# The Honeymoon Drowning That Turned A Groom Into A Murder Suspect \[re-release\]

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 19 Oct 2026, 56 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/84c2b6fe-7d33-454c-a5df-b4e8002c862b/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

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. THE END BITS If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. Click here to get 20% off your Mamamia subscription and we'll match it with a 20% donation to RizeUp, our charity partner supporting women and families affected by domestic violence. Offer ends August 24. CREDITS Guest: Lindsay Simpson Host: Gemma Bath Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman Audio Producer: Jacob Round GET IN TOUCH We finally have an Instagram! Follow us @truecrimeconversations Follow us on TikTok @truecrimeconversations Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at truecrime@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi there, it's producer Ella here jumping into your feed
[0:02] Speaker 1: because this month marks 23 years since Tina Watson tragically
[0:06] Speaker 1: passed away on her honeymoon. In October 2003, Gabe and
[0:11] Speaker 1: Tina Watson travelled from the US to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
[0:14] Speaker 1: 11 days after their wedding, the pair went diving at
[0:17] Speaker 1: one of the world's most famous diving spots. But shortly
[0:20] Speaker 1: after entering the water... Tina was pulled to the surface
[0:23] Speaker 1: unconscious and couldn't be revived. Earlier this year, the Courier-Mail
[0:27] Speaker 1: reported that they had tracked down Watson 15 years after
[0:30] Speaker 1: he had been extradited from Australia after serving 18 months
[0:34] Speaker 1: in prison for the manslaughter of his then-wife. He now
[0:37] Speaker 1: lives a quiet life in Alabama with a new wife
[0:40] Speaker 1: and two children. Let's revisit the case.
[0:43] Speaker 2: It's October 2003. and newlyweds Gabe and Tina Watson are
[0:48] Speaker 2: aboard a 30-metre catamaran enjoying the raw beauty of Australia's
[0:52] Speaker 2: Great Barrier Reef. They've only been married 11 days after
[0:56] Speaker 2: a whirlwind six-month engagement, and their honeymoon to the turquoise
[1:00] Speaker 2: waters of Queensland has been planned around the perfect diving
[1:04] Speaker 2: conditions for him and the nesting schedule of the green
[1:07] Speaker 2: sea turtles for her. The couple, from Birmingham, Alabama... are
[1:12] Speaker 2: just two of 25 people readying to explore the SS Yongala,
[1:18] Speaker 2: Australia's largest and most intact historic shipwreck. After some toast
[1:23] Speaker 2: and cereal for breakfast, the group is briefed at 8.30am
[1:26] Speaker 2: about the day ahead. They run through safety procedures, weather
[1:30] Speaker 2: and current conditions, and the intricacies of the difficult dive ahead.
[1:35] Speaker 2: By 10.30am, they're in the water. But within 10 minutes...
[1:41] Speaker 2: Tina Watson emerges without a pulse. Despite desperate efforts back
[1:47] Speaker 2: on deck, she can't be revived. At first, it's assumed
[1:52] Speaker 2: to be a horrible accident. But over the course of years,
[1:57] Speaker 2: questions are asked. Suspicions are raised and lies start to unravel.
[2:03] Speaker 2: Because the multiple differing versions of what her husband says
[2:06] Speaker 2: happened underwater simply don't make sense. I'm Gemma Bath and
[2:15] Speaker 2: this is True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's
[2:19] Speaker 2: most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know
[2:22] Speaker 2: the most about them. From the moment Tina Watson's body
[2:26] Speaker 2: was returned to the surface of the water by dive
[2:28] Speaker 2: master Wade Singleton, Gabe was acting in a way that
[2:32] Speaker 2: those around him thought was odd. He'd surfaced closer to
[2:36] Speaker 2: a different boat to them and while others tried desperately
[2:39] Speaker 2: to resuscitate his wife, he made no effort to join her.
[2:43] Speaker 2: be by her side or help in any way. Others
[2:47] Speaker 2: remarked that, heck, they would have jumped in the ocean
[2:49] Speaker 2: and swam to her side immediately had it been their spouse.
