This case centers around 28-year-old Niqui McCown. Niqui was a prison guard who got engaged to her fiancé Bobby Webster. Niqui’s life was looking up and there were a lot of things to be excited about. However, one day she went to her mom’s house incredibly upset. On July 22nd, 2001, she told her mother about an incident while she was at a laundromat.
She told her mother that two men were repeatedly harassing her while she was doing her laundry. She expressed to her mom that she was too afraid to return for her laundry out of fear of seeing the men again. Niqui eventually left her mother’s house and was never seen again.
This all occurred just three weeks before her wedding day.
Struggling to find any signs of what could have happened to Niqui, the police decided to retrace her steps the day that she vanished. Niqui attended church that morning before heading to the laundromat. Bobby was out with his best man looking for tuxedos. The couple had made plans to get together that afternoon.
The people in Niqui’s life seemed to be very happy for her. She had a 9-year-old daughter from a previous relationship who was happy for her big day. Even her ex-boyfriend was excited for her. Being the youngest of 10 children, Niqui was surrounded by so much love.
Niqui’s family worked with investigators to figure out what could have possibly happened to her. They both initially suspected that the two men from the laundromat abducted her when she returned there after leaving her mother’s house. Then, there was her fiancé Bobby. He came under suspicion due to his behavior following her disappearance.
First, he outright canceled their wedding instead of postponing it until she was found (obviously giving the impression that he knew she wasn’t going to be found). Unfortunately, there’s more. The very next day after Niqui disappeared, Bobby called Sinclair Community College (where she attended) to get the remainder of her unused tuition.
The person he spoke to claims that he became extremely agitated when he could not get it back. Bobby also tried to return his wedding ring. However, he couldn’t because Niqui was the one that purchased it. Bobby confirmed that this happened, but said that he needed the money to aid in his search for Niqui. Investigators say that Bobby failed the polygraph test they asked him to take. Bobby, however, says that he and his lawyers were never permitted to see the results of the test.
Then there was a strange development in the case.
On November 5th — just three months after Niqui vanished — her car was located. It was found in the parking lot of a Dayton, Ohio apartment complex. The area was nearly an hour away from her home. The door to her car was popped out, her ignition had been tampered with, and her stereo system was missing.
Eerily, her laundry from the day of her disappearance was still inside. Investigators could find no fingerprints in or on the car. It turned out that Niqui’s ex-boyfriend lived in part of the apartment complex where the car was found. However, he had an alibi for the day of her disappearance and was cleared as a suspect.
With that development, police believed that whoever was responsible for Niqui’s disappearance drove her car to that area to take suspicion away from them. This led both the police and Niqui’s family back to suspecting Bobby had something to do with it.
The Updates
While following leads in the case, police put the spotlight on a man named Tommy Swint. Swint was a former co-worker of Niqui’s who worked as a corrections officer and security guard. He did become a police officer at one point…but had to resign when his superiors learned that he never informed them about being a suspect in Niqui’s disappearance. He would later sue the department claiming that he never knew that he was a suspect. However, the case was dismissed once the department presented proof that he was well aware.
The media coverage of the lawsuit promoted an informant to contact the police in 2007.
They told the police to look into Swint being a suspect in a different crime. A woman named Tina Ivory was murdered on December 17th, 1991. The 37-year-old worked as a prostitute. An ex-girlfriend told police that Swint had dated Tina at one point. She added that the blanket Tina was found wrapped in was identical to one that Swint kept in his car. Then — in 2008, Niqui’s sister revealed that Niqui and Swint were having an affair at the time she had vanished. Lastly, it turned out that Swint lived in the apartment complex where her car was found.
Tommy Swint
Tommy Swint
In May of 2008, police were able to find the connection that the informant was leading them to. Both semen and blood found on Tina were definitively matched to Swint. He was also matched to a fingerprint found on the tape wrapped around her body. On February 3rd, 2010, Tommy Swint was indicted for the murder of Tina Ivory. Devastatingly, Swint would never stand trial. He committed suicide in his home the same day he was indicted.
With Swint’s death, police are now struggling to link him to Niqui’s disappearance (as well as other murders that they suspect he committed). They did learn that Swint was dating another woman at the same time that he was having an affair with Niqui. However, she has been very reluctant to work with the police.
There were remains found in 2003 that investigators suspected were Niqui’s. The test results, though, came back inconclusive. To this day, Niqui McCown is still considered Missing.
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