The Murder of Beverly Swearingen

August 18, 1996.  A cloudy, misty Sunday morning, somewhat cool for the middle of August.  There was unlikely much activity on South High Street in Washington around 7:00 a.m. but for the paperboy making his rounds.

The paperboy noticed a fire coming from the garage at 205 South High Street and alerted neighbors, who then alerted the authorities. That call came in at 7:24. At 7:29, the first firefighters arrived at the home owned by Gary and Beverly Swearingen and found the garage fully engulfed in flames and spreading to the house of Russ and Bernie Broe at 207 S. High.

As firefighters battled the blaze, which took about an hour to get under control, they noticed a car inside the garage and a body in the back seat of the car.  The body had been burned beyond recognition, and it was not until the next day that the deceased had been identified, through dental records, as Beverly Swearingen.

In the days following the fire, authorities had few leads. There were no signs of struggle in the home and no signs of theft. They quickly determined two critical factors in their investigation: the car Beverly had been sitting in was not running at the time of the fire, and she was alive when the fire started.

Officials remained tight-lipped on their findings as the days and weeks passed, releasing bits of information occasionally. Two weeks after the fire, it was revealed that a flammable material fed it.

Six months passed.

In February 1997, Beverly’s death was ruled a homicide, and officials first publicly spoke about several curious facts coming to light:

• Gary Swearingen flunked a lie-detector test when asked if he poured gasoline on his wife and set her on fire.

• Friends of Gary testified that he told them the exact location of the start of the fire the day after the fire (the back seat of the car) well before investigators knew this.

• Gary had indicated to police that some gasoline had gone missing from a can in the shed, and police were puzzled because very few people knew of gasoline’s role in the fire at the time.  No fingerprints were found on the can.

• Swearingen had testified that he was at work at Komatsu Dresser Co. the morning of the fire, but there were gaps of time when his attendance could not be verified.

• Originally, Swearingen insisted his wife would never commit suicide, but later changed his mind, saying Beverly had talked about it more than once.

• Swearingen reported one thing missing: a yellow lighter.  Police had located the lighter under Beverly Swearingen but did not tell anyone.  Gary later told police he had found the lighter but could not produce it upon authority request.  He then admitted he had lied about finding the lighter because he was upset about his wife’s possible suicide.

• Gary Swearingen was contacted at work at 7:55 a.m. about the fire and his wife’s death, and it took him 38 minutes to arrive.  The drive was shown to be easily made in 12-20 minutes.

In the end, no charges were ever filed against anyone in the death of Beverly Swearingen, and the case remains unsolved.  Gary Swearingen passed away in 2017 at the age of 70.