Photos: The Rising Daughter Church murders case

Metro Atlanta

How the Rising Daughter case unfolded

Images from the 1985 double-murder of Harold and Thelma Swain at their church in coastal Georgia's Camden County and the decades-long investigation that followed. Part of an AJC investigation.

Rising Daughter Baptist Church was the site of the stunning murders of Harold and Thelma Swain on March 11, 1985. (RYON HORNE RHORNE@AJC.COM)

Thelma Swain and her husband, Harold Swain, were killed in 1985 at Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Camden County, Georgia. (WJXT TV)

Harold and Thelma Swain were shot in the vestibule of Rising Daughter Baptist Church in 1985. Harold's body lay in the far left corner of this recent image and Thelma's lay in a doorway to the sanctuary on the far right side. In 1985, the vestibule had two sets of double-doors leading into the sanctuary. The church has since been renovated so that those entrances have been replaced by a single set of double-doors, seen here at right. (Hysosub Shin / hyosub.shin@ajc.com)

GBI agent Joe Gregory created this sketch of the church foyer during the original investigation. Thelma Swain's legs are shown partially blocking one of the doors to the sanctuary and she has one hand at her husband's head. The broken eyeglasses are shown as "G" with the label "Silver metal frame eyeclasses (suspect's?)."

A pair of broken glasses are shown where they were found at the crime scene--inches from the body of Harold Swain in the vestibule.

Four witnesses who saw the shooter at Rising Daughter Baptist Church each created a sketch of the suspect. Elements of each identification were later combined by another artist into one single composite sketch, seen at right. (GBI)

Vanzola Williams was walking out of the church when she briefly spoke to the shooter, making her the only witness who had close contact with the murderer. (WJXT TV)

Butch Kennedy, former Camden County chief sheriff's deputy, tried for seven years to solve the 1985 murders at Rising Daughter Baptist Church. He believes that Dennis Perry, the man who another investigator later helped send to prison, is innocent. Kennedy is haunted by guilt that the case wouldn't have ended such a way if he'd solved it himself. (Tyson Horne/Tyson.Horne@ajc.com)

Joe Gregory, a former GBI agent, worked with Butch Kennedy on the Swain case for years, running down thousands of leads and helping clear Dennis Perry as a suspect in 1988. (family photo)

Donnie Barrentine was a prime suspect in the initial investigation of the Swain murders. During the 2003 trial of Dennis Perry, Perry's defense would make the case that Barrentine was the actual killer. (GBI)

Atlanta Constitution clipping from 1985 about the murder of Harold and Thelma Swain at Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Spring Bluff, Ga.

Erik Sparre, seen here circa 1986, was briefly considered a suspect in the Swains' murders, but his alibi convinced investigators that he wasn't at the church that night.

Emily Head, an ex-wife of Erik Sparre, told police in 1986 that he had confessed to the murders in a threatening phone message that her family recorded. (Georgia Bureau of Investigations)

This note filed by GBI Special Agent Joe Gregory in 1986 details how a search conducted on the home of Erik Sparre did not turn up any of the evidence that investigators were looking for.

Sherriff Bill Smith was unhappy with the investigation conducted by Butch Kennedy when Kennedy left the force in 1992 (Smith says Kennedy quit; Kennedy says he was fired). Six years later, Smith hired Dale Bundy, a former deputy, to take up the Swains murder investigation. (WJXT TV)

Dale Bundy picked up the investigation of the Swain murders in 1998 and soon zeroed in on Dennis Perry as his prime suspect. (Camden County Sheriff's Office Facebook page)

Dennis Perry, seen here before his conviction, was living in Jacksonville, Fla. with his first wife when a new set of investigators in the late 1990s began to zero in on him as the main suspect in the Swain murders.

In March 1985, Dennis Perry was living with his mother in Jonesboro and working in College Park, roughly 260 miles from Rising Daughter Baptist Church. Investigators at the time learned that Perry didn't own a car and didn't wear glasses, and he was eliminated as a suspect. Years later, a new set of investigators became convinced that he was the Swains' killer. (family photo)

Jane Beaver, the mother of Dennis Perry's former girlfriend, set the case against Perry into motion by showing a photo of Perry to a witness to the murder. Beaver testified during Perry's trial that he told her that he was going to kill Harold Swain.

Jane Beaver showed this 1980s-era photo of Dennis Perry to Cora Fisher, a witness who identified Perry from the photo. (State of Georgia vs. Dennis Perry case file)

Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, where Dennis Perry stood trial for the 1985 murders of Thelma and Harold Swain. (RYON HORNE RHORNE@AJC.COM)

Dennis Perry has been in prison for nearly 20 years for the deaths of Harold and Thelma Swain in Camden County in 1985.

Butch Kennedy, former Camden County chief sheriff's deputy, has suffered some recent health problems and says that he hopes to see the Rising Daughter case resolved in his lifetime. Kennedy is adamant that the wrong man was convicted in 2003. (Tyson Horne/Tyson.Horne@ajc.com)

Dennis and Brenda Perry married at the Autry State Prison in 2009. Dennis is serving two life sentences for the murders of Harold and Thelma Swain, a crime he insists he never committed. (family photo)

Brenda Perry, who knew Dennis Perry from Spring Bluff, reconnected with him while he was in prison. She's never doubted his innocence and looks forward to him one day coming home. She says, "People don't realize what they have. ... Sometimes when he calls, I just listen to him breathe, to know he's all right." (Tyson Horne/Tyson.Horne@ajc.com)

The Winn Dixie at Lanier Plaza in Brunswick is where former suspect Erik Sparre stated he was working on the night of the 1985 church murders in Spring Bluff about 12 miles away. (RYON HORNE RHORNE@AJC.COM)

This note filed by GBI Special Agent Joe Gregory in 1986 details the alibi that he was given by "Mr. Donald Mobley" regarding Erik's Sparre's whereabouts on the night of the Swain murders.

On April 27, 2020, lawyers for Dennis Perry filed a extraordinary motion for a new trial based on new DNA evidence that could exonerate him.

Butch Kennedy, former Camden County chief sheriff's deputy, says that he thinks often of the Swains' final moments and the pain that their murders has caused the community. Although he feels guilty that he couldn't solve the case, he's hopeful that new DNA evidence could bring it to a conclusion. (Tyson Horne/Tyson.Horne@ajc.com)

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Rising Daughter Baptist Church was the site of the stunning murders of Harold and Thelma Swain on March 11, 1985. (RYON HORNE RHORNE@AJC.COM)

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