August 20, 2025 • 55 mins
In October 2003, newlyweds Gabe and Tina Watson travelled from Alabama to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef for their dream honeymoon. Just 11 days after their wedding, the couple prepared to dive the SS Yongala shipwreck, one of the world’s most famous dive sites. But within minutes of entering the water, Tina was pulled to the surface unconscious. Despite desperate attempts to save her, she could not be revived.
What began as a heartbreaking accident soon raised chilling questions. Why were Gabe’s stories inconsistent? And what really happened underwater that day?
In this episode, host Gemma Bath speaks with journalist and author Lindsay Simpson, co-author of Honeymoon Dive, to explore a case that captivated the world and still divides opinion more than 20 years on. You can find the book here.
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Guest: Lindsay Simpson
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
True crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters.
That this podcast was recorded.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
On It's October two thousand and three. A newlyweds, Gabe
and Tina Watson are a board a thirty meter catamaran
enjoying the raw beauty of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. They've
only been married eleven days after a whirlwind six month engagement,
and their honeymoon to the turquoise waters of Queensland has
been planned around the perfect diving conditions for him and
(00:35):
the nesting schedule of the green sea turtles for her.
The couple from Birmingham, Alabama are just two of twenty
five people readying to explore the SS Yongala, Australia's largest
and most intact historic shipwreck. After some toast and cereal
for breakfast, the group is briefed at eight thirty am
(00:56):
about the day ahead. They run through safety procedures, weather
and current conditions, and the intricacies of the difficult dive ahead.
By ten thirty am they're in the water, but within
ten minutes Tina Watson emerges without a pulse. Despite desperate
efforts back on deck, she can't be revived. At first,
(01:21):
it's assumed to be a horrible accident, but over the
course of years, questions are asked, suspicions are raised, and
lies start to unravel because the multiple differing versions of
what her husband says happened underwater simply don't make sense.
(01:43):
I'm Jemma Bath and this is True Crime Conversations, a
podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
the people who know the most about them. From the
moment Tina Watson's body was returned to the surface of
the water by dive master Wade Singleton, Gabe was acting
in a way that those around him thought was odd.
(02:04):
Head surfaced closer to a differ boat to them, and
while others tried desperately to resuscitate his wife, he made
no effort to join her, be by her side, or
help in any way. Others remarked that heck, they would
have jumped in the ocean and swam to her side
immediately had it been their spouse. They noted that he
kept wanting to tell people his version of events, a
(02:27):
story that his fellow experienced divers immediately thought sounded wrong.
It couldn't have happened like that there was no way,
they said, but their suspicions and gut feelings weren't properly examined.
For many years, gay Botson went back home to America,
organized a funeral, found himself estranged from Tina's loved ones
(02:48):
over a series of bizarre and hurtful events, and eventually remarried,
all before he found himself facing murder charges in two
thousand and eight, five years after Tina's death. This is
a story that captured global news headlines as Internet's booths
and media commentators all descended on the story with their
(03:09):
views and opinions.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Did he do it?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Or didn't he? Lindsay Simpson has researched this story extensively
and is the co author of Honeymoon Dive with Jennifer Cook.
Lindsay joins me. Now, Lindsay, euroit Sunday's local. You're an author,
but you also work in tourism, so you and your
husband run sailing boats. The story we're about to tell
(03:34):
attracted global headlines. It was everywhere for many, many years.
What made you want to write about it in depth
and kind of put more of a spotlight on it?
On your kind of slice of the world.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Well, that's an interesting question, Jemma, because I was living
on Magnetic Island and at the time this was all unfolding,
which for people who don't know is probably to me.
I'm not good with distances, but it might be an
hour or two to the wreck by boat to the
young Gala that they were Tina and Gabe were diving on.
(04:10):
And the more I read about it, and as you said,
the headlines were just staring me in the face. I'm
a true crime writer, but I thought, this is just
in my backyard. This is so much about what we do.
We don't do diving, but it's happened. And Jenny Cook,
who was an old friend of mine from the Sydney
Morning Herald, she lived in the States, and I thought, hey,
(04:33):
she could maybe look at the American side of it.
And I've got everything here. I was able to access
the court records through a certain source in Townsville, because
of course the court case was in Townsville, which was
only eleven kilometers across the water from Magnetic Island, and
I went to work there every day to James Cork University.
(04:54):
So yes, it was all fairly obvious. It was like
a story knocking on my door saying come on, you've
got to And lecturing is one thing, but I was
really itching to be honest, to get back into storytelling
and interviewing and all the exciting things that makes me
like being a journalist.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, like you kind of alluded to, this story actually
starts in America, in Alabama, which is a landlocked city.
There's no ocean around it. How popular is diving as
a pastime over there?
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Well, I think maybe because it's landlocked. People see you,
diving is an exotic thing to do. And when you
look at Gabe Watson had a fairly boring job and
his business, the family business was packaging and bubble wrapping,
and I guess for him diving was something that represented
(05:52):
something exotic, as I said, but also something he could
learn and go and rise up through the ranks of
learning how to dive. So I think it was just
because it probably was landlocked, but that's the word places
you could dive. And we ended up going to the
very place where Tina and him had learned and got
(06:13):
their diving certificates, which was a quarry, so there certainly
wasn't any ocean to dive.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Tell us a bit more about Gabe's experience because he
kind of walked past a dive shop at twenty one
and then was obsessed.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Yes, that's right. I think the fact that he had
his mate with him, it was something they could do together.
But the other aspect was and I'm not entirely sure
when he'd learned about this other dive in the British
Virgin Islands where a death had occurred. And I guess
you know he is at the moment. Of course, he's
(06:51):
a free man. He's being found that there's no case
against him in America anyway.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But he started diving long before he met Tina. In fact,
he was quite experienced by the time he met Tina,
wasn't he.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Right, So that's why I was thinking that he started
learning how to dive, and then because he knew so much,
and he was even a rescue diver, and that requires
a lot of extra training. That's not just having fun
and looking at coral.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
So he was a rescue diver. So that's basically you know,
could he have been an instructor? Was he that level
of qualified?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
That's one below the instructor level, but it certainly means
that you know, when somebody starts panicking down below. And
let's not forget that this entire instant was something like
fifteen meters down. It was not that that deep. It
certainly means when somebody panics that you know what to do,
(07:47):
and things like that person panicking and thrashing and trying
to grab you know, the sorts of things we do
when we lose it. And Tina was very nervous. You
certainly would know what to do. You have a second regulator,
and you have a second way of breathing, and they
call it the I think it's called the which is
(08:08):
the other way of having a second source of air,
and that he would have known. As a rescue diver,
he would have understood what all that was about.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Let's bring in Tina here, because you know, we've got
Gabe who is a young man in Alabama. He's working
at his parents' business diving on the side. What was
Tina doing with herself before she met Gabe? And can
you tell us a.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Little bit about her health struggles?
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yes, well, she was always exhausted and they discovered I
think in her teens that there was a reason for that,
and it was a arrhythmic heart condition and she had
had surgery, so there was recognition by the parents that
something had to be done because she was getting out
(08:59):
of breath and really struggling. So she had that all
fixed before the dive, and what her life was like.
I know her favorite book was Gone with the Wind,
and the whole Alabama Princess thing of needing to find
a husband we discovered. I think there was a lot
of pressure on her actually, even from the family. All
(09:23):
the girlfriends were getting married to find mister Wright. And
I think from her perspective, Gabe happened to come along
at a time when she'd broken up with someone and
he actually went and got her this purse a Kate Spade.
I think it was purse that the other boyfriend hadn't
(09:44):
bothered bringing back, so he went and got it for her,
and that impressed her. But from the outset there was
red flags because there was a lot of the family
were looking at him saying, why are you with someone
like that? And there was a whole lot of incidents
leading up to this whole dive on the Great Barrier
(10:05):
Reef that were very strange.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
But during their relationship, she found out that he was planning.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
To propose to her or had a ring.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
He kind of held that over her, which became a
big theme in their relationship. Can you explain that to us?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, well, that was probably the strangest thing because when
she came back home one day, the flat was all tidy,
and she saw when they were unpacking the grocery, she
saw this little box with the jewelry that had obviously
the name of the jewelers on it. And she had
been waiting for him to propose, so she saw that
(10:44):
there and thought, oh, you know, it's finally happening. And
he basically said to her, if you go anywhere near
that or open it, it's nothing's going to happen. So
at first she sort of thought, oh, he's waiting for
the right time. It's going to be romantic, which is
odd because that people, i mean men might think that
that they're going to propose an romantic question, but they
(11:06):
don't put the ring out and the show and then
say you can't have it. Eventually, she told the family,
she told her best friend, and they were all saying
to her, but that's not okay, Like, why would someone
do that? And you know, milestones had passed her birthday,
all these things would happen and she'd think it's going
to happen now, It's going to happen now, and it
(11:28):
didn't happen. And then he even went to Tommy. Tommy Thomas,
her father, was an amazing man. He did so much
to try and get the information and answers about his
daughter's death. He went to him and said, can I
ask for her hand in marriage? And Tommy was scratching
(11:49):
his head because there was already things coming out that
he wasn't happy with me. He said, well, do you
love Tina? And Gabe sort of didn't give an answer
to that. He said, that's pretty corny, wasn't it to
ask me that? And he said, oh, we're right together?
But Tommy said, but no, I'm asking you do you
love her? And Gabe's answer was very ambiguous.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
To say that it's corny. It's just such a bizarre
thing to say yes.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
So much of what he said in interviews, records of interviews,
things that we read was bizarre.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Did Tina love him?
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Well, that's an interesting question because she did keep saying
to her girlfriend's isn't he handsome? And personally I don't
know how she could have thought that he wasn't particularly
a handsome guy. He was very socially awkward. I think
what happened was he came at the right time of
(12:51):
her being twenty six, feeling she was left on the shelf,
and then fixating on this idea that they would get married.
