it Karen Swift?
GRACE: Have you been in touch with Karen`s husband? What is he doing in the search effort?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m not sure that he`s doing nothing. I don`t believe he`s getting out there. What he told me, that she did leave the house that night. He was at the top of the stairs when she had left. And that...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Back to Michael Board, WOAI. Michael, I want to hear about the facts surrounding the discovery of Karen`s body.
BOARD: She -- the body was discovered in some high weeds, some tall grass outside of the cemetery, which is about three miles away from where the car was found. It had gotten to be really cold recently in this area. Some of that high vegetation had wilted. That revealed the body there.
It was discovered by, I believe, a worker there at the cemetery, who called the cops. They`ve all swarmed on there. And now we know that, in fact, that the body is Karen Swift. There was some, you know, dispute early on. Was this a shallow grave? We have not heard anything about a shallow grave. It`s just a body that was dumped at this location.
GRACE: You know, that says to me -- to Dr. Bill Manion, medical examiner, joining us tonight out of Philadelphia -- that she was dumped in haste, OK? It was not a random killer, or her body would have been left right there on the scene where she was, you know, abducted and killed at the car. But instead, she was secreted to another location at this local graveyard and hidden in brush.
So it`s not a random killer, but it was somebody that was in a hurry to dump the body...
DR. BILL MANION, NEW JERSEY MEDICAL EXAMINER: Absolutely.
GRACE: ... not bury it or weight it down and throw it into a river. Bill, question. We were told that frost and winter conditions killed vegetation, making her body visible. Are they going to be able to determine cause of death, Dr. Manion?
MANION: I think so. Even when there`s decomposition in the body, they`ll look very carefully for -- first of all, when we have a case like this, we`ll take all the trace evidence under the nails. If she had fought back with her assailant, she may have some of his DNA under her nails. Then we`ll check DNA swabs of oral cavities and then skeletal films to check for fractures. So they`ll figure out a cause of death, I believe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Swift was last seen about a mile away from her home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Preston tries to console him and his family during this difficult time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And take care of my little sisters and make sure everything`s OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Tennessee mom of four Karen Swift --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are very worried, very concerned.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Vanished without a trace.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Authorities find a body near a cemetery.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The body was discovered along this rural road.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Heard that Karen Swift was found at the graveyard up here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re not ruling out foul play.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Karen Swift was last seen at her home --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The mother of four children had just returned home from a party.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Karen Swift went missing from her home that`s right down this road.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Deputies found her car with a flat tire.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A white 2004 Nissan Murano with a flat tire in the northern Dire County.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just want to know. And I love you mom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: After dragging local bodies of water for the body of Karen Swift using highly sophisticated sight scan sonar, treble dragging hooks, K-9s, cadaver dogs, as we go to air we learn the remains found in a local graveyard have been positively identified as those of young mom of four Karen Johnson Swift.
The decomposed remains found in tall weeds near a local graveyard about two miles from the family home. Right now we are waiting on a cause of death. We don`t know how the identification was made but we have been told through dental records.
To Dr. Manion -- Bill Manion, medical examiner and joining us from Philadelphia, why dental records and not DNA?
DR. BILL MANION, M.D., MEDICAL EXAMINER, BURLINGTON COUNTY, NJ: Well, the dental records are very, very accurate, and I`m sure they`re also going to do DNA but the DNA will take several days. Remember, they already have her DNA from clothing that was found, that belonged to her a month ago and they have her mom`s DNA, but it will take, you know, days to get the DNA tested.
The dental exams are very, very accurate, 99.99 percent accurate. So I feel confident if the forensic dentist said this is her body, this is her body.
GRACE: You know you`re right, Dr. Manion. The dental records are nearly 100 percent accurate. Because who`s going to have the very same cavity that you have, the same filling, the same cap, the same braces, whether your wisdom teeth are cut out.
People rely -- doctors, even our government relied on dental records for years and years and years before DNA was ever realized as a tool to identify bodies. So -- and it`s also so much quicker, Dr. Manion, you can get a dental record identification in a matter of minutes as opposed to weeks sometimes for DNA comparison.
MANION: That`s correct. In fact the dental records are so important. If this body was just found randomly, we had no history or no knowledge of it, oftentimes we would remove the upper jaw, the maxilla, we take a bone saw and remove that and save the mandible. So we`ll save the maxilla and the mandible both so that later on as dental records become available we have the actual teeth themselves and can absolutely confirm who this body belongs to.
GRACE: In the last hours, as we go to air literally, we discover that remains found at a local graveyard are those of missing young mom of four, Karen Johnson Swift.
Bonnie Druker, the events that culminated in the discovery of her body, how does it unfold? Let`s just start with the divorce.
