David Swain sentenced to 25 years in '99 scuba murder of his wife in Tortola

November 10, 10:09 PMDallas Tropical Travel ExaminerDebbra Brouillette

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   (AP Photo/Todd VanSickle) David Swain was found guilty of murder.

A 25-year sentence was handed down to David Swain on Tuesday, November 10th, in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, following being found guilty of his wife's 1999 murder on October 27th.

Those who have been following the case know that Swain was accused of murdering his wife during an underwater struggle while scuba diving off Cooper Island, near Tortola in the British Virgin Islands a decade ago.

(Links to past articles are listed at the bottom of the page for those who would like to catch up on the case, from start to finish.)

Last week, attorneys on both sides put forth arguments regarding how many years Swain should serve before being eligible for parole. The 25 year sentence means that Swain, who will soon turn 54, will be age 79 before he could possibly regain his freedom. Whether an appeal will be launched by his defense has yet to be announced.

The news was announced on WPRI-TV, the Providence, Rhode Island, station that was the former home of Swain and his wife:

I was fortunate to be able to interview an important witness in the case shortly after the guilty verdict was announced. In case you missed it, read Keith Royle's fascinating interview about his role in the case:

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SWAIN SCUBA MURDER TRIAL WITNESS KEITH ROYLE GIVES HIS ACCOUNT OF '99 EVENTS

Keith Royle, owner/manager of Blue Water Divers, knows the waters surrounding Tortola, and what lies below them, like the back of his hand. This year, he and his brother celebrated 30 years of maintaining their dive operations in the British Virgin Islands. Ten years ago, he would never have predicted that this year he also would be called as a witness in a murder trial.

Royle’s involvement as first responder to an emergency call on March 12, 1999, led to his being called to testify about the events of that tragic incident on the second day of the trial. The defendant was David Swain, a former dive shop owner in Rhode Island, accused of the drowning death of his wife, Shelly Tyre, while scuba diving on the wreck of the Mary L, part of an area known as Wreck Alley.

The day of the drowning

Recounting that day’s events, Royle recalls, “The weather was sunny, with winds about 10 to 15 mph. The seas were slightly choppy; visibility was about 80 feet on the Rhone and would have been about the same on the Mary L.”

He had picked up divers from a sailboat at Cooper Island earlier that day and had completed a 2-tank dive at nearby Salt Island on the wreck of the RMS Rhone before returning them to their boat. “I was about 15 minutes out of Cooper Island, headed back to our base at Nanny Cay, when I heard the VISAR (Virgin Islands Search & Air Rescue) call, stating there was an emergency diving accident, asking any nearby boats to respond to it.”

“I headed straight toward the Caribbean Soul, which was moored right off the Mary L, and pulled up alongside. That is when I met Mr. Swain and saw Shelley. She was lying motionless in the cockpit with a wetsuit on that was still damp; her hair was still wet, and she was blue in color.
There were two gentlemen in the cockpit; one was David Swain, the other was a guy named Christian, Swain’s friend, who was chartering the boat with the Swains, along with his wife and son.”

“I asked permission to come aboard, they gave it, and then I offered to do CPR, which was refused. He told me he was a paramedic, said he had done CPR, but didn’t say how long and that was it. He basically said not to do CPR, that she was dead, and there was no need to do any CPR. I then suggested if you don’t want to do CPR, rather than waiting for the VISAR boat, that we get her to the hospital. We put her on my dive boat and went full steam towards Road Harbor, with Shelley lying on the engine cover and Mr. Swain at her feet.”

“He sat very solemnly, very quiet, with his head down. He didn’t say anything to me; I didn’t say anything to him. Obviously, people react differently in that situation, and I didn’t think much of it then, but the only thing I did think was very strange was that he wouldn’t allow me to do CPR. My personal opinion is, if it had been my wife, I’d have been happy if anybody offered to try to revive her.”

 When they arrived at the ferry dock, Royle reported that an ambulance and police were waiting for them. “As soon as we got there, the ambulance staff jumped on board, transferred her to the ambulance, Swain got in with her, and they took off.”

To briefly summarize Swain’s account of what happened on the dive, Swain later told investigators that he and his wife had split up upon their descent to the wreck, she staying in the vicinity of the wreck of the Mary L while he swam to nearby reefs to take photos. As they parted ways underwater, he reported seeing bubbles coming from her regulator and nothing to indicate cause for alarm. (Photo at left: Credit - Rainbow Visions)

Trial testimony about the equipment

Testimony in the trial given by an expert in analyzing scuba diving equipment called attention to the condition of Shelley Tyre’s dive equipment. It included a torn mask and a snorkel separated from its mouthpiece, which he attributed to “an unusual force applied to the mask and snorkel” and concluded “this damage is not consistent with normal diving practices.” Also baffling was the location of one of Tyre’s fins, found more than 30 feet from her body, and its position, “stuck by the blade three inches into the sand.”

