Tennessee mother Karen Swift disappears after Halloween party

For a mother of four who attended a Halloween party in 2011, the real terror began after she left the event.

Karen Swift mysteriously disappeared in the early morning hours of October 30, 2011 after returning home from a party at a country club in Dyersburg, Tennessee. Dateline airs on Friday, November 1 at 9 p.m NBC.

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What happened the night before Karen Swift disappeared?

“It was October 29, two nights before Halloween, when they gathered in their costumes and masks, perhaps to hide their secrets? Including a woman named Karen Swift, usually the life of the party,’ Dateline says correspondent Keith Morrison in voiceover in a haunting preview of the episode, titled “After the Halloween Party.”

On the night of the gathering, partygoers said Karen wasn’t acting like herself.

“She just said she wasn’t having a good time,” Karen’s friend Jenny Gurien said Dateline.

Karen, who was 44, received a call just after midnight from her daughter Ashley Swift, then 9 years old.

“I was at a friend’s house and I wanted to come home,” said Ashley, now an adult Dateline.

“A Very strange case of missing persons”

Karen’s husband, David Swift, “stayed up late to make sure they got home safely, but when he woke up the next morning, Karen was gone.” says Morrison in a voiceover.

It led to a years-long search for answers.

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“It was a very strange missing persons case,” reporter Janice Broach said Dateline.

As Morrison said in the preview clip, “The mystery of what happened to Karen Swift became greater than anything this city had seen.”

A shocking discovery

Karen’s body was discovered about six weeks after she disappeared in a cemetery about two miles from her home. NBC News reportbut the grim discovery wasn’t enough for investigators to put the pieces together of her disappearance.

For years, the community continued to wonder what happened to the missing mother in her final moments. The investigation quickly went cold, until authorities got an unexpected break in the case.

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“Nearly a decade later, a private investigator claims to have uncovered chilling new clues that will turn the city upside down,” reads a synopsis of the film. “After the Halloween Party” episode.

Private investigator Heather Cohen told it Dateline that she “came in and I stirred the hornet’s nest,” revealing dark secrets that had been hidden for years.

In addition to interviews with Cohen, Broach and Ashley Swift, the episode also features commentary from attorney Jason Creasy and Terry McCreight, an investigator with the Dyer County Sheriff’s Office.

To find out more about what happened to Karen in the aftermath of the Halloween party, watch Dateline on Friday, November 1 at 9 p.m NBC or stream the episode on Peacock after it becomes available the next day.

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