The ex-girlfriend of a wealthy US businessman found hanging in his Bermuda guest apartment turned down his marriage proposal the day before he died, an inquest heard this morning.

Anya McHale, a forensic psychologist with the Department of Court Services in Bermuda, told the probe she met Peter Dimitri Pappas - known as Dimitri - while on vacation in the Cayman Islands where he lived in 2002.

They split up a year later, but got back in contact when he came to Bermuda in summer 2005, she said. Ms McHale said Mr. Pappas, 35, an accountant and financier, seemed stressed about work at that time.

On July 19 2005, the day before he was found dead, Ms McHale said she had a conversation with Mr. Pappas during which she declined to marry him.

Mr. Pappas returned to his room at Brightside Guest Apartments in the early hours, she said. His body was found suspended by two belts from a rail in the closet of his room the next day, after Ms McHale told the Brightside manager she had not heard from him.

The inquest, which is being heard by coroner Juan Wolffe, has heard two different theories about Mr. Pappas' death from different experts.

A pathologist who examined the body in Bermuda said yesterday it was highly probable that Mr. Pappas committed suicide. However, a US pathologist who carried out a second autopsy at the request of the Pappas family raised the possibility he died by accident while engaged in self-strangulation, which is used by some people to obtain a sexual climax.

See tomorrow's edition of The Royal Gazette for full details on the ongoing inquest.