She did go back to an earlier boyfriend, not really
a boyfriend, but an old friend from the past that
she got on with and tried to basically have a
date with him, and Gabe found out and was furious.
(13:12):
And this was when the ring still hadn't been given
to her, so she'd obviously got sick of waiting, but
he had some control over her.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Well. He ended up proposing, not in any kind of
huge dramatic way. He just kind of.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Asked her at their house.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
On a random day, and then everything He wanted everything
to move really quickly after having everything moved so slowly,
so he kind of was like, right, well, we need
to get married within six months. So suddenly everything speeds.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Up exactly, which is not what she wanted at all,
because the whole wedding, you know, there are some women
who the wedding is the most important thing, and she
wanted to plan and suddenly, yeah, suddenly, but not only
the wedding. She had to learn how to dive.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Why why did she have to learn how to dive?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Well, he told the father Tommy that she had to
learn to dive because he did things that she liked. Therefore,
it was almost like a contract. So if she's going
to marry me, she has to learn how to scuba dive.
It wasn't you know it would be great if she
loved diving like I do. Or maybe I'll tagra and
(14:23):
dive and see what she thinks she will be doing
that he told Tommy.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Well, reading the conversations between the two in your book,
it kind of felt like he was more focused on
planning the honeymoon, which he wanted to be in Australia
at a really famous dive spot, rather than planning the wedding,
like it was all planned around diving conditions exactly.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And the turtles, the green turtles are nesting in October,
and he knew that would be a draw card for
her because she loved nemo and turtles. So yes, that's right.
Everything had to be rushed through, and again she wasn't
given an option. And there's also some nasty incidents in
that earlier time where he threw a pizza at her
(15:10):
in a restaurant when she was there, I think with
her sister or a best friend, and you know, they'd
arrived a little bit late, and he was sitting there
in a foul mood and was quite grumpy, and she
tried to put it off that he had sign his headaches,
but then he literally got up in the restaurant, chucked
the pizza at her and left. You know, that's there's
(15:33):
stuff like that that This is the betroth. This is
someone who's you know, you're going to spend the rest
of your life with. I mean that would be that
would be a definite finishing of the relationship for most women.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, how did the wedding go? Was it a nice day?
Did the families get on?
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yes? I think their wedding went quite well, and they
had all the photos. I think it was what she wanted.
But she had to then get ready to go overseas
very quickly after that and get the passport and all
of the things that went on, and she had to
finish her diving certificate, so she we went back to
(16:17):
that quarry where she learnt to dive. Jenny and I
and neither of us knew how to dive, and we
kind of went into that whole experience of what she
would have gone through all while she was getting the
wedding ready and getting to go overseas, and I don't
think she'd been overseas before, so it was all a
very big deal. And we went into that quarry with
dive instructor who actually took her through the steps of
(16:41):
what to do and described how she panicked. I think
it was ten meters down and we were able to
really feel this pressure. And I still remember him saying
when he said to her, you shouldn't be diving. You're
not able to do this. You're really the most panic
diver I've ever seen. And she said, well, there was
(17:02):
a reason for that, and she pointed up to the
top of the quarry and Gabe Watson of his arms folded,
looking down at her like you had. And he's specifically
been told not to come to the quarry what she
was learning, because they don't like relatives coming because it's
a lot of pressure on the person learning to dive,
and he was there to make sure she passed the certificate.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
She ended up getting qualified, but she wasn't what you
would call experienced by the time she left for Australia.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Not at all. In fact, I was trying to find
out and trying to remember. I don't think she'd even
done an ocean dive. There's been reports that she had,
but I think it was only in the swimming pool
because I had a swimming pool and a quarry. The
quarry was this murky, horrible place with cars lying in
the pot.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
But sounds terrifying for a non diver like me, really.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Grows and you know, taking that mask off, I mean
I never died before I went to that quarry, taking
the mask off and trying to you know, not panic
underwater and then put it know that your ear is okay.
That's when she really lost it. I think that her
diving experience was just there, and so really when they
(18:17):
went round I don't know, jumping into the gun, but
when they were on the boat and she was asked
about how many dives she'd done, she was very experienced.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So they left for their honeymoon pretty much, you know,
straight after their wedding. They stayed in Sydney for about
a week. They make their way to Townsville and then
they board this dive vessel which has twenty five other
people on board. Can you tell us about what.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
The trip was?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
This was all. This is a very famous dive site
in Australia that people travel all over the world to
come to and it's considered a red dive, which means
it's on the harder side.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
That's right. The Young Gala was known as Australia's Titanic.
In fact, there's a museum, amazing museum in towns, like
one of these perfect little regional museums that you go
in that's got all the details of everything because there
were one hundred and twenty one people on that ship
that's sunk in a cyclone. Actually, funny enough, on our boat,
(19:19):
we took the people who were going to board that
boat on and didn't make it. Their relatives all those
years ago and they commemorated every significant anniversary. So yeah,
it was a big deal. It sunk, and it's about
three hundred feet or certain meetings. Anyway, it's a big
steel boat and it had fallen sideways on the starboard
(19:42):
side and it presented this amazing opportunity for a dive.
So people, yes, came from everywhere and Gabe Watson had
heard about it and yet there's a lot of people
leaving from air which is regional town here from Townsville,
and they go out to to this wreck and dive,
but it is a difficult dive because of currents. It's
(20:04):
kind of about in the middle of nowhere. One hundred
and twenty one people are still on board that drowned
really a racehorse off the deck. So yes, it was
a very big disaster. And when after they left Mackay
which is where they steamed out of and hit the cyclone,
the Marconi wireless had just arrived and they left just
(20:27):
before this harless came in, so they could have had
contact with them and said come back, but unfortunately that
didn't happen and they all drowned.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
From the very start of that kind of expedition of
this group of passengers that included Tina and Gabe, the
other people on board were noticing a bit of weirdness,
weren't they.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
They were again his social awkwardness, the fact that he
didn't seem at ease. They noticed that Tina was incredibly bubbly,
which she was chatting to everybody. There was another honeymoon
couple on board and they'd got married at similar time,
so you know they had something in common with them.
(21:10):
But yes, there was I suppose right before the dive.
I don't think there was too much weirdness noted other
than the fact that you know, he was a bit uncommunicative.
It was just after they went down that things started
not quite adding up.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
How does a trip like this work, because you've got
a mix of experiences and I'm assuming that there are
very detailed briefings, explanations, you do safety things. What does
it look like before you actually even get into the water.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Yes, there is a lot of mucking around because yeah, exactly,
there's so many workplace health and safety. They have a
number of obviously regulations that you have to go through,
and there's a lot of checking things off and signing
things and checking gear and having a dive body. So
(22:06):
territory of the dive. Some of those people on board
were still jet lagged. You know, typically they'd fly all
the way across the world just to come and do
this dive and then they might just go home. Actually,
in Tina and Gabe's case, they went via Sydney, went
to Rongazoo and did other things. But yes, there's a
lot of work going into making sure like checking the
(22:27):
air and the tanks, you checking the BC on properly. Yeah,
so that was all going on that morning.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
And interestingly some of the other experienced divers said it
was some of the best briefings they'd ever encountered.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
That's right. So Wade Singleton was the one who was briefing,
and he did. He felt incredibly bad about later what
had happened, but certainly his briefing was excellent. The problem
was that, and I think there was a charge laid later,
was that she was sitting there, she'd only dived in
(23:02):
a quarry. She was petrified, which they didn't necessarily no,
and interestingly she never told anyone that there was no evidence.
I mean she was terrified in the quarry only a
few meters down. How do you think she felt leaping
into this ocean with fast currents and just not having
the experience, and probably, like I am, claustrophobic, she definitely
(23:26):
didn't have a good reaction. So yes, the thing that
actually happened was that she was asked if she wanted
or told she should have an orientation dive, which is
what beginning divers do, and she would have then been
accompanied by Wade Singleton or a number of other people
who were just standing around that that was mentioned several times.
(23:47):
All these people would rather be doing this than cleaning
the toilets taking you for a dive. So she had
ample opportunity to say, I'm really terrified and I'm like
an orientation dive. But he stepped in and said, oh,
she doesn't need that. She's got me. I'm a rescue diver.
We are fine.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
How did that first dive start, because there was a
bit of fuffing about with Gabe and Tina even getting.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Underwater exactly there was straight Well. The weird thing about
that was they aborted the dive. There went out, There
seemed to be a lot of fiddle faddling around. They
got i think one of the last boats, the little
tenders that leave to take them out to where they're
going to dive, and they came back because Gabe's battery
(24:35):
was supposedly upside down inside his dive watch, but that
had happened in Alabama before they left, and Tina had
already taken it to the place he bought it. That
was one of the jobs she was given by Gabe,
and it was about the battery, not working and it
was upside down. They said they found it in the
(24:56):
shop that was upside down, was way before the dive,
and then lo and behold, the morning of the dive,
he puts the batteries in upside down again, which was
very weird. So they came to the surface. He said,
my dive computer's not working.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
You're listening to true crime Conversations with me Jemma Bass.
I'm speaking with Lindsey Simpson, co author of Honeymoon Dive.
Up next, Lindsay describes the moment a fellow diver saw
Tina struggling underwater, a witness report that would become crucial
in years to come. They eventually start their dive and
(25:38):
about five or so minutes in, a fellow diver witnesses
something underwater. Can you tell us about what he saw?
That diver was also a doctor, so he was a
very experienced person in both diving and medical situations. What
did he see underwater?
