[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[woman speaking]
[laughing]
Tina was extremely funny.
ROBERT: She was goofy.
I mean, she'd just make you laugh.
John, I don't believe, had
a very good self-esteem about himself.
He had to be in control all the time
to make him feel better.
He can be really nice.
And then the next minute, you have no idea what has happened.
It was clear that this was certainly not self-inflicted.
This scene was very gruesome and grizzly.
It left no question that this was a homicide.
-[detective speaking] -[John speaking]
[detective speaking]
[theme music playing]
NARRATOR: It's April 2000, and birthday boy, Robert Frosco,
is filming his 36-year-old sister, Tina Swor.
She couldn't believe that I was capturing her.
She was kind of giddy like a little schoolgirl, you know?
Ha ha.
ROBERT: This is my birthday party in Salinas on Auburn Street.
It's my 34th birthday party.
[indistinct]
NARRATOR: Tina's husband, Richard Swor, also
enjoys playing to the camera.
Richard was somebody who -- He was just fun to be around.
You know, he's another one of those guys that you like
to hang out with and talk shop with and whatnot.
NARRATOR: Tina and military man Richard have been married for 18 years,
but by the time of Robert's birthday party,
their marriage is on the rocks.
Tina and Richard, at this point, they were separated,
but they did live together.
I think probably started growing apart at that point in time.
And the family always hoped that they
would work it out and, you know, get back together.
NARRATOR: The couple have two children, a son, Richie,
and a daughter, Carlie.
[shouting]
[shouting indistinctly]
This here is Richie,
running around at my birthday party.
He and my son, they're playing Power Rangers, I believe.
[woman speaking]
NARRATOR: Inside, Richie's three-year-old sister,
Carlie, is playing with a pet rat under
her mom and aunt's supervision.
[woman speaking]
ROBERT: Here's Carlie squinting her little nose and her eyes.
She discovered our rats.
We're trying to convince Tina there to get her a rat for
her house -- I don't think Tina was
gonna have anything to do with it. [chuckles]
[man speaking indistinctly]
NARRATOR: Six months later, it's Halloween,
and Robert hosts another party.
[man speaking]
[voices overlapping]
We'd always have, like, a costume contest,
you know, type thing amongst us all.
And Tina would always come in,
outdo everybody with her costumes.
And that time, when she came in with a Tin Man costume,
it just blew us away.
She walked through that door,
and everybody was just, like, in awe.
-[voices overlapping] -MAN: There you go.
NARRATOR: Tina's daughter, Carlie, is dressed as Dorothy,
while her son, Richie is a Mario Brother.
[man speaking]
NARRATOR: But someone else is missing.
That year we had the Halloween party,
Richard wasn't there.
ERNA: After being separated for a while,
Tina and Richard decided to divorce.
Tina always told me, "I will always love Richard,
"but we're just not compatible.
"We both need to move on,
and the best thing that we can do is to let each other go."
ROBERT: Tina was devastated.
The breakup of them two just broke her.
It was a love of her life, you know,
but the Tin Man costume, she might have done that
because she was heartbroken,
you know, and it symbolized the Tin Man don't have a heart.
I wish Tina would have stayed with Richard.
Things definitely would have been different.
We would definitely have a different story to tell.
ERNA: In 2002,
I had moved up to Clarkston, Washington, to take care
of my ill sister -- Tina came up, visited,
liked it, and decided that, you know, maybe I can make
a new life, new start up here.
And then she was able to purchase
a house across the river in Lewiston, Idaho.
Kids were at the house most of the time,
you know, if Tina had do something.
they'd come stay with grandma.
NARRATOR: In 2006, Tina and her mom
decided to open a candy shop together.
CARLIE: The Sugar Shack -- um, it was a big hit on the town.
It was always fun for me, too, because I got to
actually work there when I was young, um,
help out with the cash register and stuff like that.
So it was like a child's dream
to have your parents own a candy store.
Yeah, I felt like things were kind of looking up, you know,
she had her business, she was starting to
make friends and meet people in the community.