[2:53] Speaker 2: They noted that he kept wanting to tell people his
[2:56] Speaker 2: version of events, a story that his fellow experienced divers
[3:00] Speaker 2: immediately thought sounded wrong. It couldn't have happened like that.
[3:04] Speaker 2: There was no way, they said. But their suspicions and
[3:08] Speaker 2: gut feelings weren't properly examined for many years. Gabe Watson
[3:13] Speaker 2: went back home to America, organised a funeral, found himself
[3:17] Speaker 2: estranged from Tina's loved ones over a series of bizarre
[3:20] Speaker 2: and hurtful events, and eventually remarried. All before he found
[3:25] Speaker 2: himself facing murder charges in 2008, five years after Tina's death.
[3:32] Speaker 2: This is a story that captured global news headlines, as
[3:36] Speaker 2: internet sleuths and media commentators all descended on the story
[3:39] Speaker 2: with their views and opinions. Did he do it? or
[3:42] Speaker 2: didn't he? Lindsay Simpson has researched this story extensively and
[3:47] Speaker 2: is the co-author of Honeymoon Dive with Jennifer Cook. Lindsay
[3:51] Speaker 2: joins me now. Lindsay, you're a Whitsundays local. You're an author,
[3:58] Speaker 2: but you also work in tourism, so you and your
[4:00] Speaker 2: husband run sailing boats. The story we're about to tell
[4:05] Speaker 2: attracted global headlines. It was everywhere for many, many years.
[4:10] Speaker 2: What made you want to write about it in depth
[4:14] Speaker 2: and kind of put more of a spotlight on it,
[4:15] Speaker 2: on your kind of slice of the world?
[4:19] Speaker 3: Well, that's an interesting question, Gemma, because I was living
[4:22] Speaker 3: on Magnetic Island and at the time this was all unfolding,
[4:27] Speaker 3: which for people who don't know is probably, I'm not
[4:31] Speaker 3: good with distances, but it might be an hour or
[4:33] Speaker 3: two to the wreck by boat to the young gala
[4:36] Speaker 3: that Tina and Gabe were diving on. And the more
[4:41] Speaker 3: I read about it, and as you said, the headlines
[4:44] Speaker 3: were just staring me in the face. I'm a true
[4:46] Speaker 3: crime writer. But I thought, this is just in my backyard.
[4:51] Speaker 3: This is so much about what we do. We don't
[4:54] Speaker 3: do diving, but it's happened. And Jenny Cook, who was
[4:58] Speaker 3: an old friend of mine from the Sydney Morning Herald,
[5:01] Speaker 3: she lived in the States. And I thought, hey, she
[5:04] Speaker 3: could maybe look at the American side of it. And
[5:07] Speaker 3: I've got everything here. I was able to access the
[5:11] Speaker 3: court records through a certain source in Townsville because, of course,
[5:16] Speaker 3: the court case was in Townsville, which was only 11
[5:19] Speaker 3: kilometres across the water from Magnetic Island. And I went
[5:22] Speaker 3: to work there every day to James Cook University. So, yes,
[5:26] Speaker 3: it was all fairly obvious. It was like a story
[5:29] Speaker 3: knocking on my door saying, come on, you've got to.
[5:33] Speaker 3: And lecturing is one thing, but I was really itching,
[5:36] Speaker 3: to be honest, to get back into it. storytelling and
[5:40] Speaker 3: interviewing and all the exciting things that makes me like
[5:43] Speaker 3: being a journalist.
[5:45] Speaker 2: Well like you kind of alluded to this story actually
[5:48] Speaker 2: starts in America in Alabama which is a landlocked city
[5:53] Speaker 2: there's no ocean around it how popular is diving as
[5:59] Speaker 2: a pastime over there?
[6:02] Speaker 3: Well, I think maybe because it's landlocked, people see diving
[6:06] Speaker 3: as an exotic thing to do. When you look at Gabe,
[6:09] Speaker 3: Watson had a fairly boring job and his business, the
[6:13] Speaker 3: family business, was packaging and bubble wrapping. And I guess
[6:17] Speaker 3: for him, diving was something that represented something exotic, as
[6:24] Speaker 3: I said, but also something he could learn and go
[6:28] Speaker 3: and rise up through the ranks of learning how to dive.
