Diver convicted in wife's drowning

[AfterDark]

I can appreciate your desire to stand up for your friend but I'm not sure what you consider "hard" evidence. It almost sounds like the OJ jury: Unless they could produce an eyewitness that saw OJ slice open the two victims, there was "reasonable doubt." .......

As I've said, I think the fins are pretty damning. And given Swain's explanation about them, I think it throws reasonable doubt on to many of the other statements he's made. It's sort of like Bernie Madoff: First there's a crack in the veneer and soon a torrent pours out and you find, as the old Firesign Theater album said, "Everything You Know Is False."

Thanks for your thoughts here Ken - very well thought out and hard to argue against. As you said one thing that I find damaging is the fins - no way in hell you are going to plant them down when trying (however unsucessfully) to surface - wedging them into the sand would actually take some effort when tyring to surface (just my opinion here - but really?). I do understand his friends trying to prove his innocence (and respect it) but none the less I think he got off easy.

You are intitled to your opinion but if you call getting life with 25 years to serve before being eligible for parole getting off easy, then with all do respect you don't know what the heck your talking about. Swain got the MAX! There's no death penlty in BVI, would that have been hard enough for you? Dave shouldn't have said a thing about the fins because he said he wasn't there, but I guess someone who just lost their spouse should be expected to do everything to everyone satisfaction. They should be clear headed and clear thinking.:sarcasm: Watson may have got off easy maybe your just confused.

 

[Nylorac]

You are intitled to your opinion but if you call getting life with 25 years to serve before being eligible for parole getting off easy, then with all do respect you don't know what the heck your talking about. Swain got the MAX! There's no death penlty in BVI, would that have been hard enough for you? Dave shouldn't have said a thing about the fins because he said he wasn't there, but I guess someone who just lost their spouse should be expected to do everything to everyone satisfaction. They should be clear headed and clear thinking.:sarcasm: Watson may have got off easy maybe your just confused.

We will never know what really happened but at the end of the day you are a loyal friend. I have my opinion (and that is all it is, an opinion) and it is what it is - but I do respect your belief in your friend and I am sorry that my post upset you.

 

[AfterDark]

We will never know what really happened but at the end of the day you are a loyal friend. I have my opinion (and that is all it is, an opinion) and it is what it is - but I do respect your belief in your friend and I am sorry that my post upset you.

What upsets me is someone saying that a 53 man sentenced to life with 25 to serve before parole got off easy. Do you think at 53 he'll even make it to 25 years? What he got was a drawn out death sentence. I'm curious what you think he should have gotten?

 

[Nylorac]

What upsets me is someone saying that a 53 man sentenced to life with 25 to serve before parole got off easy. Do you think at 53 he'll even make it to 25 years? What he got was a drawn out death sentence. I'm curious what you think he should have gotten?

I am sorry to upset you but I must ask what you think he should have gotten if he was actually guilty? I know you truly believe he is innocent. I don't want to push this - I appreciate that you know him and believe in him and if you are right the point is moot. However, if your are wrong then 25 years seems like getting off easy no matter what your age.

 

[AfterDark]

I am sorry to upset you but I must ask what you think he should have gotten if he was actually guilty? I know you truly believe he is innocent. I don't want to push this - I appreciate that you know him and believe in him and if you are right the point is moot. However, if your are wrong then 25 years seems like getting off easy no matter what your age.

If he was proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt which he wasn't, then what he got was all he could have gotten the max, life. The 25 years is how long before he's eligible for parole, he can apply then, doesn't mean he'll get paroled. Prison ages people fast look it up. He will not make 25 years as I stated before. He'll die long before that, there are only old looking people in prison not really old people, they just don't last. Money is what drove this, Shelly's parents are wealthy, they used that wealth to make the only person they could, pay for their daughters death. If Dave had the same resources he'd be a freeman today. Money talks especially on small island territories. I've had friends that have run afoul of the law and I hold no sympathy for them. They were proven guilty with hard tangiable undeinable evidence.
In this case there wasn't even an autopsy. Shelly could have had any number of medical episodes that may have led to her death, but we'll never know. Her gear was not confinscated by the police and held for 10 years before the trial. Serving life because of the way a pair of fins falls seems less than reasonable to me. Especially when many other reasons for her death were not eliminated.

Why would someone diving in clear water bring others on the dive with them if the intentions were to murder? Does a murderer want possible witnesses to the crime? Why wasn't an autopsy done? Why wasn't Shelly's gear held as evidence? Why after being ruled an accident for 10 years did it turn into a crime after the civil suit? Civil suits and criminal cases have little in common. Why didn't the US charge him? This is allowable under treaty if a US citizen kills another US citizen abroad the US reserves the right to charge and try the person. Too many ?????.

