Slover's ex-boyfriend testifies: Victim's final day, modeling job detailed
Anne Warfield
Slover's ex-boyfriend testifies: Victim's final day, modeling job
detailed
By RON INGRAM -- H&R Staff Writer
DECATUR -- A shorter day than the normal seven hours in court is
likely today, as a key police investigator and some of Karyn Hearn
Slover's former co-workers are scheduled to testify before the murder
trial recesses until Monday.
Defense attorneys will argue the relevancy of some witnesses the
prosecution is planning to call when the trial resumes at 9 a.m.
today. Jurors are not scheduled to return until 10 a.m.
Former Decatur police Detective Michael Beck, a key investigator in
the case, is scheduled to testify.
Karyn Slover's former husband, Michael Slover Jr., and his parents,
Michael Slover Sr. and Jeannette Slover, are charged with first-degree
murder in her shooting death. Parts of her dismembered body were found
wrapped in garbage sacks and floating in Lake Shelbyville two days
after she disappeared on Sept. 27, 1996.
Prosecutors contend she was killed to keep her from leaving the state
with Kolten, her then 3-year-old son with Michael Slover Jr., to
pursue a modeling career.
Defense attorneys sought Wednesday to discredit Slover's former
boyfriend, Howard "David" Swann, now a resident of Indiana, after he
testified about details of her life during the week prior to her
disappearance.
Also, Alan Tapley, owner of a casting and modeling agency based in
Savannah, Ga., in 1996, testified Karyn Slover had applied to his
agency as a model and had been offered a job in Atlanta at the time of
her death. He said he believed the job to be short term, from one day
to three weeks.
Karyn Slover mailed a more complete application, additional pictures
of herself and a check for $92 to cover processing fees to Tapley's
company the afternoon she disappeared. Tapley said when he was
informed she was dead, he refunded that money to her parents.
Swann testified Karyn Slover spent the night at his house Sept. 23 and
Sept. 26, 1996. He said on Sept. 27, he showered with her, then cooked
breakfast while she dressed. He said they left separately for their
jobs at the Herald & Review, where he was a circulation district sales
manager and she was an advertising sales representative.
Swann described their day, much of it spent together, and said he last
saw her about 4:15 p.m. when he left the newspaper, went home and
began preparing for a wedding rehearsal and dinner he was to attend
that evening. He said he was to be best man in a wedding the next day.
After arriving home, Swann said he talked with Karyn Slover twice,
calling his cell phone, which was in her possession. He said he also
had loaned her his car at least one week earlier because the brakes on
her vehicle were not working properly. A Piatt County sheriff's deputy
found his vehicle on Interstate 72 later that night with the engine
running and the driver's front door open.
After the wedding rehearsal, he returned home and remained there until
about 10 p.m., when the Piatt County Sheriff's Office called to inform
him his car had been found, Swann said. He then tried calling his cell
phone, but received no answer, and then called Larry Hearn, Karyn's
father, to inform him of the situation.
After waiting about an hour, a friend drove him to the location on
I-72 near Monticello where his car was still sitting, the engine still
running, Swann said. He never talked to Karyn Slover again, he said.
Michael Costello, attorney for Jeannette Slover, asked Swann if he had
been convicted of aggravated battery, a felony.
Swann acknowledged a felony conviction but said he could not remember
what it was for.
Joseph Vigneri, attorney for Michael Slover Jr., elicited that Swann
also had a misdemeanor conviction in Coles County for impersonating a
government official.
Defense lawyers also brought out apparent contradictory statements
Swann made at various times to police officers during their 5 1/2-year
investigation and his testimony Wednesday in court. Among those was a
statement he made in May 2000 that he called his cell phone after
Slover disappeared and deleted five messages contained in the phone's
voice mail.
Ron Ingram can be reached at 421-7973.
http://www.herald-review.com/rednews/2002/04/25/build/Local_News/localnews2.php
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Anne Warfield
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/