Why gabe watson killed wife

Truth would prevail. That's what they'd been taught all their lives. And it did for the most part, they believe, at least in the Australian courts. Gabe pleaded guilty to manslaughter for failing to carry out his duties as his wife's dive buddy. He is serving 18 months in prison abroad, set to be released in November. But the court of public opinion is a different story. Despite a ruling by the Supreme Court of Queensland in which a judge wrote that Gabe Watson acted stupidly but not maliciously and had no intention of harming his wife, suspicion and misconception continues to follow him.

Just recently, an Australian newspaper called him a murderer in a headline and issued a major retraction. And there's no end in sight.

King says the Australian government failed Tina, and it's up to Alabama to deliver justice. King acknowledges he is just at the beginning of the Alabama case. He has petitioned Australia for all of the evidence, and believes it will prove criminal. Thomas went on to pursue a crusade to have Gabe Watson investigated for murder, ultimately resulting in Gabe Watson's negligent manslaughter plea in Australia.

His U. In the U. The judge who dismissed the U. The footage showed Watson using bolt cutters to remove a flower display placed by Tina Watson's family. The Thomas family has said they chained the flowers to the grave site because Gabe Watson had removed other flowers from the site in the past.

There was still all kinds of stuff going on that -- it made me act different ways," he said. The 6-foot, 3-inch and bulky Watson "probably did very well to get to the surface in the time he did," which was estimated at the inquest to be about two minutes. In several statements he gave to police, Watson said he had let go of Tina because she had dislodged his mask as he towed her, against the current, to the descent line. By the time he replaced the mask, he claimed she had sunk up to 10 feet below him.

He gave differing versions of why he left her and went to the surface. But ''If you listen to Gabe's story, it is very consistent with a really straightforward, panicking diving accident,'' Edmonds said. In fact, it's like so many other diving accidents. He says the emphasis by authorities on Watson's certification as a rescue diver meant "nothing," unless he had been trained to rescue overweighted divers in an environment similar to the ocean currents of the Great Barrier Reef.

With its changing currents, the Yongala was an unpredictable "difficult, often dangerous dive. Edmonds' textbook Diving and Subaquatic Medicine was cited several times during the inquest in Queensland. He was contacted by investigators during inquiries into Tina's death, but was not called as an expert witness.

He suspects this may be due to preferences for local Queenslanders, and for financial reasons. Instead, when initially contacted by investigators, Edmonds "simply answered questions of fact saying what should happen, not what did happen'' in relation to issues including ascent rates in emergencies.

He now believes they ''may have misinterpreted what I have said and applied it to [Watson], when it really didn't apply. The court heard the couple twice refused offers of an "orientation dive" with instructors while on the trip.

However, Tina Watson was reportedly nervous about diving and had felt pressured by her husband to take up the activity. During the investigation and prior to Watson's return to Australia several stories were published detailing the widower's strange behaviour. He was caught on police video using bolt cutters to cut flowers that Tina's parents had attached to a chained stake on their daughter's grave.

Tina Watson's parents, sister and friend travelled from the US to attend proceedings and had all tendered victim impact statements detailing their "devastation" at her death.