Watson Murder Case - Issues, Statements & Sources

[K_girl]

ISSUE 20: Not knowing what to do to help Tina when she gets to the bottom. The idea of inflating her BC does not occur to him to be an option when she is on the bottom, but he does think of it earlier before she sinks. He turns and leaves her at 45 feet, sinking helplessly to the bottom and chooses to get someone else to help.
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WATSON: And I thought well.. If I go to the bottom and she's unconscious or something, I don't, other than dumping her equipment, I don't know of anything else to do.

20.1 [If he dumps her equipment on the bottom, she doesn’t have a regulator to breathe through. Equipment removal is done on the surface, not at depth.]
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WATSON: grabbed my inflator hose thinking you know she’s sunk down a little bit so maybe she needs a little air and I was also at the point kind of thinking well you know if, we would just inflate our BC’s and we’ll just start to float up..
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SKILLS:

PADI Open Water, page 54. The Buddy System. ..always diving with a buddy who stays nearby at all times. Your buddy assists you.. provides emergency assistance in the unlikely event you need it.. You and your buddy have a responsibility to each other. For the buddy system to work, you and your buddy must take it seriously.. and work at staying together underwater..

PADI Rescue, page 137. Approach the diver from the front and signal, “Okay?” If you get no response, go behind the diver and, holding the regulator in place, take the diver to the surface. It’s important to help the diver from behind because passive panic may change o active panic without warning; by remaining behind the victim, you’ll be out of his immediate grasp. [This skill is the same for an unconscious diver and is practiced multiple times in the pool and ocean.]

 

[K_girl]

ISSUE 21: Not going after Tina, fear of the bends from going too deep. Dive was to 90 feet and he was at 45 feet, between five to ten minutes into the dive and nearly a full tank, when he turned and left Tina. Not only does common sense say that he is still a “fresh” diver with no nitrogen loading, but a quick look at his computer would have told him that his nitrogen loading was still in the green. It was the first dive of the trip, so he had no nitrogen loading from previous dives (he was a “fresh” diver).
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WATSON: Uh, so I thought well, you know I'm halfway down, if I go all the way down, I can't come back up quick just because of how deep it is. So, I thought well, I'll just turn, shoot back to the anchor rope..
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WATSON: if I got down and she was still conscious and just couldn’t get up, I was still going to have to leave..

GEHRINGER: um, you said that even if you’d followed her to the bottom you would’ve had to leave her there. Why?

WATSON: well because I did I did I wouldn’t know what to do basically cause I don’t know how to get a person, if you know cause it was going through my head as she was sinking you know something’s seriously wrong and I thought you know if, I don’t know anything about how to get down there and get her and me up safely..

WATSON: from when they said later it was she had a total bottom time of, or that she was on the bottom for around ten minutes

LAWRENCE: can you remember how, have you any idea how long you’d been under water at that time?

WATSON: oh if I had, if I had to guess and I mean it’s strictly a guess maybe five to seven minutes..

LAWRENCE: what was, what’s um in your experience what’s, what’s the deepest dive that you’ve done?

WATSON: that I’ve done?

LAWRENCE: yeah

WATSON: um below a hundred an fifty

LAWRENCE: below a hundred an fifty?

WATSON: yeah

LAWRENCE: and what was your, remember what your bottom time was there?

WATSON: mmm, no it’s in my log book

LAWRENCE: ok had um, you you’ve done your open water course, advanced course and a rescue course?

WATSON: yeah
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WATSON: oh mines, probably since about ninety-six

LAWRENCE: mmm

WATSON: or whatever, whatever my card says I first got certified my open water
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SOURCE: ON THE RECORD WITH GRETA VAN SUSTREN: Breaking News | Latest News | Current News - FOXNews.com

GRETA: .. did she have sufficient oxygen for the dive?

FLYNN: Uh yes. The subsequent investigation found that her tank was almost completely full.

21.1 [If Tina’s tank was nearly full, Watson’s was also probably nearly full.]
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SKILL LEVEL: Depths and DCI (the “bends&#8221.

PADI Open water, page 217: Special Dive Table. Recreational Dive Planner shows at 50 feet, you can stay down 67 minutes before you need a safety stop. At 90 feet, you can stay down 22 minutes before needing a safety stop.

PADI Advanced, Page 91 To minimize the risk of decompression illness, use the Dive Planner or your dive computer accurately.

PADI Rescue, Page 4 “whether your own problem or someone else’s - do what you’ve been taught since your Open Water Diver course: Stop, Breathe, Think, Act.