[6:31] Speaker 3: So I think it was just because it probably was landlocked,
[6:35] Speaker 3: but there were places that you could dive and we
[6:38] Speaker 3: ended up going to the very place where Tina and
[6:42] Speaker 3: him had learnt and got their diving certificates, which was
[6:45] Speaker 3: a quarry. So there certainly wasn't any ocean to dive.
[6:48] Speaker 2: Tell us a bit more about Gabe's experience because he
[6:51] Speaker 2: kind of walked past a dive shop at 21 and
[6:54] Speaker 2: then was obsessed.
[6:58] Speaker 3: Yes, that's right. I think the fact that he had
[7:01] Speaker 3: his mate with him, it was something they could do together.
[7:04] Speaker 3: But the other aspect was, and I'm not entirely sure when,
[7:10] Speaker 3: he'd learned about this other dive in the British Virgin
[7:13] Speaker 3: Islands where a death had occurred. And I guess, you know,
[7:18] Speaker 3: he is at the moment, of course, he's a free man.
[7:23] Speaker 3: He's been found that there's no case against him in
[7:26] Speaker 3: America anyway.
[7:28] Speaker 2: But he started diving long before he met Tina. In fact,
[7:32] Speaker 2: he was quite experienced by the time he met Tina,
[7:35] Speaker 2: wasn't he?
[7:36] Speaker 3: That's right. So that's what I was thinking, that he
[7:39] Speaker 3: started learning how to dive and then because he knew
[7:41] Speaker 3: so much and he was even a rescue diver. And
[7:44] Speaker 3: that requires a lot of extra training. That's not just
[7:48] Speaker 3: having fun and looking at coral.
[7:50] Speaker 2: So he was a rescue diver. So that's basically, you know,
[7:53] Speaker 2: could he have been an instructor? Was he that level
[7:56] Speaker 2: of qualified?
[7:57] Speaker 3: That's one below the instructor level, but it certainly means that,
[8:02] Speaker 3: you know, when somebody starts panicking down below, and let's
[8:06] Speaker 3: not forget that this entire incident was something like 15
[8:09] Speaker 3: metres down. It was not that deep. It certainly means
[8:15] Speaker 3: when somebody panics that you know what to do, and
[8:19] Speaker 3: things like that person panicking and thrashing and trying to
[8:22] Speaker 3: grab you, you know, the sorts of things we do
[8:24] Speaker 3: when we lose it, and Tina was very nervous, you
[8:29] Speaker 3: certainly would know what to do. You have a second
[8:31] Speaker 3: regulator and you have a second way of breathing. And
[8:34] Speaker 3: they call it the, I think it's called the octy,
[8:37] Speaker 3: which is the other way of having a second source
[8:40] Speaker 3: of air. And that he would have known as a
[8:43] Speaker 3: rescue diver, he would have understood what all that was about.
[8:49] Speaker 2: Let's bring in Tina here because, you know, we've got Gabe,
[8:52] Speaker 2: who is a young man in Alabama. He's working at
[8:56] Speaker 2: his parents' business, diving on the side. What was Tina
[9:01] Speaker 2: doing with herself before she met Gabe? And can you
[9:04] Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about her health struggles?
[9:08] Speaker 3: Yes. Well, she was always exhausted and they discovered, I think,
[9:13] Speaker 3: in her teens that there was a reason for that.
