Watson Murder Case - Discussion

[Foxfish]

Extracts from a couple of articles back in 2011 with comments from the person who initially advised the Queensland police that Gabe should have been able to rescue his wife because he was a rescue diver.

Mr McKenzie said a rescue diving course Watson had done should have made the rescue of his wife routine, but the training proved to be inadequate.

"I gave that evidence to the police, but then I found out his rescue course was over two days - in Australia we do it over four days - in a quarry in Alabama," Mr McKenzie said.

Watson had not dived for 12 months before the honeymoon trip.


"He had no hope of being competent," Mr McKenzie said.


"Now the story's come out that he couldn't even put his fins on, let alone look after her.


"I just don't see that it could have been premeditated."


Mr McKenzie said there was no way the out-of-practice and incompetent Watson should have been allowed to take his wife, who had no open water scuba experience, on the dive.

Mr McKenzie said the Queensland conviction for manslaughter was appropriate because Watson had a certificate of competency and had a moral and legal obligation to try to save his wife.


"I think Gabe is a bloody coward for not going to get his wife - that behaviour is inexcusable - but to charge him with premeditated murder is really taking a long bow to it.

"I don't believe you can charge somebody with murder when all he has really shown is incompetence and a lack of courage.

Read more: Watson a 'coward but not a killer'

And here:

''He could barely save himself [that day], let alone his wife,'' McKenzie concludes. ''I don't believe he intended to kill her.''

This amounts to a substantial retraction of McKenzie's advice to Townsville police soon after the incident.

''I told police, a diver with Watson's training should have been able to bring Tina up,'' he says. ''Then I learned from documents you provided that Watson had little sea and no rescue experience.''

An adviser to the Queensland government on diving matters, McKenzie is well qualified to speak on such issues. He has made more than 6000 dives in 50 years of diving and has frequently been called before the courts to give forensic evidence on diving accidents. McKenzie now says he does not believe the death, once again under scrutiny in another jurisdiction, could be considered a premeditated one.

''Gabe had done no diving for over 12 months. He was well outside his zone of currency. He should not have been allowed in the water alone, and never as a buddy and safety diver to his wife. The dive leader on the day also showed a lack of competence. This is not how we operate in north Queensland.''

Read more: Death at 27 metres
​

​

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Many of us have that gut feeling as well, Bruce. We also don't know if there is enough admissable evidence to convict Watson beyond a reasonable doubt.

What I'm finding in this thread, however, is that people are twisting facts to support Watson's defence rather than supplying a theory based on facts. Some of these theories propogated by posters have not even been publicly used by Watson - yet. Many of these lay "defence" theories contradict the facts.

I am also hearing from a couple of posters that the reason they are so concerned about the outcome of this case is that they are concerned about a precedent being set and being held liable/convicted due to any future actions/inactions on their part in a SCUBA accident. The case should be tried and/or discussed on it's own merits, not how it could affect you in the future. Not you, Bruce, but those that have posted those concerns.

We are dealing truths, half truths, intentional/unintentional misinformation and interpretations of them all. I don't see anything wrong with looking at them from both sides. It is no more correct to look at everything assuming guilt or innocence.

Scuba Board is commited to providing a forum for it's members to learn from each other. The accidents and incidents section where this thread originated is dedicated to looking at situations to see what we can learn to keep our community safe. Putting criminal intent or not aside the purpose of investigations/examinations of incidents is to learn what happened, recommend appropriate changes and take steps to implement them. We are not trying this case so as long as we stay within TOS I personally see no reason that I shouldn't consider how I can learn to be a safer diver from these discussions. I also see no reason why I shouldn't push to implement changes I think are needed in the industry.. whether they are triggered from discussion here or not.

I have a right to be concerned if the outcome of this impacts my diving because of decisions made. I dive in Queensland and their regulations are pretty restrictive already. So I guess if your post is aimed at me.. I am really sorry you feel that way but I maintain my right to respond in whatever way I feel is appropriate (within ToS). I do not have the right to dictate how you feel/respond nor do you have the right to dictate how I should feel/respond. We may need to agree to disagree but I believe we can respect each other's position while we do so.

