Re: my recent e-mail about the murder off of Tortola....
Laurel
Man Gets 25 Years in Wife's Scuba Death
By MASON MARCUS , AP
posted: 2 DAYS 21 HOURS AGO
With HP wireless printers, you could have printed this from any room in the house. Live wirelessly. Print wirelessly.
TORTOLA, British
Virgin Islands (Nov. 10) - A former dive shop owner convicted of
killing his wife on a Caribbean scuba outing in 1999 was sentenced
Tuesday to 25 years in prison for what prosecutors called a
near-perfect crime motivated by his desire to pursue another woman.
David Swain was
found guilty of murder nearly a decade after Shelley Tyre drowned while
diving at a sunken ship off Tortola. Authorities in the British
territory initially classified her death as an accident, but filed
charges after the woman's family won a civil judgment against Swain in
the U.S. in 2006.
Swain, 53, faced a
mandatory life sentence following his Oct. 27 conviction. Justice Indra
Hariprashad-Charles said the premeditated nature of the crime bound her
to deny a defense request that he become eligible for parole after 18
years in prison.
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"It is my view that this murder was carefully planned and premeditated and calls for stiff punishment," the judge said Tuesday.
In the trial,
prosecutors argued that Swain killed Tyre to pursue a romance with
another woman and get his 46-year-old wife's inheritance. Swain's
lawyers called it a weak case that lacked physical evidence and plan to
appeal the verdict.
Jen Swain Bloom, a
daughter from his first marriage, said evidence that would have helped
her father was improperly barred from the trial.
"My family, and my
father's friends and colleagues are still 100 percent in support of my
father, and his innocence," Bloom wrote in a letter to local
journalists. "No one that has spent any time with or actually knows my
father thinks he should spend one more second behind bars."
She submitted 45 letters to the court supporting parole for Swain, also a former member of the town council in Jamestown, R.I.
In one letter,
Jeremy Swain, a son also from the first marriage, said his father has
been teaching fellow inmates math and reading in the two years he has
spent so far in prison on Tortola. "David Swain is a man who will do
good works no matter where he finds himself," he said.
No eyewitnesses or
DNA evidence linked Swain to the murder. The prosecution's case rested
largely on experts who testified they believed Swain wrestled his wife
from behind at a depth of 80 feet tore off her scuba mask and shut off
her air supply while they swam near the shipwreck. Her mask was
damaged, the mouthpiece of her snorkel was missing, and her fin was
found embedded in a sandbar — all signs of a struggle, prosecution
witnesses said.
Tyre's parents
doubted their daughter, an experienced diver, had accidentally drowned,
and long suspected her husband had killed her. They were awarded $3.5
million in the civil jury trial, but Swain filed for bankruptcy and has
not paid the sum.
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