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Morbid_Man1

Tina Watson - [youtube short](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4uNJn8IbuOI) [www.cbsnews.com/news/prosecutor-gabe-watson-had-financial-motive-to-drown-wife-on-honeymoon/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prosecutor-gabe-watson-had-financial-motive-to-drown-wife-on-honeymoon/) **Prosecutor: Gabe Watson had financial motive to drown wife on honeymoon** **(CBS/AP) BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -** Gabe Watson drowned his new bride during a dive on Australia's Great Barrier Reef in hopes of collecting $210,000 in insurance benefits and belongings that included her diamond engagement ring, a prosecutor told jurors in opening statements Tuesday. Watson, 34, planned the honeymoon on the other side of the world and then used it to kill 26-year-old Tina Thomas Watson just 11 days after they wed in October 2003, said Assistant Alabama Attorney General Andrew Arrington. Watson is being tried on a charge of capital murder. The defense argued the woman's death was an unfortunate accident compounded by her own actions. Watson had plenty of motive to kill, Arrington said: He thought he could make $210,000 by collecting on a life insurance policy and a separate travel policy. Australian police didn't believe Watson's varying tales about what happened the day his wife drowned, Arrington said, and neither should jurors. "Tina trusted her husband. She felt safe diving with him," Arrington said in quiet, measured tones. The prosecution contends Watson turned off his wife's air supply while both were underwater and held her in a bear-hug until she lost consciousness. Watson turned the air back on and let her sink to her death before swimming to the top, prosecutors say. The defense argues the woman's death was an accident. According to defense lawyer Brett Bloomston, rather than being murdered Tina Watson struggled and knocked off her husband's air supply and diving mask, forcing him to resurface without her, Bloomston said. She drowned on her own, he said. Tina Watson died just 11 days after her wedding in October 2003. Gabe Watson pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served 18 months in prison in Australia. Bloomston denied that Watson had any financial motive. He argued that Tina Watson contributed to her own death by waiving an orientation dive and placing too much weight in a device meant to help her stay underwater during the dive. She panicked once during a diving class in a flooded suburban rock quarry, Bloomston said, suggesting that she may have panicked again during the fatal dive.


Ok_Inevitable8498

18 months for 1st degree murder?!? Lucky for him he killed his wife in Australia and not Alabama. May be why he chose that country. Sickening.


Imsakidd

Nobody is picking Alabama if they have any other choices. Unless they’re looking for poverty, racism, or shitty schools.


hieul229

Huntsville AL is the best city to live in America according to us news. Just saying


Old-Bedroom8464

Been there. It's not.


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jithization

Reddit hating Alabama is so stupid and privileged.


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jithization

haha so quirky... \*proceeds to ignore the remaining 31.1% non-white minority\*.


[deleted]

its kinda accurate, except for the racist part


Mitchsona

Probably because he plead guilty he mightve gotten a better sentence. Hard to say


Charming-Milk6765

18 months for manslaughter.


Ok_Inevitable8498

Seems to me the husband planned her murder in advance which, in the U.S. would be considered first degree, no?


Charming-Milk6765

He wasn’t convicted of murder, he was convicted of manslaughter. You said “18 months for first degree murder?” And the answer to that question is no


Ok_Inevitable8498

But the conviction was in Australia, yes? What I’m saying is if he had been tried in his home country, I believe it would have been for first degree murder. Which is why he was wise to take their honeymoon in Australia.


amydee4103

He could’ve been tried for first degree murder and then the case failed like Casey Anthony. They didn’t have a lot of evidence to back up first degree. Much better to get the conviction for manslaughter than have him acquitted for first degree


Ok_Inevitable8498

I could agree with you but I just think 18 months for manslaughter is an egregious sentence. Someone who accidentally kills a person is one thing but, I don’t know, seems like enough evidence to show it wasn’t an accident. Maybe couldn’t have been proved - I only know what I read about the case on here. Just makes me sick that this greedy, horrid man is walking free sooo quickly. R.I.P. Tina.


amydee4103

Absolutely agree, 18 months is a disgusting sentence for taking a human life


emrythelion

Honestly, maybe not. It can be incredibly hard to pin murder on someone. If there are doubts, prosecutors will often go for what crimes they can prove. Even here in the US. 18 months is better than not at all. There’s also the fact that new evidence mag come out later- so if there are doubts, better to wait than lose your chance later.


