Tina and Gabe Watson - Part 2

0:00 Hi. I'm Tina and I'm Rich. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage, it's that some days you'll feel like killing your wife and some days you'll feel like killing your husband. Welcome to love, Mary, Kill, Hey Rich, Hey Tina, how are you? You came back for part number two? I sure did. I can't wait, really, I can't. Yeah, I'm fascinated. I am. I love a good scuba diving story, and there are a lot of scuba diving. Well. I read a book, actually, I read a book twice called Shadow Divers. It's kind of funny because I read it and then years later I started reading it again, not knowing that, not remembering that I had already read it, and I got like halfway through it before I was like, God, this sounds so familiar. I've had that happened before.

0:55 And then I finished it because it was a really good book. Actually, but it was about these people who do like deep sea diving, like they go to the deepest depths to look at shipwrecks, and I could possibly go, yeah, it was really like, okay, hold on, I think I hear someone calling mom, hold on, we're back. Yeah, someone had to someone's going to get dinner because yeah, because mom is podcasting. What were we talking about diving? Yeah? The book? I should probably read that because I am this. This episode was really interesting to me. I didn't know a lot about diving. I still don't know a ton about diving. But it's really fascinating book. Yeah, it's terrifying. Also, I only have time to read books about true crime, right, I know.

1:44 So we're back from vacation. What a wonderful time we had. I'm sure we did. And we had an anniversary, happy related anniversary. Thank you for the lovely gift? Oh, thank you. I think I've done that many times. I know is a big one. Yea four hundred years together, four hundred years. It's amazing, hard to believe, it seems like only that's not fair, all right? So what else would you like? My shirt? Yeah? Lovely? You do look you always like lovely. But yes, it's a nice guy. I got it. I costco. It's a really, it's a really. It's by the time anyone hears this, it'll probably be gone. But I don't know if it was ten or fifteen dollars, but it's like this nice little cap sleeve T shirt.

2:30 It's really comfy. It's soft and it has like terry lining kind of. It's really comfy. Costco does they do a pretty good job. I end up getting a lot of clothing from for both of us. Actually at Costco, do we get kids clothes clothing for No, they get expensive clothing for creep by Costco and old navy clothing. It's like to be a parent. Sure is uh? So? Oh snack brought you? I brought you a special snack. Are you ready for it? Yeah? Ice water? You were really nice. I was in a hurry. And what did you say to me when you handed me this ice You made me this ice water? What did you? Oh? I said, I put lemon in it. But I think that it's very possible that a lemon seed might have gotten in it, so be careful choking. You know, it was just set up well, you just don't want to You don't want to be drinking water out of a straw when you don't realize that there's a lemon seed in it.

3:23 Right, So it does it does happen? Yeah, thank you very much. I am really into the lemon ice water lately, which our dentists probably wouldn't like I did bring a real snack though, you did? Yeah? I did? Yeah, okay, oh some Michigan Actually they're not Michigan cherries, are they. I think they're Canadian cherries. They're delicious, They're good. There's still good cherries, really good. Yeah. Trying, we're trying to do some healthier snacks kind of sort of try and eat more protein. Yeah, and so I brought brought some chomps. Chomps is sounds like a dog, it really does. You're right. This is the original beefstick. It is ninety calories, nine grams of protein, zero sugar. Wow.

4:06 So yeah, it's a good snack. I actually got them for our son, who just that kid loves a beef jerky. He really is one of his big things. And he's going away to Actually he's already there. I hope he's having a good first day. But yeah, he left for college. So we got him a bunch of snacks and I stole one of these so we could try cool. Do you want to try it or do you wanna? Yeah, I'll try it. Okay, all right, we'll be right back. Well, big thumbs up on the cherries, the chomp thing. It was all right, I don't know, and I didn't love it, So I that was the first bite of food I've had today, and I thought it was I think they're I think they're pretty tasty, and the cherries are delicious. Love cherries. Can you tell me something about cherries and Michigan. Well, you know, I've always known that Michigan grows a very large percentage of the world's cherries, but I didn't I looked up because it's off of Wikipedia. So, uh, Michigan grows seventy five percent of the world's tart cherries, but only twenty percent of the world's sweet cherries. Okay, gotcha, Yeah, actually not in the world United States. So seventy five percent of the tart cherries in the United States are growing in Michigan.

5:16 China grows a lot of cherries too, right, I don't know, probably, yeah, so Michigan if you ever go up north, which I know people are probably tired of me talking about Cheriver City, but Cheiver City is like the cherry capital, right, and just lots of good cherry stuff. The Cherry Republic. Well, the really good thing too, is there's a there's like a farm, a farm stand up there a farm store or whatever, and they sell they sell cherry donuts frisk is frisk frisks orchard f ri s k ees. I actually have we These cherry donuts are like one of the best things you've ever eaten in your life. They're so good. I'm sure we had I'm sure we stopped there. If we didn't, I'm going to be really mad at you. But it's it's a they're so good.

5:59 Yeah. I have looked to see if you can have them shipped and you can't. They're one of our favorite treats for sure. And what else about Traverse City? Oh, do you want to talk about the house? Oh, it's too depressing, so go ahead. As you know, I am obsessed with real estate and I look on realtor dot com all the time. And even though we are at least two years away from moving, we are thinking we're going to go move up to Traverse City and that'll be like where we live out our years, well at least the next ten years or so. I don't know. Yeah, but yeah, I've looked and I found this house and it was perfect. It was like the perfect house. But we didn't see it in person, right, we saw the perfect house, and we were serious. I've showed it. I sent it to you, and I sent it to you and I said, I remember writing texting you this and saying, I don't know why I just sent this to you, and you texted me back and said I love it. Yeah, And so that I was like, oh, which is great, which is one of the great things about us, Like we tend to agree on important things like that we do, which I'm very grateful for. So when I called the realtor and I said, hey, well yeah, because we are so we are not ready to buy a house right now, but we thought, well maybe I mean, this is the perfect house for us. If it is, then maybe we buy it now, and maybe we could airbnb it rented, you know, for a couple of years until we're ready to move up there, and then we could you know, go, which is something we've thought out for a few years now. Yeah, but every time we go

7:30 to maybe buy the airbnb house, it's well, what happened in this case is that, well, you called the realtor, but then I started looking up like the laws and where this particular house is located, the township where it's located. They basically have outlawed Airbnb. It's like short short term rentals. They have outlawed because they don't like people coming up in partying or whatever. So essentially it wasn't an option anymore. So yeah, very sad. Yeah, we were going to drop everything and go see the house and had an offer with within a day or two. So it was a great house. It was on the was on the water, and really there's probably not many other houses that are going to be that perfect. Well, you know, I'm going to keep you up today on net. Yeah, all right, So I hope that wasn't too boring. Do you want to do a little recap? I'll help you. Okay, I can try, I can try. I mean I really don't have a lot of notes. So the story overall seems I mean a lot of it was just background setting up their you know, their childhoods and things like that. So there was Tina, I don't remember her maiden named Thomas, was it Tina? Thomas grew up in like Louisiana in the South at different places. Her dad moved around because mostly in Alabama, but yeah, they did, Yeah, they did go to Louisiana for a bit. Yeah, and she seems like a lovely person had a couple of sisters, right, and did one sister? Just one?

8:50 She had two? Okay, she worked as a pharmacy tech I believe she did while she was in college. But she worked as a department manager store, and her sister managed another department at the parish. Right, and her sister was I think three years younger than her, and her sister got married before she did, which made her feel a little bit like she was getting to be an old maid even though she was. She was she you're right, She was a lovely, beautiful young woman, and she was dating a guy named Stan, and then she met Gabe. Gabe was pretty aggressive in pursuing her stand didn't buy her the purse that she was hinting at, and Gabe did buy her the purse a little surprise prior to them dating.

