Diver Indicted in 2003 GBR mishap

[farsidefan1]

How did he kill her? Nothing certain or there would be no debate. One possibility (in my mind quite strong) is that while "hugging her" (as seen by other divers) he turned off her air and held here till she stopped struggling, then turned it back on and left her. Were that to be the case (unproven of course) one could say he crossed the line and killed her. By the way, he said she panicked and took out her regulator and removed her mask in one version but when the divemaster got her both were in place. Hmmm.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

:blinking:good questions... obviously the answers can not be given without access to more evidence which I am sure will come out in court.

I believe there is motive and failure on Gabe's part to do what most would consider to be reasonable. He behavior during the dive, during attempts to revive Tina, during interviews and after arriving home might disgust decent folks but it doesn't prove murder.

In my eyes he may be a scum sucking bottom dweller:depressed: but not a murder until the jury finds him so.

 

[K_girl]

Docbonezz:

Thank you for your reply to my post. You have identified a number of inconsistencies and incongruities. They may well rise to the level of lies, i.e. knowingly false statements. What you have identified would make most any reasonable person doubt anything Watson says. And, as many others have pointed out, there is evidence of motive, i.e. possible financial gain. However, we still seem to be missing a mechanism for Tina's death that gets us to murder.

I have little problem seeing that Watson may have been negligent or even reckless in taking Tina on a dive that was beyond her competence level. I have little problem seeing that Watson may have been negligent in trying to save Tina or in failing to do so. I can well imagine that he may have tried to escape liability for what he perceived as negligent conduct by concocting a story about what happened.

But, I have not seen anything showing how he killed her.

Consider for a moment the husband who is sitting on the beach and sees his wife drowning. It would be easy for the husband on the beach to rescue his wife. It would be even easier for the husband to call a lifeguard. However, instead, he decides to do nothing. Then he concocts a series of lies to explain why he did not even try to help his now dead wife.

Assume the police decide to charge the husband with murder and that they assert that he held his wife under water. Where is there evidence of this? As I see it, motive and lies do not get us there.

Am I alone on this?

Back to Watson: How did he kill her? Did he turn off her air? Did he take her regulator out of her mouth? Did he contaminate her air? Did he cause her to ascend so fast she embolized? Did he induce a heart attack? What? (And for anyone who answers, where is there evidence beyond the fact that she is dead and he is a liar with a motive?)

BTW: I would not dive with Watson if he were the last buddy in the world.

As one reader pointed out, there was a doctor in the water who witnessed the incident. Watson's description does not match the witness description which was - he had her in a bear hug, the witness thought he was rescuing Tina, but then he witnessed that Watson purposefully let Tina go and she sank. Then he witnessed the dive instructor go down and retrieve Tina. He witnessed this event from a critical point in time. That's evidence. The jury will determine who is lying and who is telling the truth, but they will not discount this evidence. No, there is not a shapshot photograph showing that Watson turned Tina's air off, but that kind of evidence is rarely available in any criminal case.

The other piece of hard, physical evidence is Watson's story about the computer beeping with the battery in backwards. There is no equivalent story about lying on a beach and not going into the water to save someone. There was something very deliberate about it and difficult to come up with an explanation of innocence. It is evidence. It should not be discarded.

The burden is beyond a reasonable doubt - not beyond any possible shadow of a doubt. Unless the defense can come up with an explanation for these two key pieces of evidence, they will weight heavily against Watson, as well they should.

 

[TekISBest]

Then he says he's kicking and kicking in a valiant effort to save her. It takes an average of 20 kicks to go 100 feet (well, my average during the Advanced Class), which is five feet per kick. Meaning, he only gave 2-to-3 kicks of effort to save her. So if he is really doing as much kicking as he says he is - he would have to travel more than just 10-14 feet. That's really what will sink his story, his computer will not show the dramatic dip he is talking about - and that is what the police is focusing on. . To me, that is not the dramatic kicking-down effort that Watson described.

