Outrage over sentence in honeymoon drowning

The family of an American woman who drowned on her honeymoon in Australia is outraged that a court in that country has given her husband, who had been accused of her murder, only a one-year jail sentence for manslaughter.

The woman, Tina Watson, was just 26 years old when she drowned in October 2003 while scuba diving with her husband and others off the Great Barrier Reef. The death was initially ruled an accident, but after an inquest three years later, her husband, Gabe Watson, was charged with her murder.

Prosecutors said he held her in a bear hug and turned off her air supply. Then, they said, after turning her air back on, he allowed her lifeless body to sink to the bottom of the sea.

Watson had proclaimed his innocence, but at a hearing Thursday in Brisbane, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and accepted a sentence that will keep him in jail for a year. Prosecutor Brendan Campbell told the court the manslaughter plea was accepted on the basis that the 32-year-old Watson — trained to rescue panicked divers — failed in his duty as her dive buddy by not giving her emergency oxygen.

‘This is not justice’
“We were convinced and are today that Gabe Watson murdered Tina,” Tommy Thomas, the dead woman’s father, told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Friday from Brisbane. Earlier, he had told NBC News, “This is not justice and this is not over.”

“I’m shocked. It’s unbelievable,” added Tina’s sister, Alanda Thomas, who was with her father in Brisbane. “It’s complete injustice all the way around. It’s disgusting. It’s just unbelievable.”

Local prosecutors said that one reason they accepted the plea deal with Watson was to save Tina’s family from the hardship of going through a trial. The family had attended the lengthy inquest during which 65 witnesses from all over the world testified. They had also attended all preliminary hearings and had hoped to see Watson convicted of murder.

“The fact of the matter is, there’s no greater hardship than losing your daughter, your sister, your best friend for the rest of your life,” Tommy Thomas told Lauer.

Video   Murder trial May 14: An American man accused of drowning his wife during a honeymoon scuba diving trip to Australia's Great Barrier Reef is now behind bars, awaiting trial for murder. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports. Today show

Tina’s mother, Cindy Thomas, had also attended every hearing, but her husband said she was hospitalized in intensive care after she began bleeding uncontrollably and without apparent cause. After receiving seven units of blood, her doctors told her it was too great a risk for her to join her family on this trip.

Suspended sentencing
Watson’s sentence is 4½ years, but the judge ruled he must serve just one year of that. He has been in jail awaiting trial after voluntarily returning to Australia just under a month ago. He’ll get credit for time served and will be out of jail in 11 more months.

According to The Associated Press, the suspended sentence is not unusual in such crimes in Queensland.

Watson, of Birmingham, Ala., was to stand trial in the Queensland Supreme Court for murder, which carried a potential sentence of life in prison, until the prosecution accepted the guilty plea to the lesser charge.

Campbell, the prosecutor, said Watson allowed his wife to sink to the ocean floor without attempting to retrieve her, and he did not inflate her buoyancy vest or remove weights from her belt.

TODAY Tina Watson was 26 when she drowned while scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef on her honeymoon.

"He virtually extinguished any chance of her survival," Campbell said.

Dream to nightmare
Watson married Tina in a ceremony described by her friends as her dream wedding in Birmingham on Oct. 11, 2003.

Eleven days later, a dive instructor found her lying on the bottom of the ocean during a weeklong Great Barrier Reef scuba diving trip off the coast of Townsville City. Watson told police her death was an accident.

Coroner David Glasgow formally charged Watson with murder last June. The coroner said a possible motive was her modest life insurance policy.

Watson turned himself in last month to answer the murder charge in the northeastern city of Brisbane.

Queensland Police via AP file In this photo supplied by Queensland Police, Tina Watson is seen lying motionless on the sea floor as an unidentified diver poses for the camera, center, while a dive leader, left and partially hidden, hurries to help the American.

An experienced diver who has since remarried, Watson had said in videotaped police interviews that 26-year-old Tina, a novice diver, started having trouble a few minutes into their dive.

He said he decided to go for help rather than attempt a rescue himself. One of the dive leaders pulled the woman to the surface, but efforts to resuscitate her failed.

A fellow diver told Glasgow's inquest last year he saw Watson engaged in an underwater "bear hug" with his petite wife, after which he headed to the surface while she sank to the ocean floor.

Watson told police his wife knocked his mask off and then sank too quickly for him to retrieve her. But the prosecution rejected his explanation, saying it would not have been possible for her to sink rapidly.

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