Fatal Honeymoon or just poor judgment

[CuzzA]

Yes, but it is possible that it was an accident and nothing more. Sometimes we pre judge people, we turn circumstance into motives or we force dots to be connected.

The problem I have with this whole deal is it appears "a lot" of people's stories changed or their stories didn't add up, there weren't any scuba experts involved in the investigation, the media got involved, and the investigation itself was shoddy among other things.

So, we can prosecute and judge him all we want in conversation, but at the end of the day there's a reasonable doubt that he may not have done anything except be a really crappy dive buddy, which he pleaded guilty to and served time. I'm sure that's why the case was tossed after the prosecution presented its case here in the US. Pretty rare thing to have happen.

I'm all for prosecuting and punishing criminals, but I've also seen quite a few examples of overzealous prosecutors more focused on getting a "W" or "plea deal" rather than actually reconsidering if they should proceed with the case (especially once the media puts pressure on them, seen a lot of that lately)... Of course we all know the stories of innocent people being jailed or punished with the death sentence, so there's that.

Your 3 major points why you believe he killed her are there was an attempt to increase life insurance, his story got better over time and the bear hug.

I can add a little insight about life insurance being that I sell it, while it is indeed a possible motive in many murders, the media and perhaps even authorities portray many death benefits as huge and excessive amounts of money when in fact the vast majority of people in the US are grossly under insured. If people actually took the time to calculate how much insurance they should have they would be shocked. I don't know the particulars of what happened with this case, but I'm always advising my clients or potential clients to actually crunch some numbers with me and we almost always find they need to increase their life insurance. If Gabe and/or Tina had met with me, there's a good possibility I would have advised them to increase their death benefits. Also, I will add that if the policy on Tina was medically underwritten, Gabe would likely have known whether or not she proceeded because in order to increase your death benefit you almost always have to prove insurability, which requires meeting with a nurse and that meeting almost always happens at a persons home. The exception here would be a group policy at her work which doesn't require proof of insurability.

I think it's quite common for people to get better at telling the same story over time and perhaps more details or answers are remembered when we continue to think about it, while some details may actually be forgotten or skewed. Unfortunately the human brain does not work like a computer hard drive and when we retrieve data the brain can distort what really happened, which leads me to the last point.

This same phenomenon happens to witnesses as well. Michael explained that it actually wasn't Gabe bear hugging Tina, rather a fabrication of what someone thought they saw.

http://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=831

Dr Stanley Stutz [only "20 or 30 dives" and he had not dived in "maybe even 10 years"] who as I mentioned was one of the Jazz II divers (doing an Advanced course) was one of the last to descend (note that he was not an Advanced or Resuce diver at this time as has been claimed later). He stated to the inquest that he was at about five metres when he saw a diver (Diver 2) holding another diver (Diver 1) in what was later described by Police as a "bear hug". He said "The look on her face was awful, I had the belief she knew she was in danger, her eyes were wide open". However, he later admitted that he could not see the hands of Diver 2 (presumably Gabe) as they were shielded by his body. Dr Stutz also said that he could not see the wreck when he saw all this happen, although in one statement he said he could.



Comment: I have now had the opportunity to read Dr Stutz's evidence to the Inquest in full as well as two other statements he made and an email he sent to the Queensland Police. I know that he never stated he saw a "bear hug" (more about this in a second) when he witnessed this encounter. In his evidence, it is clear that what he has described is virtually exactly one section of the story that Gabe told the Police in both interviews/statements. I suspect that perhaps his evidence has been compromised by things he was told when he was on Spoilsport after Tina died and perhaps when discussing what happened with the other doctor who was involved in the attempted resuscitation, Dr Downie.
I believe that Dr Stutz's memory of what happened is an honest attempt to to recall what he witnessed but it has got better as the years have gone on. This is contrary to what normally happens. I have added a summary of each of his statements and interviews to show this. See part 6 for the link. At the Alabama trial he said that he thought Diver 2 was trying to save Diver 1.