From his testimony:

WATSON: ..cause if we were at forty something feet and I think my computer said fifty-four you know that was just a matter of ten foot or less going down..
---
WATSON: I couldn't grab her hand because she was, you know, maybe five feet below me or something like that. I don't really know. I went down, started kicking down, and I was kicking down. But as fast as I was kicking down to go get her, she was going down just as fast..

**********

The only other argument Watson might try to make is that there was an upwelling current that he was fighting and that is why he was kicking so much, getting nowhere. But he never claimed that and if that was true - you can't explain why Tina was sinking instead of rising. Again - the dive instructor went down very quickly to retrieve Tina and brought her to the surface - so an extremely rare bottom-up current being the cause of his getting nowhere with all the kicking, just won't hold-up.

Tiny is sinking below him and out of range by 5 feet or so. He could point his head down and kick his heart out and not hardly go anywhere. This would be due to the fact that his bouyancy is holding him at the depth he is at. This would easy explain why he could not catch her. Try this yourself.. go down 50 ft.. level off.. make yourself a little light and allow yourself to come up 3 ft.. Now try and kick down against the lift of only 3 ft... you will work your ass off trying to recover..

What if his bouyancy had him light at the time he tried to dive downward to catch her. In the panic and not realizing he is light to start with would produce the statement he gave from your quote above..

I am not defending him.. i am pointing out that other facts can be in play here...

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Tiny is sinking below him and out of range by 5 feet or so. He could point his head down and kick his heart out and not hardly go anywhere. This would be due to the fact that his bouyancy is holding him at the depth he is at. This would easy explain why he could not catch her. Try this yourself.. go down 50 ft.. level off.. make yourself a little light and allow yourself to come up 3 ft.. Now try and kick down against the lift of only 3 ft... you will work your ass off trying to recover..

What if his bouyancy had him light at the time he tried to dive downward to catch her. In the panic and not realizing he is light to start with would produce the statement he gave from your quote above..

I am not defending him.. i am pointing out that other facts can be in play here...

interesting concept.... but carrying that further.... if he was light... why was his ascent to the surface so slow?

 

[Ayisha]

Tiny is sinking below him and out of range by 5 feet or so. He could point his head down and kick his heart out and not hardly go anywhere. This would be due to the fact that his bouyancy is holding him at the depth he is at. This would easy explain why he could not catch her. Try this yourself.. go down 50 ft.. level off.. make yourself a little light and allow yourself to come up 3 ft.. Now try and kick down against the lift of only 3 ft... you will work your ass off trying to recover..

What you are describing is a runaway ascent already in progress. Gabe Watson did not have any runaway ascent. In fact, his computer apparently showed that he maintained a steady depth - AND a painfully slow 2 1/2 minute ascent from 40 feet - not a buoyant ascent. He in fact controlled his ascent MUCH too well.

What if his bouyancy had him light at the time he tried to dive downward to catch her.

The weight that we wear is to compensate for the thickness of our exposure protection in the first 10 feet or so from the surface. The weight that we wear is to allow you to descend those first 10 feet AND to do a safety stop without holding a line and do a controlled ascent from your safety stop(s) to the surface. The weight is NOT required to get you deeper because your exposure protection is already compressed. In fact, we need to ADD air to stay off the bottom. Once you break the surface, you can descend rapidly with little or no weight - depth is not where weight is needed. Gabe maintained a steady depth of 40 or 45 feet, so he was not experiencing difficulty with buoyancy. Therefore, his weighting and buoyancy control seemed to be just fine and DO NOT support the theory that he was "light" for any reason.

 

[ItsBruce]

How did he kill her? Nothing certain or there would be no debate. One possibility (in my mind quite strong) is that while "hugging her" (as seen by other divers) he turned off her air and held here till she stopped struggling, then turned it back on and left her. Were that to be the case (unproven of course) one could say he crossed the line and killed her. By the way, he said she panicked and took out her regulator and removed her mask in one version but when the divemaster got her both were in place. Hmmm.