I don't take McFadyen's views as gospel. I have read many statements that he has made within his blog that directly contradict the published information that we have been privy to. K-girl has also refuted some of the information and timelines that he has put forth. I don't even know what entitles McFadyen to be an expert witness beyond the number of dives he's done. Does anyone know what his qualifications are?

I agree here. We should not take ANYBODY's word as gospel. It does seem to me that he has been pretty thorough and has had access to information we have not. I do not know his certification level (Certs don't mean a lot to me anyway). I do know that he has been involved in investigations into scuba incidents, regularly leads dives with less experienced divers and has done so for years. I also know that a lot of what he is saying is pretty consistent with statements published by Dr Carl Edmunds who is one of the most respected Dive Physicians in Australia. Dr Edmunds wrote the textbook on dive medicine and has massive experience in investigations. His comments carry a lot of wieght with many people over here! Dr Edmunds stated ages ago that he had been approached by the Queensland investigators but his report was not used. His investigations and statements did not support a finding of criminal intent.

The overall impression is that once Gabe started to ascend, he went straight to the surface in two minutes. I did my OW through SSI who recommends an ascent rate of 9 m per minute with a three minute safety stop. Hence a normal ascent from that depth would have been around 15/9 + 3 = 4 minutes and 40 seconds. I’ve been taught that even in a lost buddy scenario you should still do a safety stop prior to ascending. Without the safety stop Gabe’s ascent should have taken 1 minute and 40 seconds. Gabe’s ascent rate was therefore slightly slower than the maximum advised but did not include the safety stop. It was suggested that Gabe’s ascent rate at the end was very high. This is not evident in the graph.

Divedoggie and I commented on Safety Stops a few posts back. Many think Safety Stops must be conducted but they are optional in emergencies. There is a difference between a Deco Stop and Safety Stop but I will leave that to the Dive Instructors who can explain it better and with more authority than I can.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Here are a links showing statements Dr Carl Edmunds made
Australian newspaper: Diving expert says Alabama's Tina Watson not murdered in 2003 incident | al.com

Among key Edmonds points:

• Tina Watson was over-weighted, failed to use a key piece of equipment and then flooded her lungs with water in a panic.

• Gabe Watson's long ascent to seek help was the result of his size, strong currents and distance, plus he, too, was in a panic from unsuccessfully attempting to aid his wife. Also, Gabe Watson's rescue diver certification was meaningless in the conditions of the dangerous barrier reef.

The newspaper's report also says Edmonds is the second expert to question the initial conclusions of the investigation. That second expert, who reviewed police findings, said officers had not shown him crucial certificates and logs when he first criticized Gabe Watson's conduct.

Australian newspaper: Diving expert says Alabama's Tina Watson not murdered in 2003 incident | al.com

