Carl Defay still awaits sentence for 2017 murder, wants new trial

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) – Carl Defay, the Durand man who was found guilty in 2022 of killing a 38-year-old woman and hiding her body in a pig feeder, is still in the Winnebago County Jail, nearly three years after he was convicted by a jury.

Defay, 36, maintains that he did not kill Samantha Swan during a sexual threesome as prosecutors claimed at trial.

In a motion for a new trial, Defay says he has evidence to impeach the testimony of this then-wife, who told the jury that he beat and strangled Swan to death in February 2017 at his farmhouse in Durand.

Defay claims Swan died from a drug overdose.

“She’s freaking out,” Defay testified, referring to wife Cortney Defay, who now goes by Cortney Daughenbaugh, on the night he says Swan died at a local motel.

Daughenbaugh testified in detail about what she says happened on the night Samantha Swan died.

“We talked a little bit, then we took her to the bedroom and started to have sex,” she said.

While Defay was having sex with Swan at the farmhouse, according to Daughenbaugh, she witnessed him punch her and strangle her with his hands and a belt.

“[It was] a senseless act,” Assistant State’s Attorney Ken LaRue said after the trial. “It really was. I mean, there was no reason for Samantha Swan to be killed.”

Samantha Swan grew up in Rockford. And although she had bouts with addiction, her family says she was always trying to get better—for herself, her friends and her children. 

“Samantha had people that cared about her, that loved her,” said Ameca Kirk-Gargani, Swan’s sister. “And that, even if odds were stacked against her, somebody was always going to be there for her. She worked like everybody else. She loved like everybody else. She was a mother. She was a daughter. She was a sister. She was a friend. She was a best friend.”

According to testimony, Defay met Swan online and brought her to the farmhouse for sex. Daughenbaugh told the jury that at some point in the night, she left the house to buy cigarettes. She said when she returned, Carl was in the middle of a gruesome act.

“He had her body on fire out by where we park the cars,” she said.

Daughenbaugh said because the body wouldn’t burn, they hid it on the property for a few days. Swan’s remains were then placed in a pig feeder and covered up with chemicals and quick-drying cement. That’s where police would find them on Aug. 17, 2017.

Daughenbaugh spoke to police on Aug. 16, 2017. She testified at trial that she had good reason for not reporting what happened to Samantha Swan.

“Carl told me often that he would hurt me and my family, my daughter,” she said. “I believed him.”

Defay was not charged with Swan’s murder until 2019 because when Daughenbaugh went to police, he was in the Illinois Department of Corrections on an unrelated charge. He’s never denied that there was a sex party involving drugs and alcohol between him, Daughenbaugh and Swan. But he says it did not occur at his farm.

Defay claims the threesome happened at the Clayton House Motel in Loves Park and that Samantha Swan overdosed on heroin.

“[Cortney] went and opened the bathroom door, and Samantha Swan was dead,” he said.

Defay claims that he wasn’t at the motel when Swan overdosed. He says she died after he left for food and more liquor.

He said when a frantic Daughenbaugh called and told him what happened, he instructed her to take Swan to the hospital. Instead, he says Daughenbaugh took her to the farm, where he helped her put the body in the pig feeder.

Defay was found guilty of first-degree murder and concealment of a homicidal death. Daughenbaugh was not charged.

In the motion for a new trial filed by Defay’s attorney, he claims his rights were violated and that Daughenbaugh was not a credible witness.

In a statement he sent to Eyewitness News Wednesday, Defay called Swan’s death a tragedy.

“My name has been berated, slandered and dragged through the mud, but I can handle that,” he said. “What I can’t handle is Samantha’s family and loved ones thinking that she was murdered. At the end of the day no amount of words can express my sympathies so I just hope and pray to be given the opportunity to tell my story to all who will hear me, to be sure this tragic accident never happens to anyone else again and for all to know life is a precious gift that we can not take for granted. If you can save a life we have an obligation as human beings to do so at all cost.”

Prosecutors maintain that Defay received a fair trial, the conviction should stand and that sentencing should commence.

Defay is due back in court on March 28.