it's hard to think that could happen. >> a scuba diver and his wife on a dream vacation. >> shelly -- >> she never reaches the surface. what happens some 80 feet down? prosecutors called it murder. >> eye wife lost in the deep. >> turned off her air supply, did that happen? >> absolutely not. >> now, hold your breath for the twist. >> that was one of the most surreal moments of my life. >> the last dive.

welcome to ""dateline"" everyone. it's the case some called the perfect crime. the setting sure was perfect. set in the caribbean, a getaway vacation for a stressed out couple from new england. but only one of them came back alive. prosecutors would claim it was cold blooded murder. see what you think happened in those warm tropical waters. even after two juries had spoken, this case had a whole new ending. here's dennis murphy. >> for most of us who enjoy spending time in the water and an occasional swim, a dunk in a backyard pool will suffice. for the more adventurist, only total immersion in the ocean will do. a ticket to paradise. >> a majestic world. it's just awe inspiring. >> it's incredibly peaceful. you're down there with the fish. you look around you, and there's

amazing wonder. the closer you look, the more beautiful it gets. >> all of your senses are getting overloaded? your visual colors are just phenomenal. >> david and his wife shelly shared that passion for scuba diving. >> give me the water and that's where i belong. >> to escape a dreary rhode island winter in march of '99, they chartered a 45 foot sailboat with another couple and their child. if a carefree scuba vacation is what you want. it doesn't get much better than the caribbean's british virgins. >> it was a different experience for shelly? >> yes. anything to do with animals and critters, that's what she was about. >> she liked to count fish under water, he liked to photograph them. what could go wrong? as it turned out, quite a lot. they were wreck diving when it happened. >> immediately noticed that her breathing apparatus was out of her mouth.

>> i heard an emergency call there was a diving accident. and they needed assistance. >> the body appeared to be lifeless. >> what happened in 30 minutes time, 80 feet beneath the surface would be examined and replayed in people's minds for the next decade. how was it that an experienced diver like shelly should be lost just like that. and when it happened. where exactly was her husband? a master dive instructor who was her safety buddy on that dive. david sveum's explanation would eventually land him in the center of a far reaching investigation. and tonight he speaks exclusively with "dateline" about the latest chapter. >> my mouth dropped open and i'm in shock again. >> and answers the tough questions. >> i don't know what happened, i wasn't there. >> give them a theory. >> i don't have a theory. >> it's a decade long story that began in coastal rhode island. it was the early '90s when david

and shelly met. he was the dive instructor and she was the customer on a boat out in narragansett bay. >> it was a rocky day, a little bumpy, a couple of the tough guys got seasick. i paired up with her and went back in. >> she had some sponge? >> she had a lot of sponge. i was showing her fish in a way she had never seen them before. that's what got things started. >> shelly was a bundle of energy. a 5'0" tall teacher and school administrator. she was as vivacious as he was quiet. when they started dating, david was only too happy to show shelly the waters where he pursued his life's passion, teaching scuba and kayaking through his dive shop in jamestown, rhode island. here he is in 1997 giving a kayak lesson. >> it's an easy figure 8 stroke. >> he was known to his friends and customers as an honest businessman and active member of the community. likewise, the people in shelly's

circle raved about her, school parents like colleen. >> she was effervescent. always on the move, always on the go. >> shelly wore a bumble bee costume to a school event once. was seen as nothing less than a gift by the faculty and parents in suburban boston where she was head master of the middle school. >> she had an ear for every child. and when she spoke to you, she looked you in the eye and she didn't care. the world fell away, she was there focused on you, and listening to what you had to say, it was great. >> always by shelly's side, her constant companion, tory, the bernice mountain dog. shelly and david married in 1993, they didn't have children together but she quickly ende endeared herself to his two, a son and daughter from a previous marriage. >> did she fit in with them okay? >> oh, the kids loved her.

