Ashley Swift had always viewed her father as a supportive, thoughtful parent.

He showed her how to change the oil in her car. He said he helped her find her first job, then ferried her between there and her home. When it came time to start college, they talked about the pros and cons of going to college right after high school.

But two years ago, David Swift, 56, was accused of murdering someone else who had a huge impact on Ashley’s life: his wife, Ashley’s mother. The mysterious and violent death of Karen Swift had remained unsolved for more than a decade, and Ashley, then 20, was stunned by her father’s arrest.

Then came another development. David, who maintains his innocence, was acquitted of the most serious charges of first- and second-degree murder at a trial earlier this year. But the jury was deadlocked on the lesser charge of manslaughter. Weeks after a judge declared a mistrial in the case, David was indicted on manslaughter charges and remains in jail pending a new trial.

This ordeal lasted more than half of Ashley’s life.

“This is something that was very difficult at first and still is, but I feel like over time you’ll get over things,” she told “Dateline.” But “it appears over and over again everywhere I go, in every school I go to, in every workplace I work at.”

Two turbulent decades in one

Karen, a 44-year-old mother of four, disappeared on Oct. 30, 2011, after picking up Ashley early from a sleepover and falling asleep at their home in Dyersburg, a small town about 80 miles north of Memphis, Dyer County. District Attorney Danny Goodman told the jury in May.

A short time later, Karen’s SUV and both of her phones were found nearby with a flat tire. Both were damaged, Dyer County Sheriff’s Office lead investigator Terry McCreight told “Dateline.”

In interviews with local officials, David said he wanted to help however he could and detailed the couple’s tumultuous two decades together, records show. He said they had two children after getting married in 1989, but later divorced after having an affair. They later remarried and had two more children, including Ashley, before Karen had an affair, David said.

When David disappeared, he believed he was experiencing a midlife crisis.

He said he started drinking too much, sometimes, and partying with his new friends. Weeks before her disappearance, he said, she served him divorce papers.

Although he believed she was “lost,” he said in one of the interviews, “I still love and care about her.”

While David told authorities that Karen appeared to have withdrawn from their relationship, friends told “Dateline” that she had become more independent, social and confident in the final months of her life.

According to Ashley, who was 9 at the time, her mother was a parent who went to every game and every dance competition; “He was there through it all,” Ashley said. But he said he also noticed a change in his mother. Ashley recalled that Karen went out so often that she tearfully begged her mother to stay home.

Brief about the evidence

Six weeks after Karen went missing, her remains were found near a local cemetery, Dyer County Sheriff Jeff Box told “Dateline.” The medical examiner determined that he died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Authorities focused on what they saw as possible evidence linking David to the murder. Goodman told the hearing that Karen took one of her husband’s two phones to avoid being tracked and tried to keep it secret from him. David told investigators he had no knowledge of Karen’s second phone, but the prosecutor said authorities found the device’s number was programmed into David’s work phone.

During his interview with authorities, McCreight said David was unable to focus on anything other than his wife’s behavior.

“That to me was a sign that this guy was hiding something,” McCreight said. “He’s covering something up.”

Despite these suspicions, there was no physical evidence or eyewitnesses linking David to the murder. The investigation has stopped.

Ashley said David moved to Alabama and remarried, and her father remained an involved parent, driving him to his job at the grocery store and teaching him to work on his Jeep. As Ashley grew older, she said, she wanted to know more about what happened to her mother, but became increasingly despairing at the prospect.

“I came to an age where I realized I would never know what happened,” he said.

I’m trying to put together a puzzle

Two years ago, when David was arrested and charged with murdering his mother, Ashley remembered how devastated she was by this development. She said her father and stepmother separated, which left Ashley scrambling to find care for her younger sister. He was confused too.

“I was trying to understand why,” he said.

Prosecutor Goodman said he believed his predecessor was waiting for evidence that would make the case against David a “slam slam dunk.” But Goodman told “Dateline” that the Covid pandemic four years ago led to a slowdown in cases, giving prosecutors time to review 30 large boxes of files related to Karen’s murder.

He said they did not uncover what Goodman called “anything big” that could be used in efforts to prosecute David. Instead, he said, what they found was a puzzle with a clear reason.

“I think he saw that he was losing control,” Goodman said. “Because in the past he could control everything Karen did wherever she went.”

“He saw that start to slide,” Goodman added.

Prosecutors said when they heard the case earlier this year that David was so enraged by Karen’s drinking, partying and impending divorce that he violently planned her death.

Goodman said that after Karen returned home after picking up Ashley, the two fell asleep in the same bed. Goodman alleges that at some point that night, David put Ashley in the same room as her younger sister and then dragged Karen from the bedroom to the garage.

The coroner attributed Karen’s cause of death to a skull fracture caused by crushing, and Goodman told the jury in court that David had used so much force in the attack that the fatal blow had “collapsed her skull”.

Goodman then claimed that David loaded Karen into a car, dumped her body in the cemetery, and staged the crime to make it look like she had been kidnapped.

At trial, prosecutors detailed circumstantial evidence uncovered more than a decade ago — the possible lie about Karen’s secret phone call and the “derogatory” comments David made about Karen to investigators — and evidence that Karen planned to return after answering the phone. He said there was no evidence. Ashley. Prosecutors said Karen’s autopsy showed she took sleeping pills and her phones were turned off after she arrived home.

Prosecutors also brought up an important new detail about Karen’s secret phone. Although there was no activity on the devices after he got into bed with Ashley, a forensic examination found someone used the hidden phone to call the device’s voicemail hours later, prosecutors said.

That call was made at 9:55 a.m. on Oct. 30, while the phone was connected to Wi-Fi at the family’s home, Dyer County Deputy District Attorney Tim Boxx told the jury. Karen was already missing at that point, but her phones have not yet been found.

“We know there was an adult at Swift’s home at 9:55 a.m.,” Boxx said.

questioning the evidence

In court, defense lawyer Daniel Taylor said David was not overly controlling but was genuinely concerned for his partner.

Taylor said there was no evidence to support the state’s account of the murder; There was no blood in the garage or car and no evidence that David had left the house. Goodman told “Dateline” that even the medical examiner who announced Karen’s cause of death told the prosecutor he no longer believed she had been fatally beaten.

Taylor said the conclusion that a phone call was made at the Swifts’ home on Saturday morning was based on unreliable evidence. He added that David’s physical condition would have made it impossible for him to commit the type of crime Goodman alleged. Taylor said David had a knee injury and was on crutches at the time of Karen’s death.

At the hearing, David’s physical therapist testified that he would have extreme difficulty walking and lifting. (Goodman again accused David of faking his injury and said he was seen carrying hay bales the day before the murder.)

Ashley, who testified at the hearing, also opposed the prosecutor’s claims. She testified that David was not the person who moved her that night. It was her mother.

“I’ll go to my grave knowing that you were my mother,” she told Dateline.

Ashley believed that her father’s injuries were the strongest evidence that would cast doubt on the prosecution’s case. Ashley said her mother was athletic and she couldn’t imagine someone in her father’s condition being able to easily pass and move her.

After five days of testimony and two days of deliberation, the jury returned its verdict, acquitting David of murder but deadlocked on the manslaughter charge. A date for his retrial has not been scheduled.

Ashley, who now works as a dental hygienist in Alabama, recalled the difficulty of waiting for the verdict and how she initially believed the case was over after the verdict was announced. He later learned that wasn’t the case. Ashley said David was innocent and believed his father was wrongfully imprisoned while awaiting a new trial.

This reality caused him to have a hard time moving on.

“I want justice for my mother and I want my father to be home,” he said. “But I want to live a normal life.”