Follow-up – Suicide death of murder suspect

Now that the recently charged suspect in the 1988 death of Cathy Swartz has died in jail by suicide, investigators fear questions in the case will never get answered.

WOOD-TV has reported that Robert Waters, 53, died on Saturday at the Beaufort, South Carolina, County Detention Center just days before Michigan police were planning to pick him up.

WOOD said St. Joseph County Prosecutor David Marvin indicated he was looking forward to a trial.

Waters, who once lived near Three Rivers, was charged with open murder in the Dec. 2, 1988, death of 19-year-old Cathy Swartz in her Three Rivers apartment.

Waters, a plumber living in South Carolina, was arrested April 30 after DNA genealogy tests led police to his family.

Police said his fingerprint matched a print left in blood on the victim’s phone.

In a press release, Beaufort County officials said guards found Waters unresponsive in his cell on Saturday during a routine check. They tried to revive him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. They said officials determined the death was a suicide, though they did not say how he died or whether he’d been on suicide watch.