>> what do you think that thing was between you? >> a love of adventure, a love of nature. you couldn't find somebody that had more liveliness and gump shun and determination. >> if there was a marital speed bump it was shelly's weekday commute. the private school where she worked was a long slog from coastal long island. she was probably seeing more of tory the dog than david her husband. >> i think it was a god awful amount? >> at least four hours back and forth behind the wheel? >> there were times it got to her. she would be up at the crack of dawn and not be back until late at night. >> spring break 1999 would be their time to escape the grind and enjoy together what they loved best, the water. >> come spring break that year, she and her husband are going to go to the british virgin islands and dive.

one of the most beautiful oceans in the worlds. >> exactly. >> but, of course, that last trip, that last dive would go horribly wrong. how could anyone make sense of the mysterious death of shelly. >> when we come back, disaster under water. >> he surfaces screaming. >> what had happened beneath the surface? >> he's got another diver with him. i realize it's shelly. him. i realize it's shelly. >> when th thirty-eight. schools. trouble, we all should help out. under thirty-eight they do. more a year. bucks. money for schools. every school dollar must be... spent on student learning. student wins. vote yes on thirty-eight. ♪

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tortolla, the british virgin islands, sailing, diving, postcard perfect beaches. how shelly looked forward to it. she and her husband had chartered a sailboat with their friends, the other couple would be bringing along their young son. a week of diving and sailing,

whichever way caught their fancy. upon arrival, the men set out to arrange for the rental of their scuba gear. the women went shopping for provisions for their sailboat. then they motored out for their holiday at sea. to this day, no one in that group could say anything was amiss. and it was by all accounts the leisurely week that all on board had hoped for. they dove the british virgin's greatest hits, saul's island, peter island. on the morning of march 12th, they set course for the twin wrecks. keith royal has been down to the twin wrecks hundreds of time. >> they are two wrecks sitting right next to each other, bow to stern and there's a small gap in between them. the allure to that is the fish life. >> david and his friend christian were certified scuba instructors. between them they had under

1,000 dives under their belts. and shelly was no novice. she had recorded more than 350 dives. diving the twin wrecks site with its nice flat sandy bottom, great visibility and minimal currents is about as challenging as a walk in the park on a sunny day. at about noon that day, the caribbean soul docked at the twin wrecks. the friends would have the dive site all to themselves. then david and shelly made their dive plan. >> this particular time it was decided we would go down first, shelly and i. >> david says he and shelly made a routine entry into the water, and then made their way down. over the reef and across the open sand to the twin wrecks dive site. >> as we routinely did, and i say routinely, probably 100, to

150 times. she went off with her slates and started counting fish. and i went off with my camera and started taking pictures. >> as each did their underwater thing, they went their separate ways. >> when i would get pretty much around the wreck, circumnavigate the wreck, i don't see her in the vicinity anywhere. i'm thinking, all right, she's either somewhere around the wreck or she's gone off somewhere else, i head off to the reefs looking for a better photo. >> what's your recollection of the last time you saw shelly? >> as best i can recall, it was when we parted ways on the wreck. >> he says when they parted after about 10 minutes into the dive, shelly appeared fine. but somehow at some point, in what should have been a pleasant little dive before lunch, something went gravely amiss. david says he surfaced alone and spoke to christian. >> my first question is, is shelly back yet? he said no. i said, okay, looks like you're going in. >> that moment, is there any

alarm? >> no. >> that she hasn't broken -- >> he wasn't alarm, i wasn't alarm. >> christian started his dive. he would later give a statement that between the anchor line and the wrecks he found something odd, shelly's fin like this one sticking up out of the sand. when he got closer to the wrecks, he found shelly herself lying on the ocean floor face up eyes open. he quickly grabbed her and brought her to the surface. >> and then christian does come back. >> he doesn't come back, he surfaces screaming. >> what did you hear in his voice? >> the word was emergency. >> he hopped in the dingy and sailed over to him. >> when i get close, i see he has another diver with him. when i get closer, i realize it's shelly. >> how much trouble was she in? >> the idea that she was unresponsive right away, was a huge problem. >> they both attempted cpr, but shelly's body did not respond. david trained as an emt said

