John Edward Swindler (May 12, 1944 – June 18, 1990) was an American murderer and suspected serial killer who was executed at the age of 46 by the state of Arkansas for the September 24, 1976 murder of Patrolman Randy Basnett, age 30. He was also convicted of the murders of two teenagers: Greg Becknell and Dorothy Rhodes, in Columbia, South Carolina, and was charged but never convicted of the murder of Jeffrey McNerney in Florida. Swindler was the first person to be executed by the state of Arkansas since 1961, and is the only person to have been executed in the electric chair in Arkansas since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976.