[9:16] Speaker 3: And it was a rhythmic heart condition and she had
[9:22] Speaker 3: had surgery. So there was recognition by the parents that
[9:27] Speaker 3: something had to be done because she was getting out
[9:30] Speaker 3: of breath and really struggling. So she had that all
[9:34] Speaker 3: fixed before the dive. And what her life was like,
[9:39] Speaker 3: I know her favourite book was Gone With The Wind
[9:42] Speaker 3: and the whole Alabama princess thing of needing to find
[9:46] Speaker 3: a husband. We discovered, I think there was a lot
[9:49] Speaker 3: of pressure on her actually, even from the family, all
[9:53] Speaker 3: the girlfriends were getting married to find Mr. Right. And
[9:57] Speaker 3: I think from her perspective, Gabe happened to come along
[10:01] Speaker 3: at a time when, you know, she'd broken up with
[10:04] Speaker 3: someone and he actually went and got her this purse,
[10:09] Speaker 3: a Kate Spade, I think it was, purse that the
[10:12] Speaker 3: other boyfriend hadn't bothered bringing back. So he went and
[10:16] Speaker 3: got it for her and that impressed her. But from
[10:20] Speaker 3: the outset, there was red flags because there was a
[10:24] Speaker 3: lot of the family were looking at him saying, why
[10:28] Speaker 3: are you with someone like that? And there was a
[10:30] Speaker 3: whole lot of incidents leading up to this whole dive
[10:34] Speaker 3: on the Great Barrier Reef that were very strange.
[10:38] Speaker 2: During their relationship, she found out that he was planning
[10:43] Speaker 2: to propose to her or had a ring. He kind
[10:46] Speaker 2: of held that over her, which became... a big theme
[10:50] Speaker 2: in their relationship. Can you explain that to us?
[10:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, that was probably the strangest thing because when
[10:58] Speaker 3: she came back home one day, the flat was all
[11:01] Speaker 3: tidy and she saw when they were unpacking the groceries,
[11:04] Speaker 3: she saw this little box with the jewellery. It had
[11:08] Speaker 3: obviously the name of the jewellers on it and she
[11:12] Speaker 3: had been waiting for him to propose. So she saw
[11:15] Speaker 3: that there and thought, oh, you know, it's finally happening.
[11:18] Speaker 3: And he basically said to her, if you go anywhere
[11:20] Speaker 3: near that or open it, nothing's going to happen. So
[11:26] Speaker 3: at first she sort of thought, oh, he's waiting for
[11:28] Speaker 3: the right time, it's going to be romantic, which is
[11:32] Speaker 3: odd because people, I mean, men might think that, that
[11:35] Speaker 3: they're going to propose in a romantic way, but they
[11:37] Speaker 3: don't put the ring out on the show and then
[11:39] Speaker 3: say you can't have it. Eventually she told the family,
[11:42] Speaker 3: she told her best friend, and they were all saying
[11:45] Speaker 3: to her, but that's not okay, like, Why would someone
[11:50] Speaker 3: do that? And, you know, milestones would pass, her birthday,
[11:54] Speaker 3: all these things would happen and she'd think it's going
[11:56] Speaker 3: to happen now, it's going to happen now, and it
[11:59] Speaker 3: didn't happen. And then he even went to Tommy, Tommy Thomas,
[12:04] Speaker 3: her father, who was an amazing man. He did so
[12:07] Speaker 3: much to try and get the information and answers about
[12:11] Speaker 3: his daughter's death. He went to him and said, can
[12:14] Speaker 3: I ask for her hand in marriage? And... Tommy was
[12:19] Speaker 3: scratching his head because there was already things coming out
[12:22] Speaker 3: that he wasn't happy with. And he said, well, do
[12:24] Speaker 3: you love Tina? And Gabe sort of didn't give an
[12:28] Speaker 3: answer to that. He said, that's pretty corny, isn't it,
[12:31] Speaker 3: to ask me that? And he said, oh, we're right together.
[12:35] Speaker 3: But Tommy said, but no, I'm asking you, do you
[12:38] Speaker 3: love her? And Gabe's answer was very ambiguous.
[12:44] Speaker 2: To say that it's corny. It's just such a bizarre
[12:47] Speaker 2: thing to say. Yes.
[12:50] Speaker 3: So much of what he said in interviews, records of interviews,
[12:54] Speaker 3: things that we read, was bizarre.
[12:57] Speaker 2: Did Tina love him?
