.jpg)
Jennifer Cooke -
One of the world's leading experts on diving deaths believes Tina Watson, an American whose honeymoon death on the Great Barrier Reef seven years ago sparked a controversial murder case, was the victim of a simple diving accident.
Dr Carl Edmonds claims "a grave injustice may have been done" in relation to Tina's husband of 11 days, Gabe Watson. He was charged with her murder by a Queensland coroner after a month-long inquest but served 18 months in jail after pleading guilty to her manslaughter.
Watson is now fighting fresh murder charges in Alabama related to his wife's diving death, after he was deported to the US last year.
Sydney-based Dr Edmonds, who co-wrote Diving Medicine for Scuba Divers, and has written specialist journal articles on more than 100 diving deaths, told the Herald that Watson's account to police of the events underwater on October 22, 2003, "all fits together very reasonably in a simple, straightforward diving accident".
Tina Watson, 26, of slim build, was "grossly overweighted" with nine kilograms of weights for her first ocean dive - more than twice what she needed with the equipment she was using, he said.
After analysing her husband's statements to police, together with other medical evidence and equipment reports given to the inquest into Tina's death, Dr Edmonds believes the novice diver did not inflate her buoyancy compensator vest - as all experienced divers would have done automatically - while descending to about 15 metres, above the wreck of the SS Yongala, south-east of Townsville.
Posted via http://batavia08.posterous.com batavia08's posterous
No comments:
Post a Comment