If I ever dive outside the USA again it'll be solo for sure.

 

[Dadvocate]

For the record, I don’t claim to know anything either. I respect After Dark for sticking by his friend, especially when it looks like there are quite a few reasons for doing so. At least as far as I cam see.

Dave shouldn't have said a thing about the fins because he said he wasn't there, but I guess someone who just lost their spouse should be expected to do everything to everyone satisfaction. They should be clear headed and clear thinking. Watson may have got off easy maybe your just confused.

That is just it. His saying that he wasn’t there should be enough to make his guesses about why the fins would be sticking in the sand evidence of nothing more than his errant assumptions about how those fins might sink. It is proof of nothing unless he said that he categorically “saw” them sink. But then that wouldn’t jive with him having lost her, which would be a much bigger problem for him than fin location in the sand.

Additionally, are we saying that the fins were literally sticking straight up like a tree in this case? Or is it more that the tips were sticking into the sand at an angle or were buried by the sand? I admit I have no idea, and I can’t recall having read this either.

Also, were the fins described as “sticking in the sand” before being recovered or were they photographed as such later on? Was it a second party that retrieved them, or was it done when the body was recovered?

Depending on the variables here (again I freely admit I don’t know the specifics) it is possible that the fins became covered in sand at the time she was being recovered from the bottom by someone we know was not Swain.

In the tests that tried to replicate the fins resting tip first in sand, what contingencies were run having the rescuing diver move them in some sort of way to meet this description?
Again, if they were literally sticking straight up in the sand, it is far less likely that they accidently ended up in this position.

Cheers!

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Good morning gang . . .

Here's a link to an article about the 2006 Rhode Island hearing. (I think this was the civil case.) No matter what you think right now, try to look at some of the facts presented here with an open mind. Don't assume he did it and this proves it. But don't necessarily assume he didn't do it and that this is too circumstantial. Try to approach it from a standpoint of "Does this show he could have done it?" and "If he didn't do it, whatg other possible reasonable explanations could there be?"

This article references specifically the fins. It also mentions that while there were other people there, they weren't in the water at the time. And FWIW, there's a comment in the second column about ditching the weightbelt that I personally think is an overstatement. And I know there's some controversy about "the other woman" angle so don't even factor that in.

Here's the link:
CDNN :: Woman Testifies David Swain Made Romantic Advances 8 Months Before Wife Died Scuba Diving

- Ken

 

[Ayisha]

Well, that article is the first reference I can recall that her air was turned off. My next question was if it was ever on fully and that was answered by her diving for about 8 minutes before stopping breathing. So her air was on, but she was found with her air turned off.

This article is also the first reference I can recall about Swayne himself mapping his position around the wreck which put him right back to where he left her and within sight. He left her after about 5 minutes and went around the wreck, which the experts estimated would take about 3 minutes, bringing him back to her position at about the time she stopped breathing. It makes no mention of his wherabouts the next 27 minutes before surfacing.

Neither of those look good, in addition to the fin tip(s?) stuck in the sand (there is mention of only one fin tip in the sand), but the gear being recovered by other divers the next day is not exactly retrieving evidence in a timely fashion or allowing a proper chain of custody.

There was an autopsy, was there not? There was mention of medical factors being a non-issue.

 

[AfterDark]

Thanks for the article Ken, now I have more questions.
The mask was found later by another diver. How does that affect the evidence chain?
What happened to the mask between the time it was removed from Shelly face until it was found. If the fin was in the vicinty of her body why not the mask? It's heavier and less bouyant then a fin.

Hyma stated Shelly had no medical condition that would have caused her to drown.
Without an autopsy isn't there reasonable doubt there may have been though unknown at the time?

Her weight belt was still on. Seems to me I read of divers bodies being found with weight belt on quite often on the site.

Friend or no friend I don't see the reasonable doubt threshold being crossed.

I'll add to this that I was a LEO for a time and I am reasonably well versed in rules of evidence and what's admissable and what isn't. Thanks again Ken.

 

[Ayisha]

The article in the first post states:

No DNA evidence or eyewitness testimony tied him to the death, and defence lawyers argued that a botched autopsy report could not rule out a heart attack or other natural causes.

So an autopsy was done. Was the issue that the autopsy may have been "botched" or that the report may have been "botched"? Exactly what made it botched and how serious was the botching?

Also, he apparently defended himself, although the quote above mentions defence lawyers. They perhaps meant that the defendant argued.