Diver Indicted in 2003 GBR mishap

[ItsBruce]

There are explanations for the observed facts, namely Tina sank and Gabe surfaced very slowly. However, to the extent one believes what Gabe purportedly said about it, his statements seem to negate the explanations. That, as I have sad, leads to suspicion.

I am still struggling with the mechanics of how Tina died. As to that, I am pretty comfortable concluding he did not shoot her. I am equally comfortable concluding he did not stab her. Even with those conclusions, there are lots of ways he could have killed her. The problem for the prosecution, at least as I see it, is that other than that she ended up dead, there does not seem to be any actual evidence that he employed any of those and in diving there are lots of ways to die without foul play.

 

[TekISBest]

Really?
40 feet in 2 1/2 minutes is the same as 30 feet per minute?
Really? That is more than double the conservative ascent rate you have given.
It is clearly no runaway ascent.

You are correct, I stand corrected .. It was 2 1/2 minutes not 1 1/2 minutes.. That would make it about 1/2 the max rate..

 

[bowlofpetunias]

There is a LOT of information and links in this thread... some of us have been following it virtually from the beginning here. Kgirl's other thread has compressed information and links that may be helpful.... I wouldn't want to read back on this thread at this point.

Lots of arguments for and against... video links of Gabe's interviews and that of witnesses.... heaps of information that all together leaves a very bad taste.

Is he guilty.... not until a court says so after examining all the evidence... do I think he is innocent? hmmmmm???..... was it planned.... after reading/seeing his interviews... I am not sure he is smart enough to get dressed without assistance..... was what happened criminal??? in my opinion yes.... criminal stupidity.... criminal negligence.... but I don't write the laws and I am not on the jury so what I think really isn't significant.

It is tragic that an young lady lost her life in such a way, that her husband desecrates her grave. Does Gabe have a lot to answer for .... Absolutely... was it murder? Not till a jury says so!

 

[madprops]

I have yet to dive at all so maybe I can do some out of the box thinking for you guys/girls

as I am not a diver yet try not to blast me to hard


I have looked at this whole thread in a matter of 3 days so it is all really fresh in my head (not to say I won't mess up). I am also great at finding things that most people tend to miss. You guys and girls have done a great job of going over most of the ways he could have killed her as well the ways that it could have not been his fault. As i think he killed her I was more looking for other ways he could have done it. Plus I am not a diver yet so I would be no good on the other side. So this is my account of what i think went down. My story if you will......


