Rozita Swinton’s Bad Call

One of Swinton's calls in 2005 led to her arrest. In June of that year, staffers at an adoption agency in Castle Rock, Colo., notified police that a girl claiming her name was Jessica had contacted them about giving up her newborn for adoption. The baby, Jessica claimed, was the product of sexual molestation by her father. On the morning she was scheduled to bring in the newborn, she left a note at the agency saying she'd changed her mind, would leave the baby at a fire station and then kill herself, according to a police report. That set off a three-day search by police that eventually identified Swinton as the hoax caller (with no baby). She was charged with false reporting and obstructing government operations, to which she pleaded guilty in 2007 in return for a deferred sentence.

Yet the calls continued—to school counselors, women's shelters and police. Among the cast of characters Swinton impersonated, according to Thrumston: April, who claimed she was molested by her father; Ericka, who said she'd been impregnated by her uncle, and Dana, who alleged that she was abused by her youth pastor. This past February, according to an arrest-warrant affidavit against Swinton, Colorado Springs police responded to two 911 calls from someone claiming to be Jennifer, a 4-year-old abused girl locked in a basement. By tracking the calls, cops narrowed the location to a two-block radius and then searched the area house by house for a trapped little girl. Swinton "basically shut down a whole police division," says Thrumston. The girl was never found. (In between calls, Swinton also found time to get elected as a state delegate for Sen. Barack Obama in the Colorado Democratic caucuses.)

Swinton's alleged behavior is difficult to categorize. On one hand, she seems to inhabit her fabricated identities so thoroughly that some who have dealt with her believe she may indeed suffer from multiple personality disorder. She said as much in a conversation with Jennifer Pierce, a victim advocate at a Colorado Springs social services agency who received calls from the Dana character for months. Describing a stay at a shelter at one point, Dana said "she had another personality named Rozita … and Rozita took 'them' to the safe house," says Pierce. Dana explained that "her personality comes out when Rozita feels threatened, and she's there to protect Rozita." Court documents show that Swinton takes prescribed medication, sees a therapist and has attended an in-patient program in Missouri.

Yet there's a highly rational and calculating aspect to Swinton's alleged deeds. In the past few years, she has used at least nine cell-phone numbers—many of them prepaid, avoiding the need to register them—to orchestrate her ruses, according to police. And rather than slipping uncontrollably into one character or another, she has seemed to switch between them at will.

Psychiatrists interviewed by NEWSWEEK say that although they wouldn't rule out multiple-personality disorder—a controversial diagnosis technically known as dissociative identity disorder (DID)—Swinton's behavior doesn't match the usual profile (none of them has personally examined her). "People with DID typically have intense stories of their own abuse" and don't "run around reporting on other people's abuse," says David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. Richard Kluft, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine, says it's possible that Swinton suffers from other conditions, like factitious disorder, in which people have a need to be seen as ill and deliberately create symptoms to prove it.

Whatever the case, Swinton's alleged deceptions began to unravel in March. Thrumston had already concluded that the countless calls from little girls were probably made by the same person. But she hadn't yet established a link to Swinton. Things finally clicked when Thrumston interviewed Pierce, the victim advocate, who provided a phone number for Dana that matched one on record for Swinton. On April 13, one of Thrumston's sergeants received a call from the Texas Rangers, who had traced two phone numbers in the FLDS investigation to Colorado Springs. One of them, Thrumston discovered, was associated with Swinton. Within days, police obtained a search warrant for Swinton's home, carted off boxes of evidence and arrested her for false reporting in the episode involving the house-to-house search.

Swinton's legal troubles are mounting. She's now awaiting an October trial in the Colorado Springs case, in which she pleaded not guilty. The case in Castle Rock has been reopened, since her arrest violated the terms of her deferred sentence. And the Texas Rangers are "actively pursuing" her as a "person of interest" in the FLDS case, according to a press release. Whether any of this has curbed her alleged trickery is unclear. Only hours after Swinton was released on bond in Colorado Springs, Jessop, the former FLDS member, received a call. It was the same voice as before, except now the caller said her name was Rose. "You're playing games with me," Jessop said. "It's not a game," Rose responded, sobbing. "I know you think I probably tricked you, but it's not like that." Even now, Swinton's calls can sound like a genuine cry for help. Instead, they stand to land her in jail.

With Anne Underwood

© 2008