If he turned off Tina's air, that gets right to murder. But, other than that she is dead, is there evidence of it? That is my problem. The diver who saw him "hugging" her has not publicly stated he saw Watson turn off Tina's air or turn it back on. (There were two opportunities to see something.)

Also, my recollection, and someone correct me if I am wrong, is that it was Watson who lost the regulator and mask, not Tina.

The inconsistencies and bizarre conduct leads to suspicion. And, rightly so. (That is why no one should ever speak to the police ... especially without an attorney present.) Suspicion and guilt are two different things.

Incidentally, I just read a most fascinating legal case in which the appellate court did a very detailed analysis of a particular police interrogation, which resulted in a young man being convicted of molestation. If anyone is interested, PM me and I'll try to e-mail a copy. It makes fascinating reading, though I will not give away what the court ultimately ruled.

 

[Yoshua]

The fact that he has rescue diver training courses, had his wife in his arms according to an eye witness account and then 'let her go' would be enough to give me more than a small doubt that he had a hand in her death.


But I am not on the jury.

 

[TekISBest]

interesting concept.... but carrying that further.... if he was light... why was his ascent to the surface so slow?

Imagine the following.. A doctor in the water says when he let go of Tiny she sank. He says when he let go of Tiny she sank and he could not catch her... therefore..

While he has a hold of Tiny they appeared to be staying in the water colume at the depth they were at. I have not heard anyone say they were rising or sinking noticeably. However, move 3 feet up or down in the water colume will result in a complete accend to the surface or complete sink to the bottom without compensation. Also, both of them could move up or down as much as five feet and it would NOT be noticeable when watching from a distance. Tiny was heavy because she sank the moment he let go. Therefore, he would rise in the water colume as soon as he let go. Tiny alive or dead at that moment will result in Tiny sinking in the water colume. Clearly she did not have have enough air in her BC to lift her up or keep her from sinking. Depending upon how heavy she was all the kicking in the world would not keep her from sinking. What i have not heard... After Cabe let go..Did anyone see Tiny moving at all. Kicking... trying to swim upward..

He would also rise slowly at first in the water colume until his BC expands more and more as he accends.

Most divers will not maintain their bouyance at a depth once they begin task loading. It's a hard thing to do and takes lots and lots of experience. Both of them were completely task loaded with the situation.

I am not defending him. I am just saying that i can explain alot of what eye witness saw without calling it murder...

 

[ScubaSteve]

I still see him as guilty but here you make a compelling argument IMO.

Imagine the following.. A doctor in the water says when he let go of Tiny she sank. He says when he let go of Tiny she sank and he could not catch her... therefore..

While he has a hold of Tiny they appeared to be staying in the water colume at the depth they were at. I have not heard anyone say they were rising or sinking noticeably. However, move 3 feet up or down in the water colume will result in a complete accend to the surface or complete sink to the bottom without compensation. Also, both of them could move up or down as much as five feet and it would NOT be noticeable when watching from a distance. Tiny was heavy because she sank the moment he let go. Therefore, he would rise in the water colume as soon as he let go. Tiny alive or dead at that moment will result in Tiny sinking in the water colume. Clearly she did not have have enough air in her BC to lift her up or keep her from sinking. Depending upon how heavy she was all the kicking in the world would not keep her from sinking. What i have not heard... After Cabe let go..Did anyone see Tiny moving at all. Kicking... trying to swim upward..

He would also rise slowly at first in the water colume until his BC expands more and more as he accends.

Most divers will not maintain their bouyance at a depth once they begin task loading. It's a hard thing to do and takes lots and lots of experience. Both of them were completely task loaded with the situation.

I am not defending him. I am just saying that i can explain alot of what eye witness saw without calling it murder...

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