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« Body ID'd as Woonsocket woman; death suspicious | Today | Police probing shots fired on Rushmore Ave. » November 14, 2007Update: Swain, charged in wife's 1999 murder, ordered held
At the hearing in Providence, U.S. Magistrate Lincoln D. Almond ordered that Swain be held at the federal Donald W. Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls. Swain did not waive extradition, and an extradition hearing is slated for next Wednesday. 
Journal file photoDavid Swain, who had no lawyer, at his civil trial last year. Swain, 51, was arrested earlier today by deputy U.S. marshals, 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 writers Jack Perry and Michael P. McKinney, with reports from Journal staff writer Tom Mooney and 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 Mike McKinney CommentsBudd Tortialoni | November 15, 2007 6:06 AM link If the fin fits.... Dennis | November 16, 2007 3:48 PM link Post a commentPlease be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published. Name and email are required; email address will not publish. |
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ProJo 9 to 5 News Blog
Oct 2005 - March 2006
Judge Fatty Almond is a real jerk for holding this gentleman until next week with no evidence whatsoever. All heresay. Worse than Russia. I hope he fights extradition and costs the state of RI several hundred thousand dollars for aggravtion.