she's gone. >> the part that really got me was her pupils were just flat out saucers, not doing anything. that's what broke my heart and brought this whole calamity to where we are today. >> back on the boat he radioed for help. the first response was keith royal. >> the scene on caribbean soul was somber and shelly was laying in the cockpit, and everybody was very distraught. >> back on island, shelly was pronounced dead. an autopsy was conducted at a local funeral home. the cause of death, drowning. the medical examiner ruled it an accident. sveum was free to leave tortolla and return to jamestown, rhode island. he tried to settle back into his routine, running his dive shop. years later he would return to

tortolla, but this time in handcuffs. >> coming up, called an accident, could that drowning have been deliberate? a dramatic re-enactment on tape of the day in the deep. >> we wanted to find out. >> when "dateline" ♪ just put a little bit of yourself ♪ ♪ in everything you do [ female announcer ] add your own ingredients to hamburger helper for a fresh take on a quick, delicious meal. it's one box with hundreds of possibilities. of green giant vegetables it's easy to eat like a giant... ♪ and feel like a green giant. ♪ ho ho ho

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when we came home and looked at the phone and saw there were 12 messages, i immediately thought somebody died. >> colleen remembers the dayny lost their head master and friend. >> how did you take the news? >> i cried for three months in a row. it was hard. it's a hard thing to think, that someone -- that could happen to someone. >> and not just anyone, but someone so full of life as vivacious energetic shelly tire. what had happened to cause her to drown while scuba diving off the caribbean island of tortolla. back home, the newly widowed david sveum, always a man of few words shared few details, even with good friends like local marina owner big unger. >> do you remember the first time you saw him, what you said? >> yeah, i gave him a hug, there was teers from both of us.

>> the talk here along coastal rhode island, was that david sveum wasn't acting the way a grieving widower he should. he seemed detached at her memorial service. to others, he was living it up on the $600,000 he received after her death. a few months after losing his wife, he started dating again. a story started to buzz on main street about how shelly had been found under water missing some of her diving gear. some locals who knew their way around scuba, thought it didn't add up. >> was the town divided? >> certainly if you went up and down the avenue, you would find people on both sides of the issue. >> could it be, was it even remotely possible that david sveum had had something to do with his wife shelly's death? that was the question burning in the minds of shelly tire's parents, richard and lisa. ever since he returned from tortolla with their daughter's body, they demanded answers from

their son in law. answers that weren't forthcoming. >> i kept saying over the phone to him, you have the buddy system, you were there. you have the buddy system, you were there. and he just kept saying, i wasn't there. >> instead of saying you're the expert, you're the buddy, you're the caretaker of our daughter. why did you leave her? >> yeah, why did i let this happen. >> his first face to face meeting with his in-laws ended in a shouting match. for the next three years, their suspicion of foul play only grew. so much so that in 2002, her parents filed a wrongful death suit in civil court, claiming he was involved in shelly's death. >> nothing that happens in the court takes care of our pain and our loss. >> i'm very very emotional, yes. >> they hired experts to thoroughly investigate shelly's drowning. after traveling to tortola and examining shelly's diving

equipment, they reenacted this video. that david attacked shelly under water, shutting off her air supply and holding her down until she drowned. it was a shocking allegation indeed. and one that was never seriously challenged, because david sveum's lawyer fell ill and sveum himself chose not to appear in court. >> why didn't you take the civil suit -- it seems to outsiders -- more seriously. it looks like you kissed this off. it was a very serious event. >> in the civil world, he who has the most money always wins. not only did they have the most money, i had no lawyer. where was there any chance of me winning. >> david sveum did make a surprise appearance, and a last ditch effort to defend himself. >> it's a grand story, but it's just not true. >> he then called his sole witness, his daughter jennifer,

who described how her father found genuine emotion when shelly was lost. >> you told us the story about shelly drowning. you were teerful and angry. >> but it wasn't enough. >> have you reached a verdict? >> we have. >> david sveum was found responsible for shelly tire's death. the jury awarded her parents $3.5 million, though sveum couldn't pay, because he filed for bankruptcy months before. >> we found out what we wanted to find out, what exactly happened. >> the friends who stood by him throughout were shocked by what they saw as nothing less than a miscarriage of justice. >> there was no cross-examination, there was no -- i mean, nothing went on, it was totally a one-sided trial. >> the civil verdict did catch the attention of the authorities a world away. down here in tortola, the british virgin islands. officials ruled her death in 1999 an accident.

