Jury Convicts Man in Scuba Death of Wife

(AP)  A jury convicted a Rhode Island man of murder Tuesday in the drowning of his wife during a 1999 scuba-diving trip in the British Virgin Islands.

A judge expects to sentence David Swain on Nov. 4. He faces life in prison and would be sent to a Tortola prison where he has been held for about two years.

Swain did not react when the verdict was read. The parents of the victim, Shelley Tyre, gasped.

After obtaining permission from the judge, her father, Richard Tyre, walked to the witness box and clutched a microphone. "We're old, we're in our 80s, and when Shelley was killed, our life pretty much ended," he said in a broken voice. He then left the courtroom.

The nine jurors had four hours to produce a verdict under local law. Although only a seven-vote majority was required, Supreme Court Justice Indra Hariprashad-Charles urged the seven women and two men to issue a unanimous verdict after giving a three-hour summation of the case, and they did.

Defense attorney Timothy Bradl, of the Boston-based firm Denner Pellegrino, said the verdict would be appealed to the Eastern Caribbean Court. He said he noted several problems during the judge's summation, but gave no example.

Swain was led out of the British Virgin Islands Supreme Court to the flash of cameras but made no comment as he entered an armored car.

His son, Jeremy Swain, held an impromptu news conference outside the courtroom to defend his father. "My father is an innocent man," he said.

Prosecutors accused Swain of killing his wife so he could pursue a romance with a Rhode Island chiropractor as well as gain his wife's inheritance estimated at $630,000 and save his now-shuttered dive shop.

The prosecution presented experts who testified that they believed Swain wrestled his wife from behind, tore off her scuba mask and shut off her air supply while diving near a shipwreck.

The drowning was initially ruled an accident, but authorities in the British Virgin Islands charged Swain with murder after a 2006 civil trial in Rhode Island found him responsible for his wife's death. That jury awarded Tyre's family $3.5 million, but Swain filed for bankruptcy and has not paid the sum.

Swain was extradited to the British Virgin Islands the following year and had been jailed since.

Defense attorneys maintained the poorly done autopsy report could not rule out medical reasons for Tyre's death, including the possibility that she suffered a heart attack or stroke during what they say was an accidental drowning.

The trial, which began nearly three weeks ago, was postponed last year after defense lawyers said they had trouble finding experts because of financial constrictions.

[RhodeIsland2009]

Her air was not shut off nor was her mask "gone." The jury was not allowed to hear testimony regarding her air consumption calculated directly from previous dives in her dive log - instead, the prosecution was allowed to assume SAC rates from Navy diver calculations. Since Shelley was 5'1" and 120 pounds and was an experienced diver, her SAC would be significantly lower than an "average" Navy SAC for all women divers - as was calculated by a defense witness from her log book - but his testimony was blocked because he was not a "medical doctor." (But he was the Director and Founder of the UCLA Underwater Kinesiology Laboratory who's written books on how bodies respond and act underwater). The autopsy that was done on the island showed Shelley had a 22% blockage of the left anterior descending coronary artery - commonly called a "widowmaker" - but the ME never followed up on that by doing pathology to see if she'd had a heart attack. He did no toxicology report, nor did he do an x-ray to see if she died of an air embolus - all standard tests in drowning deaths. The air in the tanks was "examined" and found to be "fine" by the shop owner who rented it to them - gee - think he might have had an interest in it being "fine?" But it was never tested by a lab. There was not a single diver on the jury - in a case where understanding complex diving physiology was absolutely crucial. Yeah. It's pretty easy to sum it all up in a 1 paragraph article...well if you leave out most of the facts....

(and no - I'm not related to Mr. Swain - but I did make it my business to find out exactly what happened)

It's awfully easy to make judgements based on ridiculous 1 paragraph "news" reports that are biased against someone

[pensacola8-2009]

I have over 250 dives on shipwrecks and caves. A mask just doesn't come off so easily. I have bumped into structure and only seen my mask get nudged a little. A student diver once kicked my mask accidentally, but it didn't come off and just barely leaked.

If someone reported they found the air shut off and the diver's mask gone, I'de suspect foul play, too.

Yes, diving is a life-threatening sport, but even a panicking diver running out of air at depth can surface and usually be revived. successfully.