Dr Stutz stated that he saw a diver "falling basically, and she was moving her arms, not unpurposely, and her legs similarly". Then he saw another larger diver (Diver 2) "come into the picture... and I thought - my perspective was that he was helping her. And he came and sort of came on top of her, almost like a sort of mounted position, and from my perspective I thought he was - had his hands around her to try and bring her to the surface. Something happened. ....maybe she'd pulled her [sic] regulator out of his mouth, or kneed him in the groin. ...And they split part". In simple terms this would appear to be when Tina dislodged Gabe's mask and knocked his regulator out of his mouth, but I am not sure it was even Gabe and Tina he saw. Stutz says all this happened [pg 648] to his left, meaning that as he would have been hanging onto the line and thus pointing into the current, he was actually facing west. He said that they were together for a maximum of 30 seconds and as little as 10 seconds.



Comment: Also, it seems very strange that Dr Stutz said he could see the two divers who everyone assumes are Gabe and Tina but could not see the wreck. They were actually a little below the top of the wreck, so you would think if he could see them, then he should have been able to see the wreck.
Remember that Dr Stutz (if indeed he was underwater at this time - this has to be considered suspect - see above) was at least 6 metres horizontally and 11 metres vertically from Gabe and Tina (Dr Stutz was at 5 metres by his admission). This is a distance of 12.5 metres. In his first statement he said the divers were only "20 feet" from him - 6 metres.

Later he also admits that the hands of "Diver 2'" (Gabe) may have been just under the armpits of "Diver 1" (Tina) armpits and not under her arms and behind. He also said he could clearly see Tina's eyes, but as an experienced diver, I doubt you can see someone's eyes from this distance when visibility was only 15 metres. I personally have never been able to do this at a distance of 12.5 metres, even in 50 metre visibility. My wife and I did some tests in 15 metre visibility and we were not able to see each other's eyes when more than about 5 metres apart.

In addition, if Diver 2 had his hands/arms under Diver 1's arms, they must be so close together that their heads are almost touching. Certainly if Diver 2 is grabbing the tank valve they are touching. From tests my wife Kelly and I conducted on 11 January 2012, I can state that a diver off and up at an angle cannot see the face, let alone the eyes, of Diver 1.

However, I have very serious doubts that Dr Stutz could have seen Gabe and Tina for the following reasons. By the printout of Gabe's computer and using Wade's start time to synchronise, it was 10:35:30 am when Tina sank away. In addition, evidence from Alana McMahon, Second Mate on Jazz II, shows that the group which included Dr Stutz entered the water from their boat at 10:35 and 10:36 am. She also stated that it took them perhaps two minutes to swim from the boat to the DAP2 buoy. Therefore, they could not have descended till 10:37 or 10:38 am at the earliest. Alana McMahon and Barton Painter said that Gabe surfaced at 10:40 am, although it was more likely 10:37:45 am. Brian Fotheringham said it was 10:49 am. Based on Wade Singleton's computer printout and Gabe's printout (assuming the download of Wade's computer was done correctly - Uwatec computers when downloaded use the time and date of the laptop/desktop computer to work out when a dive started - so long as this time is correct, the time of the dive is exactly correct), the time he surfaced was 10:37:45 am. Evidence from McMahon, Painter, Leanne England, all on Jazz II, and others confirm that Gabe surfaced less than a minute or two after the Jazz II divers descended and Wade and Tina surfaced less than two minutes later. Jarrod Fisher [pg 487] said that he resurfaced about the same time as Gabe surfaced [but in his statement says it was after Gabe had surfaced], further indicating that the Jazz II divers did not descend till just before Gabe surfaced.

Therefore I believe that Stutz could not have seen Gabe and Tina together. In any case, I believe that who he saw were Wade Singleton, Dawn Asano, Gary Stempler and Claudia Petersen and the two divers were Gary (diver 2) photographing his wife Dawn (diver 1). In the photographs I have of Dawn (taken by Gary), she appears to be waving her arms about - using them to maneuver around. This is what an inexperienced diver does (which she was - this can also be ascertained by her vertical diving position).