NARRATOR: One year later, at a local bar,
Tina meets 41-year-old construction worker,
John Dalton.
My mom told me that she had met some new guy,
um, who was great.
She seemed excited, somebody that she really likes.
I believe my mom was attracted to him
because he was, like, a hard worker.
He had a good job, he had his own vehicle, stuff like that.
He would take her out, take her to dinner,
take her on dates, he seemed very romantic.
ROBERT: I think Tina was attracted to John because
Tina liked guys that they had the beard, you know,
the kind of the mountain man type looking person.
You know, the macho kind of guys.
John's two favorite things to do in
life is basically hunting and guns.
When I first met him, I thought, well,
he's a nice man.
I honestly thought, you know, she met the right guy.
CARLIE: I remember when John moved in,
he was kind of staying there like on the weekends
or when he didn't work.
Um, and it turned into, like, four or five days
a week, and then he was living there pretty much full-time.
What I witnessed, it seems loving.
They were always really fun and sociable.
NARRATOR: The couple throw regular parties in their garage.
[laughter]
[woman speaking]
[laughter]
Tina has never missed a party.
She liked to be around people.
She was a people person.
John was just a social butterfly at that point, too.
[man speaking indistinctly]
NARRATOR: In this cellphone video at a friend's house,
John plays up to the camera.
ROBERT: There's John acting like a goofball at
this party and what not and trying to get attention from
everybody and trying to be -- you know, fit in.
And I thought, well, she finally met somebody
who's gonna be there and protect her
and take care of her and so on and so forth.
NARRATOR: But at home, Tina's daughter Carlie notices
a very different side to her mom's new man.
CARLIE: He would
kind of just stay there, dig through our fridge,
eat all the food, use the shower,
you know, electricity and stuff, but he never helped
pitch in for anything.
John, at the time, was working into construction.
He made good money.
CARLIE: He was always in her room.
He would only come out if there was, you know,
like an event or to cook dinner.
We would kind of make, like, jokes
about him being rude and stuff like that.
My mom would laugh it off, and she would kind of
just say, "Oh, I know," you know,
but it was never taken too seriously.
NARRATOR: At work, Tina begins to suffer
from shortness of breath and dizzy spells.
Doctors discover she has
a leaking heart valve and needs surgery.
ROBERT: When I first found out that it was happening to her,
you know, I mean, I went up on a hill and cried my eyes out,
because I thought that I was gonna lose my sister.
I knew she was scared to death.
You know, she didn't know what was gonna happen.
Tina had her heart surgery at St. Joseph's in Spokane.
When we found out it was a success,
we were all happy.
ERNA: We were all completely relieved.
I mean, totally.
I mean, because she could have lost her life for sure.
ROBERT: When Tina had to recover from the surgery,
she had to stay in bed for a couple, 2 or 3 weeks,
and not have any strenuous activities.
CARLIE: John would always make comments of how she should be
able to move already and get up around the house.
He was wondering why her recovery was taking so long.
He seemed annoyed of it.
I think he mainly just wanted her to be up,
because he, you know, wanted to be taken care of.
I feel like John should have been looking after her
and helping her out, especially if he's her boyfriend,
making sure she's okay and if she needs anything,
but he didn't do any of that for her.
The Sugar Shack took a hit financially.
Our business subsided quite a bit.
And that's when we said, "Okay, now it's time to sell it."
Tina was on disability at this point in time.
She couldn't work.
My mom ended up having to file for bankruptcy,
and our house ended up getting foreclosed on,
because it wasn't getting paid on.
That's when the financial problems started for Tina.
John was not helping Tina one bit.
His money was his money.
In 2013, John got a job at Kaiser Aluminum.
He was definitely excited.
He was a millwright there.
The money was super good.
You know, the hours were -- he's getting a lot of overtime,
and things were starting to turn around for them.
NARRATOR: Tina and John purchase a lot three hours
from Clarkston in Spirit Lake, Idaho.
They were gonna build a home there, which they did.
