DYERSBURG, Tenn. — Friends of Karen Swift are relieved and even a bit stunned after an arrest in the nearly 11-year-old cold case.
It comes after a Dyer County Grand Jury Monday indicted Swift's former husband, David Swift, on a charge of premeditated first degree murder, He was arrested in Alabama.
Swift was extradited back to Dyer County Tuesday after appearing in an Alabama court, where he waived his rights to an extradition hearing. He is due in court in Dyer County on Wednesday, Aug. 10, where he faces a premeditated first degree murder charge. He currently remains in the Dyer County Jail with no bond.
Hunters found Karen Swift's body near a Dyersburg cemetery in December 2011, six weeks after being reported missing and nine weeks after she filed for divorce against David Swift.
Tuesday, one of Karen Swift's longtime friends since elementary school admitted she pretty much lost faith in such an arrest before the significant break came Monday.
"Still a little bit in shock. I had kind of given up," Janet Ross said.
Even though Karen Swift died in 2011, Ross still remembers her friend's personality vividly and fondly.
"She was just the kind of friend you would want to have. She was a lot of fun. She was witty. She was kind," Ross added.
That's why Swift's unsolved murder affected Ross so greatly for so long.
"For the first few years it just consumed me every day. That's all I could think about and I knew that wasn't good for me," Ross said.
Ross weighed in Tuesday after Dyer County authorities announced the indictment of David Swift.
"We are glad that maybe justice is being served, but this is very traumatic for their children," Ross said. "They lost their mother 11 years ago and now it looks like they could be losing their Dad - and so this is not, this is not really a happy day."
Dyer County Sheriff Jeff Box said, "We have literally spent thousands of hours 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 Dyersburg all these years had been telling Karen's mother that this what not a cold case - they were still working on it, that there still would be justice," Ross said.