Calverts, missing 9 months, dead and long-time suspect likely killed them, sheriff says

This story originally was published in The Island Packet on Dec. 11, 2008.

Editor’s note: This report includes graphic details about suicide that may be disturbing to readers.

As far as the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office is concerned, Dennis Gerwing killed missing Hilton Head Island couple John and Elizabeth Calvert.

On the day the couple was last seen, Gerwing — who was the chief financial officer for The Club Group, a property management and real estate firm — bought three heavy-duty dropcloths and a box of latex gloves, according to the first significant burst of information released since he died in an apparent suicide in March.

Gerwing, 54, had kept the books for John Calvert’s four island businesses, which include the operations of the Harbour Town Yacht Basin and a vacation rental company.

He was the last person known to haveseen the Calverts. Gerwing later reportedly lied to detectives about his whereabouts and which vehicle he was driving March 3, the day he met with the couple in his office to discuss financial irregularities and the last day anyone saw them.

Detectives later found a shovel, muddy shoes and a pile of dirt in Gerwing’s otherwise tidy Hilton Head Plantation home. That soil still is being analyzed to see if its origin can be determined.

The car he had been driving on the night of March 3, a GMC Yukon, was thoroughly cleaned at a car repair shop March 4. A back seat of the SUV had been removed.

During a press conference Wednesday, Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner portrayed Gerwing as over-extended financially and about to be exposed for embezzling $2.1 million from the

Calverts and seven other clients.

Police suspect the Calverts, who also owned a home in a wealthy Atlanta enclave, were either killed or subdued in The Club Group’s offices on the second floor of Sea Pines Center and then buried in a shallow grave somewhere within a five- or six-hour driving radius of the island.

“It appears Dennis is responsible for the disappearance,” Tanner said. “Right now we have him acting alone, not associated with anyone else, but that’s something we’re still looking at.”

Significant questions remain:

— How could an out-of-shape, overweight man remove two bodies from the second floor of a commercial center without anyone noticing?

— How could one man kill two people without leaving behind forensic evidence or making enough noise to be heard by nearby shoppers and diners?

“Maybe he just got lucky,” Tanner suggested.

The high-profile case has gone cold in recent months.

Tanner said he’s hopeful a $65,000 reward will motivate people to talk, but he fears it won’t.

“At this stage, it’s going to be difficult to get anyone to come forward,” the sheriff said. “This is a very closely shielded case. ... The problem is that if anyone has information about this case, they could very likely be a co-conspirator or co-defendant.”

BEFORE THE MEETING

Elizabeth Calvert, 46, who was a business attorney, apparently had confronted Gerwing about missing money in February, approximately two months after she and her husband of more than 20 years had stopped using The Club Group’s bookkeeping services.

Elizabeth met with Gerwing on Feb. 24 and again March 2. Gerwing told her to return with her husband the following day when he promised to supply some documents the couple had requested.

At about 3 p.m. March 3, Gerwing — who had left his Yukon in the parking lot at Sea Pines Center — had a female employee follow him to his home, which backs up to the 17th tee of the Dolphin Head Golf Club. He was driving his second car, a Toyota Avalon. Gerwing went into the home for less than a minute before driving to the general aviation side of Hilton Head Island Airport, where he parked the Toyota in the Hilton Head Air Service parking lot.

Gerwing apparently told the worker who’d followed him that he had friends coming in that evening and they needed to use his car. Police have not been able to determine who, if anyone, flew in to use the car.

Gerwing then got into the co-worker’s vehicle and had her stop at a hardware store.

After a few minutes, he returned with the three dropcloths, explaining he needed them for some painting he planned to do. Security cameras showed Gerwing buying the dropcloths between 4:15 and 4:17 p.m.

The pair drove back to Sea Pines Center. Gerwing rejected her offer to help him carry the tarps into the rear entrance of The Club Group.

He then sent the co-worker to pick up reports from one of John Calvert’s businesses, Harbour Town Resorts. That same afternoon, Gerwing called another Club Group employee who was expected to come in that day. He told her the office’s computers were down for maintenance. The employee told Gerwing she would come in the following day.

Gerwing seemed to be making sure no one else would be in the office when the Calverts arrived, according to the sheriff.

John Calvert, 47, arrived first, sometime around 6 p.m. Elizabeth Calvert arrived a bit later after changing clothes on the couple’s yacht and part-time home, the Yellow Jacket,moored in Harbour Town near the 18th green of the Harbour Town Golf Links.

A SERIES OF UNKNOWNS

Most of what happened next remains a mystery.

The Calverts’ cell phones were turned off just before the meeting with Gerwing, and never used again. Their credit cards also have not been used.

At about 7 p.m., Gerwing called an employee of The Club Group to say the meeting had gone well.

Fifteen minutes later, Gerwing was captured by a security camera buying a box of bandages at a pharmacy on Pope Avenue. He left the store, but returned a few minutes later and is seen on camera buying a box of latex gloves.

