Swims was left the Doubleheader Bar and Grill in Homestead, Florida with two male acquaintances on August 19, 1986. At 4:00 a.m., a police officer stopped her and one of the men in an area known for drug trafficking. After a records check, the officer let both of them go. Swims has never been heard from again. The man she was last known to be with stated she became hysterical and jumped out of his vehicle and he never saw her after that. Her mother reported her missing.

In 2003 a Florida prison inmate, Michael Scott Segal, told investigators Swims had been murdered and her body was buried beneath a waterfall at a house in the 23000 block of southwest 170th Court. He said the killer was one of the men who had been with Swims on the night of her disappearance, and that this man confessed the murder to Segal in the fall of 1986. Authorities excavated the property in 2007, but no evidence was located there and they do not plan to search again.

Swims was employed as a waitress at the Neighbors restaurant at the time of her disappearance, and had an infant son. Her case remains unsolved.