but the fine print read an accident unless proven otherwise. that gave the authorities here fresh prosecutorial ammunition. tortola reviewed the evidence from the civil case and made an extradition request. eight years after her death, u.s. marshalls showed up at the dive shop. >> david sveum is headed back to the caribbean, he is being held without bail. >> it's almost a miracle that it's happening. >> this time he wouldn't take any chances. he would launch a vigorous defense. he would now have to plan it from his new home. a fortress high up on a bluff facing the ocean, where the view can't be beat but comes at a price no one wants to pay. >> when we come back, a criminal trial begins with some surprising revelations. another diver in the life of

david sveum? >> this is the classic motivation? the classic ingredient of 34urd sometimes, the other woman? >> yes. >> when the last dive continues.

david swain had spent two years in a small prison cell on

the caribbean island of tortola. >> every day when they would let me out, i would walk for that entire time. >> now, swain would finally have his day in court. the charge, murdering his wife, shelley tyre on a scuba dive ten years before. he pleaded not guilty. and with the stakes so much higher this time, criminal not about money, but maybe decades in prison, swain came prepared with caribbean council plus a top legal team from boston. >> it's going to be a lengthy trial, the government expects to continue to call witnesses for another 12 days. >> shelly's parents also had their attorney in tow. >> the prosecution wasn't going to conduct any further investigation. they had something that was neatly packaged in their view, and they presented that in the

criminal case in tortolla. >> the civil suit became the civil suit? >> no cameras but the press could audiotape the proceedings. the prosecutor laid out his case methodical methodically. >> this man here, his wife is killed and all his dreams came true. all his dreams came true. >> dreams he would argue about insurance money, more than $600,000 and another woman in swain's life. a lethal scheme executed in an underwater setting. the autopsy had shown no underlying medical reasons for shelly to have drowned. so the key to what did happen to shelley tyre was her diving gear, how it was damaged. her snorkel missing its mouthpiece, the strap to her mask broken. the pin that held the strap in place, gone. that type of damage happens rarely in the world of scuba,

and only when great force is applied to the equipment. >> we've never ever seen this broken like this during a dive. never, ever. >> and what about shelley tyre's lone flipper stuck in the sand toe first. the prosecution said it could have ended up in that position if her foot was yanked out of it as it was pushed into the sand. shelly's scuba gear was in such disarray, meant only one thing. that shelley tyre had been attacked under water. >> what this shows is, a continued struggle with a human being. >> and the prosecution says the only human on that dive with shelly was her husband and dive buddy david swain. swain had always insisted he was nowhere near shelly when she

died. rather, he and shelly had gone their separate ways after reaching the wrecks. >> i have a vague recollection of circumnavigating the wrecks, poking around the wrecks and seeing shelly still interested in looking at something around there, and that's the last time i saw her. >> now the prosecutor said swain's own words proved he was still with shelly when she died. listen to how long he was at the wrecks before leaving shelly for the reef? >> how much time did you spend at the wreck? >> not long. certainly less than ten minutes, probably more than five. >> and after your five to ten minutes at the wrecks, what did you do? >> meander over toward the reef area to see if there was something there to see. >> according to the prosecutor, five to ten minutes into the dive is exactly when shelley tyre died. here's why, as laid out by his

experts. the prosecution's scuba expert said based on the amount of oxygen used up on that fateful last dive, they estimated she had taken her last breath at about eight minutes into the dive. meaning after eight minutes under water, she drowned. the experts said given swain's description of his dive at eight minutes in, he would have been right where shelly was, right where she was drowning. >> obviously he was there with her. when he swims away according to him, and looks back and sees her and she's fine, that cannot be true. >> why would he do it, the prosecutor asks? just take a snapshot of their life before their vacation. she had recently taken a new job to spend time with her husband, but she had also taken a pay cut. this meant shelly might quit sinking money into his dive shop as she had been doing for years.