[13:00] Speaker 3: Well, that's an interesting question because she did keep saying
[13:05] Speaker 3: to her girlfriend, isn't he handsome? And I personally, I
[13:09] Speaker 3: don't know how she could have thought that. He wasn't
[13:12] Speaker 3: particularly a handsome guy. He was very socially awkward. I
[13:19] Speaker 3: think what happened was he came at the right time
[13:22] Speaker 3: of her being 26, feeling she was left on the
[13:25] Speaker 3: shelf and then fixating on this idea that they would
[13:29] Speaker 3: get married. She did go back to an earlier boyfriend,
[13:33] Speaker 3: not really a boyfriend, but an old friend from the
[13:35] Speaker 3: past that she got on with and tried to basically
[13:39] Speaker 3: have a date with him and Gabe found out and
[13:41] Speaker 3: was furious. This was when the ring still hadn't been
[13:45] Speaker 3: given to her. So she'd obviously got sick of waiting,
[13:49] Speaker 3: but he had some control over her.
[13:52] Speaker 2: Well, he ended up proposing, not in any kind of
[13:55] Speaker 2: huge dramatic way. He just kind of asked her at
[13:59] Speaker 2: their house on a random day. And then everything, he
[14:03] Speaker 2: wanted everything to move really quickly after having everything moved
[14:06] Speaker 2: so slowly. So he kind of was like, right, well,
[14:09] Speaker 2: we need to get married within six months. So suddenly
[14:13] Speaker 2: everything speeds up.
[14:15] Speaker 3: Exactly, which is not what she wanted at all because
[14:18] Speaker 3: the whole wedding, you know, there are some women who
[14:21] Speaker 3: the wedding is the most important thing and she wanted
[14:25] Speaker 3: to plan and suddenly, yeah, suddenly, but not only the wedding,
[14:28] Speaker 3: she had to learn how to dive.
[14:30] Speaker 4: Why?
[14:31] Speaker 2: Why did she have to learn how to dive?
[14:33] Speaker 3: Well, he told the father, Tommy, that she had to
[14:37] Speaker 3: learn to dive because he did things that she liked. Therefore...
[14:41] Speaker 3: It was almost like a contract. So if she's going
[14:45] Speaker 3: to marry me, she has to learn how to scuba dive.
[14:48] Speaker 3: It wasn't, you know, it would be great if she
[14:51] Speaker 3: loved diving like I do or maybe I'll take her
[14:54] Speaker 3: on a dive and see what she thinks. It was
[14:56] Speaker 3: she will be doing that, he told Tommy.
[14:59] Speaker 2: Well, reading the conversations between the two in your book,
[15:03] Speaker 2: it kind of felt like he was more focused on
[15:06] Speaker 2: planning the honeymoon, which he wanted to be in Australia,
[15:11] Speaker 2: at a really famous dive spot rather than planning the wedding.
[15:13] Speaker 2: Like it was all planned around diving conditions.
[15:17] Speaker 3: Exactly. And the turtles, the green turtles are nesting in
[15:20] Speaker 3: October and he knew that would be a draw card
[15:23] Speaker 3: for her because she loved Nemo and turtles. So, yes,
[15:28] Speaker 3: that's right. Everything had to be rushed through and, again,
[15:32] Speaker 3: she wasn't given an option. And there's also some nasty
[15:35] Speaker 3: incidents in that earlier time where he threw a pizza
[15:40] Speaker 3: at her. in a restaurant with when she was there
[15:43] Speaker 3: I think with her sister or a best friend and
[15:46] Speaker 3: you know they'd arrived a little bit late and he
[15:48] Speaker 3: was sitting there in a foul mood and was quite
[15:52] Speaker 3: grumpy and she tried to put it off that he
[15:55] Speaker 3: had sinus headaches but then he literally got up in
[15:58] Speaker 3: the restaurant chucked the pizza at her and left you
[16:02] Speaker 3: know that's there's Stuff like that, this is the betrothed,
[16:06] Speaker 3: this is someone who's, you know, you're going to spend
[16:09] Speaker 3: the rest of your life with.
[16:11] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[16:12] Speaker 3: I mean, that would be a definite finishing of the
[16:16] Speaker 3: relationship for most women.
[16:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%. How did the wedding go? Was it a
[16:21] Speaker 2: nice day? Did the families get on?