Diving expert Carl Edmonds believes a 'grave injustice' may have been done in the manslaughter conviction of Tina Watson's husband, writes Jennifer Cooke. One of the world's leading experts on diving deaths believes Tina Watson, an American whose honeymoon death on the Great Barrier Reef seven years ago sparked a controversial murder case, was the victim of a simple diving accident.
Dr Carl Edmonds claims "a grave injustice may have been done" in relation to Tina's husband of 11 days, Gabe Watson. He was charged with her murder by a Queensland coroner after a month-long inquest but served 18 months in jail after pleading guilty to her manslaughter.
Watson is now fighting fresh murder charges in Alabama related to his wife's diving death, after he was deported to the US last year.
Sydney-based Dr Edmonds, who co-wrote Diving Medicine for Scuba Divers, and has written specialist journal articles on more than 100 diving deaths, told the Herald that Watson's account to police of the events underwater on October 22, 2003, "all fits together very reasonably in a simple, straightforward diving accident".
Tina Watson, 26, of slim build, was "grossly overweighted" with nine kilograms of weights for her first ocean dive - more than twice what she needed with the equipment she was using, he said.
After analysing her husband's statements to police, together with other medical evidence and equipment reports given to the inquest into Tina's death, Dr Edmonds believes the novice diver did not inflate her buoyancy compensator vest - as all experienced divers would have done automatically - while descending to about 15 metres, above the wreck of the SS Yongala, south-east of Townsville.
This meant that when she reached the bottom of the descent line, Tina would have been "very, very negatively buoyant, like really, really heavy" and would have begun to sink - and panic.
Dr Edmonds said that a short press of the inflator button on her buoyancy vest, as Watson told police he had seen, would not have been adequate at that depth unless depressed for a considerable time. In her ensuing panic, Tina had probably over-breathed her regulator. This led to an intake of water, loss of consciousness and drowning, while her regulator remained in her mouth, according to Dr Edmonds.
After studying Gabe Watson's dive computer data print-outs, he said Watson's perceived slow ascent to the surface, in what was an emergency situation, could be explained. Gabe Watson had not ascended vertically, as did the master instructor who found Tina on the ocean floor several minutes later and got her to the surface from 27 metres in 90 seconds.
Gabe Watson, who had already drifted away from the wreck and the descent line, had ascended at an angle towards the line - as well as against the current - to shout for help. The 192 centimetre-tall, and bulky, former high school footballer "probably did very well to get to the surface in the time he did, [estimated at the inquest to be about two minutes]", according to Dr Edmonds.
In several statements he gave to investigating police, Watson said he had let go of Tina because she had dislodged his mask as he towed her, against the current, to the descent line. By the time he replaced the mask, he claimed she had sunk up to three metres below him. He gave differing versions of why he left her and went to the surface.
''If you listen to Gabe's story, it is very consistent with a really straightforward, panicking diving accident,'' Dr Edmonds said.
"It's all very plausible. In fact, it's like so many other diving accidents".
The emphasis by authorities on Watson's certification as a rescue diver meant "nothing", Dr Edmonds said, unless he had been trained to rescue overweighted divers in an environment similar to the ocean currents of the Great Barrier Reef.
With its changing currents, the Yongala site was an unpredictable "difficult, often dangerous dive", he said. Watson had learned to dive in the fresh, still waters of a flooded quarry in Birmingham, Alabama, and received his rescue certificate four years before his wife died.
Last November, after his release from jail, Watson was deported amid a political imbroglio, but only after the US gave assurances to the Australian federal government that he would not face the death penalty in his home state of Alabama, if convicted of the two counts of capital murder, with which he has since been charged.
Now 34, he was due to face trial last month. But significant budget cuts affecting court security in Birmingham have caused the postponement of his trial to perhaps next year.
US prosecutors allege that Watson planned his wife's murder in Birmingham for financial gain from insurance policies, and effectively kidnapped her by allegedly taking her to Australia on her honeymoon without revealing he intended to kill her.
Dr Edmonds is also the senior author of the international textbook Diving and Subaquatic Medicine which was cited several times during the month-long inquest, that ended in 2008, into Tina Watson's death .
He was contacted by investigators during inquiries into her death, but was not called as an expert witness. He suspects this may be due to parochial preferences for local Queenslanders - and for financial reasons.
Gabe Watson's former Townsville solicitor, Rohan Armstrong, told the Herald no contact with Dr Edmonds was disclosed to the Watson legal team.
Dr Edmonds says when initially contacted by investigators he "simply answered questions of fact saying what should happen, not what did happen'' in relation to issues including ascent rates in emergencies. He now believes they ''may have misinterpreted what I have said and applied it to him [Watson], when it really didn't apply''.
To adequately assess diving accidents, the police need not only be divers, but also divers experienced in investigating diving accidents, he stressed.
Most diving accidents and deaths "could have been prevented had someone acted differently", he said. And weights not being ditched occurred in about 90 per cent of them.
There was little chance of Watson getting his bride to the surface when she began to panic in the current unless he ditched weights, preferably hers, or inflated one of the buoyancy compensators, preferably hers, said Dr Edmonds.
But Watson did neither. Nor did he say he had panicked, as the Queensland Court of Appeal later found he did. This gave rise to allegations of foul play, compounded by different versions he gave to others of why he left his wife.
Another diver from a different boat had witnessed Watson from above as he appeared to embrace Tina, in obvious distress and moving weakly in a horizontal position, before he went towards the surface.
Tina's family were outraged by Watson's jail term and believe that the embrace was a "bear hug" that enabled him, motivated by greed for her life insurance policy, to reach under her arms and turn her air off from behind and then turn it back on again before she sank to the seabed.
Two months ago, another expert, Queensland veteran diver Col McKenzie, publicly retracted what he initially told police. Mr McKenzie now thinks Watson was incompetent and inept, but not a murderer. He had been presented with certificates and diver logs, not shown to him by police, which revealed Watson had little ocean diving experience.
Dr Edmonds believes Watson's murder charge and manslaughter jailing may be "a miscarriage of justice".