9:39 Yeah, kind of was pretty good, and it was good. Gabe was kind of a jerk, though. He threw pizza at her at a restaurant in front of her sister, which I just can't even I never threw a piece of pizza at anyone. I never would, And if someone threw a piece of pizza at me, I think that would be the end of the relationship. Really, I can't. I don't know. Maybe there's a reason that you could throw a piece of pizza at someone and continue seeing them, but that would be that would be a tough one. I think she was a pretty nice girl. Something that happened more towards episode one than I didn't mention. Like people, you know, when something like this happens, people are just searching for any kind of clue that they can grab onto, leading them one way or another. And while Tina was packing for the honeymoon, Gabe was videoing her and he said say goodbye as the camera. She was like by camera, and then he said I think he said blow a kiss to the camera, and she blew a kiss, and so people were like, oh, yeah, so that was one of the things that happened.

10:43 But yeah, they got married and Gabe was really into scuba diving, and so he kind of wanted Tina. Tina had some health problems when she was younger with her heart. She was able to get that corrected. Eventually, she had some surgery to help fix with that, which allowed her to become more active, and so Gabe really wanted her to take up scuba diving, and so she did, even though she was kind of terrified of it, but she did go through the lessons and everything. And then for their honeymoon they went to Australia. The first week was sent well, the first week was spent kind of doing what Tina wanted, which was more like touristy things, right, and then the second week was going to be there scuba diving trip where they went out to the Great Barrier Reef and there was a shipwreck that they were going to explore, and it was like, yeah, and Gala and the ship that took them out. It was like they were going to be out there for like a week, right, and well they were, they were going to move around, you know, the two different areas of the reef. Yeah, but really it was the first dive that they did, Tina got into trouble and Gabe was seen trying to like with his arms around her, trying to bring her up, but then he dropped her and left her and she sunk to the bottom, and then the dive instructor went down, got her, brought her up really quickly. He was already there, he mean, he was just you know, yeah, a few hundred feet away. Okay, whatever, but of course to no avail unfortunately.

12:09 Yeah, and Gave's actions were seen as a little suspicious because he wasn't there during the resuscitation attempt, and and she had too much weight on her, Like you put weights on you to help with get you to the proper level of buoyancy so that you can descend properly. And she had way more than she should have had. Yeah, she had at least twenty pounds on her. And so one thing I can't remember if I talked about it or not, but some people wear the belt which has the weight on it, but hers went into her buoyancy control device until I think there were little pockets and she could put the weight in there. And I think that was kind of a hindrance because like when Wade went to rescue her, he just took off his belt, okay, where it would have been harder to take out individuals. Okay, I was going to ask you about that. If it was easy to take take outwaits if you felt like too much, I don't know, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't imagine, right, And it would be much easier to just whip off your belt. Yeah, all right, do you think that's that's a good summary. You tell me, I think, I hope so, I think that's pretty Yeah, I think that's pretty good. If you didn't listen to episode one, please go back and listen to episode one. All right, all right, here we go. When the spoil Sport docked in Townsville, the police were waiting to talk to Gabe, the staff, and all the passengers from both boats to take their statements and begin the investigation. Fifty people would be questioned. Gabe asked Paula Snyder, one of the passengers on this ship, to stay with him. She

13:39 was older and maternal, and Gabe needed some support. Paula would later tell investigators that she thought Gabe was in shock and she couldn't leave him until his mother arrived because he was as helpless as a child. The Australian police gathered everyone's divelogs. We talked about this in episode one, but a divelog it's really important. Any dive you take, you log it in this blog. So they gathered the dive logs Gabe and Tina's dive gear, as well as the captain's ship logs. Investigators were very confused about how a trained rescue diver would let his wife sink to the ocean floor, and we talked about this last episode. But Gabe was a level four diver. He was trained to help people if they needed rescue exactly. Gabe was questioned first for four hours.

14:26 His story was consistent, but each time he told it he made slight variations. Gave alleged that on his way back up to the surface of the water, he tapped two divers and tried to get their attention to alert them to Tina's distress, but this was never corroborated. He was He also told investigators that he had never swam so fast in his life as when he went to ascend to the surface. So do you remember during the first episode we talked about how how fast was his ascen Well, I remember you saying that the dive instructor made it up before him, right, he had to go twice the distance and he did it in half the time. So, Gabe, I don't know if his memory was that he was super fast and he wasn't, or if he wasn't if he was lying. Yeah. So Gabe called his parents after the interview, and he asked his dad David, to call Tina's parents, Glenda, his mom immediately booked a flight to Australia to be there for Gabe. And you know, like to get from Alabama to Australia not an easy at least twelve sixteen hours to get there before he Isn't it longer? Probably longer, yeah, because I thought it was like, yeah, I underestimated it's going to be quite a bit longer, Okay.

15:43 Before he left the police station for the night, he asked police for his dive computers back. He said they were worth a lot of money, but police weren't finished with them. Gabe was adamant and aggressive that he wanted them back. He was told no, and he left in a half. Tina Graves, another Tina and her husband were among the passengers on the ship who would comfort a Gabe after Tina's death, She couldn't stop thinking about one thing Gabe had told her under duress. He had told her that he pushed Tina away after she'd reached for the regulator in his mouth. She shared this with the police during her questioning. Paula Snyder remained by Gabe side and even spent the night with him. Meanwhile, back in the US, David Watson made the difficult call to Tommy Thomas. I can't imagine. It was eight thirty AM. Tommy was in Florida for her business. David was blunt. He told Tommy that Tina had been in an accident and drowned. Then he handed the phone to Reverend Greer, who had just married Tina and Gabe eleven days before. David had requested that Reverend Greer be present at the time he made the call. Tommy was shocked, devastated, and heartbroken. He rushed back to his hotel and got a flight home to Alabama as soon as possible.

16:56 I can't it's just so sad to like to get that call, to have to make that flight back just hed. He loved his daughter, both of them so much. He wanted to tell Cindy and Alanda about Tina in person before anyone else could, and he knew he knew the media would be onto the story soon. He was too late. When Alanda got to work at the Parisian around nine AM, the store manager, who had already heard the news, called her into his office to tell her that Tina had been in an accident. Alanda called Tommy, who told her the little information that he knew. Her friend drove her to her parents house. Cindy was sleeping in that morning and hadn't yet heard the news. Alanda woke her and told her the worst news that she'd ever received in her life. And she was shocked and confused. How could her beautiful daughter be gone when she was supposed to be celebrating the happiest time of her life. There were so many questions and so few answers. Tommy tried to contact David Watson times throughout the day to get more answers. After the initial shock war off, David didn't answer or return any of his phone calls. Instead, he had Reverend Greer call him.

18:11 When the Thomases were told that Glenda Watson was already on our way to Australia, they realized that the Watsons had known about Tina's death for many hours before they were informed. That would have that really made me mad. Yeah, I would just be so hurt and like call me a why Tina? Why they waited? I think they were just trying to, you know, wait for morning or you know, a better time. They talked to Gabe that night and he tried to explain how he'd left Tina and swammed with the surface to get help, but the Thomas family didn't understand why he'd left Tina instead of helping her himself. He was strong and a trained rescue diver.

18:51 Tommy asked if he'd been there during the attempt to resuscitate Tina and Gabe lyde and told him that he was there with Tina the whole time. But that would really upset me to you for sure, Gabete. The following email meant to be dispersed to family and friends. Just say you know, of course I always spell check and grammar check my case before we present it. There were so many spelling errors and just bad english in this, but whenever we read a quote, you know we have to read it as so. Craig and Dad, please send this to everyone who you can think of, and everyone who gets this passed along to anyone you think may want to see it.

19:33 I just wanted to take a chance to talk to everyone at once. I know a lot of you guys have wanted to call, but just not have the chance. I guess on how I guess on how I am doing. It's pretty obvious I'm a total mess right now. I have my moments. I don't think reality has yet set in, and I am in justice state of numbness. I think my ear is going to be okay, So there is really nothing to worry about as far as that goes. Oh thank did I mention this like they had some trauma to his ear because of his quote rapid assent. I'm trying to stay strong because Tina would have wanted me to be strong, a strong man, and take care of this and get her home as soon as possible. So right now that is my only focus, getting my baby home. I'm not leaving until I know she is on the way. It looks like we will be here for another seven days or so. Today is October twenty fourth here. She died on October twenty second.

