Former Rosenberg City Councilman Ronald Lee Swallers, prime suspect in his sister-in-law’s long-unsolved murder, committed suicide Wednesday, hours before police intended to confront him with evidence they’d amassed in the case.
Rosenberg Police say the act closes the book on the 23-year-old murder case of Penny Swallers, but not the way they wanted it.
“We believe we were cheated out of an opportunity when Ronnie Swallers took his life,” said Kenny Seymour, lead Rosenberg Police investigator on the case. Otherwise, he said, police would have presented “overwhelming” evidence that would have resulted in a murder conviction.
Penny Swallers’ body, wrapped in a tarp and bound with duct tape, was discovered by a fisherman in the Brazos River near West Columbia, on the evening of May 16, 1982. Seymour, who eventually would help solve the case, was a junior high school student at the time.
A medical examiner ruled the woman died of a gunshot wound in the back. The bullet went completely through her body and never was recovered.
Ronald Swallers was the last person to see Penny Swallers alive. According to news reports, he told police he took her to a mechanic on April 23, a Friday, to have her car fixed before a scheduled trip to Texarkana to meet her parents.
She never arrived in Texarkana, and never picked up her car.
“We waited and waited and called home. They hadn’t heard anything,” Penny’s father, Willie Brooks, told an Arkansas TV news reporter.
Ronald Swallers reported Penny Swallers missing, but not until Sunday, April 25. And, according to reports, he picked up Penny Swallers’ 6-year-old daughter, Sunshine, and kept her over the weekend before reporting her mother missing.
Meanwhile, Brooks believed his daughter – widowed since 1979 – was murdered by her former boyfriend.
“There was a guy that she was going with down there. They had busted up,” Brooks said in a news report. “I figure if the truth be known, he’s the one that had it done.”
But despite suspects, physical evidence and several leads, decades went by without the case moving forward.
Ronald Swallers became a prominent citizen and family man. He served on the Rosenberg City Council from 1988 to 1992. He was married and had several children and grandchildren.
Penny Swallers’ murder faded from the public eye. Until February of this year, when Rosenberg Police Lt. Brad Rollins announced the investigation was being re-activated. Police believed DNA technology, not available in the 1980s, might provide undiscovered clues into Penny Waller’s death.
However, Seymour said, it turned out DNA technology was of no use on evidence gathered in the case. Instead, investigators went through the file and focused on inconsistencies in statements gathered during the original investigation.
Seymour said Ronald Swallers had long been the prime suspect because of statements he volunteered, and an “over-involvement” in the case. Police have “strong evidence” that establishes Ronald Swallers’ motive for the murder, however, Seymour declined to discuss it.
About nine months ago, after police re-opened the case, Ronald Swallers “ran his car into a pole,” police said, in what some believed was a suicide attempt. He was severely injured in the accident, but recovered.
Recently, he was asked to take a polygraph test. He failed the test. Seymour said Ronald Swallers was scheduled to meet with police this morning, at which point investigators intended to confront him with the test results, and with the evidence they’d gathered in the case.
Instead, Ronald Swallers “decided to bow out,” Seymour said.
Wednesday at about 5 p.m., Rosenberg Police Officer Robert Wade and Sergeant Tommy Pausewang drove to Green Lawn Cemetery after a caller said someone had been shot.
According to police, Wade and Pausewang discovered Ronald Swallers, lying dead outside his pickup truck with a single gunshot wound to the chest. A preliminary investigation revealed the gunshot wound was self-inflicted.
His brother David, husband of Penny Swallers, was buried in the cemetery.
