Ex dive-shop owner guilty of wife's scuba murder

TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands - A jury convicted an American of murder yesterday in the drowning of his wife during a scuba-diving excursion a decade ago.

Former dive-shop owner David Swain, 53, of Jamestown, Rhode Island, dressed in a tan suit and tie, looked straight ahead as the unanimous verdict was read following a trial that heard accusations he killed Shelley Tyre to pursue a romance with another woman and get his hands on his wife's money.

Tyre's drowning near an isolated shipwreck at a depth of 80 feet was initially ruled an accident, but authorities in the British Virgin Islands charged Swain with murder after a 2006 civil trial in Rhode Island found him responsible for his wife's death. That jury awarded Tyre's family $3.5 million, but Swain filed for bankruptcy and has not paid the sum.

A judge expects to sentence Swain on Nov. 4. He faces life in prison in the sweltering hilltop prison in Tortola, where he has been held for about two years.

The nine jurors had four hours to produce a seven-vote verdict under local law.

The defense said it would appeal to the Eastern Caribbean Court, citing problems with the judge's three-hour summation.

Swain's two adult children, attended each day of the three-week trial. "My father is an innocent man," son Jeremy Swain later told reporters.

Prosecutors accused Swain of drowning his petite wife on the last day of their March 1999 Caribbean vacation so he could pursue a romance with a Rhode Island chiropractor as well as gain his wife's inheritance, estimated at $630,000.