If you want to check Dr Edmunds qualifications.. just google his name....you will find this link among many others
http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/default.aspx?a=news&id=305

 

[Foxfish]

Thanks Bowlofpetunias. Point taken about the safety stop. Highly recommended but not mandatory is the words that seem to resonate. It has saved me a bit of worry on several occasions so I tend to do it regardless. Funny thing is that I was just about to post the same arrticle from another source and noticed that you had already. This then set off a train of research that lead to me start typing further comment and questions that again I found had already been posted and answered. Looks like there are a few people thinking along the same lines.

I was researching some of the background to the case in Wiki and came across this.

"The prosecutor described Watson as an experienced diver trained in rescuing panicked divers, who had allowed his wife to sink to the ocean floor without making any serious attempt to retrieve her. He did not inflate her buoyancy vest or remove weights from her belt, and failed in his duty as her dive buddy by not sharing his (alternate) air with her."

I was trying to find the source of the comment and found it had been repeated here on this thread: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/sc...355511-watson-murder-case-discussion-134.html

I liked Dandydon's response to the Wiki article:

I crossed out the part I cannot accept, but the rest was in evidence, so yeah - I think Australia blew off its responsibility to prosecute. How does a diver drown with second stage in mouth, air in tank, no equipment problems - tell me the rest of the story?

I have to wonder if backroom politics pressed the prosecutor to economize?

My sentiments entirely. Why would Gabe need to put his alternative air supply in Tina's mouth when she had a tank full of air and her own regulator in her mouth. I looked a little further down the page and noticed the following from Divedoggie:

Now take that student, give her a cert card, ship her half way across the world, throw into the vast ocean with new and unfamiliar equipment, and while she tries to stay calm and be cool, she involuntarily manifests her stress by clenching her teeth and raising her lips, which breaks the seal around the mouthpiece.

This theory is not unreasonable, and all the judge or jury has to do is determine reasonable doubt. I was teaching a class last year and I actually witnessed a rescue where the victim, a 65 year old man (Vietnam Vet) was in passive panic and in an uncontrolled descent. When interviewed after the incident we found that he was breathing around his mouthpiece and inhaling water. Another diver, not his buddy, finally made contact with him at 65 feet and stuck an octo in his mouth. The guy spit it out, so the rescuer stuck the guy's second stage back into his mouth, and he spit it out. The rescuer finally forcebly stuck the octo in the guy's mouth and hit the purge button as they ascended. Everyone survived, but only because the rescuer was very experienced and very persistent.

This provides a clear and reasonable explanation in my view of how Tina could have died, with a real life example to boot.

As a little aside I've wondered out loud on a number of occasions how Tina could have died with a regulator in her mouth. I can only assume Divedoggie was enjoying watching my frustrated efforts to find the answer. . Game is up.

 

[boulderjohn]

He touted his diving abilities and convinced her and everyone else that he could and would take care of her.

When I was still a fairly new diver, certified AOW with maybe 70 dives, I was diving in Cozumel with a group of divers from our hotel. We eventually got to know one couple fairly well. He was a middle aged man who had acquired some wealth and (to be blunt) a trophy wife. The wife was a gorgeous woman in her 20's, far more intelligent than the stereotype would have it. On that first day of diving, they pulled out their brand new and expensive equipment as the boat left the pier. They soon let us understand the situation. They were newly married, and she was newly certified and on her first dive trip. In contrast, he made sure that we all knew that we had nothing to fear with him in our midst. He was a certified Rescue Diver, and he would be able to assist us should we run into trouble.

Thinking back over my years of diving, I don't believe I have ever seen a more incompetent diver than he turned out to be. His newly certified wife was just fine in the water. He was a basket case. The DM literally held his hand throughout each of the dives that day.

The stunning contrast between his incompetence and his need to brag about his competence was a fascinating study in psychology.

Many think Safety Stops must be conducted but they are optional in emergencies. There is a difference between a Deco Stop and Safety Stop but I will leave that to the Dive Instructors who can explain it better and with more authority than I can.