Speaker 4 (25:57):
So he was an emergency doctor and you couldn't get
a better, in my view, expert witness than that, because
he saw what he saw was this person lying on
her back and he said, already exhibiting signs that she
was dying. She was still alive, but her limbs were
(26:17):
all splayed out and she was just steering upwards. So
at first he thought he was seeing things. This other
bog I mentioned before was coming from Magnetic Island and
just moored exactly where they were, and the divers were
coming down the rope when they looked over, and this
(26:37):
doctor saw this blonde girl lying backwards, and he was
quite concerned. He didn't know what was going on. So, yes,
that was the first thing that anyone recorded as seeing
what was happening.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Was it that same doctor that saw what he described
as a bear hug between the.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Two, Yes, he did see. Will that be hug? Was
interesting because I think and I think I'm right in
saying that, but he thought, Yes, the reason he didn't
immediately go to the girl's assistance was that he saw
this other diver and I think he was described as
a very big man, and Gabe Watson was six foot
(27:20):
seven or something like that, and he thought that she
was The doctor thought Gabe was helping her, so that's
why he hadn't done something.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And he saw her kind of bear hug her was
the way he described it, like, Yes, put his arms
around her.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Exactly put his arms around her, and he presumed that
that was him helping him.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
What happened next in terms of how Tina came to
the surface, because it wasn't with Gabe, no, So.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
I think the doctor then didn't realize that he hadn't
taken her up. But Wade Singleton, who was the fellow
briefing them all in the morning of the Great Briefing,
he then looked down and at first thought he were
seeing things and then realized that it was one of
the passengers. So anyway, Wade went down, got her from
(28:18):
and I think he took ninety two seconds a minute
and a half to get to the surface with her.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Gabe kind of popped up separately three minutes apart from them.
So you've got Wade and Tina kind of appearing in
the surface, and you've got Gabe appearing not as close
on another side. They both end up on different boats.
It's got to Tina's boat first because what happens there
(28:46):
they basically try and rescue her.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Yes, so they took her onto the other boat, Jazz
to the one from Magnetic Island and basically straight away
tried doing everything they could to save her. But really
probably at that point what that door doctor Stutz had
seen water the emergency doctor had been correct that that
(29:10):
was her completely losing consciousness. So they worked on her
for quite some time, and they even use an epipenn
to try and get her to come round, and that
was obvious in the post bottum that that was another
Another one of the most obvious things on her body
when they examined her was the EpiPen going into her
(29:33):
neck and causing that swelling. But yes, she didn't couldn't
be revived. Nothing they did brought her back.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
They spent forty one minutes trying to revive her. Where
was Gabe in all of.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
This, Well, Gabe popped back onto Spoil Sport, and that
comment was made by at least one of the passengers
like if that was you over there, honey, I'd be
there with bells on, you know, working out what was
going on. How you were. He didn't go over to
Jazz too until basically she was pronounced dead by the doctor,
(30:14):
so that was quite some time. He was wandering around
Spoil Sports saying, oh, you know, something's happened to Tina,
and also, which I thought was interesting, telling every man
and his dog what he thought happened, including the chef.
He would just start blurting out, this happened, that happened.
(30:34):
So he was giving these versions already to a number
of people.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I know that Gabe had quite a few versions of events.
But what was his basic story that he was telling
people about what happened underwater?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Well, he was basically initially saying that she grabbed when
he went to try and help her, that they went
swimming off into the distance, and then she didn't seem
to be happy. He didn't really mention much initially about
any current, although he did say they had tried to swim,
and he said then he went towards her because he
(31:09):
realized that she wasn't happy that things were happening, and
she grabbed his regulator. Now that he did say that
consistently to just about everybody on Spoilsboard after he got
on board the boat they'd been on, and he said
that she grabbed his mask and took it off, and
(31:31):
he then the second breathing potentially way to breathe is that,
as I mentioned, that second supply through the second regulator,
which everyone has and every rescue diver is told to
use because when a person panics are out of control.
So if she was doing all those things that he alleged,
(31:53):
and let's not forget that nobody saw any of this,
then he should have given her his second AAR supply.
But what he says is he actually took that himself
because he thought he would be gone too. So somebody
like your wife is panicking underwater, you have a sort
of air supply you can give to her in addition
(32:13):
to the one you're using, even if she's grabbed the
one you're using. Even if that's all correct, he was
trained as a rescue diver to go behind for the
very reason that people start flailing and grabbing, go behind
where the tanks are and get a person under control.
So though not grabbing a new he didn't do any
of those things. So his versions were that he then
(32:37):
tried to find a secondary supply and then he put
that in and while he was doing that, she started falling,
and she was falling too quickly quote unquote for him
to go after her, and again remembering this is not
really deep.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Water, so he made the decision to instead follow her,
to head back up to the surface and in his words,
get help.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
That's right, So he said at this stage he realized,
but you know, rescue diver also knows the critical time
to have actually got it to the surface was not
to watch her going further down, but to get her
up to the surface so she could breathe. So at
that stage she was falling quickly, and he didn't do
(33:24):
any of the things he'd been trained to do at all.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
It wasn't just that he didn't do the things that
he'd been trained to do. A lot of the experienced
divers that he was telling this story too, they immediately
were like, well, that didn't happen. Why were they saying
stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Well, some of the things he was saying to these two,
particularly American divers, who alerted Tommy Thomas, her father sometime later,
because remembering that when her parents first heard about all,
they thought a tragic diving accident, and that was what
everyone thought for some time, given the police notes. You know,
dear me, how tragic. So I think that what they
(34:04):
were saying to he was saying to them was I
couldn't get her because she was too heavy, And they
were saying, but you're not heavy underwater, you light, And
they were saying, and one of them actually said to him.
This is some of the first things he told them.
They said, to Gabe, that's bullshit, those words, and they said,
that's not right. So there was in the early stages
(34:26):
when he first got back on board after calling the
alarm and then Tina servicing with Wade Singleton being rescued.
The early stages, he was saying things that didn't make
any sense. They were experienced divers and they were calling
him out, and the women, their wives were talking about
how strange where he was reacting that there was things
(34:50):
that didn't add up, like he hadn't gone over to
the boat to be with her, that he seemed to
be I mean, he was playing cards on the way
back to Townsville when her body was lying in a
cabin fourteen on the boat. Very strange behavior.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
He also made an announcement to everyone on the boat
home where he once again just used weird language, like
that kind of corny stuff he said with the dad,
he said, my wife died today. This just really sucks,
so just weirdness.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Everyone was so shocked. Yes, And the other strange things
he was doing was things like insisting in got his
dive computer back and he wanted a receipt and shouting
and yelling at the police because of course that's evidence exactly.
You know, wherever he said they went, it would have
been mapped on the dive computer because remember he did
(35:45):
go back up and finally get his batteries right. So yes,
there was the fact that he was playing cards and
then he said he wanted to stay on the boat.
He didn't want to get off the boat when they
got back to townsall, and they couldn't understand the reason for that. Yeah, nothing,
there was things but unfor Actionately, all of those sorts
(36:08):
of things that really would have been important for collecting
evidence right away when the boat docked, they weren't mentioned.
Some young constables took the statement from Gabe and the
other people are on the boat and they weren't asked.
Like there was a volunteer on board that day, lou Johnson,
(36:29):
and she went to his cabin with him straight after
the whole thing had happened, and he was saying some
very strange things to her there and she wasn't asked
about anything. That all of that evidence was never in
their statements initially before the court case.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And why was that?
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Was it?
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Because the police were an experience.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Was it because they didn't understand diving a mixture of
the two.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
I think you know. To have that many people giving,
they wanted to take the statements quite quickly, so they
were all kind of shoveled off and given the opportunity
to give their version. There was a lot of people
and a lot of evidence that one of the passengers
said one constable was taking it all down the two fingers.
So the whole thing took forever to the record of interviewed,
(37:23):
but certainly probably at least three people said it was
just so disappointing because some of their evidence that went
towards pointing the finger at Gabe Watson was never collected
in those statements.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
How were the families, and I say families because Gabe's
family and Tina's family, how were they informed about what
had happened?
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Well, that was another strange thing that he was told
to ring his parents, and he didn't want to do
that initially, but he finally did ring his parents, but
he wasn't going to ring Tina's parents. Tina's parents didn't
know until twelve hours after the whole thing had happened.
And when he first when Tommy Thomas got the call
(38:09):
to say something's wrong. Gabe asked his father to call them,
and he basically said, there's been something terrible happened, and
then he handed the phone to his preacher. There were
Southern Baptists the Gabe Watson's family, and the preacher is
the one who told Tommy Thomas, and Tommy was asking
for details which the preacher didn't have, and in fact,
(38:34):
then the mother, when she was hysterical understandably, Tina's mother
realized that Gabe's mother had already booked her flight to
get to Australia, and in fact, her daughter hadn't just died,
It happened twelve hours before, and they hadn't even been told.
And her sister went to work at a restaurant and
(38:54):
everyone knew, the staff knew that word had got out
before the family were even told, and she found out
about it at work, so she had to then go
and tell the mother. So I mean that and then
their first reaction with Thomas's first reaction was how terrible
the gay because you know, he'd witnessed this awful thing
and lost his wife who just married, and there was nothing. Actually,
(39:17):
can imagine they're miles away in Alabama. There was nothing
to suggest that something had happened that was underwought.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Gabe did eventually talk to Tina's parents on the phone,
and he and no other way to say that he
lied about certain things in those initial phone calls.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
He did, and I mean at that point, you know,
he was very thinking about the dive computer, but he
was also going to give them an evidence another one
of the versions that he said happened.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Can you tell us what he lied about.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
Well, he lied about the fact that he was with
her basically at the final moments, and that she blinked
at him when she was underwater, and that she would
have known he was going for help. But also he
lied and said he was there because Cindy asked him,
her mother asked him, were you there, of course, you know,
(40:13):
to help to see if she'd be okay, And he said, yes,
I was there.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
So during all of the CPR all of that, he
kind of said.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
He was present exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
There was a lot of tension that started bubbling between
Gabe and Tina's families during the process of bringing Tina's
body home, organizing her funeral, the funeral itself, can you
touch on some of that and how that kind of
bubbled over.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yes, well, there are plots that Cindy right away said,
you know, we've got plots and Gabe can be next
to Tina. So funeral plots, that funeral plots that their
family had organized, and that was never going to be
and in fact, right up even until it was present moment,
as far as I know, Gabe hasn't given any of
(41:03):
her belongings back and he announced know that she was
going to their family plot. So there was a lot
of angst even around what was going to happen to
her now that she had died, and what they were
going to do with the body.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
After the break, we look at why both the police
and Tina's family started to grow suspicious of Gabe Watson
and his ever changing story. So Tommy and the family
were starting to kind.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Of get a little bit suspicious.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
They'd started talking to some of the dive passengers about
their suspicions. At this point, were police.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Investigating foul play?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Was it an open investigation or like what was happening there?