I think he had a plot to kill her from the start. He starts her off in scuba training knowing that she is not really into it. After taking the class who is to say how much training she held on to. I know when i'm in a class I don't really want to be in I don't try really hard. So at this point she has her "training" after that he is free to cloud her mind with anything thing he wants. As he has many more dives then she does plus he is her soon to be husband why would he lie. So using this power he tells her that if you put the batteries in the wrong way your computer will start beeping at you as you start to dive. Some time passes and he ask's her to switch her life insurance over to him (and maybe up it i can't remember). She tells him she has done it and he has no reason to think she is lying. A week or so after that they get hitched. Enter the honeymoon dives. He tells his wife after the 2nd dive that the batteries in his dive computer are shot and that he had to change them out. On there 3rd dive right after they start diving with the group he taps his wife/dive buddy and gives her a sign to go top side then he heads up and she goes with him not knowing whats up. They get to the surface (out of ear shot of the boat) and he tells his wife/dive buddy that his computer started beeping at him and he must have put the batteries in upside down. She says ok knowing that he just changed them. So they head to the boat to change the batteries. once enough time had past and he felt the group was far enough ahead he tells her its all fixed and back they go to start their descent and their dive. At some point in the dive he gets to her back and kills her air right after he sees her breath in (2 sec or so after he sees bubbles) then moves to her front. As soon as she can't get any more air she does one of two things. Number 1 she looks at him and gives him the OOA sign. at this point he moves at her and either makes it look like they are going to buddy breath or like he is going to give her his octpus. she see's this and spits her reg out waiting for his help but it doesn't come. He just sits there so she does what most people would, panic and jet for the surface. as soon as she starts to take off he grabs her legs. Number 2 she doesn't give the OOA sign and just takes off for the surface then he grabs her. So with both one and two we are at the same point. She keeps trying to get away but can't (if you want to go with number 2 she spits out her reg in the struggle to get free)(plus with no air in her lungs and her tank turned off she would have no way to fill her BC even if she had tried to). When she goes limp (the clock starts 0:01) and starts sinking he grabs her reg and fits it back in her mouth with the air still off. As she keeps sinking he moves over her and grabs her (at this point are good doctor has just started watching and keeps watching as he thinks he is seeing a diver helping his buddy). He now has her in a "bear hug" with the reg placed against his chest to make sure it stays (0:08). With his hands free he starts to feel for her air valve to turn it back on. Again one of two things happened. Number 1 he did not account for the adrenaline rush he was going to get after turning his wife's/dive buddies air off and holding her as she fought for her life and took around 30 sec to find her air valve and turn it back on. Or number 2 he did not want to turn her air back on to soon as he new her brain would try and breath again (with the reg now back in her mouth her brain would still tell her to breath but she would get no air if it was off and no more water would get into her lungs this might be why less water was found in her lungs then in most people who drown). So he either can't find the air valve or he found it and now is waiting to turn it off. (0:13) The doctor is still watching and see's him with his "bear hug" on her limp body. After he either finds the air valve or thinks she is not going to start breathing again he turns the air back on. (0:38) at this point even if everything is going to plan he is going to have an adrenaline rush. he lets her go and moves off to "go get help". On the way up he takes his time so he can cool out and stick to his plan also so she has more time to die. (as she went unconscious with fear/panic in her eyes they might have stayed that way hence the doctor seeing fear in her eyes) The doctor seeing all of this keeps eye on the limp diver for a bit to she if she is going to move. if there was even a small current and she was dragging on the bottom the doctor could at first thought the limp body was moving and that's why he did not get help right away. After 2:30 of kicking his legs off he gets to the surface (right after the doc has went for help). (3:08) When he is on the surface he starts his "cry for help". Right away his cries are answered as a diver enters the water after seeing the limp body on the ocean floor (3:12). As the doctor finds help he is told there is a diver helping (he now see's the diver streak past in the water). The rescue driver that dove in to help has now found the body and is bringing her up to the boat (4:21). At this point in are story i have to pause and give you the info on why she was puking. When a body is dying it does many things to try and live. as a former lifeguard on lake Ontario I have seen a lot. I have seen a heart restart on its own. I have had a person puke on me when then had no life signs (and did not live). I have lost 3 people and saved 2. Some people would say that i'm a bad guard cuz i can't even save half the people i get back to the beach. but those people don't know how hard it is to save some one once they have no life signs. it is sad but it doesn't happen all that much. once you are "dead" out side of a hospital most of the time you are staying that way. So my point to all this is puking is its one of the last things some people do. It can even happen when the heart has stopped. So now that's out where were we... (4:21) With this much time past her heart may have already stopped beating as with her panic she used up a lot of the oxygen in her blood. plus she did not have the best heart to start with (some one had posted that she had something wrong with her heart). As the rescue diver is bringing her up she starts puking as per what some people do when their brain is just about to fully shut down. The rescue diver gets to the boat with the limp body and hands it off to the people on the boat (4:38). They bring her on the boat lay her down and checked for pulse and breathing (4:52) then they start CPR. thats 4:52 with out any new air/oxygen getting into her body. also after and long panic most of the oxygen in her blood is gone and her brain does not have much oxygen to live on from the start of her going unconscious. By this point in are story our man is on his boat and getting nervous not having thought the rescue would be so fast. They keep giving CPR for a long time and there is know way he is going to go over to her when in his mind she could pop up and say you tried to kill me. I mean what is he going to do finish the job on the boat. So he waits till he knows she is dead then goes to her and starts the grieving husband act.

We are at the cop shop now. This part was not thought out as well. Now some people who lie all the time start to think their lie is the truth. thats what i think happened to are wife killing husband. He didn't have a reason to go back to the boat so he told the cops the same thing he told his wife (the batteries were in his computer the wrong way). Weather he believed he was telling the truth or he just thought the cops would buy it he screwed up and his story all goes down hill from there. Mostly cuz he didn't think any one would see anything and i don't think he thought about the cops checking his dive computer.

I'm not going to take my story anywhere past this point. most of you are already bashing your head off the computer screen with this story of mine cuz i'm not a diver and have no clue what i'm talking about.
B4 you get to mad and load up to have at me let me tell you this. That was just a story. A story of what i think might have maybe happened. in closing if this is what went down i hope with all my heart she did not know that he was killing her. Its bad enough to die but to know the person you love is killing you.... That would be awful

As I said at the top of this post I have not even been on one dive yet so go easy on me I tried the best I could to get the dive talk right.

On the off chance you think that was great (or at lest that parts of it were) feel free to tell me as it took me the better part of a night to think of and write. Or you may give me a job in your law firm

Now feel free to pick apart my story as i could have missed something making this whole post a wast of time!

 

[madprops]

holy crab that was longer then i thought. I guess thats what my teachers ment by apply yourself lol

 

[froggs]

Froggs, there was an article early on in this thread as well as the coroner's report which discussed weighting for both of them, but we could not find reference to their specific exposure protection. Don't recall exactly how much now, but it was discussed in this thread if you care to look WAAAAY back.