[16:25] Speaker 3: Yes, I think their wedding went quite well and they
[16:29] Speaker 3: had all the photos. I think it was what she wanted.
[16:32] Speaker 3: But she had to then get ready to go overseas
[16:34] Speaker 3: very quickly after that and get a passport and all
[16:39] Speaker 3: of the things that went on. And she had to
[16:42] Speaker 3: finish her diving certificate. So she, you know, we went
[16:47] Speaker 3: back to that quarry where she learned to dive, Jenny
[16:50] Speaker 3: and I, and neither of us knew how to dive.
[16:53] Speaker 3: And we kind of went into that whole experience of
[16:56] Speaker 3: what she would have gone through all while she was
[16:58] Speaker 3: getting the wedding ready and getting to go overseas and
[17:01] Speaker 3: I don't think she'd been overseas before, so it was
[17:04] Speaker 3: all a very big deal. And we went into that
[17:07] Speaker 3: quarry with a dive instructor who actually took her through
[17:10] Speaker 3: the steps of what to do and described how she panicked.
[17:14] Speaker 3: I think it was 10 metres down, and we were
[17:18] Speaker 3: able to really feel this pressure. And I still remember
[17:23] Speaker 3: him saying, when he said to her, you shouldn't be diving,
[17:26] Speaker 3: you're not able to do this, you're really the most
[17:29] Speaker 3: panicked diver I've ever seen. And she said, well, there
[17:32] Speaker 3: was a reason for that and she pointed up to
[17:34] Speaker 3: the top of the quarry and here was Gabe Watson
[17:37] Speaker 3: with his arms folded looking down at her like you had,
[17:42] Speaker 3: and he'd specifically been told not to come to the
[17:45] Speaker 3: quarry while she was learning because they don't like relatives
[17:49] Speaker 3: coming because it's a lot of pressure on the person
[17:51] Speaker 3: learning to dive. And he was there to make sure
[17:54] Speaker 3: she passed the certificate.
[17:56] Speaker 2: She ended up getting qualified but she wasn't, what you
[18:00] Speaker 2: would call experienced by the time she left for Australia?
[18:04] Speaker 3: Not at all. In fact, I was trying to find
[18:06] Speaker 3: out and trying to remember. I don't think she'd even
[18:08] Speaker 3: done an ocean dive. There's been reports that she had,
[18:11] Speaker 3: but I think it was only in the swimming pool
[18:15] Speaker 3: because I had a swimming pool and a quarry. The
[18:17] Speaker 3: quarry was this murky, horrible place with cars lying at
[18:20] Speaker 3: the bottom.
[18:22] Speaker 2: Oh, sounds terrifying for a non-diver like me.
[18:24] Speaker 3: Really gross. And, you know, taking that mask off. I mean,
[18:28] Speaker 3: I've never dived before I went to that quarry, taking
[18:32] Speaker 3: the mask off and trying to, you know, not panic
[18:35] Speaker 3: underwater and then put it back on, know that your
[18:37] Speaker 3: ear's okay. That's when she really lost it. I think
[18:41] Speaker 3: that her diving experience was just there. And so really
[18:47] Speaker 3: when they went round, I don't know, jumping and the gun,
[18:50] Speaker 3: but when they were on the boat and she was
[18:52] Speaker 3: asked about how many dives she'd done, she was very inexperienced.
[18:55] Speaker 2: So they left for their honeymoon pretty much, you know,
[18:58] Speaker 2: straight after their wedding. They stayed in Sydney for about
[19:01] Speaker 2: a week. They make their way to Townsville and then
[19:05] Speaker 2: they board this dive vessel, which has 25 other people
[19:10] Speaker 2: on board. Can you tell us about what the trip was?
[19:15] Speaker 2: This was, or this is, a very famous dive site
[19:18] Speaker 2: in Australia that people travel all over the world to
[19:21] Speaker 2: come to. And it's considered a red dive, which means
[19:25] Speaker 2: it's on the harder side.
[19:29] Speaker 3: That's right. The Yong Gala was known as Australia's Titanic.