 

[clownfishsydney]

Ken, thanks for your comments. I really appreciate all you write on this forum and find it (with a couple of others) to be stuff I almost always agree with 100%. That being said, I have a few comments to make on what you have written and will refer to the points you made:

1 Nothing to comment.
2 Yes, the simple solution is often the right answer. In this case, the simplest solution is it was an accident.
3 The Queensland Police considered it an accident till pressure was put on them from above (from possibly the Police Commisioner or Assistent Commissioner) to treat it as murder. In turn, they were put under political pressure which originated from US politicians. The first part was admitted at the murder trial by the chief Queensland investigator, the second is known from letters written by the politicians.
4 The "bear hug" never happened. No one witnessed it nor is it in any statements. The term "bear hug" was used by a witness to describe Wade Singleton bringing Tina to the surface. Somehow the police stated to use that term to describe how Gabe held Tina and that was then used forever after by them and the media. IT DID NOT HAPPEN.
5 Gabe's story DID NOT CHANGE. I have ready every statement he made, every statement made by others he spoke to and then put it in a table that shows what he said about each aspect of the dive. Not every statement by him or others mentions all aspects of the dive, but essentially they are identical except for one thing. He told Tina's father and sister (if what they said is true) something he never said to anyone else. However, even this recollection may be suspect as the two police statements are almost identical, as if one was created and the other copied. This indicates poor police work by the Alabama police officer concered.
6 Mike Ball had nothing to do with Mike Ball Dive Expeditions at the time that this incident happened. However, we know Gabe told the truth about the battery and the dive computer/transmitter as the dive computer did work on the first aborted dive. Therefore, to claim that it was this battery that was in back to front could not be correct.
7 Point taken, Tina might still have died if she was escorted as per the Queensland law, but it is also highly likely that a professional diver could have successfully brought her to the surface.
8 On the second dive they were in fact in front of and below the most experienced and qualified person on the boat, so this is not really plausable.
9 As far as I am aware, there is no video of Gabe telling Tina to increase her life insurance. He did contact a friend of his to investigate getting more insurance for him and Tina, but decided to do it after the trip (evidence from the insurance agent). Tina could not increase her work insurance till a set date which was after the trip returned. In any case, Gabe was not the beneficiery of this insurance and could not be till that date when she could change it. Gabe ended up with a huge debt from Tina, even the insurance would not have covered it.
10 See comment 4 above about "bear hug". The embrace was allegedly witness by Dr Stutz. However, from my experiments conducted in similar visibility (not on the Yongala - although I have since done it there), there is no way he could have seen what he described. In fact, I do not believe that he was even underwater at the time this occurred, based on the timelines given by multiple people on the day crossed checked with the two dive computers that were downloaded afterwards. Stutz saw something, but has become convinced he saw them. In any case, his recollections got better as time went on, this does not happen.
11 Agree
12 Agree
13 Gabe has always stated he grabbed hold of Tina as she was dropping away. This was an attempt by him to get her to inflate her BCD. He stated he grabbed her BCD.
14 See 13
15 Agree that a panicking diver will normall bolt for the surface, but remember that Tina was grossly overweighted and even if her BCD was full, it would not have even made her neutral. Even if she kicked as hard as she could, she would never have gone up more than a few metres. By the way, my wife and I both overweighted ourselves by the same amount and we could not get more than a metre or two off the bottom before tiring.
16 They were not mid water, they were on the top of the wreck when 13 happened. I believe that when she did drop away in the quite strong current (after she had knocked Gabe's mask askew and his reg out of his mouth), he was so bouyant from trying to assist Tina, he could not go down more than a metre or so. He was also panicking by now and did not have the idea of venting air from his BCD.
17 As stated by Dr Carl Edmonds, more time is needed to ensure the person is dead than was available. In any case, based on your senario, how did the reg get back in her mouth? He also ascended quite quick at an angle towards the people he could see on the mooring line. Calculations done by Dr Edmonds and confirmed by me show that this was a very quick ascent, albeit at about 45 degrees. There is no way you are going to go up vertical if you can see people off at 45 degrees who may be able to help you.