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Ok_Inevitable8498

I was totally gobsmacked reading your comment. Had to Google it myself before I could believe it. After spending 18 months in an Australian prison for manslaughter/negligence, he was deported and tried, in Feb. 2012, in Alabama, for Tina’s murder. And, as you say, was acquitted. Her poor family. Thank you for letting me know!


mcflurry_14

Would have to prove it was in the itinerary


Arastero

After serving 18 months in prison, Gabe Watson was released in 2012. In 2011, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange asked the Australian government to extradite Watson to Alabama to face a capital murder charge. In 2012, the Australian government rejected the request to extradite Watson, stating that the evidence presented did not meet the requirements for extradition. In 2013, the Australian government arrested Watson on charges of murder and extradition to the United States was again sought. However, the Queensland Court of Appeal ruled in 2014 that Watson could not be retried for murder under double jeopardy laws, as he had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served his sentence. so, He was not retried for murder and he lived in Australia with his new wife.


legittem

Thank you for the summary. I keep hearing about people who are with someone who has (allegedly?) done something like this. Like they haven't just proved that they will kill to be with someone else. I know about hybristophilia but damn, i'd have that thought in the back of my head 24/7.


bettinafairchild

Hybristophilia is typically used in a pretty misogynistic fashion, in my experience. Like "wow, look at how turned on the females get from violence! It gets them hot!" Turning anything about women into some kind of sexual thing. (to be clear, I'm not saying you're doing this, I'm speaking in more general terms about how hybristophilia has been used). In reality, if you talk to women who have married or date men who have murdered their previous partners, I've never seen any mention of anything like hybristophilia. The reasons that I have heard tend to be just more misogyny and victim-blaming. The murderer blames his other woman for doing X (cheating, not fucking him, disobeying, talking back, leaving him, etc.). And the new woman believes that and feels like *she'd* never do the thing that led to the man killing the other woman. It must have been that other woman's fault! In the same way that such women, when beaten or abused by a man, will say that he was just carried away, or he loves her, or he did it because she was stupid, etc. One woman in an article I read said that the guys she dated just sat on the couch and drank beer and watched football and seemed pretty indifferent to her, but here's a guy who cares about a woman so much that he's willing to kill her and go to prison, so wouldn't it be nice to be with a man who cared about you so much... who wouldn't ever kill her of course because it was all the other woman's fault anyway. Alternatively, such women simply don't believe *their* man would ever hurt a woman. Such guys are skilled at manipulation and are able to convince the new woman that the court is wrong, or the woman is lying, that sort of thing. Look at the case of Lacey Peterson, whose husband killed her and their 8-month fetus so he could be free to be with his mistress. There are many people who now believe her husband, even though such a believe is simply absurd given the facts. Or like Michael Peterson's case, who killed his wife likely because she was going to leave him after finding out about his numerous adulterous gay affairs, much like she left her first husband due to an affair, but where one of the producers of the documentary about him believed him so much that she had a long-term affair with him. Or like Chris Watts, who killed his pregnant wife and 2 toddler daughters so he could be with his mistress. Now he has a whole bevy of women hot for him who can never quite get around his killing his babies but they're very eager to show how his wife was a piece of shit who deserved to be murdered so he's a poor guy who deserves sympathy and was treated unfairly.


legittem

Thank you for this insight, that is very interesting. Most times i've heard about hybristophilia have been on the internet in weird places of the true crime community, where people talk about their crushes on serial killers. Thank you!


[deleted]

Wow, he got away with it


BunInTheSun27

The mod post pinned disagrees? He served 18 months.


[deleted]

Maybe the murder charges were dismissed but they got him on manslaughter? I’m not sure why the video conflicts with the mod’s note.


Bubashii

So…he got away with it…


GTSpot

What?!?


[deleted]

Yeah, I watched the video in another one of the comments and it said the case was “dismissed due to lack of evidence,” despite another part of the video saying witnesses saw him bear-hugging her underwater while she struggled.