she may be around the house more, but is this what swain really wanted? that is his second motive. >> he had started to have attraction to another woman toward the end of the -- the year before she died. >> that other woman was mary grace bazler, dr. bazler. she was a local chiropractor and freak wented the shop. david swain tried to kiss her during an evening drinking wine at her home. she rejected his advances because he was married. >> this is the classic motivation? the classic ingredient of murder sometimes, the other woman? >> yes, that is the motive we advance. >> then there were the letters swain wrote to mary basler. in one he asked a particular playmate to join him in vermont. he calls her soul mate mary. another he signs with all my

love, david. most ominously this one, five months before shelley died. i want to be with you, i can't change this mess i've got any time soon. why not just divorce. because their nuptial agreement prevented either from receiving money if they parted ways. the prosecution said swain saw another way. >> under the will if she died, he benefited from her entire estate. >> david would get the dive shop, the money and the girl. just two months after his wife's death, he and mary started dating. >> they became a couple following shelley tyre's death? >> yes, and for -- i believe it was a year and a bit and then she broke it off. >> lastly williams also brought to the stand a trio of witnesses prosecutors brought to the case. swain hardly attempted cpr on

shelly, even though cpr training mandates never to stop until help arrives. >> by all accounts there was brief cpr. >> brief meaning a few minutes? >> keith royal who testified that when he pulled his boat up to the caribbean soul for assistance, he was surprised to be told no thanks. >> he declined my offer of cpr and oxygen, and i thought it was a little strange. >> another prosecution witness was phil brown, the island dive shop owner who rented the two couple's their scuba gear. brown said that swain later came into his shop after the so-called accident and told him to give away shelly's dive gear. add it up and you had a husband who wanted his wife's diet gear deep sixed before a proper investigation. a husband who didn't really try to revive his wife. a husband who wanted her dead.

but tides in the caribbean like everywhere else run in and out. for the first time of ten years of rumors and lawsuits, a jury would hear a true defense from david swain, and the prosecutor's account that seemed as clear as the virgin islands dive site would become murky and carried over. you were canoodling at her house with a glass of wine? >> i'm not going to deny that. >> he tells [ woman ] ring. ring. progresso. i need your help... i just served my mother-in-law your chicken noodle soup but she loved it so much... i told her it was homemade. well...everyone tells a little white lie now and then. but now she wants my recipe

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tortola juries in the case of the queen versus david swain had just finished hearing from 17 prosecution witnesses. one witness that captured their attention in particular was mary basler. >> what about mary, was she your girlfriend on the side? >> she was a girlfriend after shelley's passing, not before. >> and yet there's a story told about canoodling at her place with a glass of wine, and an attempt of a kiss? >> yes, i'm not going to deny that. did i cross a line that i probably would like to have back, sure. but there was no intimacy. >> mary was feeling a void of some kind? >> i think she was being an emotional friend. she was fun to be with, she was a smart gal. >> is mary motivation for murder? >> absolutely not. >> but what about those letters

david wrote to her? >> you have a dead wife on the one hand. and my soul mate on the other. did you give the prosecution ammunition with that? >> he really laid into me. i probably didn't answer things in a way that made the jury happy. >> that idea laid out by the prosecution that with shelly gone, david swain would get the money and the girl was a juicy sounding motive. but swain's attorney says it isn't true. >> the idea of david intentionally attacking his wife isn't born out by history. he's got no history of violence, he's never raised a hand to anyone in his life. >> yet, what else but an attack would explain shelly's broken dive gear found strewn about the ocean floor. >> if i'm a juror, i'd wonder what's going on with all this scattered gear. why is the fin sticking up like this, why is this pin off this? 50ush8ly an unbreakable piece of