20:30 There maybe a couple more or less, we just won't know until Monday or Tuesday. The government here is just as slow as ours. Everyone here in Townsville, from the authorities down to the citizens, have just been incredibly supportive of me. Right now. The autopsy was completed today and the results were inconclusive, but they do have some more test results due in on Monday. Maybe we will know what caused this by then. For those of you who would like to know exactly how the events of the dive played out, Craig knows what happened, as well as a few other people, so if they were up to telling you, it's okay to ask. Those are pretty much the only details I have right now. We will know more on Monday. Also to prepare everyone, there is a story with our names and hometowns headed for the US. I saw it here today and it was tough to read, so I just wanted to give you guys a heads up. For those of you who would like to read on. I would like to say a little something about Tina. I feel so cheated by this entire situation.

21:26 Four or five years of knowing her in ten days of marriage was just not enough time with her. Those ten days, however, have been absolutely the happiest ten days of my entire life. I'm so glad to have had just those days with her as opposed to no days with her at all. I love Tina so much is almost scary, and I know she knows that even the things she does that annoy me. I love Those of you who know her know what I mean. You can't help but love her. Before I met Tina. I didn't believe in soulmates, just that you had a certain type of personality that you clicked with. Now that I have lost her, I know without a doubt that she was meant for me and I was meant for her. She was the one person on earth who was meant for me, and now she is gone. I can tell you the last days were the happiest of days Tina and I have ever had. We went from being on top of the world from the wedding to even higher. She got to go to the Torongo Zoo and have a picture taken with a koala. She got to see a nemo at the Sydney Aquarium, and we went to the Australian Museum, the Art Gallery, She got to see Sydney from the harbor, and I even managed to keep my surprise from her until Saturday night.

22:34 We went to take a tour, dinner and see A Midsummer's Night Dream at the Sydney Opera House. She was so surprised when we got there and found out what we were going to do, she actually broke down and cried. I've never seen her so happy, and seeing her that happy could not have made me any happier. That's the way I will always remember her. She even got to see a little sea turtle on the start of her dive. I can't express on words how much I miss her already. It is barely even forty eight hours. I'm going to need each and every one of you to be ready when we finally get home, because I'm going to lose it and be a total wreck. Not only did I lose my wife, but I lost my best damn friend in the whole world. I never felt more complete than I did when I was with Tina, and now that she has gone, I won't ever feel one hundred sent complete again from now till the day I die, no matter what the future holds. She was just the most incredible person I've ever met in every aspect. I can't imagine a more perfect person I know is at the most difficult times are still ahead. And when the reality hits and I realized that she will not be there to share our dreams with me and do the things we had talked about doing over the next few years, that house is going to feel so empty without her, but nowhere near as empty as my heart feels. I just need everyone to be ready because this is going to be rough and I'm not going to be able to handle it. I don't know how anyone does. She would have been the one I would have turned too in a time like this. I just had to get these things off my chest and get them out there for everyone to see things. For everything you guys have done, I love you all and we'll see you soon. Gabe, Oh that was a lot.

24:04 At Glenda arrived in Australia. She and Gabe spent a week sight seeing without much enthusiasm as they waited for Tina's body to be cleared for transfers to the United States. They went to the Mark several times to see Tina and someone overheard him talking to her. He said, quote, I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I should have kept I shouldn't have kept Kate taking you down. I'm sorry I couldn't stop it. End quote what do you make it up? Sounds a little bit like he felt guilty, but of course he felt guilty. Yeah, I was gonna say it could be could be innocent and taken that way, or it could be taken another way. So the autopsy was inconclusive, pending the return of tests. On October twenty seven, five days after Tina's death, Gabe once again was questioned by the police for two and a half hours. During this questioning, Gabe insisted no orientation dive was offered to him and Tina, a point later vehemently refuted by Wade Singleton. Gabe also said that he thought the current was too strong for novice divers. He described his ascent as quote rocketed to the top and faster than he'd ever swam before, although the data on his dive computer disputed his allegation. If Gabe had rocketed to the top, the rapid ascent alarm alarm would have gone off on his dive computer, and it did not.

25:25 In reality, Gabe's dive computer revealed it took him over two minutes to go the forty feet. Gabe complained of ear pain in the days after the accident, but when examined by a doctor, they described it as mild barrow trauma and said his ears looked fine and he would be okay to fly home. Which can you imagine if you had like abruptured ear drama flying it would be horrible. The investigation of Tina's personal dive equipment found her equipment was of excellent quality and cleanliness and no thright and no life threatening faults. Furthermore, gaves dim was tested and was found to be one hundred percent accurate. Gabe had been underwater for seven minutes at a maximum of fifty four pet feet and Tea under for ten minutes at a maximum depth of eighty nine feet according to their dive computers. So that surprised me like in ten like so much happened in that ten minutes. Meanwhile, back in Alabama, Tommy and Cindy went to the local funeral home to begin planning Tina's funeral. Tina's parents had made it clear that they wanted to plan and pay for Tina's burial and funeral.

26:30 The funeral home told the Thomases that Gabe had already contacted them and he would be making the arrangements, even though he was still in Australia. They relented. Gabe was Tina's husband after all, but their one request was that Tina's casket be carried by a horse and carriage. They knew, with her love of gone with a win, that she would have loved them. Gabe spoke to the Australian newspaper, the Townsville Bulletin, and here's a brief excerpt from that article. Mister Watson said he entered the water with his wife and decided to abort the dive after a matter of minutes when they realized just how strong the current was. Quote, Tina got into difficulty as we turned back.

27:11 It is my belief that whatever physical problem took Tina's life was triggered by our struggle with the current as we tried to abort the dive. End quote. Tina's body arrived back in Alabama on November second, so so she died on October twenty second, November two. It took five flights to get her home. Things became even more intense between the two families during this time that Thomas's had taken all of the wedding gifts back to their house after the wedding, where they remained unopened. David insisted that they be delivered immediately to Gabe, along with Tina's jeep and any other possessions of hers that they had. Alanda called Gabe and tried to reason with him, telling him her family needed some time, but Gabe said, quote, you have to understand, I have already completed the grieving process and you are just started starting. I just want the wedding presents and anything that belonged to Tina. They are rightfully mined.

28:07 End quote. I'm sorry mine end quote. All the hell like completed the grieving process, cares about material possessions. I just I can't imagine that. That's After several more angry phone calls, the Watsons showed up at the Thomas's home and demanded the gifts. To make matters worse, they were on their way to Utina's body. Some friends of the family were there and threatened to call the police at the Watsons didn't leave, and they were grudgingly left. I don't know what. I just can't imagine anyone would care about stupid wedding gifts. On November fifth, the day of the funeral, the funeral director quietly talked to Tommy and Cindy and told him that the Watsons had asked him to tell them that if there was any trouble, they would call the police and have them escorted out of the funeral. Two rooms were set up to keep the families apart. Amanda, Tina's best friend, tried her best to be nice to Gabe, but he was awkward as usual. As they viewed Tina in her casket, she commented that Tina looked pretty, and Gabe replied, you're not gonna believe this one. At least her breasts look perky.

29:15 Oh god. He denied later saying that, but Amanda said, imagine why she would make that up. And later he showed friends a picture of Tina from the honeymoon next to a sign that said caution risk of drowning. People thought he purposely took that picture. But to be fair, if you go anywhere by the water, you know there's there's science is like, you know, like when we went to Remember we went to South Carolina and the alligators were everywhere, right, But I don't think I would be showing that picture to people. True may mean Gabe is just he is just a really awkward human being. The funeral director later admitted to police that it was the most tension and drama that they'd ever experienced during a funeral between two families. It just bothers me so much. It's like, yeah, in respect the memory of I think both families genuinely loved her, like you know, that's your job to respect her memory. Yeah, it's a tough situation though. The day after the funeral, Tommy returned to the funeral home to write a check for the service, but the Watsons had already paid. He asked the director about the plants sent by family and friends that hadn't been taken to the grave site. He was told that the Watsons had taken them and her and had requested none be given to the Thomas family. Man, I know, they're just aggressive assholes. So what was Tina's cause of death? She probably became more nervous in the current, causing an irregular heartbeat, and maybe she had a severe anxiety attack, but that probably wouldn't have caused her to become unconscious.

