New arrest made in 1985 cold case killing after another man was wrongly imprisoned for 2 decades

CAMDEN COUNTY, Ga. (TCN) -- Officials recently arrested and charged a 61-year-old man in connection with the 1985 deaths of a couple at a church after another man was wrongly imprisoned for almost two decades.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) announced the arrest of Erik Sparre on Dec. 9 on two counts of murder and two counts of aggravated assault for allegedly killing Harold Swain and Thelma Swain nearly 39 years ago. He was arrested in Waynesville Georgia and booked into the Camden County Jail.

According to the Georgia Innocence Project, in the spring of 1985, a man entered the Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Waverly, where he shot the deacon, identified by the GBI as Harold Swain, and his wife, Thelma Swain. Per an initial release reviewed by WTLV-TV, the shooter cut off the church’s phone lines and fled in a battered brown vehicle.

Authorities reportedly found a pair of glasses at the church that didn’t belong to anyone there that night, and women from the nearby room "gave wildly different descriptions of the perpetrator, though it seems only one had spoken with him or seen his face clearly."

The Georgia Innocence Project said four sketches of the shooter were combined into one composite. In 1988, an anonymous tipster reported Dennis Perry as a match to the sketch, and investigators identified him as a possible suspect. However, Perry reportedly worked hundreds of miles away from the crime scene on the day of the shooting, and a woman at the church who spoke with the killer did not identify him in a photo lineup. The Georgia Innocence Project said Perry also did not wear glasses.

Despite his alibi, Perry was arrested in 2000 and convicted three years later. Investigators reportedly tested the DNA on the glasses in 2003, and it did not match Perry, but he remained convicted. The Georgia Innocence Project alleges an informant was seeking reward money, and the information provided led to the arrest.

To avoid the death penalty, Perry entered a deal to give up his right to appeal and received two consecutive sentences. In 2020, the Georgia Innocence Project and Perry’s attorneys presented new DNA evidence in court. The Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney at the time did not allow for a new trial, but a judge overturned the conviction and granted a new trial in July 2020. Perry’s charges were dropped in July 2021.

Due to possible new evidence, the investigation into Harold Swain and Thelma Swain’s shooting deaths was officially reopened in May 2020, the GBI said. Investigators searched the home of Erik Sparre and his late mother in August 2020, several years before Erik Sparre’s arrest.

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