Must read article! It's quite lengthy.
May 14, 2023
Update GROVE, Okla. — Dive teams were preparing throughout Monday morning for this dive as new developments were announced. Delaware County Sheriff James Beck confirmed that after different kinds o…
www.fourstateshomepage.com
[...]
In an exclusive interview with Fourstateshomepage.com, Jim Sweeten’s own sister, Carolyn Houston, and her daughter, Missy Bender, talked about how they believe Peggy’s demise came at the hands of her husband.
[...]
“At one point in Patrick’s life he was going through some marital problems and was questioning his father about legal issues relating to property,” Bender said.
Jim reportedly said it was easier “to put a bullet in her head than go through a divorce,” Bender said.
MISSY BENDER, MAY 14, 2023 INTERVIEW
[...]
Patrick Sweeten believes his mother confronted his father when he returned from an educational seminar about a renewed affair with Debra Hammond, who later became Jim’s wife. During the argument, the younger Sweeten believes his mother probably threatened to expose his father’s alleged shady financial dealings involving Patrick’s great-grandmother, Edith Swift.
Some of the questionable dealings included allegations of fraudulently obtained property and stock certificates.
Edith Swift began working as a telephone relief operator at the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in Neosho, Mo. in 1914. She stayed with the company until 1961 and in those 46 years, she purchased 827 shares of stock. At the time of her retirement, she was in the top 13% of employee and non-employee shareholders in the Bell System, according to an Oct. 2, 1961, story in the “Telephone Times.”
Carolyn Houston, Swift’s granddaughter, wonders if the stocks were transferred into her brother’s name and if they were sold, who authorized the transfer and sale?
“There is great secrecy and mystery surrounding the stock,” Houston said. “Even to this day.”
“My grandmother was not legally capable of selling the stock when she entered the nursing home in 1975,” Houston said. “She was diagnosed with dementia in 1976,” she said.
[...]
“The deed transferring Swift’s home to Jim, listed the married man as ‘a single person’ and it was notarized by a woman who lived in Coffeyville, Kansas who worked at the college where Jim taught adjunct classes,” Houston said.
“Edith Swift’s signature was forged,” Houston said.
[...]
Jim said he returned from a superintendent’s conference and found that Peggy had left a note along with her wedding band and engagement ring, Patrick Sweeten said.
Jim also told a private investigator Peggy took furniture, including her grandmother’s hutch, and antiques.
Again, there was never any evidence to back up Jim’s claims, according to investigators.
“The note said she had found someone else,” Jim Sweeten told his son.
At Patrick’s insistence, Jim said he filed a missing person’s report in June 1998. However, there is no record of a missing report filed with the Delaware County Sheriff’s Department.
[...]
The divorce lawyer told investigators in 2011 “James’s main concern and rush about the divorce was to get the property in his name,” according to a search warrant.
Shortly after Peggy disappeared, Debra Hammond divorced her husband on April 1, 1998. Her job concluded in June 1998, and she and Jim moved in together at the lake house. The couple got married on Dec. 27, 1998, in Las Vegas, according to the search warrant.
According to Jim and Debra’s Christmas letters for the next couple of years after their marriage, the couple lived a charmed life; spending Christmas in Key Largo, taking snow skiing trips to the Colorado Rockies and Breckenridge, vacations to Yellowstone, an Alaskan cruise, and spending nine days in Switzerland.
[...]