30:51 Death would probably only occur if the victim lost her scuba regulator or ascend it to the surface while breath holding. In Tina's case, neither of those things happened. The autopsy ruled out any heart issues, and no abnormalities of Tina's heart were reported. In fact, I think that doctor or the pathologists who examined her said that they believed that the surgery had corrected the issue that she had had when she was younger. The cause of death was listed as drowning, the manner of death undetermined on the death certificate. There was a question as to whether the death was accidental or deliberate, and undetermined was written Tina did not choke on vomit and there was little water in her mouth.

31:32 The pathologist said that there was no evidence of disease and ruled out Tina's death as drowning by exclusion of other causes. Does that make sense? The last part was a little confusing. Ruled the pathologists ruled out drowning as determined by that. You lost me there, okay? They ruled her death is drowning by exclusion of other causes. Like okay, not Like, there's nothing else that made sense, so it must have been drowning exactly, gotcha. Noted in the autopsy were multiple air embolisms or air pockets in the blood, which were likely caused during the rescue attempt and could have hastened Tina's death. An autopsy is unable to identify extraneous factors, such as anxiety, panic, or fatigue that could have also led to Tina's death. Like the current was really strong, and you know, she just really was possibly exhausted by trying to swim against the current. We talked about the current though. This confuses me because they're going down, like there's like a rope that they're going down on, right, So I don't understand why the current would be such a big issue because they're like attached to the rope, right, and they're kind of going down. But then they let go of the rope and they're kind of supposed to like flow with the current. But she hadn't gotten down that far yet though, right, I mean she was at the top of the wreck.

32:52 Oh, so the wreck is, you know, it's three hundred feet wide, and I'm not sure how you know, like the depth of from the top of the wreck to the bottom of wreck that was project. I didn't realize she was down that far already. I was thinking it was not She wasn't all the way down yet. She wasn't all the way down, but she did drift all the way down even if she became unconscious. Gabe should have been trained to handle an unconscious diver during his training. He should have known to drop her extra weights, and he should have known to give her his spare breathing apparatus. Also called an octopus, and he should have inflated both of their BCDs. Gabe, despite having logged her with fifty dives, had mostly dived in pools or at the quarry where he had trained, where there was no current and there was good visibility. He had taken a dive trip to Mexico, but even then he had dived about fifteen times, and that had been about four years previously, with maximum depths of fourteen meters or forty six feet, and most of his dives were supervised. I think that he vastly overestimated his diving skills. The day before Thanksgiving, Ken Snyder, who had been one of the divers on the spoil Sport, called Tommy.

34:07 Ken and his wife Paula had been aboard the spoil Sport with Gave and Tina. Ken wanted to meet with Tommy and talk face to face. When they met at a coffee shop, Ken, and extremely experienced diver with over five hundred dives, told Tommy that gave story was bullshit and then he shouldn't leave it for one second. He told Tommy that a distressed diver wouldn't just sink to the bottom of the sea. They'd be kicking hard and flailing their arms, doing just about anything to fight the current unless they were unconscious or their air supply had been turned off. Ken said that dead people sink, not panic divers can also relate the devastating news that Gabe had not been by Tina's side during the resuscitation attempt. Tommy was overwhelmed with sadness that his daughter had died amongst strangers, and that her own husband hadn't been there to encourage her in her last moments of life. Could gave him stay away from the Jazz two during Tina's CPR because he was afraid that she would regain consciousness and tell others what had really happened during the dive. I'm asking you, I don't know. Maybe The Thoma's family thought that celebrating Christmas in Alabama would be too difficult, so they decided to go to Australia, despite a law to being seven months pregnant. They wanted to see all the sights that Tina had seen in her last days and meet some of the people who had tried so valiantly to save her life. Tommy flew to Townsville while the ladies stayed in Sydney. They said the trip to where Tina died would be too emotional for them. Tommy met Wade Singleton and shook his hand in person to thank him

35:38 for trying to save Tina. He also went aboard the Spoil Sport and the Jazz two. Tommy was moved to tears several times. When they returned to the States on New Year's Eve, there was a check from Tina's life insurance policy for just over thirty three thousand dollars. The policy was from her employer, who ensured Tina for one year or her salary for her job at Parisian. There was also a letter from Gabe's attorney demanding they turn over all of Tina's personal property to Gabe. Although at the end of the month, the Thomas family would get a reprieve from the stress and grief of the preceding months. When Alanda gave birth three weeks early to William Matthew. It was a joyous occasion, but dampened because Tina wasn't there to meet her nephew, whom she would have adored and spoiled. Gabe was reportedly depressed in struggling with Tina's death. He refused to go back to the house he and Tina had planned on living in together. Instead, he stayed with his parents and rarely left the house. Gabe joined a young widow support group. He was struggling with grief and financial stress. He wrote letters to politicians about the lack of support for her young widows. Amanda, Tina's best friend, received an awkward Christmas card from Gabe. It was a picture of him and Tina from their honeymoon.

36:53 Inside the card, Gabe had written who's that sexy looking guy standing next to Tina? Oh? Yeah, that's me with a big smiley face next to it. Amanda was creeped out and proclaimed that she was done trying to be friends with Gabe after this. I'll say that I know just super creepy. He's just a weirdo. Gabe's in the same card to others and everyone found it off putting. Eventually, Gabe did move into the house with his brothers because he had purchased trip insurance. Gabe filed a claim for over ten thousand dollars to be reimbursed for the cost of the trip, medical and trafical travel expenses relating to Tina's death and the extra expenses he had incurred while waiting for Tina's body to be cleared for transfer back to the US. Gabe had failed to read the fine print. However, his claim was denied. The policy stated that the insurance became invalid if participating in risky activities such as bungee jumping, skydiving, scuba diving, hand gliding, or deep sea diving.

37:54 Gabe immediately contacted his lawyer to soothe insurance company and the travel agency who had sold him the insurance. Tommy, Cindy, Alanda, and even baby William were all regular visitors to Tina's grave. They frequently brought flowers or other small mementos that they thought she'd enjoy. Her headstone hadn't been placed yet, and it bothered Tommy to have her grave appear so spartan compared to the others, so he bought a new wreath of flowers every two weeks to put on her grave. Alanda and Cindy also frequently brought flowers, but the Thomas Has noticed that the flowers were going missing by the time the next person went to the grave, and also the Thomas Has learned in the summer that Gabe was planning on moving Tina to a different part of the cemetery, and they were told there was nothing that they could do about it. However, Tommy, not one to give up easily, contact the Queensland's police and they reached out to the DA who put a stop to the move. But eventually Tina was relocated, but it was only about one hundred yards from her original grave site.