gear, what happened to this woman? >> all valid questions. the manual points to the signs of a panicked diver and it says they rejected their gear. >> all this was ripped off with a struggle. >> the struggle may have been with herself. it's not uncommon for panicked people to rip off their gear. >> why is that? >> when you are in a panic situation, rational thought goes out of your brain. the only thing that comes into your brain is getting to the surface. so they start clawing things off. >> and you've seen it? it's documented in the sport. >> i have rode people to the surface, slowing them down so they don't go to the surface too fast, replacing the gear as they're ripping it off their faces. >> a fresh angle to ponder. could something, a sudden medical issue or maybe a

startling sea creature have set off a shane of events that caused shelley tyre to fatally panic. in court, the jurors read the excerpts from her dive logbook. a diary in which she noted she lost it a bit to fear. dive 167, some initial panic. dive 183, panic. dive, 266 i admit i panicked. dive 274. panicked a little or more. but what about the prosecution's claim that if you believe david swain's description of his dive, he had to have been right there when shelly was drowning eight minutes after she entered the water? now the defense said hang on. how do we know shelly stopped breathing after eight minutes? in truth, shelly was so petit, she was known for using less air than an average diver. if she was just sipping at her air supply, that meant she like likely died five minutes into

the dive like swain said. >> i wasn't there, by the time this happened, i was hundreds of yards away. but if shelly had died alone, what about that confounding clue on the ocean floor? her dive fin stuck toe first into the sand. the prosecution argued it was forced in during the attack. the defense wondered about that and tried it out ourselves. >> i went down on the same area and tried to do the same thing. the only way i could get it to stick in the sand was my hands putting it into the sand. >> in other words, someone must have put it there intentionally, but who? in court, the defense brought all the pieces together in its theory of what might have happened on shelley tyre's final dive. she descends the mooring line

had been bothering shelly on her left foot, so she peels her fin off and sticks it in the sand to retrieve later. she nears the twin wrecks and perhaps a little water enters her mask. but she mushrooms into full blown panic. she tears off her mask and rejects her regulator. out of sight of her husband, david, she loses control. next, david swain would take the stand and dark family secrets were about to be revealed. would they seal his fate or set him free. coming up -- >> i've had decades of horrific things happening to me. >> a painful past, and a dramatic turn of events. >> fighting for my life. >> the bombshell that came after the verdict. when

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you really need to remember that she was this incredible life force, and she had all this energy, positive energy. so every time it came around to the criminal trial, i thought, please god, let somebody find a way back to letting people know how wonderful she was. >> that special light of shelley tyre dearly missed by so many who knew her. was her husband david swain responsible for taking it in the world? or was he an innocent man whose private ways had made a tragic accident only look like murder? a jury in a courtroom would soon survive, but not before david swain himself took the stand to answer questions from his island

attorney. >> mr. swain, when you went on the dive with shelley tyre the 12th of march, 1999, did you kill shelley tyre? >> i did not, could not, would not dream of taking the rock of my life out of the world. that's just -- no, i did not. >> did you in anyway through the course of that dive, deprive shelley tyre of air? >> it's the last thing in the world i would deprive shelley of anything. i certainly didn't deprive her of air. >> then the prosecution's turn. >> you held her down. >> i did not. >> made her become unconscious. >> i did not. >> this was within eight minutes of the dive. >> i did not. you are -- you are making false accusations. >> you got a little edgy on the stand. >> i'm sure i did. >> a little abrasive.

a little in the face. >> fighting for my life. >> missing from his testimony was the grief of a husband who had lost his wife to a diving accident. >> did you get penalized for not showing a turbulent soul that they expected. >> i'm positive i have been penalized for being what people don't express. >> david says he's always had trouble expressing emotion in a way people expect. it's attributed to a dark and secretive past. >> i've had decades of horrific things happening to me. the only way i've survived all these horrific things that have happened is to just buckle down and keep marching. >> you had a really tough childhood, safe to say? >> safe to say. >> when he was in his early teens, his father was convicted of sexually abusing a family member. then he began living as a woman and changes his name to diane.

