Parole panel will go to visit Swapp

For polygamist Addam Swapp's upcoming parole hearing, he won't have to come to the Board of Pardons and Parole's hearing room at the Utah State Prison — the board will go to him.

Swapp was convicted for his role in the 1988 bombing of an LDS stake center in Kamas and for manslaughter in the death of a corrections officer. Swapp is serving his 20-year sentence in an Arizona prison.

"We're going down there," parole board spokesman Jim Hatch said Tuesday.

The move is unusual. At first, the Board of Pardons and Parole decided to hold a hearing on Jan. 30 at the Utah State Prison in absentia. Hatch said the board changed its mind and is now willing to send a hearing officer to Arizona to let Swapp plead his case to be released. A hearing date has not been scheduled.

The Singer-Swapp saga began in 1979, when family patriarch John Singer was killed in a confrontation with law enforcement. Police claimed he had pulled a gun on them. Family members said Singer was shot in the back.

In 1988, Swapp bombed the Kamas church building. The bombing was reportedly intended to spark a confrontation that would usher in Singer's resurrection. The 13-day standoff between the polygamous family and law enforcement ended when Singer's son, John Timothy Singer, shot and killed Utah Department of Corrections Lt. Fred House. Two other officers were wounded.

John Timothy Singer was released from prison in October 2006 after serving federal and state sentences. Family matriarch Vickie Singer and Jonathan Swapp, Addam's brother, were also convicted in connection with the standoff.

The Utah Department of Corrections has said Addam Swapp's imprisonment in Arizona is intended to avoid any appearance of impropriety, because many Utah corrections officers who were involved in the 1988 standoff still work at the Utah State Prison.

In a letter published in September in The Park Record newspaper in Park City, Swapp apologized to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the community of Kamas, his neighbors and law enforcement for his role in the bombing.

"I am truly sorry for what I did, and I humbly ask for your forgiveness," he wrote.

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E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com