TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands (3 Mar 2006) -- The police on the Caribbean island of Tortola say the criminal investigation into the 1999 scuba-diving death of Shelley Tyre remains open and they will consider a Rhode Island jury's decision last week in a civil trial that found her husband, David Swain, killed her. News of the jury's finding began reaching island law-enforcement officials yesterday through various media outlets, all asking the same question, said Police Department spokeswoman Tamara Archibald-Gill: " 'What are we going to do?' " Tortola police ruled Tyre's death an accident in 1999 "unless proven otherwise." Swain has never been charged criminally and insists he is innocent, despite the jury's finding Friday that he drowned Tyre, 46, with malice and forethought. The jury awarded Tyre's parents, Richard and Lisa Tyre of Jamestown, more than $3.5 million in damages. During the nine-day trial, the jury heard testimony from at least two witnesses who claimed the Tortola police never questioned them about what they might have known about Tyre's death. James Philip Brown, who runs a dive shop in Tortola, testified the police appeared to have little interest that he had found some of Tyre's scuba gear broken a day after she died. Nor did investigators seem interested in what Brown characterized as Swain's strange behavior: asking Brown on three occasions to give away Tyre's scuba gear, even though certified divers learn the protocol of storing gear for possible inspection after a diving incident. Sue Summer, who runs a dive boat in Tortola, also testified that the police never questioned her about seeing a man she identified as Swain, walking on the dock a day after Tyre had died, carrying two drinks and appearing "to be quite jovial." Archibald-Gill, the Tortola police spokeswoman, said she was told by her superiors yesterday that detectives "did a thorough investigation at the time. How deep that could be, I can't respond." The Tortola Police Department has about 25 members. Police Inspector Dennis Jones said yesterday he was a detective at the time of Tyre's death and worked on the case. "I know the case very well," he said. "There was nothing much to go on at all -- no real evidence, per se." Tortola's Acting Attorney General Ian Macintyre said yesterday he was unfamiliar with the case. But even if evidence arises now to charge Swain criminally, he said his office would wait until after Swain had exhausted all avenues of appeal. | | VERDICT: PADI 5-Star IDC Ocean State Scuba owner David Swain murdered wife while scuba diving in the British Virgin Islands. "It may be premature at this stage for us to get involved," said Macintyre. Swain has 20 days from last Friday to appeal the jury's decision. He says he will likely appeal. Shelley Tyre died March 12, 1999, while diving with Swain at a wreck of two tugboats off the coast of Tortola. It was the last day for diving on a vacation the couple took with Christian and Bernice Thwaites, formerly of North Kingstown, and their 9-year-old son. Richard and Lisa Tyre filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Swain in 2002. During the trial, their lawyer J. Renn Olenn told the jury Swain killed Tyre for money at a time he was pursing another woman. An accountant testified Swain collected more than $570,000 after his wife's death and had spent all of it within two years -- "just rolling up the debt" with trips around the world. Swain says the lion's share of that money went into improvements in his Jamestown dive shop, Ocean State Scuba. Forensic investigators, called to the stand on behalf of the plaintiffs, said Shelley Tyre stopped breathing about eight minutes after entering the water with Swain. A jury deliberated less than three hours before finding that Swain killed his wife. The jury foreman said last week that jurors believed Tyre, an experienced diver with more than 350 logged dives, could not have died from anything "other than human intervention" and no one else was in the vicinity but Swain. SOURCE - The Providence Journal |
