David Swain lost his bid yesterday to overturn the 2006 wrongful death jury verdict instrumental in the former Jamestown Town Council member now facing a charge that he murdered his wife in the Caribbean.

In a 21-page decision, the Rhode Island Supreme Court rejected Swain’s arguments for a new trial, most notably his assertion that the Superior Court jury had no jurisdiction to find him a “slayer” and that the trial judge, Patricia Hurst, denied Swain legal representation by refusing to delay the start of the civil trial after his lawyer fell ill.

No matter which way the Supreme Court’s decision had gone, it would have had no immediate effect on Swain personally. He remained yesterday locked in a prison in Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, charged with murdering his wife, Shelley Tyre, during a 1999 diving vacation.

However, the decision did have one immediate consequence. Armed with a Probate Court order and a police escort, a representative of the law firm that represented Shelley Tyre’s parents in their suit against their former son-in-law set off to change the locks at Swain’s former dive shop, Ocean State Scuba, in Jamestown.

Ownership of the dive shop — and boxes of Shelley Tyre’s personal belongings — had for years been tied up in the courts as the wrongful death case and then its appeal dragged on.

“What this all means,” said J. Renn Olenn, the lawyer who represented Richard and Lisa Trye in their wrongful death case, “is that property now belongs to the heirs, which are the parents.”

Last weekend, Olenn said, Swain’s son, Jeremy, attempted to hold a “clean-out sale of the property,” advertising everything from kayaks to scuba gear. On Friday, when Olenn learned of the sale, he said he sought and received a restraining order forbidding any of the property to leave the now-closed shop.

Now, “the first order of business for the Tyres is to take custody of their daughter’s personal belongings, which have been so cruelly withheld by Mr. Swain,” said Olenn.

Shelley Tyre, 46, an experienced scuba diver like her husband, drowned on March 12, 1999, on the last day of a Tortola vacation she and Swain had taken with another couple and their son.

During a civil trial in 2006, Olenn presented several expert witnesses who advanced his theory that Swain had drowned Shelley Tyre for her money and at a time when he was seeing another woman. A second marriage for both, a prenuptial agreement prohibited Swain from getting any of Tyre’s assets if they divorced.

Swain, who maintains his innocence, has repeatedly said that Tyre’s death was an unexplained accident; that the two had separated, as they often did during dives, and that he had no idea what happened to her.

Olenn’s experts testified that Shelley Tyre died roughly eight minutes after she and Swain first descended some 80 feet down a mooring line and then swam along the sandy bottom to a pair of shipwrecks, where Tyre was later found.

In his appeal request for a new civil trial, Swain argued that the civil jury that found him liable for Tyre’s death did not have the jurisdiction to use the “slayer statute” against him. (Lawmakers approved the statute years ago to prevent someone who has killed from benefiting from the death.)

Swain argued that only the Probate Court is vested with determining whether an individual is a slayer.

The high court, however, ruled that parties in a civil lawsuit are entitled to a jury finding with respect to a defendant’s status as a slayer since the Probate Court can’t provide such a jury finding. “It then is within the province of the Probate Court to determine what effect, if any, that declaration has on the distribution of the decedent’s assets under a will or other instrument.”

Concerning Swain’s contention that he was denied legal representation because Judge Hurst refused to again delay the start of the civil trial, the high court again ruled against him.

Despite his contention, the court said, Swain failed to actually ask for a continuance before the trial started, a necessity for appeal purposes. Further, the court said, even if he had, it was clear by the case record that Hurst had urged Swain repeatedly to find another lawyer after one of his attorneys fell ill.

Hurst, the high court said, had to balance Swain’s interest in having a lawyer with the Tyres’ right to a speedy trial. And she did so properly, the court said.

In a related matter, Swain is expected back in a Tortola courtroom later this week, where prosecutors are conducting an official inquest into Shelley Tyre’s death.

If a magistrate finds there is enough evidence against Swain, Swain could go on trial this fall.

tmooney@projo.com