Sheriff's office sets press conference on missing island couple next week

The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday it will hold a press conference next week to discuss updates on the investigation into the disappearance of a Hilton Head Island couple who have been missing since March.

John Calvert, 47, and his wife of more than 20 years, Elizabeth, 46, vanished March 3 after a business meeting in Sea Pines. Friends began to worry and called police March 4 after the couple missed several work appointments.

Sheriff P.J. Tanner would not say why he's holding the press conference next Wednesday or the details of what would be discussed.

"I'll respond to that on the press conference date," he said Tuesday. "That's why we're having a press conference."

He said the Calvert Reward Fund, which stands at more than $65,500, "hasn't brought in any new leads."

Elizabeth Calvert's brother, David White, said Tuesday he has received some responses on the reward fund Web site, but "nothing directly relevant" to the case.

White said he has asked officials in the Sheriff's Office to grant interviews with national television shows in order to push the case back into the national spotlight.

Tanner said Tuesday the Sheriff's Office doesn't have any information about the possibility of the case appearing on television. But at the press conference, Tanner will summarize the investigation to date and will take questions from the media, according to a Sheriff's Office press release.

White said he may attend the meeting.

"I know as much as everyone else," he said. "I have to have faith they're doing the right things."

White said he is considering organizing a golf tournament sometime around the one-year mark of his sister and brother-in-law's disappearance this spring "to bring the spotlight back" to the investigation.

The fate of the couple remains shrouded in mystery.

The Calverts' 2006 Mercedes was found three days after their disappearance in the parking lot of the Marriott Resort & Spa in Palmetto Dunes. That location is about six miles from their part-time home, a yacht called the Yellow Jacket moored at Harbour Town.

John Calvert owns the company that operates the yacht basin and three ancillary businesses, including Harbour Town Resorts. Elizabeth Calvert, a business attorney with HunterMaclean in Savannah, is a licensed pilot. Her plane still was parked at the Hilton Head Island Airport.

There were also no signs of the Calverts at their other home in an upscale Atlanta neighborhood, where their Porsche was found.

On March 11, the last person to see the couple alive committed suicide. Dennis Gerwing, 54, had kept the books for the Calverts. He is accused of embezzling $2.1 million from the couple and seven other clients of The Club Group, a property management and real estate company of which he was the chief financial officer.

Since his death, which left no clues to the couple's whereabouts, there have been few developments in the investigation.

Authorities have conducted a financial inquiry into The Club Group, Gerwing and the Calverts. Detectives also have scoured computers and Blackberry devices for clues.

White quit his advertising job in Atlanta and has been helping run the couple's four businesses. Tuesday, he said those business are functioning well. He and co-workers of the couple have also been raising money for the reward fund.