By Monte Mitchell
A woman whose dismembered body was found in a brush pile in Davie County was likely first killed and then cut into pieces as a way for her killer to dispose of her body, authorities said Thursday.
David Earl Hughes, 56, is accused of killing his girlfriend, Patricia Yvette Swaim, 49.
Searchers found Swaim's head, torso, legs and right arm under the brush pile off Serenity Drive, across a field from Hughes' house. They still hadn't found her left arm or left foot as of Thursday afternoon and believe that animals could have taken them.
Hughes has been charged with first-degree murder in Swaim's death. He had his first court appearance Thursday morning. Later that day, he was denied bail during a second hearing and remains in the Davie County Jail.
Sheriff Andy Stokes said he wanted to wait until autopsy results are complete to release information about how Swaim died. Her last known contact was with her daughter on the evening of Feb. 20.
Authorities started investigating then, talking to neighbors and to Hughes.
Swaim had left the home for extended periods before, but this time investigators determined that she had stopped using her cellphone and credit cards.
"Things of that nature stopped at the same time," Stokes said. "It wasn't one thing. It was the totality of it."
Meanwhile, they kept talking to Hughes.
"Through that investigation over a period of time we were getting some major inconsistencies from him,' Stokes said. "Through that, we got enough evidence to get a warrant and come here and search the property."
That search started Wednesday morning.
Searchers noticed four-wheeler tracks going from the ranch-style brick house, across the field and into the woods at the brush pile. Swaim was found there, Stokes said.
Hughes owns the house and the two acres it sits on, together valued at $172,520, according to Davie County tax records. He also owns another adjacent acre.
The property is about half a mile north of Interstate 40, in a rural area without direct access to the highway. Hughes owns the land around his home, but does not own the large field in front of his home or the spot where Swaim was found. The property is on the western side of Davie County, almost at the Iredell County line.
Davie County sheriff's investigators and agents from the State Bureau of Investigation searched the property next to the house on Thursday. About mid-afternoon, an investigator carried several rifles out of Hughes' house.
Deputies had been to the house on a domestic call in February 2008, Stokes said, but no criminal charges were filed.
The Sheriff's Office had also responded to five medical calls for Hughes, who is disabled and walks with a cane.
Neither Hughes nor Swaim had a criminal record in Davie County, according to records at the courthouse. In 2003, though, Swaim had sought a domestic-violence-protection order against her estranged husband, according to records on file at the courthouse.
She said that he'd threatened to harm her and her boyfriend, whom she didn't name. But she asked a judge to order that her husband stay away from Hughes. She also listed Hughes' address, 184 Serenity Drive.
A judge issued an emergency order, but in a March 2003 hearing made no finding regarding the allegations of domestic violence. Swaim and her husband were divorced two months later.
mmitchell@wsjournal.com
(336) 667-5691
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