The footage shows Gerwing talking on his cell phone. His phone records indicate that was the last phone call he made March 3, with the exception of a text message he received at 7:39 p.m.

His telephone was then turned off, preventing law enforcement from tracking his position by using cell phone towers.

Police have not revealed who Gerwing was talking to or the contents of the text messages.

At 7:28 p.m., Gerwing passed through the eastbound Palmetto Pass lane on the Cross Island Parkway.

About 10 minutes later, he was seen on video at a gas station on Palmetto Parkway, where he bought gas and lottery tickets. He was driving the Yukon.

Video from a restaurant in Sea Pines Center showed Gerwing going to and from the rear of the building “numerous times” on March 3 and 4. The last trip there was at about 1 a.m. March 4.

Gerwing’s whereabouts were unknown from 1 a.m. to noon March 4, when he dropped the Yukon off for air conditioner service and a detail job at an island car shop. His cell phone was turned back on in time to receive a text message at 11:12 a.m.

That 11-hour window probably was used to dispose of the Calverts’ bodies and evidence, Tanner said.

A STORY FILLED WITH HOLES

Detectives interviewed Gerwing at The Club Group’s offices March 5. They immediately noticed a cut on his right hand.

Gerwing said the March 3 meeting with the Calverts lasted about 15 minutes and ended at about 6:30 p.m., when Elizabeth looked at her watch and announced it was time to leave, presumably for dinner.

But the predictability of the Calverts’ lifestyle says otherwise.

They often ate at the same few restaurants and always paid with a credit card, authorities said. No one saw them after the meeting and their credit cards haven’t been used.

Gerwing said he stayed in his office for about 10 minutes and then took William Hilton Parkway to his Hilton Head Plantation home, a claim that’s contradicted by the drug store security camera and the use of his Palmetto Pass on the Cross Island Parkway.

Once at home, Gerwing said he ate a special diet meal and cut his hand on a broken wine bottle. He then said he drove his Toyota to the south-end, where he stopped at a drug store to buy bandages because he didn’t have any at home. He said he returned to work at about 10 p.m.

He reportedly told deputies he stayed at the office until midnight, when he took the Cross Island back home, another claim that doesn’t match his Palmetto Pass use.

Many of the inconsistencies came to light quickly once detectives searched his home, vehicles and The Club Group office.

Gerwing told officers he had removed the third row seat of the Yukon to move furniture. His work associates and close friends never substantiated that assertion.

He said he was using the shovel found near a side door of his home to repair an irrigation system. Police found no signs of fresh digging in his yard.

All of the trash containers in and around the home were searched for evidence of the broken wine bottle that allegedly sliced his hand. None was found and the home showed no sign of spilled wine in the area where Gerwing said the break happened.

Police found a number of bandages in the home.

A section of unused nylon rope was found in the trunk of the Toyota. It remains unclear who retrieved that car from Hilton Head Island Airport or when it was retrieved, Tanner said.

Police found an empty holster, but it was unclear if Gerwing owned a gun. Tanner called the holster “a relic,” indicating it hadn’t been used for some time.

No evidence directly linking Gerwing to the Calverts disappearance had been found, but circumstantial evidence quickly piled up.

On March 5, detectives requested another meeting with Gerwing. He asked if he was a suspect and reluctantly agreed to meet at the Sheriff’s Office the next day.

That meeting never happened, and detectives never again had the chance to question him.

Gerwing retained Beaufort criminal defense attorney Cory H. Fleming, who wouldn’t allow investigators to interview his client again, saying he had already cooperated enough, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

On March 7, a sheriff’s deputy found John Calvert’s 2006 Mercedes-Benz in the parking lot of the Marriott in Palmetto Dunes. The car yielded no clues about the couple’s fate.

John Calvert’s briefcase and the couple’s cell phones have not been recovered.

THE SILENCE OF SUICIDE

Gerwing took his own life between 5 and 9 a.m. March 11, the same day detectives publicly announced he was a “person of interest” in the case.

Fleming, his attorney, was unable to get in touch with his client and contacted civil lawyers representing The Club Group to go search for him just before 3 p.m.

The attorneys, along with Club Group president Mark King, pounded on the locked door of a villa in Swallowtail, which is directly across the street from Gerwing’s office. Gerwing had been staying there since police searched his home.

There was no answer.

Deputies and the Hilton Head Island fire department responded and forced open the upstairs bathroom door, which was locked from the inside.

There, they found Gerwing nude and covered in blood, laying atop a comforter in the bathtub.

He had slashed his left wrist, right inner thigh, right inner calf, left lower neck and right lower neck with a cheap, serrated steak knife found at his side.

Blood spatter patterns and the lack of any footprints or fingerprints not belonging to Gerwing indicate no one was with him when he died, authorities said. Blood had not been tracked outside the bathroom.