38:58 It's weird. Do we know why he wanted to do that. He said it was a better spot, but I think it had more to do with like he wanted to buy more plots, which is always so awkward. They were only married for eleven days and her eternal resting places. I mean, I don't know what the right decision is. I don't either, really, that's a tricky one. Tommy was alone representative to oversee the exhumation of Tina's grave. Gabe hadn't even showed up to oversee the move. Tommy became obsessed with the disappearing flowers. He filed a report with the police and then drove a stake into the ground at Tina's new grave site and attached a heavy chain to which he could attach a new floral wreath. A patient. Police officer sat one afternoon for five hours waiting for the flower thief who would be so cruel to remove flowers from a beloved daughter's grave. Let me guess, I don't think you're going to get it, all right, Go ahead, try Gabe, You've got it. The officer saw a all burly man exit a black suv as the officer videotaped him. Gabe brabbed a pair of heavy duty bolt cutters and walked toward the grave. It took several minutes, but he cut the chain, released the flowers, and dumped the chain in the trash, the flowers in the road, and hastily left Tina's grave without pausing to pay respects to his dead wife. He would later claim that Tina didn't like plastic flowers and that's why he removed them. Glenda Watson alleged that she had placed angels on Tina's grave and they went missing too. So this battle between

40:32 these two families, months later, it continues. Gabe said, quote, I promise you I won't go away. I'll be here for years to come. He was threatening the Townsville police after he'd learned that they hadn't yet determined whether or not a formal inquest into Tina's death would be made his dive of computer would not be returned anytime soon. He wrote to them and claimed he would single handedly destroy the Australian diving industry by uncovering how safe it was and how incompetent the local police were. The Townsville Police tried to secure funding to conduct more in person interviews, but received resistance from the government because of the expense. The guests aboard the Spoil Sport and the Jazz Two were scattered all over the world. Tommy and Cindy became impatient with the slow pace of the investigation and decided to visit Australia again. In March two thousand and six, almost two and a half years after Tina's death, they went to the sight of the Young Gala and sprinkled Tina's favorite flowers, purple tulips, in the water. The Queensland Police informed the Thomas' is that they would have to let the interviews of the US passengers be taken care of by the American police because of the lack of funding, and they encouraged them to go to the Alabama Police and file report The Queensland Police weren't able to rule Tina's death an accident, but they also couldn't rule out foul play. While they were unable to conduct the interviews, they were still in investigating Tina's death. So here we are, like almost three years later and they still Yeah, they're still going

42:07 at it, which would probably be driving like it drove Tommy and Cindy crazy, which rued me crazy too. They thought there was a possibility that Gabe had turned off Tina's air supply, causing her to lose consciousness, and then he turned it back on before letting her drift to the bottom of the sea. This would have taken anywhere from ninety seconds to two minutes. Another metric that could be used to assess Tina's distress underwater was her air consumption. The amount of air left in her tank was lower than it should have been under normal circumstances, indicated that she may have been panicking underwater and consuming more air because she was you know, she was breathing more rapidly. The Toma's family had started to become suspicious of Gabe in the weeks and months after Tina's death.

42:52 His behavior did nothing to quell their fears. They had talked to several passengers aboard the spoil Sport who had told him that Gabe's behavior just didn't seem normal. Tommy became more aggressive and approach and told police in both the US and Australia that they needed to consider Gabe had murdered Tina. The police in Australia had been investigating Gabe seriously and did think that he was guilty of murder. As their investigation intensified, it just took much longer than Cindy and Tommy Thomas would have liked, and they pressed even harder to press charges against date Gabe. So are you, like Cindy and Tommy are sure that Gabe filled Tina? And they're trying to convince everyone and get as much attention, and they really were very vocal. I hope by making that, I think I probably we can see clear, but I think Okay. The Queensland Police did meticulous re enactments of the day of Tina's death and nearly identical weather conditions, which took months of preparation, Like they wanted to do this reenactment and they're like, no, we need to wait till October. Okay, divers similar in size to Gabe and Tina portrayed them. But here's so it was two guys and one guy was bigger and then one guy was smaller who was supposed to portray Tina. But the difference between a man's body and a woman's body is it's pretty different, right, And so they thought they were doing this meticulous and re enactment. But in my heart, I'm like, well, that doesn't really makes sense to use a man. Yeah. Wade Singleton,

44:22 who had left the dive industry to become a paramedic, which I think is a little telling. Assisted in the simulation. They repeated Tina and Gave's dives several times, but each time the diver playing Tina fell on the deck of the wreck, not on the sea floor, again calling into question Gave's recollection of the accident. A report was submitted after the simulation with a following result quote, there is no possible way if she separated from the defendant, like he stated, in a limb position from the mid deck area and approximately fifty feet of water, that the deceased could have ended up in the position that she did. She could have only gotten to that position and from the front of the wreck from the side and in open water. Okay, I don't know if that makes any sense, but I guess what they're saying is that every time they tried it, she ended up on the deck, not in the open water. Right, So they're implying that he let go over at a different point or that's it's confusing what they're lost implying that his whole story story is suspicious, that they don't believe, you know, it's just they don't believe anything that Gabe is telling them. In April two thousand and six, the Thomas Has went public with your theory that Tina's death was a homicide, and finally in April two thousand and seven, the Australian police were cleared for travel to the US to conduct interviews. On April twenty third, two thousand and seven, at six fifteen am, Gabe's home was rated by the FBI, the local Alabama police, as well as two officers from Townsville,

45:53 Queensland, Australia. Gabe was handcuffed while his house was searched. The search lasted about an hour. His computer was taken, along with some legal paperwork and photographs. So this is four years later, right, So I'm not sure what they were hoping to find four years later. Yeah, it seems like you'd be hard to get a ton of relevant evidence. Yeah. Sure. November two thousand and seven, Australia launched a coronial inquest similar to an American grand jury, but it's conducted by the coroner, who was seeking to determine if Tina's manner of death was accidental or homicidal. The coroner believed that Gabe had turned off Tina's air supply during the bear hug that doctor Stanley STIs had witnessed, and turned it back on after Tina became unconscious and he pushed he pushed her away, okay, on to the sea floor, and I guess the dive computer wouldn't show if her air supply had been turned on or off. It didn't. And I should mention that their dive computers weren't the most expensive and they might have been a little older. So police discovered that at September, a month before the wedding, Gabe had inquired about getting an additional life insurance policy for Tina and the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but he never followed through, Could we have a case maybe that we don't talk about life controls. It's insane. He had also told Tina to change her work policy to the maximum benefit and changed the beneficiary on the policy to him. She talked to her father about this and he told her

47:24 not to worry about it until after they returned from their honeymoon. She never so she never changed the policy. Well, obviously we talked about how Tommy had gotten the check at Gabe had never asked her about it again, though he told her once, Hey, you know, maybe we should change But he didn't follow through with with either of those things. The civil lawsuit that Gabe had filed against the travel agent and insurance company was set to go to trial in February two thousand and seven. He was seeking forty five thousand dollars for a reimbursement of the trip in addition to medical expenses, travel expenses, and punitive damage is for mental and emotional anguish. In May two thousand and eight, Gabe dismissed the lawsuit under the grounds of self incrimination in the ongoing legal battle in Australia wait for self incriminal so he was afraid that the discovery in the lawsuit would reveal things that would incriminate him exactly. An inquest began into the death of Tina Watson in Australia. There were sixty two witnesses over four weeks. Gabe did not attend despite his presence being requested. Cindy and Tommy were there every day. There were twelve major points that the coroner and the police were stuck on. One Why hadn't Gabe been able to save Tina when he was a certified rescue diver. Why had he abandoned his dive buddy and returned to the surface. Every diver carries something on them called a safety submersible device, also called a safety sausage or an SMB. It's a long,

48:57 hollow tube that can be quickly filled using the BCD or the diver's own breath. It can be used under or above water to locate a diver if they're in danger, or if they've drifted away from their boat to be picked up. And Gabe should have deployed this to alert nearby divers. This is like a marker that will show people. It'll make it visible where a diver. It's like this really long, skinny booy like okay, yeah, yeah, and you just and once people see it, they know that someone's in danger. How had his dive computer initially malfunctioned? Gabe said it was beeping, but if the battery was inserted backwards, how was it beeping. Gabe had allegedly alerted two divers to Tina's incident on his way up, but they were never found. Gabe complained about his ears, but the doctors said they looked fine. His slow ascent, the cemetery incidents, the insurance issues he told like sixteen to ferring accounts of what happened on October twenty second, and why didn't he give Tina his secondary air source or his octopus. After reviewing all the evidence in testimony, the inquest determined that Gabe Watson should stand trial for murder. He was indicted on November twenty ninth, two thousand and eight, more than five years after Tina's death. A warrant was issued for his arrest. Extradition proceedings began. Gabe fought hard against extradition for six months,