 

[K_girl]

ISSUE 22: What direction was he going? Was this an effort to show that he knew not only anything about rescue diving, but ever having been in water?
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WATSON: you know the only thing I did in going up there you know kicking back was I made sure that you know as I was going back to the rope that I wasn’t going up quicker than the bubbles were, um that was something that I remembered from you know about descending...

 

[K_girl]

ISSUE 23: Watson says he headed back to the rope to get help from other divers he saw there. However, this would have meant that he was kicking against what he described as a very strong current, that would have slowed him down significantly. Why didn’t he go directly to the surface and signal for help if the current was so strong?

WATSON: So, from that point, I just pretty much turned and pretty much just rocketed to the top. You know, I’m amazed that I didn’t end up with the bends or something.
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MSNBC: But the dive computer recorded a downright leisurely ascent:

BRAD FLYNN (Police Detective): It took him over two minutes to cover that distance.

MSNBC INTERVIEWER: To go 40 feet?

BRAD FLYNN: Forty feet.

MSNBC: Compare Gabe’s recorded rise with that of the dive instructor who pulled Tina off the bottom. Even carrying her, the instructor was able to ascend 100 feet in a minute-and-a-half, while Gabe’s recorded ascent of only 45 feet took between two and three minutes.
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LAWRENCE: so it wasn’t a controlled, well would you call it a controlled ascent?

WATSON: controlled ascent, no

LAWRENCE: or emergency ascent?

WATSON: oh it was, well no, when I got to the line from there I turned and just went up...

WATSON: I didn’t I didn’t turn and keep looking back or anything I just picked a spot and went and so I saw the people, went up to them you know it was like, was grabbing a hold of them shaking them and I know they looked at me I know they even looked in that direction but then they looked back at me you know like you know ‘what are you doing’..

WATSON: Er got back to the anchor rope where some people were and ah I remember shouting through my regulator Tina, Tina, Tina, tapping em, I know the guy turned around and looked at me and I was pointing you know where she went down

BRAD FLYNN: The problem is we've interviewed everybody on the boat. Nobody says they encountered Gabe underwater doing that.
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STORY: “The Hug of Death” Source: The hug of death

CONSTABLE MURDOCH: "Mr Watson's dive profile shows he took two minutes and 30 seconds to reach the surface, which is a very conservative rate of ascent, considering his rescue diver training and the level of emergency," he said. "His time based on a safe civilian rate of ascent should have been 9m a minute, which means he should have taken just one minute and 18 seconds to reach the surface to seek help. (His dive profile showed) there had been no rush to get to the surface."

 

[K_girl]

ISSUE 24: Different versions of his ascent rate. Watson claimed he was going up slower than his bubbles as he finned to get to other divers, which means he is ascending at this time, but that was only 5 to 10 seconds. He said he made contact with other divers to ask for help, but those divers were never located. He would have had to spend a significant amount of this ascent time working on getting other divers attention. Then he says he rocketed to the surface. His computer ascent rate alarm did not go off according to police.
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WATSON: you know the only thing I did in going up there you know kicking back was I made sure that you know as I was going back to the rope that I wasn’t going up quicker than the bubbles were..
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WATSON: I realised I couldn't you know get to her that I was at the anchor rope in you know five or ten seconds..
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WATSON: saw the people, went up to them you know it was like, was grabbing a hold of them shaking them..
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WATSON: So, from that point, I just pretty much turned and pretty much just rocketed to the top. You know, I’m amazed that I didn’t end up with the bends or something..
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Source: Final words

SGT LAWRENCE: ..the `rapid ascent alarm' in his scuba equipment had not activated
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BRAD FLYNN (Police Detective): It took him over two minutes to cover that distance.

MSNBC INTERVIEWER: To go 40 feet?

BRAD FLYNN: Forty feet.
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STORY: “The Hug of Death” Source: The hug of death

CONSTABLE MURDOCH: "Mr Watson's dive profile shows he took two minutes and 30 seconds to reach the surface, which is a very conservative rate of ascent..
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PADI Advanced Diver page 81. Estimating Proper Ascent Rate. As you know well by now, the maximum ascent rate with the Recreational Dive Planner is 18 metres/60 feet per minute.

 

[K_girl]

ISSUE 25: Watson claimed that he went up to a diver and made physical contact to ask for help for Tina. However, police were unable to locate the diver.
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WATSON: the well yeah, I the guy that I tapped was a Asian male I mean cause he he looked, we looked directly at each other.. wasn’t like a you know hey check this out I mean it was cause I was, I was frantic at that time.. um you know grabbed and shook him, they turned around I was screaming her name..
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CORONER’S REPORT: Gabe states that in his ascent completing the fatal dive; he addressed a diver underwater of Asian appearance and signaled to that person the difficulties Tina was in. All other divers in the water that day with the exception of Mr Kim and Miss Jeon were called and excluded themselves as the diver referred to by Gabe. Mr Zillman [Gabe’s attorney] submits that this email contact.. I cannot dismiss Gabe’s claim that he did contact a diver during his ascent.