Anyway, hope this clarifies some things. Happy to answer any reasonable questions.

By the way, I should also point out that a legal paper reviewing the case by an experienced Canadian prosecutor, Victoria Colvin, is available on my web site at http://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/watson/Gabe Watson Paper.pdf. It makes very interesting reading.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Like I said, no intention (nor time) to retry the case here and doubnle-jeopardy would preclude that anyhow. Either justice prevailed in Alabama or he got away with it but in either case, there won't be another trail. But one thought about this statement:

13 Gabe has always stated he grabbed hold of Tina as she was dropping away. This was an attempt by him to get her to inflate her BCD. He stated he grabbed her BCD.

Apparently, according to an ABC News story, that not what he testified to at the Alabama trial. He said Tina panicked and knocked his mask off and by the time he got it back on, she was sinking and out of reach. (Full article - http://abcnews.go.com/US/photo-drowned-newly-wed-tina-watson-evidence-honeymoon/story?id=15635232.)

Both things can't be true. He can't have grabbed her BC and also been unable to grab her BC. Like I said earlier, lots of things about his story don't - in my mind at least - add up or seem to make sense. Awful lot of excuses, and many times I think flimsy ones, for what happened.

- Ken

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Another take on this with reference to yet another analysis: http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2012/02/gabe-watson-and-honeymoon-murder-case.html

- Ken

 

[clownfishsydney]

Apparently, according to an ABC News story, that not what he testified to at the Alabama trial. He said Tina panicked and knocked his mask off and by the time he got it back on, she was sinking and out of reach. (Full article - http://abcnews.go.com/US/photo-drowned-newly-wed-tina-watson-evidence-honeymoon/story?id=15635232.)

- Ken

As much as I like Nikki Battiste who wrote that article, there are a couple of problems with that article Ken. Also, Gabe never testified at the Alabama trial. Most of the comments in the article come from the opening statements, not from any actual evidence. The only person who gave evidence on that day of the trial (Day 2) was Detective Senior Constable Kevin Gehringer. The statements come from his answers to the prosecution's questions (he was not cross-examined that day). For example, Tina DID NOT knock Gabe's mask off, she hit it and it moved enough to fill with water and required Gabe to let go while he refitted it. He then noticed his reg was not in his mouth.

I can send you Gabe's signed statements that show he first grabbed her BCD, then when Tina knocked his mask, he let go to fix everything. He also did not refind his reg, he used his octopus (Air-2).

 

[Socal326]

I got through most of ClownFishes articles and wow, they are incredibly detailed and well thought out.

Ken, I think most of your reasons for thinking it was murder would be explained if you read past the intro page--at least the first few sections.

You site news stories, and news stories are notoriously inaccurate, as I am sure you know. ClownFishes articles are a result of a lot of primay sources and he doesn't need to spice up the details for ratings. It's a long read but well worth it. With your extensive background I'd be interested to hear your opinions regarding what he presents. Does it change your mind or do you still feel the same way after reading them?

 

[PhatD1ver]

Guys,I just like to hear both sides. Though I will say this. The one piece of information Mike pieced together and laid out (that any good investigator should have done) was to simply lay out the dive computer information, and to apply the rules we all use about air consumption and the air in the tanks of both Gabe and Tina.

The most damning thing to the entire case for the prosecution, is that somewhere between 14-16 METERS (45-50 feet folks), that she panicked. I assume that it was because she found that she couldn't control her bouyancy, and now her wetsuit is nearly compressed besides being overweighted.

But even if he 'planned' to kill her, are we then saying that this guy is some kind of genius who can orchestrate such an elaborate plan underwater when he is barely able to manage himself?

Would Achem's Razor accept that the most obvious explanation was that he saw her struggling, immediately thought "THIS IS MY CHANCE!" and then to wait for her to finish a panicked exhale, pull her reg out, and then block all other observation by multiple divers for nearly 90 seconds - including Wade who was just above - and then return the reg to her mouth, fake a gesture to go after her, and release her to fall to the bottom? and then fake his own accent?