Speaker 4 (41:51):
No, I don't think it was. I think police had
just there was even comments made on the notes, no
suspicious circumstances. So I think it hadn't been for these
obviously these guests, other guests going home and thinking about it,
and they just felt bad about it from the word go,
like they thought there was something wrong. So I think
(42:14):
police had kind of left it, let it be, and
I guess the Thomases as well, thought, you know, they're
so far away what had happened. She was a beginning diver.
There was conversations about the currents that Gabe started feeding
in fairly early on to the media, to the media,
so that was another sudden thing that he talked about,
(42:36):
and this strange thing like an earache that he had,
and there was no evidence that he had, sorry, so
there was suddenly this other stuff coming in at one point.
But the currents, I guess from their perspective from the Thomases,
they knew how scared she was, probably about diving. They
knew it was an ocean dive that was said to
be dangerous, which there had been information that the currents
(42:58):
could get extremely strong, but there was a lot of
evidence that the Spoilers board staff checked all of that
before she went in. But it certainly wasn't a day
where you're just swimming along like in the swimming pool.
So I think for all of those reasons that Thomas's
believed that, you know, their daughter had died in tragic circumstances.
(43:20):
But then I think when that these questions were asked
and this one of the guests rang Tommy, I think
things started changing and that he started recalling all of
these other things that were happening.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Four years after Tina's death, so we're talking two thousand
and seven, there was an inquest held in Townsville around
the circumstances of how she died, Why did it take
that long, and why wouldn't the next steps for police
in Australia be something like arresting Gabe, going down that
(43:54):
route of suspicion.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
Yes, because that's four years after the whole event, which
was October two thousand and three. I think, to be honest,
it's the initial police investigation was just expecting, which is
not how police should operate. And I'm not saying they
didn't do a good job, but I think they just
expected it to be a dive. There are a number
(44:21):
of people by the way, that do die on storkling
expeditions on boats. I mean, we run boats, we hear
about it. It's not necessarily making the media, and most
of those are natural causes heart attacks people. But it
did take or two thousand and seven, and finally there
was the inquest, as you said, and finally there was
(44:44):
the coroner pointed finger it Gabe.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
There were sixty two witnesses at that inquest, twelve points
of concern for police.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
We've touched on a few of.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Them, but I want to run through some of them
just to kind of give listeners and ideas. So we've
got obviously the conflicting stories to different people. There was
the apparent malfunction of the dive computer, the slow rate
of assent, given the emergency of Gabe coming to the surface,
and given it only took Wade, you know, ninety two
(45:14):
seconds or something like that, took him several minutes. And
then Tina's heart condition was also a part of this
inquest because obviously she'd had heart problems as a child,
and that was investigated as to whether it could have
been a condition that caused her to die. What was
found in terms of that.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
That's right, So she had had that operation and she'd
been given the all clear, and that was found not
to have been the cause of death because a couple
of things that the people said on Spoilsport were the
only thing that could have happened and caused her to
die was that there was no heir when she was found.
(45:55):
But Wade Singleton had found that there was air in
the tank. They didn't know about her heart condition that
people on spoilsport, but certainly the post mortem said that
that wasn't a death.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
And they also found her with the regulator still in
her mouth and it was all functioning.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
Yes, that's right. Everything the only as it was interesting
because these two experienced divers said that's the only reason
for the cause of death.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
There's also this infamous photo which we haven't mentioned yet.
It's the most famous image from this case, and it
has a diver in the kind of foreground smiling at
the camera and in the background you can see Tina. Yeah,
and that photo actually was used in the inquest as well,
(46:44):
wasn't it?
Speaker 3 (46:44):
What did it show?
Speaker 4 (46:47):
Well, that was chilling because the other honeymoon couple, he
was so proud of his new camera and it had
gone digital way back in those days two thousand and three,
and he was photographing his wife Dawn I think her
name was, and she was turning back to Way Singleton
to get an idea of how deep they were, so
(47:07):
he took a photo off and it wasn't untill they
were sitting on spoilsport actually looking through the photographs and
he was saying, oh, I didn't get really good ones,
you know, I didn't realize how to focus. And then
suddenly he came across this one of Dawn. It was
one of the better photos. He said, what's that behind her?
Is it coral? And then they realized it was actually Tina.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
And was there something about the fact that Gabe wasn't
in that photo and that was used as evidence.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Well, they actually had the photo of Wade Singleton. They
could see his fins going down. So how quickly he
reacted when he realized that, you know that this was
someone at the bottom and he had to get her up.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
That inquest came to an end kind of mid two
thousand and eight, and it basically found that Gabe should
be charged with murder. Was that a shocking thing to
have happened in an inquest?
Speaker 4 (48:02):
It was shocking given that not anyone had really looked
at the fact in that way before, and also that
it was four years after she died, but I think
that what happened then he ended up getting a sentence
of manslaughter really upset the family because they said that
(48:23):
there was definitely enough evidence. The more they were hearing,
they flew to towns while they hired a lawyer, the more
they were hearing about what went on, the more horrified
they were.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Gabe arrived in Australia May two thousand and nine. He
was arrested as soon as he got here. And then
the next shock that kind of came to everyone was
that he entered a plea when he turned up in court,
not guilty to murder, but that he would plead guilty
to manslaughter. And basically he'd made a deal.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
With the DPP.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
How did that even come about? Did he know before
he got on that plane that if he came he
could just plead guilty to manslaughter get not the murder chart.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
It's like a plea deal, and I think plea bargaining.
The prosecutors said that they basically had looked at all
of the evidence, there's still not the evidence that he
actually caused her death, which was the problem they faced
with a murder charge. And as you said, the initial
investigation hadn't uncovered anything untoward, and there was a number
(49:27):
of years went by before this all ended up in court.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
He agreed to a manslaught of charge which was a
sentence of four and a half years, but initially that
was most of it was suspended, so it was about
a year in prison. And what was the reaction to that,
not just from Tina's family, but from investigators from the internet.
(49:52):
How did everyone react?
Speaker 4 (49:54):
Well, I suppose the fact that well, the parents and
the family were just really upset. As you can imagine.
He was basically found guilty of being a bad dive buddy.
But then he was extradited, as you know, to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Because they basically wanted to pursue murder charges again, didn't.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
They That's right, they did so. But the issue then
was could Australia give somebody up to be extradited if
they faced the death sentence, which is what in Alabama
they still have capital punishment, as we probably know, so
they were in a very difficult position to give him up,
(50:42):
but they ended up getting assurance that he wouldn't be
put to death if he was found guilty. In America,
that didn't end up happening, did it.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
The case in America was abandoned.
Speaker 4 (50:53):
That's right. Halfway through the evidence, the judge came in
and dismissed the jury and said there's not enough evidence
I find to find him guilty, and he walked free.
And in Alabama they don't have a right to appeal,
so the parents could do absolutely nothing to revisit the case,
(51:19):
get another judge on the case. So it was almost
like at every turn between the body of their daughter
being exhumed, this terrible set of events unfolding about how
she died, the culpability of her husband who had been
found guilty of manslaughter. At least in Australia, there was
(51:43):
really nothing else that they could do because.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
The only extra kind of rope they got was instead
of a year in prison, they appealed and managed to
get a year and a half. So a year and
a half in prison was what Gabe Watson kind of served.
And then he went home to America and he had
a new wife. Do we know what, have we heard
anything in the last few years.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
I've got an alert on his name. But there was
certainly evidence that the new wife was very much a
look alike for Tina, which was quite chilling. So I
don't suppose he's been up to anything particularly bad, because
I think we would have heard about it in the media.
(52:30):
But yes, I mean I failed to see after writing
this book and spending all this time and going to
America and doing all the interviews, I just cannot understand
why women would stay with someone that all your friends
and all your family are saying, this isn't right, He's
not the right person for you, you know, throwing a pizza
(52:52):
at a face in the middle of a restaurant. Now again,
I do have hasten to say he is a free
man and he's been found not guilty, but at the
time we were writing the book, certainly that wasn't the case.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Do you think that that goes to the heart of
why this case has been so popular in the media.
You know, you and your co author had completely differing
views here, and I feel like that is what was
happening on a world kind of stage where people were
just obsessed with going over the details and being against
(53:28):
each other and in Gabe's corner, not in Gabe's corner,
and that's why it kind of captured everyone.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
I think very much. Sarah. I think this is often
the case and murder cases that to actually prove, you know,
I saw him hold up a knife and stab someone
in the back, that is not the case. And rape cases,
you know, her version versus his version, I think ultimately
(53:56):
even and he's walking free now. So yes, it does
fuel that whole idea. I think there are people that
adamantly She was absolutely adamant that he hadn't done it.
And yet we've done the same interviews. We door knocked
Gabe's place where he lived, we'd spoken to people at
the dive instructor, we'd interviewed all these people, so she
(54:20):
was exposed to the same information I was. We're both journalists,
so I think that says everything that at the end
of the day, Yeah, we probably did reflect that ambivalence
about for the disagreements that did he do it or
didn't he.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Thanks to Lindsey and Jennifer helping us to tell this story.
