Frederick Donald Swiger Jr., a 47-year-old White/Caucasian man, was killed in the early morning hours of July 26, 2013, while doing something that had been part of his life for decades: delivering newspapers through Clarksburg, West Virginia, with his father, Frederick Donald Swiger Sr. The father and son worked as independent carriers for The Exponent Telegram and had traveled their route together for roughly 30 years.
They were known among customers as dependable men who delivered papers seven days a week and often went out of their way to help people along their route. On that Friday morning, their normal routine brought them onto Locust Avenue at almost exactly the wrong moment.
At about 4:30 a.m., violence had erupted inside a residence on Locust Avenue. Investigators said Sidney Arthur Muller had gone to the home to collect a drug debt from Christopher Hart and Todd Russell Amos. Police later alleged that the debt involved approximately $10,000 connected to pills Muller had supplied. According to testimony attributed to Clarksburg Detective Jason Snider, Muller and Hart argued, Hart produced a gun, and Muller knocked the weapon away and gained control of it during a struggle. Muller then shot Hart and Amos. Amos died at the residence, while Hart was found wounded and died while being transported for medical treatment.
The Swigers had no known involvement in the dispute inside the house. Authorities consistently described them as innocent bystanders who encountered Muller as he came out of the residence. While the father and son were simply continuing their newspaper route, Muller shot and killed both of them outside the home. Prosecutors portrayed their deaths as particularly senseless because the two men apparently had no connection to the drug transaction or the confrontation that preceded the shootings. The four deaths transformed the Locust Avenue residence and surrounding street into a sprawling homicide scene as Clarksburg police and other investigators worked through the morning.
Muller fled Clarksburg after the shootings. Investigators quickly developed information indicating that he might head toward Marion County and alerted other law-enforcement agencies to a Buick Verano he was believed to be driving. A Marion County sheriff's deputy stopped him in the Whitehall area and initially arrested him for allegedly driving while his license was suspended. Clarksburg detectives subsequently interviewed him, and he was charged in connection with all four killings. By the end of the day, Muller was facing four counts of first-degree murder.
In January 2014, a Harrison County grand jury formally indicted Muller on four murder charges. Prosecutors alleged that Hart and Amos were killed during the confrontation over the drug debt and that the Swigers were then murdered outside as Muller left the scene. As the case moved toward trial, Muller's defense attorneys pursued a diminished-capacity strategy related to his military service and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. They sought testimony from men who had served with Muller in Afghanistan and Iraq to describe the combat experiences they said contributed to his mental condition. At another pretrial proceeding, the defense also attempted to suppress statements Muller gave after his arrest, arguing that alcohol and Xanax had impaired him, although law-enforcement witnesses testified that they had detected no such impairment.
The case ultimately did not go before a jury. In October 2015, Muller entered guilty pleas to two counts of first-degree murder for killing the Swigers and two counts of second-degree murder for killing Hart and Amos. The agreement brought a definitive conviction in all four deaths while avoiding the uncertainty of a trial. Prosecutors acknowledged that the plea arrangement had drawn criticism because Muller would eventually have an opportunity to seek parole, but they argued that the agreement guaranteed substantial prison time and avoided the risks both sides faced if jurors were asked to decide the case.
For the murders of Frederick and his father, Muller received concurrent life sentences. For the killings of Hart and Amos, he received two 25-year sentences to be served concurrently, with the life terms following those sentences. The arrangement left Muller eligible to seek parole after serving the required portion of his sentence, with credit for the time he had already spent incarcerated. Harrison County Circuit Judge Thomas Bedell described the case as one of the most difficult he had encountered in more than two decades on the bench.
In the days after the murders, the Swigers' customers, relatives, friends, police officers and members of the Clarksburg community gathered to remember the father and son whose lives had ended together on the same route they had traveled side by side for so many years. A candlelight vigil and visitation were followed by funeral services, and the two were buried at Lumberport Lions Cemetery. Their pastor remembered them as men who willingly helped others, sometimes even bringing a lawnmower along on their route so they could assist someone who needed a yard cut. What began as an ordinary morning of work for Frederick and his father ended because they happened to arrive outside a Locust Avenue home as a violent drug-related confrontation was spilling into the street.
