A man awaiting trail in Tennessee for the death of his first wife was arrested in Alabama for stalking his 2nd wife.

 

 

55 year old, David Swift was indicted last year on a murder charge for the slaying of Karen Swift, his first wife, where trial is set in Tennessee in that case for January 2024.

Karen Swift’s body was found December 10th 2011, more than a month after she was reported missing that October where her body was found six weeks after she vanished and two miles away from her home in a cemetery.

The case was even featured on Dateline’s Cold Case spotlight digital series in 2015, more than three years after she was killed.

At the time, Swift was considered a person of interest because Karen Swift had filed for divorce three weeks before she disappeared.

Dyer County, Tennessee Sheriff Jeff Box said at the time of the indictment announcement that David Swift was the last person to see her alive when she returned home from a Halloween party held at The Dyersburg Country Club at The Farms.

David Swift had told investigators that on the night his first wife vanished she had left a Halloween party early the night of October 29th, 2011 to pick up one of the couple’s daughters from a sleepover because the child was not feeling well, and then that following morning reported her missing.

On that same morning police had located Karen’s 2004 Nissan Murano a few miles away from her home where the SUV was abandoned with her Halloween costume inside, a tire was shredded, and Karen’s purse was missing.

The indictment was handed down in August 2022, and David Swift was quickly arrested in Alabama, where he had remarried and was living in Jefferson County, and was extradited from Alabama to Tennessee with a $200,000 bond.

Swift had married his 2nd wife in 2016 before separating in June 2022 where the divorce was final in March.

According to Jefferson County sheriff’s officials detectives were able to find location information for Swift and determine that he had been following his ex-wife, which included parking outside of her home at all hours of the night in western Jefferson County.

Swift was arrested and booked into the Jefferson County Jail Friday on a charge of first-degree stalking where he currently remains in jail as of Monday with no bond.

Tennessee authorities are now working to revoke his bond on the murder charge.

“I’m very pleased with the hard work that our deputies put into helping this victim,’’ said sheriff’s Lt. Joni Money. “She was not even aware of the extent to which she was being followed.”