I think I'll pass on digging that info up!! I've been following this thread since the beginning and the thought of re-reading it...well, you know!!!

The only reason I brought it up was due to the recent questions about her being heavy and him being light. I just wanted to see if that even sounded reasonable. Oh well!!!

 

[Ayisha]

Froggs, here is the discussion of Tina's and Gabe's weighting from page 50 of this thread (I just looked at my posts to find the ones on weighting). I think there is no question that Tina was extremely overweighted no matter what exposure protection or gear she was wearing with 38 lbs of lead. Gabe, a much bigger person, was wearing much less lead, and his computer showed a steady profile, so it is clear he was not struggling with buoyancy, and therefore correctly weighted and neutrally buoyant.

Originally Posted by JClynes
In the transcript it appears to indicate that Tina was wearing possibly 38lbs, or 17Kg. Without knowning her size/body type, difficult to say whether she was overweighted but that certainly sounds very overweighted to me. And he was wearing 13.5Kg. That seems like a huge amount of weight.

Take a look at the picture of her final moments or any other published picture with her beside Gabe or other people for comparison. She is clearly a slim female. Gabe is a stocky male, much larger than her.

We don't know whether she was using a steel or aluminum tank or what capacity tank or the thickness of her wetsuit or the lift of her BC, but 38 lbs would be a massive amount of weight even in the most weight-requiring set-up (7 mm wetsuit, aluminum larger tank) for a female of her apparent size. It makes no sense that a man of Gabe's apparent size was wearing less than her.

For example, with a 3 mm full wetsuit in salt water with an AL80, I wear 8 lbs.
In a 7 mm 2-piece wetsuit with hood, gloves, etc., in (cold) salt water with an AL 80, I wear 22 lbs.
Somewhere around these weights or a little higher would be pretty common for slimmer women if they are correctly weighted, just as a comparison.

It seems that she was definitely very overweighted.

 

[Ayisha]

Madprops, there are many known facts from the coroner's report that are incorrect in your story about how it may have happened, WAY too many to list.
For example, poor Tina never made it past her first dive in Australia. Technically, they surfaced briefly after beginning the first dive to "fix" the battery, so it was sort of 2 dives, but it was the whole boat's first dive on that liveaboard.
Another example is that no one ever stated that Tina ever lost her reg. In fact, she died with the reg in her mouth, with her air on and air in her tank, and she did not have water in her lungs. Gabe said that HE lost his reg due to her panic, not that she lost her reg.
Yes, according to Tina's father, Gabe did ask Tina to increase her life insurance and name Gabe as the beneficiary, shortly before they were married.
The Doc saw Tina in Gabe's bear hug and then falling lifeless to the bottom, not her body drifting in the current.
Tina's body was seen on the bottom AND recovered by an instructor from another boat AND CPR had been started BEFORE Gabe even made it back to the surface (his leisurely ascent, remember).

It would really be helpful if people keep the facts straight so that someone new to the incident does not think the incorrect information is supported by fact.

 

[MasterGoa]

The coroner report not have the autopsy report?

It will have her size and weight.

She looks fit in the pictures, I cannot see her
weighing more than 140lb in which case she
is severely overweighted.

I am 6'4" @ 235lb and use 6lb with a full 5/4mil.

MG

 

[madprops]

Madprops, there are many known facts from the coroner's report that are incorrect in your story about how it may have happened, WAY too many to list.
For example, poor Tina never made it past her first dive in Australia. Technically, they surfaced briefly after beginning the first dive to "fix" the battery, so it was sort of 2 dives, but it was the whole boat's first dive on that liveaboard.
Another example is that no one ever stated that Tina ever lost her reg. In fact, she died with the reg in her mouth, with her air on and air in her tank, and she did not have water in her lungs. Gabe said that HE lost his reg due to her panic, not that she lost her reg.
Yes, according to Tina's father, Gabe did ask Tina to increase her life insurance and name Gabe as the beneficiary, shortly before they were married.
The Doc saw Tina in Gabe's bear hug and then falling lifeless to the bottom, not her body drifting in the current.
Tina's body was seen on the bottom AND recovered by an instructor from another boat AND CPR had been started BEFORE Gabe even made it back to the surface (his leisurely ascent, remember).

It would really be helpful if people keep the facts straight so that someone new to the incident does not think the incorrect information is supported by fact.

thank you for pointing that out. i have read the thread just not all the links on it
do we know when the docter started watching them ?? my main point to all of that was what if he only started watching after she was out cold?? or at lest after the air was turnned off. maybe the bear hug was to turn the air back on ?

plus I still think he went back to the boat to give him space from the dive group even if it was their first dive he could have still say the same thing about needing to fix his dive computer