Georgia man arrested in 1985 church murders after DNA evidence exonerates original suspect

WOODBINE, Ga. — A southeast Georgia man was arrested and charged in the 1985 killing of a couple at a Black church after the original suspect was exonerated on DNA evidence, authorities said.

Erik Kristensen Sparre, 61, was jailed on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault in the killings of Harold and Thelma Swain, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release Monday. Sparre was arrested nearly four decades after the couple was fatally shot inside Rising Daughter Baptist Church in coastal Camden County.

Sparre became the focus of a renewed investigation into the Swains' deaths after authorities concluded they had initially prosecuted the wrong man.

Dennis Perry was sentenced to life in prison when a jury convicted him in 2003 of murdering the Swains. He spent two decades in prison before a Superior Court judge ordered a retrial in 2020. The judge dismissed all charges against Perry in 2021 after prosecutors asked to drop the case.

Investigators and the courts took a fresh look at the case after attorneys for the Georgia Innocence Project tested DNA from hairs found in the hinge of a pair of eyeglasses left next to the victims' bodies. They said the DNA matched Sparre, who had once been considered a suspect, and not Perry.

Meanwhile, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Sparre’s alibi that he was working at a grocery story when the killings occurred, could not be true. The newspaper also raised doubts about Perry's conviction, noting that jurors were never told a key witness was paid a $12,000 reward before testifying.

The GBI said Sparre was arrested in Waynesville, where he lives, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of Savannah, Georgia, and booked at the Camden County jail.

Sparre has previously denied killing the Swains. A phone number listed for Sparre wasn’t working Tuesday and it was not immediately known if he had an attorney to represent him.