The ex-girlfriend of a wealthy US businessman found hanging in his Bermuda guest apartment turned down his marriage proposal hours before he died.

Anya McHale told an inquest that Peter Pappas — known by his middle name Dimitri — wanted to rekindle their relationship, talking of suicide if she would not marry him.

The night before his body was found, she recalled, “Dimitri said this would be our last night together but I kept telling him I would see him the following day.”

Mr. Pappas returned to Brightside Guest Apartments in the early hours of July 20, 2005, and his corpse was found suspended by two belts from a rail in the closet of his room later that day.

The inquest, being heard by coroner Juan Wolffe, heard different theories when it opened on Tuesday about Mr. Pappas’ death.

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

Ms McHale, a British-born forensic psychologist at the Department of Court Services in Bermuda told the coroner she met Mr. Pappas, an accountant and financier, when she was on vacation in the Cayman Islands where he lived. They had a long-distance relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend for a year after this meeting in November 2002, she said, but when she broke it off he would not accept it and harassed her for two months by telephone and email.

After a year of not speaking, he got back in touch when she moved to Bermuda and they became friends, she said, but in the months prior to his death he was jealous of her new boyfriend, spoke of being stressed about work, and wanted to rekindle their relationship.

Ms McHale said during a trip Mr. Pappas paid to the Island in June 2005 she advised him to get professional help for stress, but he refused and “thought that by me agreeing to marry him, everything would be alright.”

Mr. Pappas sometimes spoke of suicide, she said, but she did not think he would kill himself as “it was more of a way to get me to do what he wanted” in terms of “if I didn’t marry him, he would consider ending his life”.

Mr. Pappas came back to Bermuda in July 2005, and Ms McHale said they spent every night together as friends, but he still would not seek professional help for stress. They went out on the evening of July 19, the last night he was seen alive, at which point Ms McHale said she was frustrated, and again refused to marry him. Despite his comment about their last night together, Ms McHale said she expected to hear from Mr. Pappas the next day. When she did not, she notified the manager of the Brightside apartments who entered his room and found the body.

Ms McHale was not asked to tell the inquest whether she believed Mr. Pappas’ death was suicide or an accident. However, taking to the witness stand after her, Mr. Pappas’ father, Jack Pappas, was adamant he did not take his own life.

“He was a very determined person who thoroughly enjoyed life, good, bad or indifferent,” he said.

According to Mr. Pappas Sr., from Solomans, Maryland, his son shared his Greek Orthodox religion which says you cannot be buried in a Greek Orthodox cemetery if you commit suicide. He also told the probe his son had much to live for in terms of his career, and was a “methodical and punctilious” person who would not have taken his life without putting his affairs in order.

He said his son’s demeanour in July 2005 was “just normal, not high or low” and he could not accept he killed himself, finding the theory “so inconceivable that I groped for possible explanations.” He listed these as including murder “because Dimitri knew too much about too many financial matters” to “a jealous boyfriend” or “a vengeful death by a business partner”.

Mr. Pappas criticised the Police investigation prior to the inquest, but said yesterday: “I have subsequently come to appreciate their professionalism, integrity, and the kindnesses that they have extended to me”.

The inquest had heard evidence on Tuesday from hospital pathologist Dr. Vernon Bowes that Mr. Pappas was found hanging with padding under the noose, which is “often present” in cases of sexual asphyxia where people trying to get a sexual high from oxygen starvation accidentally strangle themselves. Dr. Bowes told the inquest this was the only factor suggesting that as other common factors — nakedness and pornography found at the scene — were absent.

The inquest heard evidence yesterday that pornography was found on Mr. Pappas’ laptop computer after his death, but the computer was last used at 3.42 p.m on July 19. Police computer expert Pc Laurence Fox also said the computer showed past internet searches on depression and suicide, but these may have dated from months before the death.