Tina was instrumental in helping the builder with
a design and what she really
wanted to -- the house to look like.
CARLIE: I didn't want to move to Spirit Lake, because
I know John didn't really like having kids around.
So I kind of felt like a burden if I were to live in
his house, so I lived with my grandma.
I know my mom was happy to make that move,
but I know it did end up getting harder as time went on.
John was a very domineering, macho person.
He just, you know, wanted to
stand out as number one in everything that he did.
John would always kind of act
annoyed that my mom wasn't working.
He would claim she was lazy and didn't do anything.
But, you know, my mom always made sure he was fed,
cleaned the house, did the errands, all that stuff.
When John and my mom would get in arguments,
he would put it over her head
that it's his house, it's not hers.
ERNA: John always had said "My house this, my this,
my garage, my this, my that."
Everything had to belong to John.
NARRATOR: Despite the joint purchase,
only John's name is listed on the deed to the house.
CARLIE: John didn't want my mom's name on the deed
because he thinks since he had the money and the job
that it was just his house.
ERNA: Tina did contribute to the down payment on the house.
She wanted to feel like a partner in this,
and therefore, she wanted to be put on the deed.
Their home became a hostile environment, because any time
they had an argument, which was almost every day,
it was about that -- about money situations
or something related to that.
NARRATOR: One night at a bar,
Tina meets a new friend, Christine.
I don't know.
Whoo! [laughter]
Whaaa!
CHRISTINE: When I met Tina, it was just
an instant connection, and we just regularly were together.
We would talk about everything,
um, pretty much from the beginning.
John and my husband, Eric, were close.
He loved John.
He really did consider him one of his best friends.
NARRATOR: Eric films John at a bonfire party.
[Eric speaking]
John was always kind of quiet.
But then, you know, if you caught him in
the video or the photo, he'd want to participate.
NARRATOR: There's Christine holding a beer.
[Eric speaking]
NARRATOR: And behind, Tina and friends bring chairs and drinks.
Whoo! [indistinct]
Throw this at graduation.
[man speaking]
Tina always told me that John was moody
and that he was drinking too much, and they had
a problem with whiskey especially,
and it just made him mean.
ERNA: John was a very heavy drinker.
His personality definitely changed when
he had too much to drink,
because John can smile and be nice,
and five minutes later, if he didn't like something,
he'd go off.
Kinda scary.
CARLIE: I was very worried about my mom when she lived in
Spirit Lake, especially when I would get calls
of how they're in an argument or he's fighting with her.
I was scared.
I would start getting anxiety just
thinking that something's gonna happen.
[indistinct] You, too, and then we're gonna get a prize.
Okay, ready?
NARRATOR: It's Christmas 2017, and 53-year-old Tina Swor is
refereeing her friend Christine as she plays
the candy cane game.
-[Tina speaking] -[timer beeping]
[Eric speaking]
[laughter]
Tina planned any time we were getting together as if it was,
you know, the biggest of -- most special time we could
be together.
[woman speaking]
[laughter]
Yoo-hoo!
CHRISTINE: Tina was having a blast.
She really got joy just from seeing other people
be happy with the things she had done for them.
So she was in a great mood.
Um, John wasn't actually with us.
He was at work that night.
So maybe that's why she was in a really good mood, too.
NARRATOR: Two years later, on December 23, 2019,
Tina's daughter, Carlie,
travels to Idaho to spend Christmas with her mom and John.
CARLIE: I was really excited to see her.
But when I walked in,
her and John were already in an argument.
John was calling her lazy.
He may have called her a pig.
So when I heard that, I was pretty angry
that he would talk to my mom like that.
And so that's when I kept telling her she doesn't
need to put up with that or deal with that.
She was really stressed out,
saying we need to get out of here now.
And I said, "What's going on?"
She couldn't find her phone.
NARRATOR: As Tina prepares to leave, officers from
the Spirit Lake Police Department turn up at the scene.
Tina learns that John called 911.
They thought that my mom had did
something to him even though he was fine.
