PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (20 Feb 2006) -- For a week now, David Swain has chosen not to attend his wrongful-death civil trial or offer a defense. But that didn't stop the jury yesterday from hearing him speak about his wife's diving death seven years ago. Lawyer J. Renn Olenn, representing the parents of the late Shelley Tyre, had the Superior Court jury watch a videotaped deposition of Swain taken in December 2003. On the tape, Swain, a trained EMT, said he chose not to attempt resuscitating his wife after she was lifted from the Caribbean waters that March day in 1999. Swain said he did clear Tyre's airway and watched to see if her pupils responded to light -- a common test EMTs use to determine if someone's breathing. All indications were, Swain said, that CPR would be futile. "I did what I could," Swain said, "and came to a conclusion she was gone from us." Also testifying yesterday were several friends and coworkers of Tyre who said Shelley Tyre confided in them about her troubled marriage, her suspicion that Swain was seeing another woman, and her belief that his Jamestown dive shop, Ocean State Scuba, was a financial sinkhole that she alone was keeping afloat. And Tyre's parents, Richard and Lisa Trye of Jamestown, reconstructed from the stand the "volatile" and frustrating day they attempted to get answers from Swain about what happened to their daughter. "May I use the word cocky?" Lisa Tyre said when asked by Olenn to describe Swain's demeanor that morning. "He was very arrogant. It was his tone, his general demeanor." As if: "'I know about everything and that's what it is."' SWAIN AND TYRE had been married for about 6 1/2 years when they went to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands for a diving vacation with another couple, Christian and Bernice Thwaites of North Kingstown, and their 9-year-old son. On the last day they would dive, Swain and Tyre, both experienced divers, entered the water together to explore the wrecks of two tugboats. Swain came up about 35 minutes later and Christian Thwaites dropped in. The couples agreed that two adults would remain on the chartered sailboat with the Thwaites' son at all times. Christian Thwaites found Tyre, who was 46, in about 80 feet of water, lying on her back on the sandy bottom, her eyes and mouth open. He carried her to the surface, yelled for help and Swain motored over to help in an inflatable dinghy.
Under repeated questioning from Olenn about his underwater movements during his wife's fatal dive, Swain, now 50, said he could not recall many specifics.
He responded to numerous questions with: "I haven't a clue."
He said he and Tyre descended together along a mooring line and then once at the bottom swam together toward the wrecks. The tugs were probably 100 yards away, Swain said, with the bottom gently sloping into deeper turbid water, stirred up from winds that made the last several days of their vacation a bumpy one aboard the Caribbean Soul. Swain said he and Tyre did not discuss how long they would be down or when or if they would meet before ascending. Despite the so-called "buddy system" of always diving with someone, Swain said it was common practice that he and his wife would split up underwater, Tyre counting fish while he took photographs. Swain said he did have a vague recollection of swimming around one of the wrecks and might have hovered over the pilot house for a time before moving off toward a reef in shallower water. At some point, he said, he did look back and saw Tyre by one of the wrecks. It was the last time, he said, he saw her alive. Swain said "there wasn't much to do" when Thwaites brought his wife up because it was clear to him she hadn't been breathing for a while. Olenn asked how Swain how he knew that. Because her pupils didn't respond to light, Swain said, indicating it had "been a while" since she had breathed. How long was "a while?" Olenn asked. Swain said he didn't know for sure: "I'm telling you it had been a while. It could be 10 minutes, it could be a half hour, I don't know." Swain, who was an EMT for several years, said it was clear "there was nothing left to work with." Last week, another witness testified by video deposition that when he responded to the sailboat's mayday call, he was told by someone aboard the Caribbean Soul not to bother with CPR. The man who told him said he had been an EMT and had seen dead bodies before and knew CPR would be futile. | | Accused of killing his wife: PADI 5-Star IDC Ocean State Scuba owner David Swain admitted he did not try to revive his wife with CPR after she was pulled from the water in Tortola. Olenn is also heard in the videotaped deposition asking Swain where was the dive computer he wore that day, which would have registered how long he was under the water and what depths he reached. "I haven't a clue," said Swain. He said he also could not remember where the photographs were that he took during the dive. Had he drawn any conclusions, asked Olenn, about how his wife died? "Nope," said Swain. In a seemingly unrelated series of questions, Olenn also asked Swain about his brother, Richard. He's in prison in Minnesota, Swain said, "for killing my mom." Swain said he was 21 when his brother "assaulted" her. LISA TYRE recalled the day soon after Swain returned to Jamestown with the body of her daughter. The Tyres had invited him to breakfast in hopes of getting a better explanation of what happened. Their only version of events had come from Christian Thwaites, who had returned earlier to Rhode Island to get his son back in school. Thwaites told the Tyres that Swain and Shelley Tyre split up underwater and that Swain had surfaced after feeling a chill. The Tyres did not know much about diving but they did understand the basic principle of the buddy system. They wanted to know why Swain had left their daughter alone. From the stand, Lisa Tyre said when she answered the door that morning she expected to see just Swain. But instead, he arrived with four or five other people. "I asked him, 'Why all these people,' " said Lisa Tyre. She said Swain replied: "This is my family. You've got your family." Sitting all in a circle, the Tyres listened to Swain's explanation but grew frustrated. "None of it made sense," she said. Why did he leave her alone, they wanted to know? That's when Swain tossed Shelley Tyre's dive log at her father's feet. " 'Look at the dive log, yourself,' " he told them. " 'You'll find she often went on dives alone.' " From the conclusion of that meeting until now, said Lisa Tyre, "I tried to avoid him. I didn't want to have anything to do with him." It was not, however, for another year or two, she said, that she began to suspect Swain had something to do with her daughter's death. LAST FRIDAY, the chief medical examiner for Miami-Dade County in Florida testified that after reviewing Shelley Tyre's recovered diving equipment -- including a broken mask strap and her snorkel, which was missing its mouthpiece -- he concluded her death was a "homicidal drowning." An underwater forensic investigator also testified that he believed Swain attacked his wife from behind, demonstrating to the jury how someone could have easily clung to her tank, turned off her oxygen supply and then held her down until she drowned. The experts said there was no other explanation because Tyre's equipment -- other than the mask and snorkel -- were working perfectly, she had two-thirds of her air supply left, she was an experienced diver with more than 350 logged dives and in good physical and mental health. Swain has denied killing his wife and has countersued Richard Tyre, who brought the wrongful-death suit, for defamation. The Tyre's lawyer, Olenn, has subpoenaed Swain to testify today. SOURCE - The Providence Journal |