Although officers found an empty wine bottle and one used glass,

Gerwing did not have alcohol in his system at the time of his death, Tanner said. However, Gerwing did have a high dose of Benadryl — an allergy medication that acts as a depressant in large doses — in his system.

The case became even more frustrating once investigators tried to decipher Gerwing’s final words: a nearly-illegible note written in pen on a bed sheet and an envelope filled with rambling financial details. Neither directly mentions the Calverts.

The latter note seems to indicate Gerwing acted alone in embezzling the money and offered the solution of selling all of his property to recoup what he had stolen.

Gerwing’s laptop computer and Blackberry yielded no information about where the Calverts were, Tanner said.

King, Gerwing’s long-time business partner, had an alibi for the night the Calverts disappeared that was verified by law enforcement. He has denied prior knowledge about Gerwing’s embezzling.

In a statement released Wednesday, King said his company has paid back about a third of the $2.1 million owed to its clients. The money is coming from selling Club Group assets, liquidating Gerwing’s estate, King’s own finances and insurance claims.

IN DEBT, INCREASINGLY DESPERATE

Bank accounts maintained by Gerwing and his associates were audited by the FBI and Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities determined Gerwing used the money for “various personal vices, loans and expenses,” including wine, women, gambling and an investment in a Savannah restaurant.

Gerwing frequented the Diamond Club, a south-island strip club, several times a month, the manager has said.

Single and childless, Gerwing was in a relationship with a married woman. Her husband had become aware of that relationship, police said.

Gerwing owned two homes: a house on Wilmot Avenue in Columbia’s upscale Shandon neighborhood he had put on the market for $1.2 million before his death, and the home at 8 Bent Tree Lane in Hilton Head Plantation that he bought for $336,900 in 1998.

His ex-girlfriend was living in the Columbia house at the time of his death. The pair hadn’t dated in two years, but remained close.

A real estate agent who listed the home said Gerwing had become much more motivated to sell.

He also owned a half-million dollar powerboat, the Big Girl, that was being repaired in Charleston at the time the Calverts vanished, according to Tanner.

The sheriff estimated Gerwing could have repaid most of the missing $2.1 million by selling his assets.

But Gerwing apparently saw a net closing in during the days before the March 3 meeting, and he was perhaps even more afraid of losing his social stature, according to a SLED criminal profiler.

In an e-mail written to a confidant after his February meeting with Elizabeth, Gerwing reportedly called her a “viper”and indicated he “came out on top” of the situation, which was what “the old ego needed.”

“Liz was a very strong woman,” Tanner said, “and I think Dennis was intimidated by her. John was kind of happy-go-lucky and wanted to be everyone’s friend.”

Elizabeth Calvert was ready to pull the plug and reveal Gerwing’s illegal financial dealings, Tanner said.

The Calverts did not share in Gerwing’s vices, including gambling, according to Tanner. He also dispelled persistent

rumors that the Calverts are in a witness protection program.

THE MYSTERY CONTINUES

Wednesday was a rough day for the Calverts’ only living sibling, Elizabeth’s brother, David White.

“I am deeply saddened to learn of these horrific events surrounding Liz and John,” White wrote in a statement. “I miss my rock, my big sister Liz, and my wonderful brother-in-law John. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers now and forever. And today, tell your family you love them.

“The sad fact remains that we still don’t know where Liz and John are.”

Harbormaster Nancy Cappelman, who worked for the Calverts, said she appreciated the new information, but was hoping for a final resolution.

“I was hoping the case would be solved,” she said. “I was hoping they had found John and Liz.”

Timeline of the deaths

March 3

3 p.m.: Gerwing has a co-worker follow him first to his home (B) and then to Hilton Head Island Airport (C), where he leaves his Toyota Avalon.

4:15 p.m.: Gerwing has the co-worker stop at an island hardware store, where he buys three dropcloths he says he needs for a painting job.

6 p.m.: John Calvert arrives at The Club Group’s office (A) for a meeting with Gerwing. Elizabeth Calvert arrives shortly thereafter. The Calverts are never seen again.

7 p.m.: Gerwing calls a co-worker to say his meeting with the Calverts had gone well.

7: 15 p.m.: Gerwing buys latex gloves and bandages at a Pope Avenue pharmacy.

7:28 p.m.: Gerwing passes through the eastbound toll booth of the Cross Island Parkway.

10 minutes later, he buys gas and lottery tickets at an island gas station.

March 4

1 a.m.: Gerwing is seen for the final time at the back of a Sea Pines Center restaurant after making numerous visits there. The restaurant is near the rear entrance of his office.

1 a.m.-noon: Gerwing’s whereabouts are unknown. He likely used this 11-hour window to dispose of the Calverts’ bodies and of evidence, police said.

6:40 p.m.: The Calverts are reported missing.

March 11

5-9 a.m.: Gerwing kills himself in a Sea Pines villa.

This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 10:25 AM.