In my interview with Keith Royle, I asked if he had noticed the equipment when he was called to the scene, and if he had an opinion about the evidence concerning equipment.

“The mask was in the dinghy,” he recalls, “ but the snorkel I didn’t see, which is really irrelevant because she would’ve had a regulator in her mouth and not a snorkel. I didn’t think much about that at all, since they could’ve broken the mask and snorkel trying to lift her up from the water to the dinghy.”

The fin, however, is another story. Royle says, “One thing I heard is that she took it off to mark her way back, but that would be one of the most stupid things to do, to take off your one means of propulsion under the water, and it was stuck deep in the sand.” He then described going back to the dive site last week with reporters in an effort to try to simulate how the fin may have been driven into the sandy bottom. “I actually put a pair of fins on just like Shelley was wearing and tried to wiggle one into the sand with it on; there was no possible way. I had to take it off and do a soaring motion down into the sand (with some force) to get it to stay up there.”

The prosecution’s supposition was that the state of her dive equipment, including the fin’s placement in the sand, was indicative of a violent struggle between Shelley and her husband, one that resulted in her death by drowning. Defense suggestions that, while she was an experienced diver, she was prone to panic also did not ring true to Royle. “It doesn’t seem plausible, as I’ve been told she’d done more than 300 dives, and there’s nothing on the dive site to panic over, really. In my experience, when people panic they bolt to the surface. She would have been found on the surface rather than the bottom in that case. For her to stay on the bottom, her BC (buoyancy compensator) must have been totally deflated and she must have been slight overweighted.”

Lessons to learn

“Fortunately, I’ve never had a similar instance involving the death of a diver, for any reason, medical or otherwise, in over 30 years of diving. If I can give any advice to divers as a lesson learned from this incident, it’s to never dive alone, and to take buddy diving seriously. As an instructor, we stress that for safety reasons, you never dive alone. You are there to watch out for your buddy and vice versa. Also, it’s so much more enjoyable diving with others; in case you see something, you can share it with them.”

The guilty verdict

Of the verdict rendered in the case by a jury on Thursday, October 27th, Royle is now free to express his opinion: “I think it’s the correct one.”

“I wasn’t in court every day, just the day I was asked to testify, and while there doesn’t seem to be one damning piece of evidence, there were many, many small pieces of circumstantial evidence. The other thing that’s troubling to me is that he’s never come out and said what he thinks happened. He’s very ambiguous about it, which seems a little strange.”

“If it was me, even if I was guilty, I think I would say something like,  ‘Well, I think she got caught in the wreck, got entangled and drowned,’ but he’s really not come out and said anything.”

And what is the buzz on the island about the verdict? “Most are in agreement with it,” Royle reveals. “Some people say they believe he is guilty but also think there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him with no reasonable doubt. If I had been a juror, I don’t know if I could’ve convicted him or not.”

Nevertheless, the jurors, who heard every word of testimony by both sides, and heard the judge’s summation and instructions for their deliberations, emerged hours later with a unanimous decision: guilty as charged.

Sentencing still to come

With sentencing by the judge in the case upcoming this week, Swain’s future is still somewhat undetermined. Will he spend the rest of his life in a hillside prison in Tortola, or perhaps be sent to the United Kingdom to serve out his sentence? Could an expected appeal of the case by his defense ultimately result in his release in years to come?

As for Keith Royle, he is ready for this most unfortunate incident – the trial, the testifying, and the international media that had descended upon this 21.5 square mile piece of Caribbean paradise – to be put in the past. His part in the trial has thrust him into the spotlight a bit, as reporters for NBC’s Dateline and CBS’s 48 Hours interviewed him for future stories on the case while on the island. Now he is back to doing what he loves best – sharing his love and knowledge of diving and the abounding life found on the reefs and wrecks of the BVI’s, with the thousands of tourists who vacation here each year.


To contact Keith about diving with Blue Water Divers on your next trip to Tortola, you may reach him at bwdbvi@surfbvi.com. Click here to explore Blue Water Divers website: http://www.bluewaterdiversbvi.com

TO GO TO THE ORIGINAL KEITH ROYLE INTERVIEW ARTICLE, CLICK HERE.

To read past articles on the case (in order starting with most recent), here are the links:

Tortola jury returns guilty verdict in scuba murder trial; Swain could receive life sentence

Tortola scuba murder trial continues: prosecution wraps; defendant Swain takes the stand

David Swain, accused of killing his wife, to take the stand in Tortola scuba murder trial

Tortola dive shop owner, first to respond to emergency call, testifies in Swain scuba murder trial

Scuba murder trial in Tortola underway; expert witnesses testify

Murder case involving scuba diving excursion gone wrong goes to trial on Tortola, BVI

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