Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008

Suspect in missing couple case bought tarps, latex gloves

Suicide note suggests Dennis Gerwing had role in disappearances

HILTON HEAD — An accountant who was the last person to see a missing Hilton Head Island couple alive bought drop cloths large enough to be body bags, latex gloves and turned off his cell phone for 12 hours after meeting with his wealthy clients nine months ago, police said Wednesday.

And in his suicide note, authorities said, accountant Dennis Gerwing suggests he played a role in their disappearance.

“I have acted completely alone in all actions committed,” Gerwing wrote in the note, found in an apartment where his body was discovered about a week after the couple vanished.

“I knew the risk of this happening and believe taking myself out of the game is the best way to move everyone as quickly as possible past all events. All anger should be directed towards me.”

Gerwing, 54, had kept the books for John and Elizabeth Calvert’s four island businesses, which include the operations of the Harbour Town Yacht Basin and a vacation rental company.

He was the last person known to have seen the Calverts, but police say Gerwing later reportedly lied to detectives about his whereabouts and what vehicle he was driving on March 3, the day he met with the couple to discuss financial irregularities.

It was the last day anyone saw them.

Detectives later found a shovel, muddy shoes and a pile of dirt in Gerwing’s otherwise tidy Hilton Head Plantation home. That soil is still being analyzed to see if its origin can be determined.

The car he had been driving on the night of March 3, a GMC Yukon, was thoroughly cleaned at a car repair shop on March 4. A back seat had been removed.

During a news conference Wednesday, Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner portrayed Gerwing as overextended financially and about to be exposed for embezzling $2.1 million from the Calverts and seven other clients.

Police suspect the Calverts either were killed or subdued in The Club Group’s offices on the second floor of Sea Pines Center and then disposed of in a shallow grave somewhere within a five- or six-hour driving radius of the island.

“It appears Dennis is responsible for the disappearance,” Tanner said. “Right now we have him acting alone, not associated with anyone else, but that’s something we’re still looking at.”

“Circumstantially he is a suspect,” Tanner said. “But if he were alive and well today, there is not enough to bring about charges.”

CASE COOLED OFF

The high-profile case has gone cold in recent months.

Tanner said he’s hopeful a $65,000 reward will motivate people to talk, but fears it won’t.

“At this stage, it’s going to be difficult to get anyone to come forward,” the sheriff said. “This is a very closely shielded case. .æ.æ. The problem is that if anyone has information about this case, they could very likely be a co-conspirator or co-defendant.”

Elizabeth Calvert, 46, who was a business attorney, apparently had confronted Gerwing about missing money in February, approximately two months after she and her husband of more than 20 years had stopped using The Club Group’s bookkeeping services.

Elizabeth Calvert met with Gerwing on Feb. 24 and again March 2. Gerwing told her to return with her husband the following day when he promised to supply some documentation they had requested.

At about 3 p.m. on March 3, Gerwing — who had left his Yukon in the parking lot at Sea Pines Center — had a female employee follow him to his home and then take him to a hardware store.

After a few minutes, he returned with the three drop cloths, explaining he needed them for some painting he planned to do.

They drove back to Sea Pines Center, and Gerwing sent her to pick up reports from one of John Calvert’s businesses, Harbour Town Resorts. Later, he told another employee not to come to the office, that the computers were down.

The sheriff said Gerwing seemed to be making sure no one else would be in the office when the Calverts arrived.

John Calvert, 47, arrived sometime around 6 p.m. Elizabeth Calvert arrived a bit later.

Most of what happened next remains a mystery.

The Calverts’ cell phones were turned off just before the meeting with Gerwing, and never used again, nor were their credit cards.

At about 7 p.m., Gerwing called an employee of The Club Group to say the meeting had gone well. Fifteen minutes later, he was captured by a security camera buying bandages at a pharmacy. He returned a few minutes later and is seen on camera buying a box of latex gloves.

Gerwing’s whereabouts were unknown from 1 a.m. to noon March 4, when he dropped the Yukon off for air conditioner service and a detail job at an island car shop. His cell phone was turned back on in time to receive a text message at 11:12 a.m.

That 11-hour window was probably used to dispose of the Calverts’ bodies and evidence, Tanner said.

No evidence directly linking Gerwing to the Calverts disappearance had been found, but circumstantial evidence mounted.

Gerwing retained Beaufort criminal defense attorney Cory H. Fleming.

ON MARCH 7, A SHERIFF’S DEPUTY FOUND JOHN CALVERT’S 2006 MERCEDES-BENZ IN THE PARKING LOT OF THE MARRIOTT IN PALMETTO DUNES. SILENCE OF SUICIDE

Gerwing took his own life between 5 and 9 a.m. March 11, the same day detectives publicly announced he was a “person of interest” in the case.

Fleming, his attorney, was unable to get in touch with his client and contacted civil lawyers representing The Club Group to go search for him just before 3 p.m.

The attorneys, along with Club Group president Mark King, pounded on the locked door of a villa in Swallowtail, which is directly across the street from Gerwing’s office.

There was no answer.

Authorities responded and forced open the upstairs bathroom door, which was locked from the inside.

They found Gerwing nude and covered in blood, lying on a comforter in the bathtub, a serrated steak knife at his side.

Evidence indicates no one was with him when he died, authorities said

The case became even more frustrating once investigators tried to decipher Gerwing’s final words: a nearly-illegible note written in pen on a bed sheet and an envelope filled with rambling financial details. Neither directly mentions the Calverts.

The latter note seems to indicate Gerwing acted alone in embezzling the money, and offered to sell all of his property to repay what he had stolen.

Authorities determined Gerwing used the money for “various personal vices, loans and expenses,” including wine, women, gambling and an investment in a Savannah restaurant.

Gerwing owned two homes: a house on Wilmot Avenue in Columbia’ upscale Shandon neighborhood he had put on the market for $1.2 million before his death, and the home at 8 Bent Tree Lane in Hilton Head Plantation.

A real estate agent who listed the home said Gerwing had become more motivated to sell.

He also owned a $500,000 powerboat, the “Big Girl,” that was being repaired in Charleston at the time the Calverts vanished, according to Tanner.

The sheriff estimated Gerwing could have repaid most of the missing $2.1 million by selling his assets.

Wednesday was a rough day for Elizabeth’s Calvert’s brother, David White.

“I am deeply saddened to learn of these horrific events surrounding Liz and John,” White wrote in a statement.

“The sad fact remains that we still don’t know where Liz and John are.”

The Associated Press contributed.

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