David Swain, from Jamestown, Rhode Island, faces the charge in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. It is alleged that he deliberately drowned his wife, Shelley Tyre, while holidaying on Tortola in early 1999.
Tyre, then 46 and an experienced diver, was found floating at the surface with damage to her mask, a snorkel missing its mouthpiece, and just one fin. The other was left stuck in the seabed.
Swain, now 53, maintained that the pair had separated under water, as they often did, and that he knew nothing of the incident as it unfolded.
A civil hearing was brought by Tyre’s family at Rhode Island’s Providence Superior Court in 2006, based on a private investigation into Swain’s affairs and the conclusion of a senior medical official.
It was alleged that Swain had murdered Tyre because he wished to pursue relations with another woman who had said that she was not interested while he remained married.
Under his and Tyre’s prenuptial agreement, if the couple divorced Swain would no longer have received the funds that Tyre had regularly provided for his scuba business.
The chief medical examiner who investigated Tyre’s death told the court that it had been, in his view, a "homicidal drowning".
Swain, who defended himself, was found guilty by jurors and ordered to pay damages of $3.5 million. He did not pay, after declaring himself bankrupt.
After further investigation by the BVI authorities, an extradition warrant was sought. Swain was arrested in Jamestown by US federal agents in late 2007 and extradited to Tortola, where he has been held for the past two years without bail.
The jury trial, conducted under British criminal law, will require proof beyond all reasonable doubt – a higher burden than at the 2006 civil hearing - that Swain deliberately killed his wife.
This time Swain has a defence lawyer, family and friends having raised money for the campaign. The lawyer has said that he will be able to prove that Tyre’s death was accidental.
If convicted, Swain faces life in HM Prison on the BVI’s Balsam Ghut.
The trial, due to begin on 7 October, follows the recent announcement that a murder charge is to be sought by the USA’s Alabama State Attorney General against US citizen David Watson.
Watson's wife, Tina, died as the pair dived together off Queensland in late 2003.
Watson pleaded guilty to his wife’s manslaughter this June in a Queensland court.
Related link
Diver could face murder charge
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