BONNIE DRUKER, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: All right. Well, let`s just remember this couple was divorced once before, and they got back together. And now they were back to divorcing again. And that`s what we know about the divorce. We also understand that the husband from friends that he was very, very controlling about her running and about her money, Nancy.
GRACE: I thought it was also controlling about what she wore.
DRUKER: What she wore, about her running, that she started to look really fit. And we also understand -- I just want to go back to that money. Friends told me that he just recently got that bonus, didn`t share it with her. And you know she ended up cleaning houses for a living.
GRACE: Take a look at this young mom of four. She went in the middle of the night to go pick up her 9-year-old little girl at a sleepover. The little girl wanted to come home at about 1:45 in the morning. Mommy gets up out of bed, goes and picks the little girl up, brings her home, they go to bed together. 6:00 a.m. when the little girl wakes up, mommy is gone.
The little girl goes looking around the house, calling out for mommy only to discover she was not even in the home.
We are taking your homes -- your calls, to Crystal in Kentucky. Hi, Crystal, what`s your question, dear?
CRYSTAL, CALLER FROM KENTUCKY: Hi, Nancy. Does anyone know why they were still living together and have the young children been questioned? Thank you.
GRACE: Crystal, did you ever see that movie, I believe it was Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, is that right?
CRYSTAL: Yes.
GRACE: The "War of the Roses"? Did you ever see that?
CRYSTAL: Yes.
GRACE: A divorcing couple living under the same roof. OK. No good is going to come out of that recipe. Why were they still living under the same -- the same roof, Michael Board?
MICHAEL BOARD, REPORTER, WOAI NEWSRADIO: Well, you know, it`s tough financial times these days. She was still working from what we`ve read of Karen and what her friends have told us, she was working on starting to build up a business. And we all know how difficult in these financial times to build up a business.
Also she`s in love with her kids as you can imagine, it`d be difficult to move away to a place where you can`t see your kids at all these times. We know that they had filed for divorce before, but had remarried again so maybe this was a case where she was hoping that if they lived together that they may be able to rekindle their relationship like they did back in 1999.
GRACE: Nicole Partin, where is this graveyard in relation to the family home? I know it`s about two miles from the family home. What do you know about it?
NICOLE PARTIN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Yes. It is about two miles from the family home and the body was found about 2.3 miles, they`re telling us, from where the car was located. This in the opposite direction from where Karen would normally leave her home and go on her jogging trails in the morning. This in the opposite direction of where the car was located.
If you can imagine and you`re seeing about -- here`s the home and the body is discovered near the cemetery in those high weeds and, again, less than two miles from the family home.
GRACE: Joining me right now clinical psychologist out of L.A., Ramani Durvasula.
Doctor, thank you for being with us. How do you explain this to children? A death of a parent, to my understanding, is one of the most traumatic things a human can live through, particularly the death of a mother before a certain age has profound impact on the development of the child. The mental, emotional, even physical development of the child.
RAMANI DURVASULA, PH.D., CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: You know, Nancy, this goes beyond the death of a parent. This is the disappearance of a parent. The investigation into that. Now the confirmation that she`s died. And now the investigation of the father. We`re talking about trauma upon trauma.
And these kids are of various ages. So the way that this is communicated to these children is going to have to vary. They can only handle different kinds of information. But no matter what, this is a trauma that`s going to mark the course of their lives forever. And it is - - it`s horrifying. It`s going to -- you`re right. It`s going to impact every trajectory of their development. But again, it started with the disappearance which was traumatic enough to start with.
GRACE: You know, I`ve heard through anecdotally, Dr. Durvasula, that if a child loses a mom before age 10, that they are not able later in life, much less likely to connect in a normal way with other people or have normal relationships. Is that true?
DURVASULA: You know not necessarily. I actually think that the research on attachment shows us that if a child has a secure attachment to their parent at an earlier age I still think that, you know, that this -- while this is going to impact them because of the traumatic nature of the loss, the secure attachment they may have had to their mother they should be fine.
GRACE: Everyone, a quick break. As we go to break, the remains of Karen Johnson Swift, a young mother of four, have been positively identified. We don`t have a cause of death yet. We`re awaiting on that.
Very quickly, special thank you for country music icon Tanya Tucker. I love her. She just released a new Christmas single, "Merry Christmas, Wherever You Are." A song inspired by missing children featured on our show, and our "American Heroes."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mother of four, Karen Swift, a good mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Loved her kids. Loves her home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If anyone has any information about her, please, please let us know.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A body was discovered along this rural road.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is it missing mom of four, Karen Swift?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just want to know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoever done it is sick.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A shocking discovery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m in total shock.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My concern goes out with the children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`re shock. No doubt about it.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is reportedly last seen by her husband with whom she was in the process of divorcing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had helicopters in this area. We`ve had blood hounds. We had numerous law enforcement on the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The body found less than five miles from Karen Swift`s home.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: There are more questions than answers --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Devastates. This is unbelievable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back. We are live and taking your calls. In the moments before we go to air we learn that human remains have just been positively identified as those of young mom, young mom of four, Karen Johnson Swift.
