DEL.ICIO.USBrookhaven couple’s friends keep case going
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Hilton Head Island, S.C. — Friends and family of a Hilton Head Island couple missing for more than seven months gathered to remember them and to make sure the case doesn’t fade away.
Nearly a dozen people met Tuesday at the island’s Liberty Oak to share drinks and memories of John and Elizabeth Calvert.
Beaufort County, S.C., Sheriff's Department
The Calverts were last seen March 3 near the harbor where their yacht is docked on Hilton Head Island, S.C.
The couple, who also have a home in Brookhaven, were last seen March 3. Eight days later, an accountant killed himself after being questioned in their disappearance. Dennis Gerwing’s employer said he embezzled $2.1 million from the couple and seven other companies.
The investigation is like trying to find a needle in a 700-pound roll of hay, Beaufort County, S.C., Sheriff P.J. Tanner told the Island Packet of Hilton Head.
“We basically have a good picture of the case as a whole, but there are pieces of the puzzle that are still missing,” the sheriff said. “We haven’t found anything that has really ignited us.”
Investigators have mostly finished looking into the couple’s finances and though their computers, Tanner said.
Since his sister disappeared, David White has quit his advertising job in Atlanta to help run the couple’s four businesses.
“It’s so they can walk back in and take over,” White said. “I think it’s the right thing to do as a brother. It’s hard, but I’m doing this for Liz and John.”
White and the friends of the couple, who have been married more than 20 years, plan to keep talking about the case and raising money for the reward fund, which is up to $65,500.
After the sunset meeting at the oak tree, the group headed for a quiet round of drinks at a restaurant directly across from where the Calverts’ yacht remains moored.
“We want this solved,” said Nancy Cappelman, harbormaster of the yacht basin. “We want some kind of resolution.”
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