Calvert couple’s case still unsolved 9 years later

It has been nine years since John and Elizabeth Calvert went missing on Hilton Head Island.

The couple was reported missing by Elizabeth Calvert’s brother on March 4, 2008, after the pair was supposed to confront their accountant who they believed had been embezzling money from the couple’s business interests, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office news release.

The couple’s accountant, Dennis Gerwing, told investigators that he met with the Calverts on March 3 around 5:30 p.m., but his tale “revealed major inconsistencies and substantiated suspicion of his involvement in the disappearance of the Calverts,” according to the release. Investigators found out that Gerwing cut his hand on the night of the couple’s disappearance and also bought bandages, latex gloves and commercial grade drop cloths, according to the release.

Gerwing committed suicide on March 11 before the Calverts’ disappearance could be solved. In Gerwing’s suicide note, he admitted to the embezzlement but neither admitted to nor denied being involved in the Calverts’ disappearance.

A female friend of Gerwing’s, who was not identified in Sheriff’s Office reports, told investigators a year later that she remembered she had given Gerwing a .22-caliber pistol that once belonged to her grandfather and asked him to sell it for her. The two never spoke of the gun again.

When Gerwing’s Hilton Head Plantation home was searched in March 2008, a holster was found, but no pistol. The witness confirmed the holster was the one that went with the gun she had given to Gerwing.

The Calverts were declared dead in 2009, but their bodies were never found. The gun believed to be the murder weapon also was never recovered. The investigation is now considered a cold case and remains unsolved.

Anyone with information about this case can contact Capt. Bob Bromage at 843-255-3402, 843-816-8013 or robertb@bcgov.net. Anyone wishing to give information anonymously can call Crime Stoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC.

This story was originally published March 4, 2017 at 4:13 PM with the headline "Calvert couple’s case still unsolved 9 years later."