50:30 but on May eighteenth, two thousand and nine, he willingly returned to Australia to face the charges. So so much time is past. It's two thousand nine and the incidents happened in two thousand three. Yeah, it's rumored that Gabe received a plea deal from the prosecutor for admitting guilt to the lesser charge. He pleaded innocent to the charge of murder but guilty to the charge of manslaughter. The court accepted his plea and he was sentenced to four and a half years in Australian prison, to be suspended after one year. This decision was later challenged by the prosecutors and the Court of Appeals, where three judges listened to the argument that gave sentence should be extended. One judge moved to dismiss entirely, one voted to extend the sentence to two and a half years, and the Chief Justice decided to compromise and added an additional six months to gabe sentence, so he was supposed to serve eighteen months. All three Thomases were there, along with Tina's best friend Amanda, to see Gabe receive what they thought would be justice, but they were sickened and heartbroken by his plea and lesser sentence. They wanted the case to go to trial and see Gabe received the maximum sentence. Outside the court house, Tommy said, quote, it's total injustice. It's ludicrous what we have just seen. He was charged with murder by a senior coroner and the Townsville Supreme Court, who had completed an extensive investigation of the police's investigation. I was just totally destroyed. It's

52:00 ludicrous. It's a slap to the Australian people and the justice system. It's a slap in the face to the police on both sides, both in the United States and Australia, that spent time investigating this case and the four and a half years here as a joke. End quote. Detective Brad Flynn, who was the lead investigator in Alabama, had made the trip to Australia and he said, quote, I am very shaken. You dedicate yourself, like five and a half years of your life to the case. You want to see resolution, You want to see some closure. You didn't get that today, not for me, but for her family. We didn't get it. End quote. Gabe said he didn't murder Tina, but he was guilty of being an irresponsible dive buddy. He was guilty of manslaughter for not helping her with the buoyancy vest, getting her weights dropped and letting her slip from his grasp. Wade Singleton was also disappointed and said he thought them and slaughter Plea was wrong and Gabe got off light. He said as soon as Gabe Leftina's side, she had no chance of survival, which I agree with. I think it's crazy that he thought, oh, I'm going to go get help and then to come back and yeah, yeah, obviously he was thinking clearly.

53:16 Wade Singleton admitted that he and other crew members made critical errors. Gabe and Tina should have been interviewed separately on the spoil sport. It was company policy for passengers to be interviewed separately so no one was under pressure. Also, Tina's air tank should have had a clear label that she was a green diver, and an introductory dive should have not just been offered, but required. Gabe was classified as a red diver when technically he was probably a green diver or just barely a yellow diver. Divers are classified as green if they've had fewer than fifteen dives ocean dives, yellow if they were between fifteen and fifty ocean dives and red if they have over fifty ocean dives, because it's a big difference between diving and the to diving in a swimming pool or quary or even a lake. Gabe had about fifteen ocean dives, but we said this earlier, but had been several years since he dived in the ocean.

54:12 Did have certification as a rescue diver, but his training was inadequate. Normally, the training was supposed to last for four days, but for some reason, Gabe only had two days of training and had never rescued anyone without supervision. He admitted that he was not equipped to rescue someone in one hundred meters of water. So in no Remember of twenty ten, after serving eighteen months in an Australian prison, Gabe was released. However, an indictment of capital murder and kidnapping by deception awaited him in the United States. He was to be extradited to Alabama, where he would be charged with capital murder, and the Attorney General planned to seek the death penalty. However, the Australian government refused to hand over Gabe and their investigation materials until the death penalty was taken off the table. Because there's no death penalty in Australia. Interesting, But why would Australia. I'm a little confused by that. But okay, tell me why you're confusing. I don't know. It just seems like it's not Australia's business if we want to prosecute him here in the United States. I know it was the crime happened in Australia, but still under the Australian Extradition Act, a person cannot be deported to face prosecution for an offense which carries the death penalty unless the requesting country gives Australia an agreement that the death penalty will not be imposed, or, if imposed, will not be carried out.

55:42 The Alabama Attorney General but grudgingly agreed, So I see your point. But also, I mean, it would be different if he was an Australian citizen, I guess. And you know, we were trying to extradite an Australian citizen to the US to face the death penalty. But being that he was a US citizen, it seems a little odd to me. But they laws are laws, I guess. I think they just feel strongly about their stands on the death penalty. Charging Gabe in the US was not considered double jeopardy because the cases were tried in two separate sovereign states under two different sets of laws. Alabama prosecutors set the plot to kill Tina started on US soil, so Gabe should face charges in the US. I wondered about that because the crime actually didn't take place in the US, But I guess if the plotting took place here, then I think a lot of people were really angry, and I think Tommy Thomas was a really I think he did a really good job of advocating for his daughter and he wanted justice. Gabe was arrested upon returning to the United States and remained in custody for three weeks, but he was later released after posting one hundred thousand dollars in bail, which was surprising the bail was given at all in a capital case. Gabe was required to wear an inkle monitor and adhere to curfews. His trial was set for February twenty eleven, but later and definitely postponed because of severe staffing shortages in the Alabama court system. And they knew that this was going to be a big case requiring extra security, and they just didn't have the manpower, so

57:15 they just they just delayed it, which I think. So trial started one year later and on February thirteenth, twenty twelve, which was actually Tina's birthday, but twenty like, it's nine years later, and I just think these poor family they needed, they needed to end their grieving and to move on with their lives, and it just kept getting dragged out. The charge of kidnapping had been dropped, which seemed they were just saying that he, you know, kind of tricked her into going to Australia, which really it was she was the one who said, hey, let's let's take that trip for our honeymoon. The judge ruled certain evidence against Gabe as inadmissible, such as Gabe's antics at Tina's grave site and his request that Tina increase her insurance and changed the policy's beneficiary to him. Several witnesses helped the defense more than the prosecution. When doctor Stanley Stutts was asked, you don't think you saw a murder that day, did you, he replied, quote, I was surprised when I got an email saying it was a murder investigation. Doctor stan said he'd never actually said the word bear hug, but the police just kind of glombed onto it. He admitted he didn't have the best view of Gabe and Tina, and he said to him, it did look like the Gabe had attempted to rescue Tina prior to his ascent to the top. Gabe's rescue diver and instructor testified that he did teach Gabe that if all else fails, a

58:49 rescue diver should rise to the surface and seek help. Two dive experts testified that Tina was wearing an extra small BCD or buoyancy controlled vice and it can only left a maximum of nineteen extra pounds, so that seems like a pretty big air. Whoever suited her with that vest should have well in the weight that she was carrying. Also, we know it was probably at least twenty pounds, so that slowed her assent. In addition, at greater depths, the inflate button on the BCD needs to be firmly pressed for like the longer the lower you are, the longer you need to press it. And at that the depth that Tina was at, she would have had to have pressed it, pressed it for as long as fifteen seconds, and I would imagine that's that's kind of a lot like if you count to fifteen, that's kind of to be under the water, knowing that you're struggling, you're having a hard time breathing. To have to press it for that long, I can imagine she might have started a panic. YEA. On February twenty third, twenty twelve, after the prosecution rested, the defense moved to dismiss and a quit their a client, as the defense frequently does prior to presenting their case.

59:58 In a move that shocked everyone, Judge Tommy Nail agreed wow and dismissed the case against Gabe. He called the state's case sorely lacking and said, quote, the only way to convict this man of capital murder is to use speculation and conjecture. The state has failed to establish an intentional killing. This case is dismissed. Gabe cried and hugged his well okay, spoiler alert, his new wife and family. His supporters cheered. Some of the jurors were interviewed and said that they would have found Gabe guilty of murder. That's all that's interesting to me that they that was dismissed. I've I know about that, and actually the case I'm working on right now, the defense also requested that, and I think it's very common. Like you said, I've never heard of a situation where it gets dismissed because why not let the jury decide exactly? And that was that was the thing that really bothered Tommy and Sindy Sure. In an interview with Elizabeth Vargas on twenty twenty twelve, Gabe said quote, I mean, it definitely wasn't my finest hour. I had just been accused of murder. I was still dealing with the death of Tina.

