Sheriff on missing Hilton Head couple: Progress slow in increasingly complex case

This story originally was published in The Island Packet on March 13, 2008. It has been lightly edited from its original version.

Detectives are making slow progress on what Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner calls an “extremely complicated” case involving the disappearance of John and Elizabeth Calvert and the apparent suicide of their former business associate.

Little new information was released Wednesday, but Tanner said investigators are being “meticulous and methodical” as they interview witnesses, chase down leads and analyze two suicide notes Dennis Ray Gerwing left behind. The contents of those notes have not been released.

Gerwing, chief financial officer of The Club Group, a company that manages a variety of properties on Hilton Head Island, was found dead Tuesday in the upstairs bathroom of a villa in Swallowtail, a Sea Pines timeshare complex located directly across the street from his office in Sea Pines Center.

He had been named a “person of interest” in the case earlier that day. Authorities searched his home, office and cars over the weekend, but said he had retained a lawyer and wasn’t cooperating with the investigation.

Gerwing had been staying in the villa for a few days because his house was disheveled after the search, said Tom Gardo, whose company, CNSG Hilton Head, is handling media relations for The Club Group.

Gerwing, 54, of 8 Bent Tree Lane in Hilton Head Plantation, died by an apparent suicide, according to a sheriff’s report. An autopsy was conducted Wednesday in Charleston. Officials here are awaiting a report.

The Sheriff’s Office will hold a press conference, its first since the Calverts were reported missing March 4, at 11 a.m. today. More than three dozen media outlets, both local and national, have signed up to attend.

No major announcements are expected from Tanner, who will preside along with deputy chief of staff Lt. Col. Neil Baxley and Capt. Toby McSwain, who oversees the sheriff’s southern operations. Additional press conferences are expected to be held daily, Tanner said.

The press conferences are aimed at quelling a flurry of rumors that flooded the island late Tuesday and most of the day Wednesday, when unconfirmed facts and speculation were published on blogs and broadcast on national television.

“I expect it will be a rehashing of things we’ve already gone over, and then there will be questions and answers,” Tanner said.

Unconfirmed charges

John Calvert, 47, and his wife, Elizabeth, 45, met with Gerwing on the night they disappeared. He is the last confirmed person to have seen them.

John Calvert owns four island businesses, including the company that manages the Harbour Town Yacht Basin and Harbour Town Resorts, which rents out 125 vacation properties.

Elizabeth Calvert is a business attorney with HunterMaclean in Savannah.

The Calverts split time between their yacht, the “Yellow Jacket,” in Harbour Town and a wealthy Atlanta neighborhood.

The Club Group had been providing administrative and bookkeeping services for John Calvert’s businesses until December, when he informed the company that he would begin handling those services in-house, according to Mark King, president of The Club Group.

It was a friendly, planned parting of ways, with Gerwing handling the details, King said.

A source close to John Calvert said there were financial irregularities that Calvert planned to confront Gerwing about.

On CNN Headline News, an editor with People magazine, who also cited an unnamed source, reported Wednesday that Gerwing had embezzled $100,000. The Island Packet could not confirm that report.

A ‘difficult’ story

Gerwing’s body was discovered inside the white-tiled, plain bathroom of the Swallowtail villa at about 4 p.m. Tuesday. He had probably been dead for several hours, authorities said.

When Gerwing’s criminal defense attorney, Cory Fleming of Moss, Kuhn & Fleming in Beaufort, could not reach his client Tuesday afternoon, he called The Club Group’s attorneys’ office. Hilton Head-based Novit & Scarminach sent two lawyers to look for him, said Charles Scarminach.

With the help of King, the men unlocked the front door and walked upstairs. When they encountered another locked door and could get no one to answer, attorney Dan Saxon called 911. The men never saw Gerwing’s body or his last written words, Scarminach said.

Fleming said Wednesday he continues to represent Gerwing and is cooperating with authorities “to the extent we’re allowed to under the law.”

“This is as difficult a story as I’ve ever been involved in,” Fleming said.

Since naming Gerwing as a “person of interest,” the Sheriff’s Office has received a number of tips. Detectives have interviewed scores of witnesses, Tanner said.

“We’re laying a lot of groundwork with the interviewing we’re doing,” he said. “We’re evaluating and analyzing ... We’re progressively getting more and more and more.”

‘A wonderful person’

The interviews included Gerwing’s former girlfriend, Nancy J. Barry of Columbia. The two bought a $162,900 house together there in 1996. They sold that house to buy one on Wilmot Avenue in the upscale Shandon neighborhood, where Barry still lives.

Gerwing paid $575,000 for the house in 2001 and immediately started spending more than $100,000 on renovations, according to the Richland County assessor’s office.

In 1998, he bought his Hilton Head home for $336,900. Prior to that purchase, Gerwing lived in Sea Pines with a roommate.

The Hilton Head businessman had planned to retire to Columbia, but decided against that within the past year or two, said his Columbia real estate agent, Maria Fernandez. Gerwing put the Columbia house on the market, listing it at $1.2 million.

Within the past six weeks, he became “more motivated to sell,” Fernandez said.

Barry, Gerwing’s former girlfriend, struggled to talk about him in a telephone interview Wednesday, calling their personal life “private.”

“He was just a wonderful person,” she said. “I’m very shocked and upset.”

Business and pleasure

Locally, Gerwing had been a fixture in the business community since the 1980s, when he served as vice president and controller for the Sea Pines Co. In 1985, he was named head of the finance and administration division of Ginn Holdings Corp., then the island’s largest resort and development company.

That company rose from the ashes of the old Sea Pines Co. and the Hilton Head Co., but quickly unraveled.

The Club Group was then formed.

Gerwing also had other island business ventures. He was president of Harbour Tours Ltd., a company that was incorporated in 1994 and went into forfeiture in 1996. It was later dissolved, according to the S.C. Secretary of State’s Office.

He also is listed as the registered agent for Lighthouse Retailers at 71 Lighthouse Road, which incorporated in 1994; and Hickory Ridge Ltd., incorporated in 1995 at 79 Lighthouse Road.

Aside from business, Gerwing had a passion for hosting wine parties and traveling the world.

Gerwing loved photography. He photographed polar bears in Canada and village life in Italy, but nothing made him happier than cooking for friends, Fernandez, the real estate agent, said.

Gerwing and The Club Group president King had a long history in business together. The two were among several investors — including prominent South Carolina businessman Elliott Close — in a 5,100-home, 650-acre residential development called Timberlake near Chapin that began in 1986. The project boasted it would bring the Hilton Head resort character to the Midlands.

But by 1990, the owners had filed for bankruptcy protection and began selling off its assets.

King and Gerwing were involved in several court cases in Richland County relating to the project through 1993, including some debt collection cases, according to court records.

Locally, several debt collection cases were also filed against Gerwing, including one by a pool maintenance company. Island architect Merrill H. Pasco took him to court in 1994 after a bill for work went unpaid, he said. The case was settled before a magistrate, according to court records.

Pasco chalked the matter up to Gerwing’s company changing hands. There were no hard feelings, he said.

“Dennis and Mark King are first-class people,” Pasco said, “but when money gets involved, situational ethics can take over. Who knows?”

Funeral arrangements for Gerwing are being handled by Dunbar Funeral Home in Columbia, which hadn’t firmed up those plans late Wednesday.

The (Columbia) State newspaper, Island Packet reporter Jim Faber and Executive Editor Fitz McAden contributed to this report.

This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 10:40 AM.