A safety stop is the same as a deco stop except that it should be unnecessary. A diver on a normal recreational dive who stays within recreational limits should not need to do a deco stop, but it is recommended that one be taken anyway just to be safe. That is called a safety stop. When diving beyond recreational limits, stops (maybe more than one for differing lengths of time) become important and are considered to be required.

 

[ItsBruce]

I would expect everyone involved in the case, except the jurors, to be following SB in one way or another.while there is a lot of unimportant rambling, there is a lot of good analysis that would likely help in the formulation oh theories and arguments.

 

[ItsBruce]

I previously questioned the integrity of a manslaughter conviction given the evidence. I felt that the judge accepted the plea because both sides wanted the deal and that the written ruling seemed "strained."

On further reflection, I agree with it.

Yes, what happened was an unfortunate accident. But, it was an accident that could be attributed to Watson. He should have known better than to let Tina do the dive and that he lacked the skill to care for her. He was no more qualified to keep her safe than I am to perform a routine appendectomy.

I am not suggesting one buddy is at fault for another's death or injury, but when one buddy induces the other to do a dive knowing it is beyond the other's capabilities and resists a checkout dive and claims to be qualified to lead the dive, there is an issue.

 

[Valwood1]

I vote with McKenzie (post 1641) and Edmonds (post 1643) -- the guy's an idiot, a diving incompetent and a coward who panicked and failed to protect his wife, thereby failing to meet the standards to which all good Southern boys are bound (you have to be a southerner to appreciate this stuff), but that's all. He made a lot of mistakes and tried to lie his way out of it (or, if looking at things in the most favorable light, was so confused that he really didn't know what happened and then tried to make up answers) so he wouldn't look like a coward. Finally, I think that it's ridiculous that the state of Alabama is even prosecuting this case.

And as long as I am ranting, and having dived the Yongala, I will echo the comments of those who have said that Watson and his wife NEVER should have been allowed to make that dive without someone to hold their hands. I know, I know -- we're all responsible for ourselves under water, but that dive can be very difficult, and certainly isn't suitable for out-of-practice and new divers whose experience is mainly in quarries.

 

[Foxfish]

I previously questioned the integrity of a manslaughter conviction given the evidence. I felt that the judge accepted the plea because both sides wanted the deal and that the written ruling seemed "strained."

On further reflection, I agree with it.

Yes, what happened was an unfortunate accident. But, it was an accident that could be attributed to Watson. He should have known better than to let Tina do the dive and that he lacked the skill to care for her. He was no more qualified to keep her safe than I am to perform a routine appendectomy.

I am not suggesting one buddy is at fault for another's death or injury, but when one buddy induces the other to do a dive knowing it is beyond the other's capabilities and resists a checkout dive and claims to be qualified to lead the dive, there is an issue.

Do you really believe that Gabe knew his wife could not handle the dive or that he could not help if she got into trouble. I suspect Gabe's lack of experience and also his personality adversely affected his judgement.

Like many others in this country, I believe that Gabe had a moral responsibility as a husband to ensure Tina's safety. The difficulty is how that works out in a legal setting and applies to buddies not related. For example if Gabe and his mate with similar experience to Tina went for a dive at the same location and his mate drowned, what would be the court decision? The sentence for one becomes a precedent for the other.

My perception is that the sentence in the end was largely made pragmatically to placate the public. That is a concern for the diving community because ultimately if the risk of prosecution gets high and penalties too severe, people will avoid diving, avoid diving with a buddy or avoid getting involved in rescues and instead learn clever legal loopholes.

The fact that Gabe was at least close to Tina and apparently tried to help counts for something. Does everyone on this thread always stay within a few metres of their buddy in case they run out of air? When was the last time you ran out of air or had to give someone your alternative air supply?

 

[alohagal]

Perusing the reports going to Australia on this case they tend to paint the testimony as detrimental to the defense. The reports from Alabama seem to be very weak in relating testimony and report it in a way that makes the prosecution witnesses appear to be defense witnesses. I have spent time scouring the various reports coming out the spin is definitely different. We are not getting the complete picture of the testimony and how it is sounding to the jury. I really wish we had more.