[19:33] Speaker 3: In fact, there's a museum, amazing museum in Townsville, like
[19:37] Speaker 3: one of these perfect little regional museums that you go in.
[19:40] Speaker 3: It's got all the details of everything because there were
[19:44] Speaker 3: 121 people on that ship that sunk in a cyclone. Actually,
[19:48] Speaker 3: funny enough, on our boat, we took the people who
[19:51] Speaker 3: were going to board that boat and didn't make it,
[19:55] Speaker 3: their relatives, all those years ago and they commemorated every
[19:59] Speaker 3: significant anniversary. So, yeah, it was a big deal. It
[20:02] Speaker 3: sunk and it's about 300 feet or something metres. Anyway,
[20:08] Speaker 3: it's a big, steel boat and it had fallen sideways
[20:12] Speaker 3: on starboard side and it presented this amazing opportunity for
[20:16] Speaker 3: a dive. So people, yes, came from everywhere and Gabe
[20:20] Speaker 3: Watson had heard about it and yet there's a lot
[20:24] Speaker 3: of people leaving from Eyre, which is a regional town here,
[20:27] Speaker 3: from Townsville and they go out to this wreck and dive.
[20:30] Speaker 3: But it is a difficult dive because of currents. It's
[20:35] Speaker 3: kind of out in the middle of nowhere. The 121
[20:38] Speaker 3: people are still on board that drowned. Oh, really? A
[20:42] Speaker 3: racehorse off the deck. So, yes, it was a very
[20:46] Speaker 3: big disaster. And after they left Mackay, which is where
[20:50] Speaker 3: they steamed out of and hit the cyclone, the Marconi
[20:54] Speaker 3: wireless had just arrived and they left just before this
[20:58] Speaker 3: wireless came in. So they could have had contact with
[21:01] Speaker 3: them and said come back, but unfortunately that didn't happen
[21:04] Speaker 3: and they all drowned.
[21:06] Speaker 2: From the very start of that kind of expedition of
[21:11] Speaker 2: this group of passengers that included Tina and Gabe, the
[21:15] Speaker 2: other people on board were noticing a bit of weirdness,
[21:19] Speaker 2: weren't they?
[21:20] Speaker 3: They were. Again, his social awkwardness, the fact that he
[21:26] Speaker 3: didn't seem at ease. They noticed that Tina was incredibly bubbly,
[21:30] Speaker 3: which she was, chatting to everybody. There was another honeymoon
[21:34] Speaker 3: couple on board. And they'd got married at a similar time. So,
[21:37] Speaker 3: you know, they had something in common with them. But yes,
[21:41] Speaker 3: there was, I suppose right before the dive, I don't
[21:46] Speaker 3: think there was too much weirdness noted other than the
[21:49] Speaker 3: fact that, you know, he was a bit uncommunicative. It
[21:52] Speaker 3: was just after they went down that things started not
[21:55] Speaker 3: quite adding up.
[21:56] Speaker 2: How does a trip like this work? Because you've got
[21:59] Speaker 2: a mix of experiences, right? And I'm assuming that there
[22:04] Speaker 2: are very detailed briefings, explanations, you do safety things. What
[22:10] Speaker 2: does it look like before you actually even get into
[22:13] Speaker 2: the water?
[22:14] Speaker 3: Yes, there is a lot of mucking around, because, yeah, exactly.
[22:21] Speaker 3: There's so many workplace health and safety. They have a
[22:24] Speaker 3: number of obviously regulations that you have to go through
[22:29] Speaker 3: and there's a lot of checking things off and signing
[22:32] Speaker 3: things and checking gear and having a dive buddy. So
[22:36] Speaker 3: the preparatoriness of the dive, some of those people on
[22:40] Speaker 3: board were still jet lagged. You know, typically they'd fly
[22:43] Speaker 3: all the way across the world just to come and
[22:45] Speaker 3: do this dive and then they might just go home. Actually,
[22:48] Speaker 3: in Tina and Gabe's case, they went via Sydney, went
[22:51] Speaker 3: to Taronga Zoo and did other things. But yes, there's
[22:54] Speaker 3: a lot of work going into making sure, like checking
[22:57] Speaker 3: the air and the tanks, you know, checking BC on properly. Yeah,
[23:04] Speaker 3: so that was all going on that morning.