But then they found her phone in the room,
and it was bent in half.
Once they ended up finding her phone,
they believed a little bit more that
he had put his hands on my mom,
but they asked her if she wanted to press charges.
And so she was scared to, and she said no.
So they basically gave us the option of leaving the house,
because John told the cops
that it was his house, and so we can't stay there.
So we had to grab all our Christmas presents,
and then we drove down to my grandmother's house.
My daughter
and Carlie showed up at the house.
She came in, and I could tell she was very, very upset.
And I said, "Tina, what happened?"
And she said, "John is...
went nuts on me," and I said, "What are you talking about?"
Said John pushed her against the wall.
Oh, and he -- he held a gun to her head.
And, uh...
Yeah, so that was when big red flag.
My husband and I both said,
"You're not going back home. That's it."
But he called her and said, "Oh,
"I'm so sorry, and I'll make all this up to you, and things will
be better, and we can make this work."
So she went home.
CARLIE: I was very worried about her.
I did not want her to go back to living with John.
NARRATOR: Tina may have chosen not to press charges,
but police have their own concerns.
CARLIE: John was charged with
disturbing the peace for that night.
He was put on probation, and he had to
complete like a domestic violence course.
ERNA: Classes were intended to change his behavior,
to try to teach him to walk away
from an incident instead of becoming
physically violent.
CARLIE: I thought with him doing this course,
it would teach him to do better.
My mom was hopeful that he may start behaving better.
I know when she would call me,
she said that he's not drinking that much anymore.
So it sounded hopeful that maybe he is
trying to make a change.
NARRATOR: And more importantly for Tina,
her name is finally added to the deed of the house.
CARLIE: I know my mom was happy inside
to know that she was on there.
I think it gave her a sense of security.
But John had a T-shirt that
said, "Don't make me violate my probation."
Seen him wear it.
It was just kind of eye shocking.
I thought, what kind of guy is this?
[Robert speaking]
NARRATOR: It's Tina's 56th birthday.
We went up and surprised Tina
for her birthday in, uh, Spirit Lake.
I shot some cellphone video of Tina
and her friends and stuff to kind of
keep, you know -- have that memory in my life.
[man speaking]
[all singing]
ROBERT: Tina was being silly, going, "Who me?"
You know, every time we'd say happy birthday to you,
and then she had everybody laughing,
and just -- everybody just having a good old time.
Look at the people around her, that -- she just --
she lit up the whole place.
ROBERT: There again, there's John trying to get
the limelight of everything, trying to be funny.
He could never let anybody
be in the, you know,
the star of the show.
He'd have to be part of it.
[voices overlapping]
[laughter]
ROBERT: She gives John a kiss.
Um, just to probably to
make him feel like he's wanted there.
You know, John's hugging her friend.
She was just laughing and having a good time.
In those clips, yeah,
it looks like John is the doting boyfriend.
You know, when people were around, he would act like
he's this great guy, that he loves her,
you know, he wants to be with her.
But I think it was all just a show.
[voices overlapping]
[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[Christine speaking]
[operator speaking]
-[Christine speaking] -[operator speaking]
[Christine speaking]
-[Christine speaking] -[operator speaking]
OPERATOR: Okay. Okay.
It was really bizarre that
no one knew where Tina was.
No one had heard from her.
And now we were all really worried.
We all thought, "This is crazy."
STANLEY: When officers first entered the residence
of Tina Swor and John Dalton,
everything appeared somewhat normal.
The house looked tidy and kept pretty well.
And then eventually, they made their way into the bedroom.
It was in disarray,
pillows on the floor,
blood stain and blood spatter on the walls,
and a female body on the floor.
This scene was very gruesome and grizzly.
[distant sirens wailing]
When the detectives entered the garage to the residence,
they found a Nissan Pathfinder.
JERRIE: And inside that vehicle was a female's purse.
The information and the photograph
contained on the driver's license,
when compared to the person who was deceased
in the master bedroom,
definitely removed any question that this was Tina Swor.