1:01:07 I wasn't thinking clearly on anything that I did. I fled guilty to basically not rendering the proper aid, not sending my saving my dive buddy. It was hard to imagine that there's someone out there that thinks that I did this. I was still going through the grieving process. There were all kinds of stuff going on that while it made me act in different ways, I'm not saying that what I did was good in any way. When I would go out to Tina's grave, I always left fresh flowers, and it struck a nerve with me. What I considered and what I think Tina would have considered big, gaudy, plastic arrangements that would sit out there and get faded in the sun. End quote. It sounds like he's kind of all over the place there, And that quote like he's talking about how we acted on the dive, how he acted after at the manslaughter charges, the flowers at the grave. Well, I struggled. Anytime I have to read a quote of Gabes, I struggle because he's not the most well spoken person, and it's a quote because I have to. Yeah, I mean, he's definitely scattered, he's but also what he did was indefensible, and I think that's what he's struggling with. Whether he liked Tina's parents or not, they deserved to lay flowers at their daughter's grave, right They were grieving. They deserved to be able to have the space to grieve. And what he did was disgusting.

1:02:19 Yeah, so I'm going to go through the evidence against Gabe and then you and I can talk about whether we think it's valid or not. The insurance policy that he inquired about, is that enough to think he's guilty? I mean not really. He never followed through with buying insurance. Even if if Tina had maxed out her work insurance policy, it would have not been a huge settlement. It would have been about one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, which I know is a lot of money, Yeah, but not worth killing your new wife, right, And I think taking out insurance on your spouse is not it's not a crime. It's something that people do, even if they don't kill their spouse. So you know, this isn't me insulting you, but I think you and you're not like Gabe, but you're you're more of a cross your eyes and your tea tease type person, and I think you would have been maybe similar and like, hey, don't forget to change this, But he didn't beliebor the point. Yeah. At the trial, it was also revealed that Tina had twenty four thousand dollars of personal debt at the time or her her death, and he knew that because, like I had said earlier, he took on part of her debt and put it on his credit card because they wanted to qualify for the mortgage. So the fact that Gabe didn't go to the jazz too while Tina was being resuscitated a lot of people point to that as him not caring that she died, but it's actually common for people not to want to see their loved one being resuscitated.

1:03:49 Doctor Stanley Stutz said that at the trial, what do you think, I mean, it does seem a little it does seem a little odd, like I would think that you would want to go over and try to help or to or even know to be there for the person, or knowing the severity of her condition. He I don't think at that point he knew that she was unconscious, right, But at the same time, I know, you know, people act in different ways when they're in shock or when they're in a situation like that, and so you know, again, I don't think that is evidence that he killed her. The conversation that was heard in the morgue when he said, I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I shouldn't have kept taking you down. I'm sorry I couldn't stop it. A lot of people pointed to that as him saying apologizing for murdering her. To me, that's I don't perceive it as that way, just him apologizing for taking her Like you said before, I mean, he obviously if it was an accident, I'm sure he felt very guilty, Like, even if he didn't do it on purpose, he felt guilt, And that could easily be the statement of somebody who just felt guilty. He changed his story sixteen times. The police kept saying he changed his stories to teen times, but the differences were subtle. Even the police admitted this. I think I think Gabe is a weenie. He I think he felt bad that he couldn't save her, and he was embarrassed, and so I think that's why his story changed a little bit. He was trying to make himself not look weak. Yeah, it could be so this bear hug that people think,

1:05:23 do you know, can you visualize that? Like he gave her a bear hug and you know, allegedly turned off her air tank and doctor Stanley's toots said it was probably like a maximum of thirty seconds. And I don't think that was probably enough to kill her, well if she was panicking, though, I could imagine it could be enough to kill someone. But I don't know. But he didn't have a stop watch. I would have to believe that the time under water goes by slower. I don't know. Yeah, and again, it's the account of one witness who was rather far away, and the water isn't Chris clear. It's not like he had this great vision of it and he admitted it himself. I couldn't see it. Gabe claimed to have attempted to alert to divers to tina struggle before his ascent, and those divers were ever found. That one's interesting, assuming they interviewed everybody that was there on both of the boats. That one's pretty strange. But again, it's pretty damning. But it could also be, like you said, he was trying not to look like an idiot or trying trying to look make himself look better. So he could have said that because he was, you know, trying to make himself look But at the end of the day, the biggest question is how did Tina die with her regulator in her mouth and plenty of air in her Yeah, that's why I'm still a little be fuddled by. Yeah. Detective Brad Flynn, who was in charge of the investigation in Alabama, like most investigators who've looked at the facts, had trouble understanding the motivation for foul play here. They were newlyweds with a seemingly bright future,

1:06:58 and there was not an insurance pay out to the surviving husband. He said, quote, we seem to believe that to have our murder you have to have a motive of sex or money. None of that really comes into play here. But that doesn't rule anything out. I have to follow the evidence, regardless of where that leads me. End quote. But it's also possible, Detective Brad Flynn, that maybe there wasn't a murder, right He's you know, sometimes they're trying to bend the facts around. Yeah, evidence that just isn't there. So if you can tell already what I feel happened, I think that Gabe is one thousand percent guilty of gross negligence. He was the more experienced diver, and Tina felt protected by him, and he let her down. He literally left her on the ocean floor. So yeah, I think I think I agree with you. I think it is possible that he intentionally killed her, but I don't think it is provable. I don't think that beyond I don't think it's provable beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to kill her. I think it's likely that he was just overconfident and didn't know what he was doing and maybe panicked and didn't do what he should have done in the situation, and like you said, was basically guilty of being negligent. I do think it's possible that he killed her intentionally, but I don't think I could have voted if I was on a jury hearing all

1:08:28 the evidence, I don't think I could have voted guilty. And my opinion is highly controversial. I read a lot of message boards and read it, and everyone was like, he's guilty, He's guilty, He's guilty as fucking I thought that too when I first started researching the case, like the thing like with the flowers, and how he threw the pizza, and how he the engagement ring issue, like all, he's guilty of being a jerk. He's guilty of being a huge dick, and if I saw him in person, i'd slap him. But it doesn't make someone guilty of murder. It doesn't give Tina any justice by punishing Gabe for you know, being a bad dive buddy. Yeah, but I this again might be unpopular because when I first you know, i'll tell you about the book at the end. But when I was reading the book, I thought Wade Singleton, I was like, oh my gosh, what a guy. He's such a great guy.

1:09:20 But the more I think about it, I think Wade Singleton is even more culpable than Gabe. The things that he did wrong. He didn't do a great job interviewing Tina and Gabe separately. He didn't ask some really important questions like how many ocean dives had have you had? If Tina would have said zero, he would have insisted that that she have a supervised dive for sure, and like her tank should have been tagged as like, you know, a novice diver. And there's just a lot of things that he could have done differently he did. And even her assent to the top because he, you know, took her off as fast as he could. And if she had a I don't know this by you know, all the like little pockets of air in her lungs, you know those could have caused more damage because of the fastest scent. Yeah, I'm not sure, Like what you know, that's a trade off there, right, you want to get her to the surface as quickly as you can, but obviously that is not gonna that's gonna be bad for her. Also, right, and we don't know if she I mean, possibly she could have been dead on the ocean floor, and I think that's probably what he assumed that she was like, you know, maybe a you know, a quick resuscitation attempt would have saved her life.

1:10:36 In two thousand and six, Gabe began dating Kim Lewis, a teacher who had gone to high school with him at Hoover High. She was two years younger. They were married in August of two thousand and eight. A lot of people online said that she looks like Tina. She does in as far as she is pretty and she is blonde, And some forums that I read online, people are like, oh, he got married right away and he killed Tina so he could be with Kim. And they didn't get married until August two thousand and eight. These didn't start dating, so it had been at least three years before he started dating her, which I would want. I would hope that you would date within a year of my passing, within a year, I would hope you would wait at least ten years.

