A 61-year-old man has been arrested nearly 40 years after the murders of church deacon Harold Swain and his wife, Thelma, at Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Camden County, Georgia. Erik Kristensen Sparre, from Waynesville, Georgia, was charged with two counts of murder and two counts of aggravated assault in connection with the 1985 killings.
The murders took place on a Wednesday evening in 1985 when Swain, a 66-year-old deacon, and his wife were attending Bible study at the church in Waverly, just north of Woodbine. They were shot by a man who walked into the church during the session. The case remained unsolved for years, until 2000 when Dennis Perry, a Jacksonville man, was arrested and convicted of the crime. Perry was sentenced to two life terms.
However, in 2020, Perry’s conviction was overturned after new DNA evidence emerged, casting doubt on his involvement. The DNA pointed to another individual, and hairs found on a pair of unique eyeglasses at the crime scene suggested Perry was not the perpetrator.
Following this breakthrough, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and Camden County Sheriff’s Office revisited the case. On May 13, 2020, they served a search warrant at the home of Gladys Sparre and her son, Erik. This investigation ultimately led to Sparre’s arrest in connection with the crime.
Sparre has since been booked into the Camden County Jail, where he faces charges related to the 1985 murders. This arrest brings some long-awaited closure to a case that had puzzled authorities for nearly four decades.