Her body has been found dumped near a local graveyard about two miles from her own home at about two miles in another direction from where her SUV was found abandoned, and we confirm in the last moments before we go to air those tires on her SUV were not flat. They were slashed. The tires on her car slashed to make it took as if the car had gone flat.
We are taking your calls and live on the scene where the body has been found and just identified, back out to the lines, to Joe in Florida.
Hi, Joe, what`s your question?
JOE, CALLER FROM FLORIDA: Hi there, Nancy. You know one reason people love you so much is because you`ve devote ad great part of your life to victims and I think that`s marvelous. I do have a question. Maybe a comment and a question.
Is it possible that the husband, whether he has been yet implicated or not may have had an accomplice who murdered his former wife?
GRACE: OK, Joe in Florida, I see the way you throw out that legal term accomplice that you know your way around a homicide case but I can tell you this. In my experience, if there`s an accomplice, then there`s a witness. Because people just can`t keep their yap shut, Joe in Florida.
So if someone had helped him, I guarantee you the cat would be out of the bag by now. That`s just my experience when you talk about co- defendants or co co-conspirators.
However, unleash the lawyers. Kelly Saindon, Pilar Prinz, Alan Ripka.
What about it, Kelly?
KELLY SAINDON, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: Yes, I agree with you, Nancy. If there was an accomplice, we would have heard something, somebody would be trying to cut a deal. Now that the body has been found and identified. They would say, wait, let me throw the other guy under the bus. I need a better deal. What did I get myself into.
So I think the focus really does need to be on the husband with all due respect to my other counselors on here. I think he was probably involved. He`s the last one that saw her. Do we know he had the clothes that were found or the clothes she was allegedly wearing when she left? She didn`t say anything to him and he didn`t wonder why she was leaving before 6:00 a.m. not going running and what`s going on with her car? I`m just not buying it.
GRACE: Well, I know this much, Kelly. I don`t know if you have children or not but when you leave the house and the children are asleep that`s like jumping ship. Somebody has got to get those children up, feed them, make sure they are clean, make sure that they`ve got enough food in their tummies. Make sure that they`re dressed. You don`t want DFACS knocking on your door, saying, why don`t your children`s hair combed, for Pete`s sake?
You got to take care of them. She`s got a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old little girl she`s got to take care of. You want me to think mommy just left? I`m just not buying it.
OK, Pilar Prinz, your stats -- it pains me to say were essentially correct. I`ve got you on about 2 percent but that`s not enough to really call a victory on my part. So you win one, all right. But better the battle and not the war.
PILAR PRINZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Thanks, Nancy.
GRACE: I see three strikes against daddy, although you and Ripka insist on saying he has nothing to do with this. He`s not been named a formal suspect, number one, let me put that out there. But one, and most important, to you, Pilar, he`s the last person to see mommy alive. Now I don`t care who it is, the grocery boy, the pizza delivery, the yard guy, the last one to see the victim alive raises a red flag.
I`m just telling you the truth, Pilar, whether you and Ripka want to admit it or not. He sees her alive last. They are in the middle of an acrimonious and contentious divorce. And statistics bear out that typically women are not murdered by strangers, they`re murdered by somebody they know.
And also here`s another one if you don`t like those three, Pilar. Who would bother to hide the body after killing the body? If this was a car jack, they`ll just kill her and throw her body on the side of the road, to hide the body and to slash the tires on the car to make it took like a flat, Pilar?
PRINZ: Nancy, I appreciate you giving me the credit for the statistic.
GRACE: You got it.
PRINZ: My point -- my point wasn`t don`t look at the husband. In every case they look at the husband. You know that. My point is that you can`t stop there. There`s a report that their narrow neighbor had a felony warrant for his arrest for poisoning two dogs, one of them being the Swift dogs. So that is suspicious in my mind. The police have to keep looking every where.
GRACE: OK --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Don`t drag Jane Velez-Mitchell in on this with dog abuse, OK.
PRINZ: Nancy, you`ve got a --
GRACE: I appreciate that, Pilar --
PRINZ: You`ve got a neighbor who`s got a felony warrant for his arrest for murdering a Swift dog. Why wouldn`t you look there too?
GRACE: Pilar, we know that -- we know that she was in her car so you`re telling me that he carjacks her car at the home? What, he`s hiding in her backseat? I mean how does the neighbor scenario play out, Pilar? Have you gone to -- from A to B yet before you get to Z? So how did this happen? PRINZ: My point is that the police are doing their job and they are looking at the husband but they are going to look both inside and outside of the home.
