Tina Watson was a 26-year-old American woman from Helena, Alabama, who died while scuba diving in Queensland, Australia, on 22 October 2003. Tina had been on her honeymoon with her new husband, fellow American Gabe Watson, who was initially charged by Queensland authorities with his wife's murder. Watson pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
Evidence presented at the trial included Watson's differing accounts of what had happened on that day, of the couple's diving experience (or lack thereof), and of Tina's life insurance. While Watson was serving his term in Australia, authorities in Alabama flagged an intention to charge him with murder at a later date. After his release, he was deported to Alabama on the condition that he would not be sentenced to death if found guilty of murder. Watson was then put on trial, but on 23 February 2012, Judge Tommy Nail dismissed the murder case due to lack of evidence.
Background
Christina Mae "Tina" Watson (nee Thomas) was born in West Germany on 13 February 1977, before relocating to the U.S. while still a baby. On 24 January 1980, she was legally adopted by Tommy and Cindy Thomas. They lived in Walker County, Alabama, with her younger sister before moving to Louisiana then Birmingham. David Gabriel "Gabe" Watson met Tina while they were students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and they began dating in January 2001.
Despite an earlier diagnosis of paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT), Tina began diving lessons in January 2003, and earned her certification just before her wedding to Watson on 11 October 2003. Watson was purportedly a qualified certified rescue diver, with experience in the lake at Oak Mountain State Park. Watson had completed 55 dives by the time of their marriage, and Tina 5. The couple had planned a scuba trip in the Great Barrier Reef for their honeymoon, and flew to Sydney for a week before heading to Townsville. They chose to dive the popular yet difficult wreck of SS Yongala, a passenger ship that sank in 1911, even though Watson had limited open ocean experience and Tina had never dived in the ocean or below 9 metres. The dive company had also offered an orientation and guided dive with a dive master, which the couple had refused.
Incident
At around 10:30 am on 22 October, during an excursion from the dive boat Spoilsport to the site of Yongala, Tina lost consciousness and sank to the bottom, below the water's surface within two minutes of beginning the dive. Watson claimed the currents were stronger than they expected and that he responded to a signal from Tina to return to the dive rope, where he noted a look of worry on her face before she accidentally knocked his mask and air regulator loose. When Watson recovered his sight, Tina was sinking too quickly for him to retrieve her and he quickly surfaced to get help. He also stated that an ear problem prevented him from diving deeper to help her and that there was nothing in his training as a rescue diver "about how to get somebody" in trouble to the surface.
Other divers nearby at the time, including Dr. Stanley Stutz, saw Watson engaged in an underwater "bear hug" with his "flailing" wife, after which he headed for the surface while Tina fell to the ocean floor. One diver, Gary Stempler, photographed Tina by chance while taking a picture of his own wife that showed Tina in the background. The photo showed her lying face-up on the ocean floor, something that did not come to light until a couple of weeks later when the pictures were developed. Watson climbed aboard the Spoilsport and alerted dive instructor Wade Singleton, who brought Tina to the surface after ten minutes underwater. She was taken aboard the adjacent dive boat Jazz II, where a doctor tried to resuscitate her for 40 minutes while Watson remained on the Spoilsport, but she was unable to be revived.