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November 14, 2007

Update: Swain charged in wife's scuba-diving death

Jamestown dive-shop owner David Swain, a suspect in the scuba diving death of his wife, has been arrested for her murder after a charge was issued out of the British Virgin Islands, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Providence.

Swain, 51, was arrested today by deputy U.S. Marshals and is scheduled to appear this afternoon in U.S. District Court, Providence, said Tom Connell, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Providence.

After a civil trial last year, a Superior Court jury in Rhode Island found that the former Jamestown Town Council member had intentionally drowned Shelley Tyre, 46, during a 1999 Caribbean vacation.

The jury awarded her parents, Richard and Lisa Tyre, more than $6 million in damages and interest.

But until now, Swain had not been charged criminally.

Investigators on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands initially called Tyre's death an accident. But after Swain's civil conviction they renewed their inquiry into her death, requesting sworn depositions and witness contact information from Warwick lawyer, J. Renn Olenn, who brought the civil suit against Swain.

The deputy marshals arrested Swain today on an extradition complaint drawn by the U.S. Attorney's Office and based on a request by officials in the British Virgin Islands, Connell said.

In the arrest warrant application, Lee Vilker, an assistant U.S. Attorney, noted that authorities in the British Virgin Islands had shown "there is overhwelming circumstantial evidence proving that Swain murdered his wife in the waters off the British Virgin Islands."

The evidence includes "unusual behavior" by Swain after his wife's death and evidence of a financial motive, according to Vilker. The document also notes that experts testified during the trial that the physical condition in which the fin strap, the snorkel and mask were found indicate that a violent struggle took place under water and that Swain murdered his wife."

-- projo.com staff writer Jack Perry, with Journal archival reports

Shelley Tyre died March 12, 1999, about eight minutes, Olenn contended in the civil case, after she and Swain entered the water together on the final day of their diving vacation. Swain surfaced alone about 35 minutes later and Swain's friend, Christian Thwaites, jumped in.

Thwaites came across the first sign of trouble moments later: one of Shelley Tyre's yellow swim fins sticking in the sand, toe-first. He pulled the fin out and began searching for Tyre, expecting, he testified during the trial, that she would be grateful that he had found her fin. Instead, he found her lying on her back on the sandy bottom with her eyes and mouth open.

The following day a man who runs a dive shop on Tortola, James Philip Brown, dove at the common dive site where Swain and Tyre had been, looking for any potential dangers. He testified that he found Tyre's mask, missing an anchoring pin on one side that holds the strap in place, and also her snorkel which was missing its mouthpiece.

Both pieces of evidence, Olenn and his expert witnesses have said, indicate Tyre was attacked.

Posted by Jack Perry at 2:46 PM | Permalink

November 14, 2007

Update: Swain charged in wife's scuba-diving death

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