GRACE: No. You brought up the neighbor. And as you know, Pilar, in a criminal court of law you can`t bring in a phantom assailant. You can`t say, well, the neighbor might have poisoned the dog. No. You can`t just throw that out there. You`ve got to have strong facts to bring in a third- party possibility as a killer.
PRINZ: Nancy, what`s going to go on inside a court of law is going to be different than what the police are going to do in their investigation.
GRACE: OK. You know what? You keep bringing up valid points but they are never in response to my question. OK.
Ripka, what`s your thought?
ALAN RIPKA, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know, Nancy, the bottom line is we haven`t looked at the facts. You`d have to believe that this husband somehow got his wife out of the house, got her into her car, slashed her tires and got into a cemetery three miles away.
GRACE: No, I don`t have to believe that. I could believe that he killed her in the home. Drove the car there himself, hence only a quarter of a mile away, and dumped the body on the way. I can believe that.
There`s a number of ways that this scenario may have happened, Alan Ripka.
Back to the lines, Cheryl in Massachusetts, hi, Cheryl, what`s your question?
CHERYL, CALLER FROM MASSACHUSETTS: Hi, Nancy. I was wondering, I had heard that she had gotten a phone call or made a phone call at 5:00 a.m. I was wondering if they know who that was from and has the husband taken a polygraph?
GRACE: OK. Nicole Partin, what do we know? I know a 5:00 a.m. call went out at that time. Wasn`t to it -- wasn`t that a search to go online at 5:00 a.m.?
PARTIN: Yes. It was actually an online update. An automated update from her phone so this was not something that she did or someone else did with her phone, this was an automatic update from the phone that allowed the phone to go online. It could have been an app update, it could have been a reset of some sort. But we have been confirmed that this was an automatic update from the phone.
GRACE: To Amanda in Tennessee. Hi, Amanda, what`s your question?
AMANDA, CALLER FROM TENNESSEE: Well, I have to -- I`m wondering if the cause of death has been released and also who is the one that found the body?
GRACE: Good question. I know we don`t have a cause of death.
To Michael Board, WOAI, how is the body discovered?
BOARD: Nancy, I believe it was a worker at the cemetery there who discovered the body like we`ve been saying. There was a freeze. Some of the vegetation died down. He noticed the body there where there have been weeds before and called the cops.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Preston believes his dad had nothing to do with his mother Karen`s disappearance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never saw any violence. They both cared about each other, and they did, you know, care about us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Swift was last seen about a mile away from her home.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Karen`s cell phone was not found in the car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve had helicopters in this area, we`ve had bloodhounds, we had numerous law enforcement on the ground, investigators.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Officers combed this wooded area near Swift`s home in search of clues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looking for anything, tire tracks, any unknown items that not being in the area that possibly, you know, could be left behind or -- either by her or someone else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are live and taking your calls. As we go to air tonight we learn a positive identification has been made on female remains found near a local cemetery. Near that graveyard, the body of young mom of four, Karen Johnson Swift, has been found by a graveyard caretaker.
Winter conditions and frost had frozen over surrounding vegetation, but now the body has been spotted by the naked eye, and positively identified we believe through dental records. She leaves behind four children, including a 9-year-old and 6-year-old little girl.
Back to Bonnie Druker. What next?
DRUKER: What next? Well, we are going to hear from police, we`re going to hear who found the body, how the body was found. I did speak to friends as I mentioned earlier, and the encouraging thing about this is that Karen Swift was indeed found, so now they`re going to find justice. They`re going to be able to pin this on someone.
GRACE: What next, Michael Board?
BOARD: Definitely more interviews with Karen Swift`s husband.
GRACE: And Nicole Partin, it`s got to be foul play. She wouldn`t just go to a local graveyard, and die of a natural cause. There`s no doubt in my mind this is murder, but what next, Nicole?
PARTIN: At this point family and friends are asking desperately for prayers for Karen`s four children, and also they`re just wanting the support and comfort of those in the community. Of course, this is devastating for the two smaller children, 9 and 6 years old, in the home. Now mommy will never come home. So they`re seeking prayers for those young children.
GRACE: This is not going to be an easy Christmas in that household. Tip line 731-285-2802.
Let`s stop and remember Army Master Sgt. Emigdio Elizarraras, 37, Pico Rivera, California, killed, Afghanistan. Awarded Bronze Star, Purple Heart, four Army Commendation medals. Served the first Gulf War as well.
Loved sports, baseball, football, leaves behind parents Martha, Emigdio`s sister Martha, widow Chris, children, sally Ann, Olivia, and Andrew.
Emigdio Elizarraras, an American hero.
Thanks to our guests but especially to you for being with us. See you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