True Crime Conversations is hosted and produced by me Jemma
Bass and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Brown.
Thanks so much for listening. Claire Murphy will be back
next week with another True Crime Conversation.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
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(55:20):
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That this podcast was recorded.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
On It's October two thousand and three. A newlyweds, Gabe
and Tina Watson are a board a thirty meter catamaran
enjoying the raw beauty of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. They've
only been married eleven days after a whirlwind six month engagement,
and their honeymoon to the turquoise waters of Queensland has
been planned around the perfect diving conditions for him and
(00:35):
the nesting schedule of the green sea turtles for her.
The couple from Birmingham, Alabama are just two of twenty
five people readying to explore the SS Yongala, Australia's largest
and most intact historic shipwreck. After some toast and cereal
for breakfast, the group is briefed at eight thirty am
(00:56):
about the day ahead. They run through safety procedures, weather
and current conditions, and the intricacies of the difficult dive ahead.
By ten thirty am they're in the water, but within
ten minutes Tina Watson emerges without a pulse. Despite desperate
efforts back on deck, she can't be revived. At first,
(01:21):
it's assumed to be a horrible accident, but over the
course of years, questions are asked, suspicions are raised, and
lies start to unravel because the multiple differing versions of
what her husband says happened underwater simply don't make sense.
(01:43):
I'm Jemma Bath and this is True Crime Conversations, a
podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
the people who know the most about them. From the
moment Tina Watson's body was returned to the surface of
the water by dive master Wade Singleton, Gabe was acting
in a way that those around him thought was odd.
(02:04):
Head surfaced closer to a differ boat to them, and
while others tried desperately to resuscitate his wife, he made
no effort to join her, be by her side, or
help in any way. Others remarked that heck, they would
have jumped in the ocean and swam to her side
immediately had it been their spouse. They noted that he
kept wanting to tell people his version of events, a
(02:27):
story that his fellow experienced divers immediately thought sounded wrong.
It couldn't have happened like that there was no way,
they said, but their suspicions and gut feelings weren't properly examined.
For many years, gay Botson went back home to America,
organized a funeral, found himself estranged from Tina's loved ones
(02:48):
over a series of bizarre and hurtful events, and eventually remarried,
all before he found himself facing murder charges in two
thousand and eight, five years after Tina's death. This is
a story that captured global news headlines as Internet's booths
and media commentators all descended on the story with their
(03:09):
views and opinions.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Did he do it?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Or didn't he? Lindsay Simpson has researched this story extensively
and is the co author of Honeymoon Dive with Jennifer Cook.
Lindsay joins me. Now, Lindsay, euroit Sunday's local. You're an author,
but you also work in tourism, so you and your
husband run sailing boats. The story we're about to tell
(03:34):
attracted global headlines. It was everywhere for many, many years.
What made you want to write about it in depth
and kind of put more of a spotlight on it?
On your kind of slice of the world.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Well, that's an interesting question, Jemma, because I was living
on Magnetic Island and at the time this was all unfolding,
which for people who don't know is probably to me.
I'm not good with distances, but it might be an
hour or two to the wreck by boat to the
young Gala that they were Tina and Gabe were diving on.
(04:10):
And the more I read about it, and as you said,
the headlines were just staring me in the face. I'm
a true crime writer, but I thought, this is just
in my backyard. This is so much about what we do.
We don't do diving, but it's happened. And Jenny Cook,
who was an old friend of mine from the Sydney
Morning Herald, she lived in the States, and I thought, hey,
(04:33):
she could maybe look at the American side of it.
And I've got everything here. I was able to access
the court records through a certain source in Townsville, because
of course the court case was in Townsville, which was
only eleven kilometers across the water from Magnetic Island, and
I went to work there every day to James Cork University.
(04:54):
So yes, it was all fairly obvious. It was like
a story knocking on my door saying come on, you've
got to And lecturing is one thing, but I was
really itching to be honest, to get back into storytelling
and interviewing and all the exciting things that makes me
like being a journalist.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, like you kind of alluded to, this story actually
starts in America, in Alabama, which is a landlocked city.
There's no ocean around it. How popular is diving as
a pastime over there?
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Well, I think maybe because it's landlocked. People see you,
diving is an exotic thing to do. And when you
look at Gabe Watson had a fairly boring job and
his business, the family business was packaging and bubble wrapping,
and I guess for him diving was something that represented
(05:52):
something exotic, as I said, but also something he could
learn and go and rise up through the ranks of
learning how to dive. So I think it was just
because it probably was landlocked, but that's the word places
you could dive. And we ended up going to the
very place where Tina and him had learned and got
(06:13):
their diving certificates, which was a quarry, so there certainly
wasn't any ocean to dive.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Tell us a bit more about Gabe's experience because he
kind of walked past a dive shop at twenty one
and then was obsessed.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Yes, that's right. I think the fact that he had
his mate with him, it was something they could do together.
But the other aspect was and I'm not entirely sure
when he'd learned about this other dive in the British
Virgin Islands where a death had occurred. And I guess
you know he is at the moment. Of course, he's
(06:51):
a free man. He's being found that there's no case
against him in America anyway.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But he started diving long before he met Tina. In fact,
he was quite experienced by the time he met Tina,
wasn't he.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Right, So that's why I was thinking that he started
learning how to dive, and then because he knew so much,
and he was even a rescue diver, and that requires
a lot of extra training. That's not just having fun
and looking at coral.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
So he was a rescue diver. So that's basically you know,
could he have been an instructor? Was he that level
of qualified?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
That's one below the instructor level, but it certainly means
that you know, when somebody starts panicking down below. And
let's not forget that this entire instant was something like
fifteen meters down. It was not that that deep. It
certainly means when somebody panics that you know what to do,
(07:47):
and things like that person panicking and thrashing and trying
to grab you know, the sorts of things we do
when we lose it. And Tina was very nervous. You
certainly would know what to do. You have a second regulator,
and you have a second way of breathing, and they
call it the I think it's called the which is
(08:08):
the other way of having a second source of air,
and that he would have known. As a rescue diver,
he would have understood what all that was about.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Let's bring in Tina here, because you know, we've got
Gabe who is a young man in Alabama. He's working
at his parents' business diving on the side. What was
Tina doing with herself before she met Gabe? And can
you tell us a.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Little bit about her health struggles?
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yes, well, she was always exhausted and they discovered I
think in her teens that there was a reason for that,
and it was a arrhythmic heart condition and she had
had surgery, so there was recognition by the parents that
something had to be done because she was getting out
(08:59):
of breath and really struggling. So she had that all
fixed before the dive, and what her life was like.
I know her favorite book was Gone with the Wind,
and the whole Alabama Princess thing of needing to find
a husband we discovered. I think there was a lot
of pressure on her actually, even from the family. All
(09:23):
the girlfriends were getting married to find mister Wright. And
I think from her perspective, Gabe happened to come along
at a time when she'd broken up with someone and
he actually went and got her this purse a Kate Spade.
I think it was purse that the other boyfriend hadn't
(09:44):
bothered bringing back, so he went and got it for her,
and that impressed her. But from the outset there was
red flags because there was a lot of the family
were looking at him saying, why are you with someone
like that? And there was a whole lot of incidents
leading up to this whole dive on the Great Barrier
(10:05):
Reef that were very strange.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
But during their relationship, she found out that he was planning.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
To propose to her or had a ring.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
He kind of held that over her, which became a
big theme in their relationship. Can you explain that to us?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, well, that was probably the strangest thing because when
she came back home one day, the flat was all tidy,
and she saw when they were unpacking the grocery, she
saw this little box with the jewelry that had obviously
the name of the jewelers on it. And she had
been waiting for him to propose, so she saw that
(10:44):
there and thought, oh, you know, it's finally happening. And
he basically said to her, if you go anywhere near
that or open it, it's nothing's going to happen. So
at first she sort of thought, oh, he's waiting for
the right time. It's going to be romantic, which is
odd because that people, i mean men might think that
that they're going to propose an romantic question, but they
(11:06):
don't put the ring out and the show and then
say you can't have it. Eventually, she told the family,
she told her best friend, and they were all saying
to her, but that's not okay, Like, why would someone
do that? And you know, milestones had passed her birthday,
all these things would happen and she'd think it's going
to happen now, It's going to happen now, and it
(11:28):
didn't happen. And then he even went to Tommy. Tommy Thomas,
her father, was an amazing man. He did so much
to try and get the information and answers about his
daughter's death. He went to him and said, can I
ask for her hand in marriage? And Tommy was scratching
(11:49):
his head because there was already things coming out that
he wasn't happy with me. He said, well, do you
love Tina? And Gabe sort of didn't give an answer
to that. He said, that's pretty corny, wasn't it to
ask me that? And he said, oh, we're right together?
But Tommy said, but no, I'm asking you do you
love her? And Gabe's answer was very ambiguous.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
To say that it's corny. It's just such a bizarre
thing to say yes.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
So much of what he said in interviews, records of interviews,
things that we read was bizarre.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Did Tina love him?
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Well, that's an interesting question because she did keep saying
to her girlfriend's isn't he handsome? And personally I don't
know how she could have thought that he wasn't particularly
a handsome guy. He was very socially awkward. I think
what happened was he came at the right time of
(12:51):
her being twenty six, feeling she was left on the shelf,
and then fixating on this idea that they would get married.
She did go back to an earlier boyfriend, not really
a boyfriend, but an old friend from the past that
she got on with and tried to basically have a
date with him, and Gabe found out and was furious.