1:11:23 Okay, okay, okay. I don't even know where to take to go at that, because I don't want to picture that. But Gabe and Kim live in Alabama. I believe still Gabe keeps a picture of Tina and his new wife in his office. He still works at the family business. As far as I know, I couldn't find a whole lot out about what's currently happening. I think he really keeps a low profile, and he's not on social media that I could tell. Prior to the beginning of the trial, Gabe was removed as executor of Tina's a state and was forbidden from visiting her grave. He was also required to return and her items to Tina's family, including photographs and other personal items. And sadly, oh this is I can I can if I can feel it coming on. Tommy Thomas, who fought so hard for his daughter, died of cancer in November twenty fifteen. I know, Cindy said quote he is holding her sweet daughter now. It's just so sad. I mean that man, he I mean, I don't agree with everything that he did. I'm sure I would be the same, but he falls so hard for his daughter, and it's just I just think that's it, you know, Yeah, that's that's I understand. Alana has since remarried and she has another son named Michael. In a December twenty twelve article and Diving in Hyperbaric Medicine Journals, how I love that journal subscript It's a good one, uh. Carl Edmonds, who has over fifty years of experience in diving medicine, wrote, quote, Tina Watson suffered the two most common

1:12:54 causes of death and young scuba divers drowning in airy embolism from pulmonary barrel trama. She had most of the contributing factors for these. She was medically, physically and psychologically unsuited for the dives she undertook. She was inexperienced, doing the deepest dive she had ever attempted, her first dive in open water and against currents she had never encountered. She was overweighted and without adequate supervision. She panicked and was probably exhausted and overbreathed. Her regulator aspirated water and became hypoxic or not getting enough air. Yeah, she lost consciousness and finally drowned. This was complicated by bursting her lungs during a rapid emergency ascent. How anyone could claim that there was no reason for her death or attribute it to a murder is beyond my comprehension end quote. And he is one of the you know, the world's most informed. Sure you could find another expert who would say the opposite, but that definitely makes sense. There was actually two experts at the trial that pretty much said the same thing. Mike Ball diving was fined six thousand, five hundred dollars for not following safety protocol, which isn't her. Tina's life was worth much more than that. Tina's grave remained unmarked until two thousand and nine, when Gabe finally purchased a grave marker.

1:14:16 It was a simple marker with her name, Tina Watson, her birth and death dates. On one side is an image of a panda and on the other side a koala, which I thought was a little bit of an interesting take. So that's that's the story of Tina and Gabe Watson. Well, a fascinating story. Well we had already we already talked about a lot of this. I always have discussion at the end, but we always end up talking about it before. But I think I think it came down to Gabe was not as experienced as he thought he was, and when you break down his dive log book, he really did have very little experience and open water. I think he had a lot of you know, pride. It's like it's so incumbent upon men to take care of their women, and I think he was embarrassed, and I think that's what led to a lot of right kind of the the lies or untruths. And I think a lot of people online don't know the whole story. I think I did a pretty deep dive here. Ye no pun intended. And I think if you look at like some of like if you there's a lot of YouTubers and people like that, to do a ten or fifteen minute, they give you just like the bare facts and then you're like, yep, he's guilty. But I think if you really look at it, let me know what you think. Listeners, people in general love to be outraged. Then they love to you know, they want people to be guilty because it makes them feel better. And I understand that instinct and everything, but you know, just yeah, people should definitely be held accountable for their actions. And I do think Gabe, I

1:15:48 think the manslaughter charge was adequate because he did leave her and he should not have done that. I am wondering if Tina could have like just had a little bit of water in her throat, like maybe her regulator was just loosen a little bit and she just had enough water to just kind of choke on because I choke on water all the time. Yeah, No, I could totally picture that. I've never been scuba diving, but I could totally imagine that. If you were in a situation like that and you were a little bit nervous, something like that happened, you would panic, and then once you panic, it's it's you know, it's all downhill from there. Well, and remember, so Gabe and Tina they went on the water the first time and they came right back out, and he had the whole thing with his dive computer, and he was like, oh, it's not working, right. I think that it's possible he got he got really nervous, and he was like, oh shit, what have I done? Like this water is a little and I don't think it was super crazy, but for him it might have been way more intense than he anticipated. Yeah, and I think he might have needed a little breather and was like, I don't know what to do here. But then they were like, yeah, let's let's just go in. Yeah, about eighty divers in North America die each year, and diving accidents between three point four and four point two deaths per one hundred thousand. The most recent statistic I could find was from twenty eighteen, and there were ninety two deaths in the US and Canada and ninety seven combined in all other countries. The most common causes of death while scuba diving are insufficient air, rapid ascent due to panicking, air embolism, entrapment, and equipment failure. Entrapment meaning trapped inside. Oh oh, horrifying. I think

1:17:27 we've talked about this before, but that like the sorry running out of air under it just must be so scary. Yeah. Eighty percent of those that died were a male. Sixty seven percent of the fatalities were people fifty years of age or older. The average age was fifty four. The youngest fatality was ten years old and the oldest was seventy three. Fifty percent of those that died had less than twenty dives. And that's all I have. I know I wore you out, you did, but it was a fascinating story. I love a good scuba diving story, and it's really sad what happened. I agree that, yeah, he probably should not have been found guilty of murder. So you think the judge dismissing the case, Well, I don't know about that. I do. I still think, like, you know, let the jury decide, but I don't know. I wasn't there in the courtroom, so I can't really say so. One of our lovely listeners recommended this case, and I have forgotten to say it until this point, and I feel badly, so I hope you're still listening. And I don't have their name. They recommended it a while ago, and I've been reased, so well, thank you whoever. I mean, I really did.

1:18:40 I think this was a great case and it was I enjoyed researching it. It was weird doing a case about someone named Tina. But I need to give credit to my main source, which is a book called Fatal Honeymoon Dive by Lindsay Simpson and Jennifer Cook. They did a fabulous job, and you and I both have read someone these books at this point and a lot of time. I mean there it's hard not to pick aside, and they really did a great job being objective throughout the book and letting the reader make up their mind, because at times I was like, oh, he's guilty as sin, and the other times, you know, I could see I mean, he was guilty of something, but I don't. I don't think it was an intentional murder. So please tell me if you feel otherwise.

1:19:23 I'd be curious to hear your argument, but I just I just don't see the evidence. And also, there was a great podcast I listened to from case File on this case and it was I don't know if I'd listened to a case file before, but it's very it's a little dry, but it's just very fact driven and they did a really good job. So listen to that if you're still interested. Cool man, I'm a little worn out. Yeah, let's take the rest of the day off. Well it's it's yeah, seventh, I'm done. Stick a work in me. Yeah. So this week I went and I did a deep dive into our podcast host and I'd never really looked to see. I mean, I know people from all over a listening, but I can confirm that every state has listened. That's pretty cool. And Hi, I texted you what the it was over one hundred countries have listened to us. Yeah, well, I didn't know how many countries there were in the world, so I actually looked it up.

1:20:25 But I think there's one hundred and ninety five. And I think you said one hundred and fifteen from one hundred and fifteen countries, which is pretty amazing. I mean, we're just we can't say it enough, but we are so grateful. And it's not like everyone in the like there was thousands of listens in the Philippines. They're a handful, yeah, but at a lot of people in Australia, yeah, listening to us. So yeah, one of our bigger downlets comes from Australia. So I hope we did you justice Australia. I know that this case was the Australian people were pretty angry about Gabe and they really did think he was he was guilty interest of murder. So yeah, and I did want to say too. We won't be releasing this for a couple of weeks, but we wanted to. I'm thinking about our friends in Hawaii. Oh yeah, the fires there, Gosh, it's it's just devastating. It's such a beautiful place, and we're thinking about you and pulling for you, and yeah, it's horrible. Yeah, well thanks for listening. Yeah, great job on the case. Thanks for going through it and sweating. Thank you everybody for listening. We do truly appreciate all of our listeners. Well, until next time, don't kill your your husband. Be the