 

[K_girl]

ISSUE 26: One witness says Watson said he lost sight of Tina. But an underwater photo shows her in plain sight. In his police interview, Watson says he made a split-decision to deliberately leave her.
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DOUGLAS MILSAP: He was hitting the side of the the inflatable as it was coming back to the boat. "Oh, my God, I’ve lost her. I don't know where she is. I couldn't find her. I don't know what happened."

MSNBC: Another tourist on the dive that morning snapped an underwater pic and unwittingly captured an image of Tina Watson, lying on her right side on the ocean bottom, no bubbles coming from the regulator in her mouth. [Shows Tina was in sight.]
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WATSON: And I thought well.. If I go to the bottom and she's unconscious or something, I don't, other than dumping her equipment, I don't know of anything else to do. Uh, so I thought well, you know I'm halfway down, if I go all the way down, I can't come back up quick just because of how deep it is. So, I thought well, I'll just turn, shoot back to the anchor rope.. [shows that he did not lose sight of Tina, he purposefully turned around]

WATSON: I was thinking back to that current and I was like ‘my God she’s going to be lost’ and that was probably the reason why I didn’t want to leave her

 

[K_girl]

ISSUE 27: Watson states Rescue course did not teach him how to retrieve someone off the bottom or revive someone on the bottom. Even non-divers know that revival efforts are not performed under water.
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WATSON: the rescue and I, I don’t know we may’ve talked about it the rescue that we did was mainly like majority of it was search patterns..

27.1 [What would be the purpose of talking about search patterns in the context of rescue if there was no intent to bring the diver to the surface once they were found?]

WATSON: and then, then we did some stuff that I, you know like ah you know dumping your, kind of stuff I was telling you about you know the run was running through my head of things that

LAWRENCE: mmm

WATSON: UI could do um you know some of those things, there wasn’t there was nothing in our thing about how to get somebody, how to do any type of revival or anything from the bottom there was nothing about, other than controlled ascent you know sharing air ah there was nothing..
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WATSON: the only thing that we’ve that we ever did was ah done at like around twenty feet where basically we dumped our own gear and did you know the purging, hook up, let your air go and all that you know for yourself and that’s what I was thinking of, that most of the training I’ve had is basically taking care of yourself, not you know had we there was nothing as far as taking care of somebody else..
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SKILLS

PADI Rescue Video. Demonstrates technique of underwater retrieval by approaching behind the diver, placing your arm under the right arm of the diver, holding the regulator in place with your right hand, then using your left hand to control your BC and the BC of the victim. This is practiced 4 times total, 2 times as a skill by itself, once in the pool and once in open water and then twice again (pool and open water) as a complete rescue, beginning with search, underwater retrieval, rescue breathing on the surface while removing equipment, removing the diver from water and beginning assessment and revival efforts if needed. So he has seen it on the video, watched it demonstrated by the instructor and practiced the skill at least four times.

 

[K_girl]

ISSUE 28: 16 versions of the same story.

BRAD FLYNN: If somebody shows back up, unrequested at my door, I’d like to talk to you about something I didn't mention before, is that going to cast suspicion? Absolutely.

INTERVIEWER: The story's getting amended?

BRAD FLYNN: Yes. Changed after the fact.

INTERVIEWER: How many different versions has he told so far of what happened underwater?

BRAD FLYNN: With the interviews that I've done and the interviews that the Queensland police have done, approximately 16.

INTERVIEWER: Sixteen different versions?

BRAD FLYNN: With subtle variances.
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CORONER’S REPORT: Gabe’s counsel submitted that Gabe did not give numerous versions of the events of the fatal dive and that suggestion by Mr Tate of multiple and inconsistent versions, is not accurate. I have spent considerable time reviewing Gabe’s written and oral statements (including the video records) and have noted many inconsistencies which in some instances were clarified to some extent in a later interview and others not.

 

[K_girl]

ISSUE 29: Tina’s final position does not fit with Watson’s account.
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MSNBC: The police divers portraying Gabe and Tina then swam back to the point where Gabe said he'd adjusted his dislodged mask and had lost his hold on her. The diver representing Tina went into a limp free fall, as Gabe had described her descent. Each time the diver playing Tina was released, she ended up on or near the cargo hold of the sunken ship. But that's not where Tina was found. Tina was actually found 45 feet away from the rail of the ship...

The only way Tina could end up where she did was if she swam out there away from the bow, or if someone took here there.