TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands — A Rhode Island man accused of killing his wife during a 1999 scuba diving trip inherited more than half a million dollars after her death, a forensic accountant testified Friday. But nearly five years later, David Swain had accumulated nearly $190,000 in credit card debt and had spent the $630,000 inheritance on trips and his dive shop, according to Anthony D. Lee, who testified via video from Massachusetts. "He traveled very lavishly and extravagantly," Lee said. "He also poured some of the money into Ocean State Scuba to make it viable. That effort didn't succeed." The parents of Shelley Tyre alleged in a civil suit that Swain killed their daughter because he was romancing another woman and because the couple's prenuptial agreement denied him money if they divorced. A jury found him responsible during a 2006 civil trial, and Swain was charged with murder shortly afterward. He was extradited to the British Virgin Islands in 2007 and has been in jail since. Swain was nearly broke when he married, making about $800 a year through his dive shop compared with the $70,000 that Tyre earned, Lee testified. "He came to the marriage with little more than a pickup and the clothes on his back," Lee said. Tyre was head of the middle school at a college prep academy just outside Boston and contributed an average of $20,000 a year to keep his company afloat, some of which was used to build a swimming pool, Lee said. Tyre had considered switching jobs in 1999 and taking a significant pay cut, he said. Prosecutors said in opening arguments that Tyre's new position would have meant Swain would not have extra money to keep his dive shop open. During cross-examination, Lee was asked to qualify Swain's business. "The company didn't make any money," he said. "If he didn't have his wife to support him, he would be out of business and out on the street." Lee said the couple faced a $20,000 debt by 1999, the year they traveled to the British Virgin Islands for a scuba diving trip. The couple dove together on their last day, and Swain surfaced about a half-hour later without his wife. A friend of theirs found her body, and experts have testified they believe Swain wrestled Tyre from behind, tore off her mask and shut off her air supply. Her fin was later found embedded in the sand, prosecutors said. They allege Swain killed her to pursue Mary Basler, a Rhode Island chiropractor who testified that she became intimate with him about two months after Tyre's death. She said she ended the fling in late 2000. On Tuesday, the prosecution expects to play a video of Swain's civil court deposition and then rest its case. The defense says it will present five witnesses. | 