(13:12):
And this was when the ring still hadn't been given
to her, so she'd obviously got sick of waiting, but
he had some control over her.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Well. He ended up proposing, not in any kind of
huge dramatic way. He just kind of.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Asked her at their house.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
On a random day, and then everything He wanted everything
to move really quickly after having everything moved so slowly,
so he kind of was like, right, well, we need
to get married within six months. So suddenly everything speeds.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Up exactly, which is not what she wanted at all,
because the whole wedding, you know, there are some women
who the wedding is the most important thing, and she
wanted to plan and suddenly, yeah, suddenly, but not only
the wedding. She had to learn how to dive.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Why why did she have to learn how to dive?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Well, he told the father Tommy that she had to
learn to dive because he did things that she liked. Therefore,
it was almost like a contract. So if she's going
to marry me, she has to learn how to scuba dive.
It wasn't you know it would be great if she
loved diving like I do. Or maybe I'll tagra and
(14:23):
dive and see what she thinks she will be doing
that he told Tommy.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Well, reading the conversations between the two in your book,
it kind of felt like he was more focused on
planning the honeymoon, which he wanted to be in Australia
at a really famous dive spot, rather than planning the wedding,
like it was all planned around diving conditions exactly.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And the turtles, the green turtles are nesting in October,
and he knew that would be a draw card for
her because she loved nemo and turtles. So yes, that's right.
Everything had to be rushed through, and again she wasn't
given an option. And there's also some nasty incidents in
that earlier time where he threw a pizza at her
(15:10):
in a restaurant when she was there, I think with
her sister or a best friend, and you know, they'd
arrived a little bit late, and he was sitting there
in a foul mood and was quite grumpy, and she
tried to put it off that he had sign his headaches,
but then he literally got up in the restaurant, chucked
the pizza at her and left. You know, that's there's
(15:33):
stuff like that that This is the betroth. This is
someone who's you know, you're going to spend the rest
of your life with. I mean that would be that
would be a definite finishing of the relationship for most women.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, how did the wedding go? Was it a nice day?
Did the families get on?
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yes? I think their wedding went quite well, and they
had all the photos. I think it was what she wanted.
But she had to then get ready to go overseas
very quickly after that and get the passport and all
of the things that went on, and she had to
finish her diving certificate, so she we went back to
(16:17):
that quarry where she learnt to dive. Jenny and I
and neither of us knew how to dive, and we
kind of went into that whole experience of what she
would have gone through all while she was getting the
wedding ready and getting to go overseas, and I don't
think she'd been overseas before, so it was all a
very big deal. And we went into that quarry with
dive instructor who actually took her through the steps of
(16:41):
what to do and described how she panicked. I think
it was ten meters down and we were able to
really feel this pressure. And I still remember him saying
when he said to her, you shouldn't be diving. You're
not able to do this. You're really the most panic
diver I've ever seen. And she said, well, there was
(17:02):
a reason for that, and she pointed up to the
top of the quarry and Gabe Watson of his arms folded,
looking down at her like you had. And he's specifically
been told not to come to the quarry what she
was learning, because they don't like relatives coming because it's
a lot of pressure on the person learning to dive,
and he was there to make sure she passed the certificate.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
She ended up getting qualified, but she wasn't what you
would call experienced by the time she left for Australia.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Not at all. In fact, I was trying to find
out and trying to remember. I don't think she'd even
done an ocean dive. There's been reports that she had,
but I think it was only in the swimming pool
because I had a swimming pool and a quarry. The
quarry was this murky, horrible place with cars lying in
the pot.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
But sounds terrifying for a non diver like me, really.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Grows and you know, taking that mask off, I mean
I never died before I went to that quarry, taking
the mask off and trying to you know, not panic
underwater and then put it know that your ear is okay.
That's when she really lost it. I think that her
diving experience was just there, and so really when they
(18:17):
went round I don't know, jumping into the gun, but
when they were on the boat and she was asked
about how many dives she'd done, she was very experienced.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So they left for their honeymoon pretty much, you know,
straight after their wedding. They stayed in Sydney for about
a week. They make their way to Townsville and then
they board this dive vessel which has twenty five other
people on board. Can you tell us about what.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
The trip was?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
This was all. This is a very famous dive site
in Australia that people travel all over the world to
come to and it's considered a red dive, which means
it's on the harder side.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
That's right. The Young Gala was known as Australia's Titanic.
In fact, there's a museum, amazing museum in towns, like
one of these perfect little regional museums that you go
in that's got all the details of everything because there
were one hundred and twenty one people on that ship
that's sunk in a cyclone. Actually, funny enough, on our boat,
(19:19):
we took the people who were going to board that
boat on and didn't make it. Their relatives all those
years ago and they commemorated every significant anniversary. So yeah,
it was a big deal. It sunk, and it's about
three hundred feet or certain meetings. Anyway, it's a big
steel boat and it had fallen sideways on the starboard
(19:42):
side and it presented this amazing opportunity for a dive.
So people, yes, came from everywhere and Gabe Watson had
heard about it and yet there's a lot of people
leaving from air which is regional town here from Townsville,
and they go out to to this wreck and dive,
but it is a difficult dive because of currents. It's
(20:04):
kind of about in the middle of nowhere. One hundred
and twenty one people are still on board that drowned
really a racehorse off the deck. So yes, it was
a very big disaster. And when after they left Mackay
which is where they steamed out of and hit the cyclone,
the Marconi wireless had just arrived and they left just
(20:27):
before this harless came in, so they could have had
contact with them and said come back, but unfortunately that
didn't happen and they all drowned.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
From the very start of that kind of expedition of
this group of passengers that included Tina and Gabe, the
other people on board were noticing a bit of weirdness,
weren't they.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
They were again his social awkwardness, the fact that he
didn't seem at ease. They noticed that Tina was incredibly bubbly,
which she was chatting to everybody. There was another honeymoon
couple on board and they'd got married at similar time,
so you know they had something in common with them.
(21:10):
But yes, there was I suppose right before the dive.
I don't think there was too much weirdness noted other
than the fact that you know, he was a bit uncommunicative.
It was just after they went down that things started
not quite adding up.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
How does a trip like this work, because you've got
a mix of experiences and I'm assuming that there are
very detailed briefings, explanations, you do safety things. What does
it look like before you actually even get into the water.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Yes, there is a lot of mucking around because yeah, exactly,
there's so many workplace health and safety. They have a
number of obviously regulations that you have to go through,
and there's a lot of checking things off and signing
things and checking gear and having a dive body. So
(22:06):
territory of the dive. Some of those people on board
were still jet lagged. You know, typically they'd fly all
the way across the world just to come and do
this dive and then they might just go home. Actually,
in Tina and Gabe's case, they went via Sydney, went
to Rongazoo and did other things. But yes, there's a
lot of work going into making sure like checking the
(22:27):
air and the tanks, you checking the BC on properly. Yeah,
so that was all going on that morning.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
And interestingly some of the other experienced divers said it
was some of the best briefings they'd ever encountered.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
That's right. So Wade Singleton was the one who was briefing,
and he did. He felt incredibly bad about later what
had happened, but certainly his briefing was excellent. The problem
was that, and I think there was a charge laid later,
was that she was sitting there, she'd only dived in
(23:02):
a quarry. She was petrified, which they didn't necessarily no,
and interestingly she never told anyone that there was no evidence.
I mean she was terrified in the quarry only a
few meters down. How do you think she felt leaping
into this ocean with fast currents and just not having
the experience, and probably, like I am, claustrophobic, she definitely
(23:26):
didn't have a good reaction. So yes, the thing that
actually happened was that she was asked if she wanted
or told she should have an orientation dive, which is
what beginning divers do, and she would have then been
accompanied by Wade Singleton or a number of other people
who were just standing around that that was mentioned several times.
(23:47):
All these people would rather be doing this than cleaning
the toilets taking you for a dive. So she had
ample opportunity to say, I'm really terrified and I'm like
an orientation dive. But he stepped in and said, oh,
she doesn't need that. She's got me. I'm a rescue diver.
We are fine.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
How did that first dive start, because there was a
bit of fuffing about with Gabe and Tina even getting.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Underwater exactly there was straight Well. The weird thing about
that was they aborted the dive. There went out, There
seemed to be a lot of fiddle faddling around. They
got i think one of the last boats, the little
tenders that leave to take them out to where they're
going to dive, and they came back because Gabe's battery
(24:35):
was supposedly upside down inside his dive watch, but that
had happened in Alabama before they left, and Tina had
already taken it to the place he bought it. That
was one of the jobs she was given by Gabe,
and it was about the battery, not working and it
was upside down. They said they found it in the
(24:56):
shop that was upside down, was way before the dive,
and then lo and behold, the morning of the dive,
he puts the batteries in upside down again, which was
very weird. So they came to the surface. He said,
my dive computer's not working.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
You're listening to true crime Conversations with me Jemma Bass.
I'm speaking with Lindsey Simpson, co author of Honeymoon Dive.
Up next, Lindsay describes the moment a fellow diver saw
Tina struggling underwater, a witness report that would become crucial
in years to come. They eventually start their dive and
(25:38):
about five or so minutes in, a fellow diver witnesses
something underwater. Can you tell us about what he saw?
That diver was also a doctor, so he was a
very experienced person in both diving and medical situations. What
did he see underwater?
