2 Macabre Clues Found With Body Cracked Case, Deputies Say

When the skeletal remains of a woman were found in a septic tank on the outskirts of the desert community of Littlerock in August, authorities had only two macabre clues to help identify them.

Bundled in a blanket with the victim were the bones of a small dog and an odd-looking little cart.

It was the body of the dog--a crippled dachshund--and the wheeled cart he used to get around that helped to identify his owner’s body.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Det. Joseph Martinez says the dog and the cart helped him and other investigators learn that the body left in the septic tank was that of Barbara Weston, a 51-year-old Oklahoma native. It also helped them find her alleged killer, investigators said.

Many of Weston’s neighbors in the sparsely populated area had told detectives they were unaware of a woman living on the property where the body was found. But almost everyone remembered her dog.

“The doggy wheelchair was the key,” Martinez said. “[The neighbors] didn’t really remember Weston until we showed them the wheelchair. One person had her own name for him. She called him ‘Wheels.’ ”

Less than two weeks after the bodies were found, deputies arrested Weston’s boyfriend, 42-year-old Steven Swaim. He was arrested about 15 miles from where he allegedly buried Weston and her dog, Willie, about three years earlier. Swaim’s trial is set for March 20.

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During questioning by deputies, Martinez said, Swaim admitted killing Weston during an argument. Swaim’s lawyer, Patricia Charleton, said only that she will argue in court that the killing was in self-defense.

Martinez said Swaim broke a knife sharpener over Weston’s head and then delivered four more blows with a pipe wrench as she lay on the floor. Swaim then allegedly used the pipe wrench on Weston’s dog, whose rear legs were paralyzed.

Swaim allegedly buried Weston and the dog in a septic tank he had dug himself on the property. No one else knew about the septic tank’s existence, Martinez said.

Afterward, Swaim moved to his father’s house near Palmdale and told Weston’s friends she had moved back to Oklahoma, authorities said.

Weston was tenderhearted toward Willie. When he lost the use of his hind legs several years ago, she refused to have him euthanized. Instead, she bought the little sling attached to wheels that enabled him to pull himself around.