CHRISTINE: When -- when the police tape went up,
I knew there was only one reason that they were going to
put that tape up there.
It meant somebody was dead,
and I knew it was Tina.
ERNA: I got the most dreaded call in my entire life,
and it was from Christine.
And she had said,
"I don't even want to tell you this,"
but she said,
"Tina's deceased,"
and, of course,
I went crazy.
[dial tone noise]
ROBERT: I'm in shock.
Took the wind out of my sails.
I didn't know what to do.
Christine told me that I need to be strong, and...
I said, what was going on?
What are you -- what are you talking about?
And then they said that she's gone.
And so, um, I just screamed.
NARRATOR: Police continue to process the crime scene.
JERRIE: We located several shell casings
for a nine-millimeter pistol.
As we processed closer to Tina's body,
we began to see that there were wounds on her that were
consistent with close range gunshot wounds.
This presented a very emotional
and angry person who had conducted this murder.
NARRATOR: Officers discover domestic violence paperwork.
STANLEY: Officers also found envelopes.
In one envelope,
Officers located $2,200, and in the other envelope,
officers located $2,100.
When we found this money,
and with the other information we had,
it started creating a picture
of a woman that was really concerned for her safety.
It looked as though at Tina had been saving cash
as an emergency fund
in case she had to leave suddenly and get away from John.
NARRATOR: What investigators don't find is a murder weapon.
And John and his truck are missing.
We contacted the cellular phone company and had them
conduct a ping or ranging location on John's cellphone.
Officers ping the phone, and they're told that the phone
may be within a couple thousand meters of the home.
JERRIE: Eventually, the phone was located on
the counter adjacent to the sink in the kitchen.
STANLEY: In this day and age,
people don't go too many places without their cellphones.
And so when officers find John Dalton's cellphone,
but they don't find John Dalton,
they're fairly concerned.
He was either in such a rush that he left his phone
behind or possibly he even left it behind on purpose.
JERRIE: When we contacted John's employer,
it sounded like Mr. Dalton had been missing for
several days at this time, and nobody had seen him.
STANLEY: Officers were casting a wide net, looking
anywhere and everywhere to find John Dalton.
Upon talking to the people on scene, the neighbors officers
quickly learned that on the evening of August 14th,
John Dalton and Tina Swor had been out with two friends,
Eric and Christine.
They had started out drinking in Spirit Lake,
eventually made their way to Athol.
CHRISTINE: John was drinking whiskey,
and Tina was a little tipsy.
I had never seen her like that before.
John was sitting at a table, and I walked up to him,
and I said, "Hey,
"why don't you go ahead and take Tina home,
because I think she's had enough."
And I left with my husband. We went home.
And that was the last time I ever saw her.
The officers were able to find a close by neighbor
who had a security camera,
and it potentially captured footage of vehicles coming to
and from Dalton and Swor's residence.
NARRATOR: Tina and John's home is located out of
camera vision in the top righthand corner.
When they looked at the video footage,
at about 8:15 in the evening,
one of the things that was noteworthy
was a vehicle matching Tina Swor's
was seen driving past the CCTV to her residence.
That vehicle was Tina and John returning
from their night out at a bar drinking.
Officers continued to watch the video -- at about 9:36
in the evening, a pickup truck was seen leaving the area.
It was John Dalton's truck leaving the residence.
After Tina was killed,
one of my friends told me that night when we were out,
Tina had flirted with another guy.
I didn't know that.
So once the friend told me that this had happened,
I told the police.
Everything that we had at this point began
to point towards John Dalton as the primary suspect.
NARRATOR: A BOLO is released for John and his pick up truck.
JERRIE: During this time, the sheriff's office also began
releasing information to the media in the hopes
that maybe someone in the public would be able to see
or know of Mr. Dalton's location.
STANLEY: It was extremely urgent
for them to locate and find him.
Officers were treating Mr. Dalton not only as a suspect
but as if he was armed and dangerous.
