A former police officer, already accused of negligence in his toddler son’s death, is now charged with having sex with an underage teenager, prosecutors said.
Carl E. Swanson, 41, was charged in September in the July 2024 death of the 3-year-old child. The boy was found floating in a St. James swimming pool in October 2022, according to court documents. The boy, 2 at the time, was found after a frantic search commenced. He was airlifted to St. Louis hospital and died from complications from the near drowning. A funeral was later held in Houston.
Swanson, a 2002 graduate of Houston High School, is charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, a class B felony. He is free on $100,000 bond. A grand jury later handed up an indictment on Oct. 9. A preliminary hearing is Nov. 18.
A break in that case occurred in September 2025 after a woman told investigators she was engaged in sex with Swanson when the boy disappeared, according to court documents. She left the house before the boy was discovered missing. Authorities estimate about 30 minutes had lapsed since the boy was last seen.
Additional charges against Swanson were filed last week involving sex crimes, said Phelps County Prosecutor Taylor M. Banholzer.
A former police officer in Phelps County, Swanson was charged with first-degree child molestation, a class B felony; second-degree statutory rape, a class C felony; and second-degree statutory sodomy, a class C felony. He is free on $250,000 bond.
Court documents state that Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers spoke with a woman in April 2025 who said the abuse started in 2016 when she was in her early teens and allegedly occurred over many years. She also said it would happen in his office at the Doolittle Police Department.