Speaker 4 (25:57):
So he was an emergency doctor and you couldn't get
a better, in my view, expert witness than that, because
he saw what he saw was this person lying on
her back and he said, already exhibiting signs that she
was dying. She was still alive, but her limbs were
(26:17):
all splayed out and she was just steering upwards. So
at first he thought he was seeing things. This other
bog I mentioned before was coming from Magnetic Island and
just moored exactly where they were, and the divers were
coming down the rope when they looked over, and this
(26:37):
doctor saw this blonde girl lying backwards, and he was
quite concerned. He didn't know what was going on. So, yes,
that was the first thing that anyone recorded as seeing
what was happening.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Was it that same doctor that saw what he described
as a bear hug between the.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Two, Yes, he did see. Will that be hug? Was
interesting because I think and I think I'm right in
saying that, but he thought, Yes, the reason he didn't
immediately go to the girl's assistance was that he saw
this other diver and I think he was described as
a very big man, and Gabe Watson was six foot
(27:20):
seven or something like that, and he thought that she
was The doctor thought Gabe was helping her, so that's
why he hadn't done something.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And he saw her kind of bear hug her was
the way he described it, like, Yes, put his arms
around her.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Exactly put his arms around her, and he presumed that
that was him helping him.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
What happened next in terms of how Tina came to
the surface, because it wasn't with Gabe, no, So.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
I think the doctor then didn't realize that he hadn't
taken her up. But Wade Singleton, who was the fellow
briefing them all in the morning of the Great Briefing,
he then looked down and at first thought he were
seeing things and then realized that it was one of
the passengers. So anyway, Wade went down, got her from
(28:18):
and I think he took ninety two seconds a minute
and a half to get to the surface with her.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Gabe kind of popped up separately three minutes apart from them.
So you've got Wade and Tina kind of appearing in
the surface, and you've got Gabe appearing not as close
on another side. They both end up on different boats.
It's got to Tina's boat first because what happens there
(28:46):
they basically try and rescue her.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Yes, so they took her onto the other boat, Jazz
to the one from Magnetic Island and basically straight away
tried doing everything they could to save her. But really
probably at that point what that door doctor Stutz had
seen water the emergency doctor had been correct that that
(29:10):
was her completely losing consciousness. So they worked on her
for quite some time, and they even use an epipenn
to try and get her to come round, and that
was obvious in the post bottum that that was another
Another one of the most obvious things on her body
when they examined her was the EpiPen going into her
(29:33):
neck and causing that swelling. But yes, she didn't couldn't
be revived. Nothing they did brought her back.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
They spent forty one minutes trying to revive her. Where
was Gabe in all of.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
This, Well, Gabe popped back onto Spoil Sport, and that
comment was made by at least one of the passengers
like if that was you over there, honey, I'd be
there with bells on, you know, working out what was
going on. How you were. He didn't go over to
Jazz too until basically she was pronounced dead by the doctor,
(30:14):
so that was quite some time. He was wandering around
Spoil Sports saying, oh, you know, something's happened to Tina,
and also, which I thought was interesting, telling every man
and his dog what he thought happened, including the chef.
He would just start blurting out, this happened, that happened.
(30:34):
So he was giving these versions already to a number
of people.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I know that Gabe had quite a few versions of events.
But what was his basic story that he was telling
people about what happened underwater?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Well, he was basically initially saying that she grabbed when
he went to try and help her, that they went
swimming off into the distance, and then she didn't seem
to be happy. He didn't really mention much initially about
any current, although he did say they had tried to swim,
and he said then he went towards her because he
(31:09):
realized that she wasn't happy that things were happening, and
she grabbed his regulator. Now that he did say that
consistently to just about everybody on Spoilsboard after he got
on board the boat they'd been on, and he said
that she grabbed his mask and took it off, and
(31:31):
he then the second breathing potentially way to breathe is that,
as I mentioned, that second supply through the second regulator,
which everyone has and every rescue diver is told to
use because when a person panics are out of control.
So if she was doing all those things that he alleged,
(31:53):
and let's not forget that nobody saw any of this,
then he should have given her his second AAR supply.
But what he says is he actually took that himself
because he thought he would be gone too. So somebody
like your wife is panicking underwater, you have a sort
of air supply you can give to her in addition
(32:13):
to the one you're using, even if she's grabbed the
one you're using. Even if that's all correct, he was
trained as a rescue diver to go behind for the
very reason that people start flailing and grabbing, go behind
where the tanks are and get a person under control.
So though not grabbing a new he didn't do any
of those things. So his versions were that he then
(32:37):
tried to find a secondary supply and then he put
that in and while he was doing that, she started falling,
and she was falling too quickly quote unquote for him
to go after her, and again remembering this is not
really deep.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Water, so he made the decision to instead follow her,
to head back up to the surface and in his words,
get help.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
That's right, So he said at this stage he realized,
but you know, rescue diver also knows the critical time
to have actually got it to the surface was not
to watch her going further down, but to get her
up to the surface so she could breathe. So at
that stage she was falling quickly, and he didn't do
(33:24):
any of the things he'd been trained to do at all.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
It wasn't just that he didn't do the things that
he'd been trained to do. A lot of the experienced
divers that he was telling this story too, they immediately
were like, well, that didn't happen. Why were they saying
stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Well, some of the things he was saying to these two,
particularly American divers, who alerted Tommy Thomas, her father sometime later,
because remembering that when her parents first heard about all,
they thought a tragic diving accident, and that was what
everyone thought for some time, given the police notes. You know,
dear me, how tragic. So I think that what they
(34:04):
were saying to he was saying to them was I
couldn't get her because she was too heavy, And they
were saying, but you're not heavy underwater, you light, And
they were saying, and one of them actually said to him.
This is some of the first things he told them.
They said, to Gabe, that's bullshit, those words, and they said,
that's not right. So there was in the early stages
(34:26):
when he first got back on board after calling the
alarm and then Tina servicing with Wade Singleton being rescued.
The early stages, he was saying things that didn't make
any sense. They were experienced divers and they were calling
him out, and the women, their wives were talking about
how strange where he was reacting that there was things
(34:50):
that didn't add up, like he hadn't gone over to
the boat to be with her, that he seemed to
be I mean, he was playing cards on the way
back to Townsville when her body was lying in a
cabin fourteen on the boat. Very strange behavior.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
He also made an announcement to everyone on the boat
home where he once again just used weird language, like
that kind of corny stuff he said with the dad,
he said, my wife died today. This just really sucks,
so just weirdness.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Everyone was so shocked. Yes, And the other strange things
he was doing was things like insisting in got his
dive computer back and he wanted a receipt and shouting
and yelling at the police because of course that's evidence exactly.
You know, wherever he said they went, it would have
been mapped on the dive computer because remember he did
(35:45):
go back up and finally get his batteries right. So yes,
there was the fact that he was playing cards and
then he said he wanted to stay on the boat.
He didn't want to get off the boat when they
got back to townsall, and they couldn't understand the reason for that. Yeah, nothing,
there was things but unfor Actionately, all of those sorts
(36:08):
of things that really would have been important for collecting
evidence right away when the boat docked, they weren't mentioned.
Some young constables took the statement from Gabe and the
other people are on the boat and they weren't asked.
Like there was a volunteer on board that day, lou Johnson,
(36:29):
and she went to his cabin with him straight after
the whole thing had happened, and he was saying some
very strange things to her there and she wasn't asked
about anything. That all of that evidence was never in
their statements initially before the court case.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And why was that?
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Was it?
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Because the police were an experience.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Was it because they didn't understand diving a mixture of
the two.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
I think you know. To have that many people giving,
they wanted to take the statements quite quickly, so they
were all kind of shoveled off and given the opportunity
to give their version. There was a lot of people
and a lot of evidence that one of the passengers
said one constable was taking it all down the two fingers.
So the whole thing took forever to the record of interviewed,
(37:23):
but certainly probably at least three people said it was
just so disappointing because some of their evidence that went
towards pointing the finger at Gabe Watson was never collected
in those statements.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
How were the families, and I say families because Gabe's
family and Tina's family, how were they informed about what
had happened?
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Well, that was another strange thing that he was told
to ring his parents, and he didn't want to do
that initially, but he finally did ring his parents, but
he wasn't going to ring Tina's parents. Tina's parents didn't
know until twelve hours after the whole thing had happened.
And when he first when Tommy Thomas got the call
(38:09):
to say something's wrong. Gabe asked his father to call them,
and he basically said, there's been something terrible happened, and
then he handed the phone to his preacher. There were
Southern Baptists the Gabe Watson's family, and the preacher is
the one who told Tommy Thomas, and Tommy was asking
for details which the preacher didn't have, and in fact,
(38:34):
then the mother, when she was hysterical understandably, Tina's mother
realized that Gabe's mother had already booked her flight to
get to Australia, and in fact, her daughter hadn't just died,
It happened twelve hours before, and they hadn't even been told.
And her sister went to work at a restaurant and
(38:54):
everyone knew, the staff knew that word had got out
before the family were even told, and she found out
about it at work, so she had to then go
and tell the mother. So I mean that and then
their first reaction with Thomas's first reaction was how terrible
the gay because you know, he'd witnessed this awful thing
and lost his wife who just married, and there was nothing. Actually,
(39:17):
can imagine they're miles away in Alabama. There was nothing
to suggest that something had happened that was underwought.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Gabe did eventually talk to Tina's parents on the phone,
and he and no other way to say that he
lied about certain things in those initial phone calls.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
He did, and I mean at that point, you know,
he was very thinking about the dive computer, but he
was also going to give them an evidence another one
of the versions that he said happened.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Can you tell us what he lied about.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
Well, he lied about the fact that he was with
her basically at the final moments, and that she blinked
at him when she was underwater, and that she would
have known he was going for help. But also he
lied and said he was there because Cindy asked him,
her mother asked him, were you there, of course, you know,
(40:13):
to help to see if she'd be okay, And he said, yes,
I was there.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
So during all of the CPR all of that, he
kind of said.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
He was present exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
There was a lot of tension that started bubbling between
Gabe and Tina's families during the process of bringing Tina's
body home, organizing her funeral, the funeral itself, can you
touch on some of that and how that kind of
bubbled over.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yes, well, there are plots that Cindy right away said,
you know, we've got plots and Gabe can be next
to Tina. So funeral plots, that funeral plots that their
family had organized, and that was never going to be
and in fact, right up even until it was present moment,
as far as I know, Gabe hasn't given any of
(41:03):
her belongings back and he announced know that she was
going to their family plot. So there was a lot
of angst even around what was going to happen to
her now that she had died, and what they were
going to do with the body.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
After the break, we look at why both the police
and Tina's family started to grow suspicious of Gabe Watson
and his ever changing story. So Tommy and the family
were starting to kind.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Of get a little bit suspicious.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
They'd started talking to some of the dive passengers about
their suspicions. At this point, were police.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Investigating foul play?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Was it an open investigation or like what was happening there?
