Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

The magistrate's decision came a day after the final four witnesses for the prosecution either testified or had their taped depositions heard by the judge. Among the depositions used was that of Bruce Hyma, the chief medical examiner for Miami-Dade County, Florida, who testified during Swain's 2006 civil trial in Providence that Shelley Tyre's death was a homicide.

The jury in that case ruled that Swain had intentionally killed his wife of 5 ½ years with "malice aforethought.''

Tortola's inquest into Tyre's death -- initially ruled an accident by island authorities until the civil trial's verdict forced them to reopen the case -- had been spaced out over months and interrupted when some key witnesses could not make it to earlier-scheduled appearances.

Among them was Christian Thwaites, who testified before the magistrate on Wednesday. Thwaites, his wife and their young son were vacationing with Swain and Tyer at the time of her death. Thwaites, who lives in Vermont and summers in Saunderstown, found Tyre unconscious, if not already dead, on the sandy ocean bottom under about 80 feet of water.

Shelley Tyre, a 46-year-old experienced diver, died March 12, 1999, while she and Swain were diving over the wrecks of two tugboats. Swain as said repeatedly that he separated from his wife while underwater and doesn't know what happened to her.

Tyre's parents, Richard and Lisa Tyre, now of Canton, Mass., brought a wrongful death lawsuit against Swain in 2002. The parents invoked the state's "Slayer'' statute, which prohibits anyone from benefiting from the estate of someone they have killed.

Their lawyer, J. Renn Olenn, told the jury during Swain's 2006 civil trial that Swain killed Tyre at a time when he was romancing another woman and while knowing that a prenuptial agreement prevented him from receiving any of Tyre's assets if they divorced.

Last November, almost eight years after Tyre's death, federal marshals, armed with a murder warrant from Tortola, arrested Swain at his Jamestown scuba shop.

In May the Rhode Island Supreme Court upheld the civil finding against him, and last month a probate court judge also delivered him bad news, prohibiting Swain or either of his two children from an earlier marriage from receiving anything from Shelley Tyre's estate.

Swain has maintained his innocence "and is anxious to get a speedy resolution of this,'' said Denner on Thursday.