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Sheriff insists "person of interest" in missing couple case committed suicide

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Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner is standing behind his office's belief that Dennis Gerwing took his own life in a Sea Pines villa last week, even as some of Gerwing's friends continue to question that explanation for his death.

Gerwing, 54, a "person of interest" in the disappearance of John and Elizabeth Calvert, was found dead March 11 with a slash to his inner thigh and several knife wounds to the chest, according to law enforcement sources quoted by The State newspaper in Columbia.

"Y'all are writing some sort of Nancy Drew murder mystery," Tanner said Wednesday, responding to a story in The Island Packet that cited some Gerwing friends and several national forensics experts who are skeptical that the circumstances of his death add up to suicide. Tanner said he knows of no evidence that points to anything other than that.

He would not say whether a knife was found in the locked bathroom where Gerwing's body was discovered.

"I'm not going to respond until all the analysis is complete," Tanner said. He expects to eventually release the full autopsy report, but said he was withholding information now"because (releasing) it could be detrimental to the

investigation."

Investigators and their cadaver-sniffing dogs finished searching a Georgia landfill on Tuesday afternoon, according to Will Flower, spokesman for Republic Services, the company that owns the 2,500-acre Broadhurst Environmental Landfill near

Jesup. Authorities did not say what, if anything, they found there.

Officers focused on the landfill because the contents of a specific Sea Pines trash bin are taken there, Flower said. Those contents also are sometimes taken to Hickory Hill Landfill in Ridgeland, which had not been searched as of Tuesday.

An employee at a store in Sea Pines Center said authorities visited earlier this week and asked if the store had security cameras or surveillance footage. Another employee said a K-9 officer had recently searched nearby woods.

John and Elizabeth Calvert met with Gerwing on March 3 at his office. Gerwing, the last confirmed person to have seen the couple, worked as chief financial officer of The Club Group, which formerly handled the Calverts' bookkeeping. The couple reportedly were about to confront Gerwing about funds missing from their business accounts. Gerwing's office was on the second floor of the Sea Pines Center.

John Calvert, 47, owns four Hilton Head Island businesses, including the one that operates the Harbour Town Yacht Basin and another that rents out 125 vacation properties. Elizabeth Calvert, 45, is a Savannah business attorney.

The pair split time between a yacht at Harbour Town and a home in an upscale Atlanta neighborhood.

Executive Editor Fitz McAden contributed to this story.

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