On the 18th,
a teller from a bank in St. Maries, Idaho,
who had actually seen the media release,
saw a person that she believed matched the description
of John Dalton, and she contacted
the sheriff's office there and reported her observations.
[sirens wailing]
Deputies from the Benewah County Sheriff's office went
immediately down there in an attempt to locate John.
STANLEY: A sheriff's deputy patrolling in that area
saw an individual
that appeared to be Mr. Dalton.
The sheriff's deputy detained him in handcuffs
and transported him to the sheriff's office.
[detective speaking]
[John speaking]
DETECTIVE: Okay.
JERRIE: As the detectives began to speak to John,
he began immediately in --
in explaining his role in the death of Tina Swor.
[John speaking]
-[detective speaking] -[John speaking]
[detective speaking]
Mr. Dalton indicated that he believed
that Tina was going to leave him, and that she was going to
take a significant portion of
his money or half the house or go after his social security,
and this caused him some real concern.
[John speaking]
-[John speaking] -[detective speaking]
He was putting blame on the shooting of Tina on her.
He blamed her for bringing the gun out for
the argument, for the threats to leave him, and that
he was trying to shift
the causal parts of this murder onto her.
[detective speaking]
Mr. Dalton stated that after he had shot Tina,
he had cleaned up some,
he got in his vehicle, and then began driving.
He was trying to just get up into
the woods so that he could have some time to think.
At some point, he obviously had to abandon his truck.
And as he's walking out of the woods, he happened upon
a forest service employee
who gave him a ride into St. Maries.
STANLEY: Mr. Dalton told the detectives that he had rented a room at
the Pines Motel in downtown St. Maries, and that the firearm
used to kill Tina was in that hotel room.
The detectives, upon getting a search warrant for
the motel room
and making entry, were able to find
a nine-millimeter pistol.
When the state lab was completed in their testing,
it was apparent that this weapon
was the one used to kill Tina Swor.
STANLEY: Mr. Dalton was taken to the Kootenai County jail
and charged with
first-degree murder in the killing of Tina Swor.
And the theory in this case
was that Mr. Dalton was a domestic abuser, that on
the night of the 14th, Tina had been flirting
with another man.
Mr. Dalton was aware of it and became enraged,
and then upon returning to the home,
there was a verbal confrontation between the two.
Tina told Mr. Dalton that she was gonna leave
and that she was going to possibly ruin him financially.
Mr. Dalton obtained possession of a firearm and used that
firearm to kill Tina in a fit of rage and jealousy.
This wasn't a normal killing -- this was an execution.
Tina was shot five times in the back of her head.
After killing Tina, Mr. Dalton left his home,
leaving his phone inside the home.
He'd got into his truck and fled the residence.
NARRATOR: After his arrest, John's truck is found
abandoned in the woods.
The officers went up to photograph the condition of
the truck.
One of the things that stood out was a handwritten note.
The note appeared to be signed by Mr. Dalton and expounded
on his grief for killing Tina
and the fact that he was planning on killing himself.
STANLEY: Mr. Dalton pled guilty in this case
to a lesser charge of second-degree murder.
The judge gave Mr. Dalton a life sentence
and allowed him to be eligible for parole
after 20 years.
Justice was served in this case.
Mr. Dalton was convicted of murder.
We feel for the family of Ms. Swor.
We're very sorry that we had to meet under
these circumstances,
but we're very, very happy with the fact
that we were able to help give them closure.
ROBERT: I miss her -- I miss her voice.
I miss her laugh. I miss her silliness.
And,
you know, wish I could just see her again.
CARLIE: I miss her -- her positive words
that she always had for me.
Just wish I could call her.
I would just tell her how much I miss her,
and I wish she was still here.
[indistinct]
I talk to her every day --
"That's my baby girl,"
and, "How is your day today, sweetheart?"
I throw her a kiss.
I would tell her, "Tina come home, mom misses you."
Every day.
It looked like the perfect family.
My brother, Richard, was a master manipulator.
It's shocking beyond description.
It was one of the most brutal murders I've ever covered.