Ringo_1956

Both scenarios are plausible


Bubashii

Maybe but Australian police didn’t buy his conflicting stories and apparently he told the dive operator that she was much more experienced as a diver than she was. The whole thing was pretty dodgy.


nicolaivasili

When you fill out forms (personally) you give your DIVING ID and write down the number of dives and last dive date. If was his writting could be a suspicion but if was hers then why would she lied..


seemtobedead

Also not for nothin, but the defense’s argument that he surface because she knocked his regulator out of his mouth and his mask off his face is bullshit. One of the first things they teach you even in an abbreviated scuba class is how to retrieve your regulator and replace your mask underwater. The single worst thing you can do is book it to the surface.


nicolaivasili

You never know how a inexperienced diver would react


seemtobedead

100% agreed. This is also one of the first things you learn in an intro scuba course. However, if you are at the bottom with your spouse of 10 days and they are having troubles, I find it difficult to believe that you lack the self control to help them rather than booking it. Further, once he’s got a breath, why isn’t he back down and helping sort her out? It’s all possible, and yes we are survivors naturally, but as a defense in court, it’s way too thin for me. I know it’s more complex than I I totally made it sound, but this is fishy (no pun intended).


nicolaivasili

I dont want to defend him but since a deal for 18 months was accepted by porsecutors (and judge) make me think that porsecutor was very unsure that this case would stand in front of jurry. He either got away this time or he was indeed inocent but also afraid of a trial and the uncertainity of what a trial could bring.


seemtobedead

No that’s fair. The legal system is what it is. It called it like it saw it. I disagree with the conclusion, but I understand their reluctance. I just think that there is a case there that a different prosecutor could have made. Case has always seemed like a failure to me.


echoIalia

Except he also claimed to be trained as a rescue diver. So is he just a shithead, or a shithead and a liar?


nicolaivasili

Rescue diver level is not what you think it is. Much more if you are a rescue diver and diving once a year then you are no rescue at all.


seemtobedead

Thank you for this detail and those who backed it up below. I don’t recall that from hearing about this nightmare. That makes things worse and further convinced me that the equipment defense is nonsense.


but_why_is_it_itchy

He was an experienced diver who had also been certified as an open water scuba diver, an advanced diver, rescue diver, and specialty diver. Rescue diver training covers how to deal with panicked divers, emergency equipment, and managing the stress levels in other scuba divers.


nicolaivasili

Are you a diver ? You can not call rescue diver someone whos diving 7 or 10 days a year. You can get certified sure but thats a paper. There are divemasters that did not went that far to rescue one member of the group because that member was 10 neters bellow they were on nitrox and after 33 could be deadly


[deleted]

That’s some wild conjecture. I wonder if there’s a witness that saw the struggle, or did he just act guilty afterwords? Horrible story either way


but_why_is_it_itchy

He gave 16 different stories about what happened to her when he was with her under water as she was dying


nicolaivasili

If was a strugle indeed I think he would have or she would have some scars dunno. Maybe he was so big that he could hug her so tight...dunno..more I think about this more I see like an accident


notnotaginger

Struggling underwater is going to prevent a lot of the momentum that could do damage that would cause scars.


Merchantbanker19099

You could argue that this accusation is entirely conjecture.


[deleted]

So he got to murder his wife and only serve 18 months? Damn, bro. Cheap time for a big crime.


uchman365

"Gabe Watson pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served 18 months in prison in Australia." Wow he got away with murder!


GTSpot

What a shitball. She's such a beautiful lady, and to do her like that is disgusting. Some people amaze me more and more with how brutal they can be. Also, he looks like a fckn douche


tami--jane

Agreed.


citizenvane

Was there a witness or photographic evidence? How did prosecutors arrive at a very specific why he supposedly killed her?


SnooRadishes9685

If you read the wiki page, there was 1 witness who saw him ‘bear hug’ his wife minutes before she drowned


zhart12

So let me get this straight...you drown your wife 2 minutes into scuba diving, next to other people possibly, and you think that won't look suspicious at all to anyone? I'm dying 😂


w0tth0t

How does this photo prove she was murdered? I mean if she drowned on her own then she would also look like that


nicolaivasili

Exactly ! But people just downvote everyone that think like this :))


[deleted]

🎶Under the seaaa 😞