The honeymoon death that led to the pursuit of justice across two continents

Jennifer Cooke - 

Eight years after a fairytale wedding to his princess bride, Tina, Alabama packaging company salesman Gabe Watson will go on trial for her murder next week.  *

An extraordinary saga has led to this point. Set against a backdrop of animosity between the families of the couple, the case has sharply divided friends, neighbours and legal teams.

Allegations of murder against Watson are based on a theory originally put forward by the Townsville police, who investigated Tina's death after she drowned while scuba diving on her honeymoon.

Tina Thomas, 26, had suffered from regular heart palpitations until a curative surgical procedure two years before her October 2003 wedding.

She died in what Queensland police and Tina's family believe were sinister circumstances.

Gabe Watson's defence lawyers in Australia and the United States maintain he made a bad decision to leave her and seek help when she panicked and got into difficulty about 15 metres under water, instead of using his rescue diving certification training to save her.

Whether Tina drowned in a tragic accident or whether the burly, 192-centimetre-tall Watson planned his crime in Alabama and then travelled across the world to carry out the murder of his bride on their Great Barrier Reef honeymoon 11 days later, as alleged, is what a jury will have to decide.

At the heart of the saga is this question: Why did Tina Thomas drown five minutes into her first ocean dive above a wreck with her regulator in place, plenty of air in her tank and her dive equipment working perfectly ?

Full story...

Posted via http://maritime-news.posterous.com Maritime-News posterous