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TV show puts focus on man’s ’88 murder in Mercer County
By jeanne starmack
greenville, pa.
Ed Swiger was the last person, Mike Pratt said, who he would have suspected in the death of his brother.
Swiger and Roger “Butch” Pratt, 22, were good friends and had even roomed together at Thiel College in Greenville.
But after Butch was found in a shallow grave on a farm in Crawford County, Pa., 16 months after he went missing June 17, 1988, it became clear that Swiger was not the friend he’d appeared to be.
The killing of Butch Pratt has been a recurring subject of interest for the past 24 years. Internet searches reveal a fascination with the case.
Two television movies, “Murder in a College Town” and “Whatever Happened to Bobby Earl,” are based on it. Tonight at 10 p.m., A&E Network will take another look back at the case in a show called “I Killed My BFF.”
Butch Pratt had just graduated college in May 1988. He had plans to get on with his life, with graduate school his next step. But he had a secret — he knew about Swiger’s involvement in an arson at a Greenville furniture store.
Swiger and Linda Karlen, co-owner of the store and Swiger’s girlfriend, planned and carried out the arson for insurance money. Swiger’s younger brother, Michael, was also involved.
Butch had refused to participate in the arson, and he intended to come clean about a burglary he and Ed Swiger had been involved in at a fraternity house, his brother said.
He went home to Pittsburgh after graduation and ignored calls from Karlen and Ed Swiger.
Karlen and Swiger were afraid he was going to tell police about the arson.
With the help of two women they knew, they lured him to Akron by letting him believe he was invited to a party.
The women picked up Butch at the bus station in Akron, then drove him to a remote area near Hudson, Ohio. They made up a story about using the woods to relieve themselves and got him to get out of the car on a gas-well road. They left him there for the Swiger brothers, who were waiting nearby.
Butch was tied up, handcuffed and beaten so badly that every bone in his head and face was broken. They put him in the trunk of Michael Swiger’s car and went to Kent, Ohio, to meet Karlen.
She was living on a farm north of Jamestown, Pa., at the time. They buried Butch there behind the house.
Eventually Karlen, who was no longer dating Ed Swiger, told police what happened and where to find Butch’s body.
Karlen was convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and spent 15 years in prison in Ohio. She’s now serving time in Pennsylvania for the arson.
Ed Swiger was sentenced to life in prison for aggravated murder and kidnapping.
Michael Swiger served 161/2 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and kidnapping.
The two women who lured Butch Pratt to his death were given suspended sentences in exchange for their testimony against the other three.
Michael Swiger has maintained that he did not participate in the attack on Butch, and that he even tried at one point to stop his brother from beating him.
Now 44, he is married, has two small children and is an associate pastor of a prison ministry.
Mike Pratt said he and his mother were interviewed for the show and he has seen it. It aired previously on Biography.
“I think it was pretty realistic,” he said, adding that he only wished the show had made it more clear that his brother was not involved in the arson.
Michael Swiger said he declined to be interviewed for the show.
“When they explained the premise, I thought the only thing that would come of it would be more hurtful to the Pratt family and to my own family,” he said.
Swiger has expressed remorse for what he put the Pratts through, but Pratt said they do not want any contact with him.
There can be no closure, Pratt said. “What they did can’t be undone.”
“If it’s any consolation, I think he was probably tricked into it and used by Ed and Linda.”
He said he has not been able to forgive Michael Swiger.
“Forgiveness takes time,” he said. “Maybe 24 years isn’t quite long enough.”
“I can understand him not wanting to forgive me,” Swiger said. “Unforgiveness hurts the party who holds on to it. But I’m not the right messenger for that. I’m not the one to reach out to the Pratt family.”