That seems to me not to be about the most 'far fetched' explaination that could be offered, not the most simple. To choose one, you can't eliminate all the variables that support it's feasibility.

Now, if she had been found with her reg out of her mouth? I'd say that's more simple.

It's finding sufficient TIME to do the deed that is what doesn't work for me. Seriously, is it a simple explantion to say, in 7 minutes a diver can descend with his spouse, at 4-5 minutes surprise her by pulling her reg, then watch her drown, and put it back before bolting in a controlled, but accelerated rate to the surface?

And to plan to do it all the way around the world? I mean, why wouldn't he just do it in the quarry? On one of those cold, unsupervised dives?

 

[Ken Kurtis]

As I've said here and privately to Michael, I don't intend to delve too deeply into retrying this case, let alone on ScubaBoard. However, I want to respond to a couple of things in this post because I think you're making many leaps of faith along with not paying attention to some things that are being said:

The most damning thing to the entire case for the prosecution, is that somewhere between 14-16 METERS (45-50 feet folks), that she panicked. I assume that it was because she found that she couldn't control her bouyancy . . .

Don't assume. Stick with only the facts you know. When you assume, you may be assuming in a way to direct you to the outcome you've already reached.

But even if he 'planned' to kill her, are we then saying that this guy is some kind of genius who can orchestrate such an elaborate plan underwater when he is barely able to manage himself?

Or he's clever enough to appear unskilled.

Would Achem's Razor

Occam, not "Achem".

accept that the most obvious explanation was that he saw her struggling, immediately thought "THIS IS MY CHANCE!" and then to wait for her to finish a panicked exhale, pull her reg out, . . .

Put on the brakes Mr. Assumption. You start by assuming she was panicking as you described above. Again, I haven't gone over the details of this in years so this is from memory but . . . who says she was panicking? I believe that comes from Gabe. Could be a self-serving statement. But maybe she was panicking. Could she have been panicking because he was trying to kill her?

and then block all other observation by multiple divers for nearly 90 seconds - including Wade who was just above

My recollection is that Wade was on the Spoilsport and jumped in when Watson surfaced and said Tina was down below. I don't recall that Wade was hovering above them while all this went on. (Which also would have created a key witness.)

. . . and then return the reg to her mouth . . .

This is actually the part that bothers me the most.

In all my experience of examining incidents with unconscious (not necessarily dead) divers underwater, I'm trying to think of a single incident where the reg was IN the diver's mouth as they lie on the bottom. I can't think of one. Generally, people pass out underwater and lose consciousness, their mouths/jaws go slack, the reg falls out.

So how does the reg stay in Tina's mouth? Is Tina possibly the first person to pass out underwater and keep the reg in her mouth? Interesting coincidence. Now I suppose you could argue that she fell backwards with her mouth looking up and landed on the bottom that way and that's why the reg stayed in. But again, when I think back to all the panicked divers I've either observed or heard about, what's the classic first thing they do? They spit the reg out (and bolt). So what we need to believe - and maybe this is really it - is that Tina Watson is panicking and clapping down on that reg as hard as she can and when she goes unconscious, her jaw does NOT slacken and the reg stays in. Or . . .

Maybe after she lost consciousness, Gabe jams it back in her mouth and does such a good job that THAT'S why it stays put.

Parallel story of David Swain, charged with killing his wife, Shelley Tyre in the BVI. Similar story, comes up without her, don't know what happened, she's found dead on the bottom. The piece of that puzzle that made no sense was that one of her fins were off and found jammed tip-first into the sand. Bill Oliver (a friend of mine) was the expert who ran tests on the fin. Swain said that it must have come off as Shelley tried to reach the surface for some reason. Bill conducted numerous tests o the fins, letting them drop from various height and they always ended up tips up, not down. The only way he could get them tips down was to jam them into the sand. The conclusion was that Swain did this after he killed Shelley to stage the scene. It was a fatal mistake that got him convicted. (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...ley-tyre-scuba-diving-murder-article-1.387659)

So I see something similar here (in addition to the other things that seem out of place) of the reg-out-the-mouth. I'm thinking that it's hard for that to have occurred naturally.

fake a gesture to go after her, and release her to fall to the bottom? and then fake his own accent?