Speaker 4 (41:51):
No, I don't think it was. I think police had
just there was even comments made on the notes, no
suspicious circumstances. So I think it hadn't been for these
obviously these guests, other guests going home and thinking about it,
and they just felt bad about it from the word go,
like they thought there was something wrong. So I think
(42:14):
police had kind of left it, let it be, and
I guess the Thomases as well, thought, you know, they're
so far away what had happened. She was a beginning diver.
There was conversations about the currents that Gabe started feeding
in fairly early on to the media, to the media,
so that was another sudden thing that he talked about,
(42:36):
and this strange thing like an earache that he had,
and there was no evidence that he had, sorry, so
there was suddenly this other stuff coming in at one point.
But the currents, I guess from their perspective from the Thomases,
they knew how scared she was, probably about diving. They
knew it was an ocean dive that was said to
be dangerous, which there had been information that the currents
(42:58):
could get extremely strong, but there was a lot of
evidence that the Spoilers board staff checked all of that
before she went in. But it certainly wasn't a day
where you're just swimming along like in the swimming pool.
So I think for all of those reasons that Thomas's
believed that, you know, their daughter had died in tragic circumstances.
(43:20):
But then I think when that these questions were asked
and this one of the guests rang Tommy, I think
things started changing and that he started recalling all of
these other things that were happening.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Four years after Tina's death, so we're talking two thousand
and seven, there was an inquest held in Townsville around
the circumstances of how she died, Why did it take
that long, and why wouldn't the next steps for police
in Australia be something like arresting Gabe, going down that
(43:54):
route of suspicion.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
Yes, because that's four years after the whole event, which
was October two thousand and three. I think, to be honest,
it's the initial police investigation was just expecting, which is
not how police should operate. And I'm not saying they
didn't do a good job, but I think they just
expected it to be a dive. There are a number
(44:21):
of people by the way, that do die on storkling
expeditions on boats. I mean, we run boats, we hear
about it. It's not necessarily making the media, and most
of those are natural causes heart attacks people. But it
did take or two thousand and seven, and finally there
was the inquest, as you said, and finally there was
(44:44):
the coroner pointed finger it Gabe.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
There were sixty two witnesses at that inquest, twelve points
of concern for police.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
We've touched on a few of.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Them, but I want to run through some of them
just to kind of give listeners and ideas. So we've
got obviously the conflicting stories to different people. There was
the apparent malfunction of the dive computer, the slow rate
of assent, given the emergency of Gabe coming to the surface,
and given it only took Wade, you know, ninety two
(45:14):
seconds or something like that, took him several minutes. And
then Tina's heart condition was also a part of this
inquest because obviously she'd had heart problems as a child,
and that was investigated as to whether it could have
been a condition that caused her to die. What was
found in terms of that.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
That's right, So she had had that operation and she'd
been given the all clear, and that was found not
to have been the cause of death because a couple
of things that the people said on Spoilsport were the
only thing that could have happened and caused her to
die was that there was no heir when she was found.
(45:55):
But Wade Singleton had found that there was air in
the tank. They didn't know about her heart condition that
people on spoilsport, but certainly the post mortem said that
that wasn't a death.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
And they also found her with the regulator still in
her mouth and it was all functioning.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
Yes, that's right. Everything the only as it was interesting
because these two experienced divers said that's the only reason
for the cause of death.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
There's also this infamous photo which we haven't mentioned yet.
It's the most famous image from this case, and it
has a diver in the kind of foreground smiling at
the camera and in the background you can see Tina. Yeah,
and that photo actually was used in the inquest as well,
(46:44):
wasn't it?
Speaker 3 (46:44):
What did it show?
Speaker 4 (46:47):
Well, that was chilling because the other honeymoon couple, he
was so proud of his new camera and it had
gone digital way back in those days two thousand and three,
and he was photographing his wife Dawn I think her
name was, and she was turning back to Way Singleton
to get an idea of how deep they were, so
(47:07):
he took a photo off and it wasn't untill they
were sitting on spoilsport actually looking through the photographs and
he was saying, oh, I didn't get really good ones,
you know, I didn't realize how to focus. And then
suddenly he came across this one of Dawn. It was
one of the better photos. He said, what's that behind her?
Is it coral? And then they realized it was actually Tina.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
And was there something about the fact that Gabe wasn't
in that photo and that was used as evidence.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Well, they actually had the photo of Wade Singleton. They
could see his fins going down. So how quickly he
reacted when he realized that, you know that this was
someone at the bottom and he had to get her up.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
That inquest came to an end kind of mid two
thousand and eight, and it basically found that Gabe should
be charged with murder. Was that a shocking thing to
have happened in an inquest?
Speaker 4 (48:02):
It was shocking given that not anyone had really looked
at the fact in that way before, and also that
it was four years after she died, but I think
that what happened then he ended up getting a sentence
of manslaughter really upset the family because they said that
(48:23):
there was definitely enough evidence. The more they were hearing,
they flew to towns while they hired a lawyer, the more
they were hearing about what went on, the more horrified
they were.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Gabe arrived in Australia May two thousand and nine. He
was arrested as soon as he got here. And then
the next shock that kind of came to everyone was
that he entered a plea when he turned up in court,
not guilty to murder, but that he would plead guilty
to manslaughter. And basically he'd made a deal.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
With the DPP.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
How did that even come about? Did he know before
he got on that plane that if he came he
could just plead guilty to manslaughter get not the murder chart.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
It's like a plea deal, and I think plea bargaining.
The prosecutors said that they basically had looked at all
of the evidence, there's still not the evidence that he
actually caused her death, which was the problem they faced
with a murder charge. And as you said, the initial
investigation hadn't uncovered anything untoward, and there was a number
(49:27):
of years went by before this all ended up in court.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
He agreed to a manslaught of charge which was a
sentence of four and a half years, but initially that
was most of it was suspended, so it was about
a year in prison. And what was the reaction to that,
not just from Tina's family, but from investigators from the internet.
(49:52):
How did everyone react?
Speaker 4 (49:54):
Well, I suppose the fact that well, the parents and
the family were just really upset. As you can imagine.
He was basically found guilty of being a bad dive buddy.
But then he was extradited, as you know, to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Because they basically wanted to pursue murder charges again, didn't.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
They That's right, they did so. But the issue then
was could Australia give somebody up to be extradited if
they faced the death sentence, which is what in Alabama
they still have capital punishment, as we probably know, so
they were in a very difficult position to give him up,
(50:42):
but they ended up getting assurance that he wouldn't be
put to death if he was found guilty. In America,
that didn't end up happening, did it.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
The case in America was abandoned.
Speaker 4 (50:53):
That's right. Halfway through the evidence, the judge came in
and dismissed the jury and said there's not enough evidence
I find to find him guilty, and he walked free.
And in Alabama they don't have a right to appeal,
so the parents could do absolutely nothing to revisit the case,
(51:19):
get another judge on the case. So it was almost
like at every turn between the body of their daughter
being exhumed, this terrible set of events unfolding about how
she died, the culpability of her husband who had been
found guilty of manslaughter. At least in Australia, there was
(51:43):
really nothing else that they could do because.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
The only extra kind of rope they got was instead
of a year in prison, they appealed and managed to
get a year and a half. So a year and
a half in prison was what Gabe Watson kind of served.
And then he went home to America and he had
a new wife. Do we know what, have we heard
anything in the last few years.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
I've got an alert on his name. But there was
certainly evidence that the new wife was very much a
look alike for Tina, which was quite chilling. So I
don't suppose he's been up to anything particularly bad, because
I think we would have heard about it in the media.
(52:30):
But yes, I mean I failed to see after writing
this book and spending all this time and going to
America and doing all the interviews, I just cannot understand
why women would stay with someone that all your friends
and all your family are saying, this isn't right, He's
not the right person for you, you know, throwing a pizza
(52:52):
at a face in the middle of a restaurant. Now again,
I do have hasten to say he is a free
man and he's been found not guilty, but at the
time we were writing the book, certainly that wasn't the case.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Do you think that that goes to the heart of
why this case has been so popular in the media.
You know, you and your co author had completely differing
views here, and I feel like that is what was
happening on a world kind of stage where people were
just obsessed with going over the details and being against
(53:28):
each other and in Gabe's corner, not in Gabe's corner,
and that's why it kind of captured everyone.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
I think very much. Sarah. I think this is often
the case and murder cases that to actually prove, you know,
I saw him hold up a knife and stab someone
in the back, that is not the case. And rape cases,
you know, her version versus his version, I think ultimately
(53:56):
even and he's walking free now. So yes, it does
fuel that whole idea. I think there are people that
adamantly She was absolutely adamant that he hadn't done it.
And yet we've done the same interviews. We door knocked
Gabe's place where he lived, we'd spoken to people at
the dive instructor, we'd interviewed all these people, so she
(54:20):
was exposed to the same information I was. We're both journalists,
so I think that says everything that at the end
of the day, Yeah, we probably did reflect that ambivalence
about for the disagreements that did he do it or
didn't he.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Thanks to Lindsey and Jennifer helping us to tell this story.
True Crime Conversations is hosted and produced by me Jemma
Bass and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Brown.
Thanks so much for listening. Claire Murphy will be back
next week with another True Crime Conversation.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
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Mom and Me is going to match that with a
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and families affected by domestic violence. You just have to
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(55:20):
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