>> what can can your teenages brain make of that, my dad is going to be known as diane? >> since we didn't have a relationship, i didn't think a lot of it. >> but nothing was more traumatic than the actions of david's younger brother ricky. >> at the time he was having his own emotional mental problems. >> my first reaction was, boy does he make a nice appearance, clean cut, nice looking young man. >> but former minnesota prosecutor jim ericson says nothing could be further from the truth. in 1976, 18-year-old ricky swain snapped and murdered his mother betdy by bludgeoning her to death in the basement of their home. >> the skull was cracked in two places. there was lots of rage in this death. >> horrible, horrible event. >> yes, it is. >> back in tortola, david swain's psychologist was prepared to explain in court how these horrible events could account for david's emotionless,

some say, behavior. >> i could see how it could blow back and say, what is the instability going on in this family? is there a demon seed? people with a pop psychology understanding might say, what's going on with this? >> should a person be convicted of murder because of pop psychology? >> was it a risk? >> i'm sorry, but i didn't have a choice to live with this truth. the truth is what it is, i just wanted to tell the truth. >> the judge denied the psychologist the opportunity to testify in part because he was a psychologist, not an m.d. now it was left to the jurors to decide david swain's fate. >> i'm coming to you live from the supreme court with the news that the jury is currently deliberating. >> then after just five hours came word, there was a verdict.

>> as they're walking in, i pretty much knew. >> you're looking at the faces. >> the body language, the faces, i pretty much knew. >> how say you? guilty or not guilty of murder. >> the jury found he is guilty. >> guilty of first degree murder. the sentence 25 years. >> how do you face that kind of time? >> one day at a time. >> give me a quick thumbnail of what your cell was like? >> 6x10, a couple bunks. a commode, a sink, no screen on the bars, so the window -- anything and everything would come in. >> bugs? >> bugs were the easy part, it's the rats, the animals and all the other things, those were the hard parts. >> david swain settled back into the misery of prison life. his only comfort was the prospect of an appeal. >> did you think he had a ghost of a chance zm. >> i did. this wasn't a good trial this wasn't a fair trial. >> almost two years after his

guilty verdict, david sveum returned to court. a three judge appellate panel listened to more than three hours of oral arguments, and then did something no one anticipated. >> the head judge ends it@all by looking right at me and saying, mr. swain you're free to go. obviously my mouth dropped open and i'm in shock again. i sit there for 15, 20 seconds, and the bailiff nudges me and says mr. swain you have to get up and walk out now. >> why did he walk? >> the panel believed in part that the trial judge had been biassed toward the prosecution in her instructions to the jury. they ruled swain shouldn't be retried because too much time had passed since shelley's death for him to get a free trial. just like that he was a free man. >> that was one of the most surreal moments of my life. >> did you think about shelley

as you left the island? >> i think about her almost every day. but, yes, i was thinking of her that day. >> he's living back in rhode island, not far from the home he shared with shelley. >> do you have to pinch yourself sometimes? >> it's nice looking at this body of water where i've spent years exploring, teaching and enjoying. >> it's also home to many people who remain convinced david swain got away with murder. >> is there still a cloud over you? are people always going to say, david swain got away with killing his wife? he was cut loose on a technicality? >> that's their opinion. i can't tell you what to think, i don't want to tell you what you think. if you want to hear the facts, i'll be happy to share the facts. i'm not going to spend a lot of energy trying to change something you made up your mind on. >> shelly's grave stone is also

close by for those who loved and admired her to visit. >> if i was to ask shelley, what do i do about this? given this situation, she would say, focus on the here and now. find the good in everybody you see around you, see life's blessings, if you need help, i'll point them out for you. that's what she would do. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt, thanks for joining us. the final faceoff on the national stage. we have a complete recap and exclusive giants coverage of the celebration and more. the news is next. about your favorite flavors. so when you call, tweet, and post, we listen. that's why yoplait light and yoplait original