Violent death highlighted in scuba killing trial

TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands—An expert on diving deaths testified Thursday that he believes a Rhode Island man accused of killing his wife during a scuba diving trip was near her when she died.

Medical reports indicate that Shelley Tyre stopped breathing about eight minutes into the dive, Dr. Tom Neuman said, which he estimates happened as she and David Swain reached a wreck site near the British Virgin Islands.

A torn mask and a fin jammed into the sand near her body “bespeaks some sort of violent activity,“ Neuman said.

His testimony echoed that of Dr. Bruce Allen Hyma, chief pathologist at Schneider Hospital in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Hyma said the air in Tyre’s tank was not contaminated, and that she did not have any diseases or scuba-related illnesses.

“This death is not a natural death. It is not a suicide. It is not an accident. It is a homicidal drowning,“ Hyma said.

Swain has maintained his innocence, and defense lawyer Hayden St. Claire-Douglas alleged that Tyre, 46, was drinking the night before her death and that she panicked during the dive.

Neuman rejected that explanation.

“This is a pretty benign place to dive,“ he said. “There is not a lot there that would cause a diver to panic.“

Prosecutors allege that Swain, 53, of Jamestown, killed his wife during a 1999 trip to the Caribbean to pursue another woman, Mary Besler.

Experts have testified that they believe Swain wrestled Tyre from behind, tore off her mask and shut off her air supply.

The death was ruled an accidental drowning, but a jury found him responsible in a 2006 civil trial. Swain was then charged with murder and extradited to the British Virgin Islands in 2007. He has been in jail since.

In the civil suit, Tyre’s parents accused Swain of killing their daughter because he was romancing another woman, and because the couple’s prenuptial agreement denied him money if they divorced.

Tyre had a net worth of $238,000 compared with Swain’s $75,000 when they married in 1993, according to testimony Thursday by John Harpootian, a Rhode Island attorney.

He said he wrote the prenuptial agreement and Tyre’s will.

The couple had agreed that if they divorced, neither would receive each other’s assets.

On Wednesday, the jury heard testimony from Besler, who said she rebuffed Swain’s advances because he was married, but that they became intimate about two months after Tyre’s death.

Besler said she ended the fling in late 2000.