Just some Dadvocate ruminations to pass the time.
Tina’s father appears to have put a lot of thought into the “how” and “why” of this case.
In an article in 2009 (cited below), he claims that Watson got the idea for the murder from the apparent “near perfect” Swain case from the Bahamas. It would certainly go a long way to establishing motive IF the prosecution can make a better than idle connection there, though Swain’s conviction appears to be suspect on several grounds as well.
The problem is, as a diver, it would be perfectly understandable if Watson were to read up on a case like this (as many of us did), so I don’t know if Internet searches and the like found on a hard drive would be as damaging as evidence as it might be in other cases.
Tina’s father has hinted at money being a motive because he claims that Gabe thought he was the benefactor of her employment insurance. He has also alluded to Gabe killing Tina in order to make sure that no on else could have her. These wavering claims have stood in contradiction at certain points in this saga and could be brought up again.
Keeping well in mind that newsprint ought to be taken with a grain of salt, the ideas posted
HERE seem to indicate that Tina’s father would be willing to accept any scenario where Gabe’s motive can be established. Well, in my opinion he seems to be motivated in this way.
What I find the most interesting where a potential insurance motive is concerned is why Gabe wouldn’t simply have procured DAN insurance for the trip under the acceptable condition that DAN provides emergency services particular to diving that cover costs that other insurance doesn’t. Hidden within that coverage of course are loss-of-life payouts if someone should die on a dive trip.
If Watson had really wanted to avoid the obvious ploy of getting Tina to upgrade her insurance and make sure he was the benefactor, all he needed to do was sign them up for DAN on a family plan prior to going to OZ. When asked about doing this after the fact, he could easily have said he got the coverage because of the specialized care given to divers under such a policy.
On the issue of Gabe’s apparent obsession with Tina, he had married her recently. What real risk did he have at that time that she was going to leave him? One of the ministers connected with the Watson family claimed that Tina was very close to Gabe’s mother and spent a great deal more time with the Watson family than her own. If this is true, wouldn’t this bolster Gabe’s feelings that she was happy with him (despite a suggested affair during their engagement)? She was at least his in the sense that she married him.
Regardless of the veracity of any of these claims, they exist in the public record and they paint a picture of a prosecution and family grasping at anything that can make Gabe guilty of premeditation, the key ingredient in any homicide conviction.
And this before we ever get into the massive holes in the evidence that actually establishes that Gabe killed his wife in the first place.
Ayisha’s suggestion that Gabe could have harboured anger over the affair could make that premeditated connection but this type of anger could also be used to establish a snap reaction that happened later on in OZ and not in Alabama. This is huge because if Gabe had been burying his feelings about the alleged affair and then saw his wife being chatted up by some handsome Aussie lifeguard, he might have hatched the plan right there and not anywhere near the US.
If so, the entire jurisdictional issue blows up and the case ought to be dismissed right there. It would certainly lead to an interesting grounds for an appeal at the very least if Gabe Watson were convicted of say aggravated murder or something along those lines based on a plot that happened after they left the US.
This case remains interesting after all this time.
Cheers!
I can easily understand Tina's family's anger and with Gabe as a focus point
Sad but I can also understand the anger Gabe would feel if he and Tina did love each other but people where doing/saying things that "defiled the memory of the love/dreams they shared"! 