If you accept the premise that he's trying to kill her, yes on all counts. Again, staging the scene.

I'll close with an open case we have here (L.A.) that I think was a murder. Without going into too much detail, guy & gal diving, guy surfaces screaming for help saying his girl is unconscious underwater, he goes back down to get her, brings her up a few minutes later, she's dead. He says they were in the kelp, they were looking to surface, she ran out of air, they tried to buddy breathe, she panicked and pulled the reg (and maybe mask) from his mouth, he panicked and surfaced to get help and then went back down for her.

Equipment inspection (by me) revealed that there was 1500psi in her supposedly out-of-air tank. The nipple on her BC was halfway unscrewed making it impossible for the BC to hold air. She carried a pony bottle attached to the tank but the pony had no reg on it and the pony valve was half-way unscrewed. She wore a men's drysuit (first time - belonged to him) that was way to small for her. And there was no inflator hose hooked to the drysuit to counteract squeeze from being at depth.

In my report, I said that while none of this meant he killed her, if you go the other way and assume he WAS trying to kill her, these are the type of things he would have done to make her uncomfortable and able to be easily killed. For various reasons, the case was not pursued criminally.

Flash forward a couple of years. Same guy is in court on some relatively minor charge. Might have been domestic violence. Has a new girlfriend who is testifying against him on the stand. Is basically asked if he has ever tried to hurt her. She says, "Well there was this one time when we were scuba diving that he tried to kill me . . ." Hello????????

I will get around to reading Michael's stuff but like I said (1) we don't need to retry this case again, and (2) people's minds (who have known about this previously) are probably fairly well made up. PhatD1ver, you seem to have come to this recently and it's all new and exciting to you. Others of us hashed this over many years ago when it was fresh. I'm just one of those who's not convinced it was "simply" an accident because there's too many things that are hard to explain except by saying "Coincidence." And in the words of a very wise criminal investigator (Leroy Jethro Gibbs of NCIS), "There are no such things as coincidences."



- Ken

 

[Dr Simon Mitchell]

For Mike Ball Expeditions (who until I came upon this incident while looking into a trip I thought about using), I guess I'm now going to look elsewhere for our Barrier Reef liveaboard experience we are planning for 2017.

Hello,

I have some insight into this case; I was one of many expert witnesses. I don't really want to get into a discussion about it, except to say that I agree with Judge Nail's decision to abandon the case through lack of evidence to prove murder. That is not to say whether I think Gabe did it or not.... just that I don't think it could be proven that he did beyond reasonable doubt. It will have left Tina's family in a terrible state, but I do think it was the only possible decision.

I just wanted to pick up on your point about Mike Ball's operation. The Watson event was over 10 years ago and there were many factors and nuances that influenced the decisions that were made that day. One must be VERY careful judging such decisions after the fact when the outcome is known. Anyway, my main message is that I got off a trip to the deep reefs of the Coral Sea on Mike Ball's boat yesterday and I have to say that it was one of the most professionally run, careful, operations I have seen. Moreover, they achieved a high level of safety and supervision where required without being at all intrusive on the activities of the experienced divers aboard. It was truly superb, and their operation is virtually the only one that goes to places a bit more off the beaten track than the typical "3 or 7 day diver runs" out of Cairns. Far from avoiding them I would give very serious consideration to using them.

Simon M

 

[Peter69_56]

Another interesting thing about memory. It has been proven that over time what we will swear is what happened, is actually our memory that has been changed by time and additional detail since the incident. It has been scientifically proven that over time, the files our mind stacks away are changed by the mind itself. It updates the memories based on detail seen, spoken about, experienced etc since the incident. The memory doesn't make it Rev 1 or 2, it simply updates the file. This is then the file you think you saw and will swear to, is actually an updated version of the true event. Sadly our memory of the time can be corrupted by our own mind, unintentionally.

For me I am in two minds about the case, and there is only two people in the world who know the real truth, and that is Gabe and Tina.