[23:05] Speaker 2: And interestingly, some of the other experienced divers said it
[23:08] Speaker 2: was some of the best briefings they'd ever encountered.
[23:12] Speaker 3: That's right. So Wade Singleton was the one who was
[23:15] Speaker 3: briefing and he did, he felt incredibly bad about later
[23:20] Speaker 3: what had happened, but certainly his briefings was excellent. The
[23:24] Speaker 3: problem was that, and I think there was a charge
[23:27] Speaker 3: laid later, was that she was sitting there. She'd only
[23:32] Speaker 3: dived in a quarry. She was petrified, which they didn't
[23:36] Speaker 3: necessarily know. And interestingly, she never told anyone that. There
[23:40] Speaker 3: was no evidence. I mean, she was terrified in the quarry,
[23:44] Speaker 3: only a few metres down. How do you think she
[23:47] Speaker 3: felt leaping into this ocean with fast currents and and
[23:51] Speaker 3: just not having the experience. And probably, like I am claustrophobic,
[23:56] Speaker 3: she definitely didn't have a good reaction. So, yes, the
[24:00] Speaker 3: thing that actually happened was that she was asked if
[24:03] Speaker 3: she wanted or told she should have an orientation dive,
[24:06] Speaker 3: which is what beginning divers do, and she would have
[24:10] Speaker 3: then been accompanied by Wade Singleton or a number of
[24:13] Speaker 3: other people who were just standing around. That was mentioned
[24:17] Speaker 3: several times. all these people would rather be doing this
[24:19] Speaker 3: than cleaning the toilets, taking you for a dive. So
[24:23] Speaker 3: she had ample opportunity to say, I'm really terrified and
[24:27] Speaker 3: I'd like an orientation dive. But he stepped in and said, oh,
[24:32] Speaker 3: she doesn't need that. She's got me. I'm a rescue diver.
[24:35] Speaker 3: We are fine.
[24:37] Speaker 2: How did that first dive start? Because there was a
[24:41] Speaker 2: bit of faffing about with Gabe and Tina even getting underwater.
[24:45] Speaker 3: Yeah. Exactly. There was strange... Well, the weird thing about
[24:50] Speaker 3: that was they aborted the dive. They went out. There
[24:54] Speaker 3: seemed to be a lot of fiddle-faddling around. They got,
[24:56] Speaker 3: I think, one of the last boats, the little tenders
[24:59] Speaker 3: that leave to take them out to where they're going
[25:01] Speaker 3: to dive. And they came back because Gabe's battery was
[25:06] Speaker 3: supposedly upside down inside his dive watch. But that had happened...
[25:13] Speaker 3: in Alabama before they left. And Tina had already taken
[25:17] Speaker 3: it to the place he bought it. That was one
[25:19] Speaker 3: of the jobs she was given by Gabe. And it
[25:21] Speaker 3: was about the battery not working and it was upside down.
[25:26] Speaker 3: They said they found it in the shop. It was
[25:27] Speaker 3: upside down. It was way before the dive. And then
[25:30] Speaker 3: lo and behold, the morning of the dive, he puts
[25:32] Speaker 3: the batteries in upside down again, which was very weird.
[25:37] Speaker 3: So they came to the surface. He said, my dive
[25:39] Speaker 3: computer's not working.
[25:43] Speaker 2: You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Gemma Bass.
[25:48] Speaker 2: I'm speaking with Lindsay Simpson, co-author of Honeymoon Dive. Up next,
[25:53] Speaker 2: Lindsay describes the moment a fellow diver saw Tina struggling underwater,
[25:58] Speaker 2: a witness report that would become crucial in years to come.
[26:05] Speaker 2: They eventually start their dive and about five or so
[26:10] Speaker 2: minutes in, A fellow diver witnesses something underwater. Can you
[26:16] Speaker 2: tell us about what he saw? That diver was also
[26:19] Speaker 2: a doctor, so he was, you know, a very experienced
[26:22] Speaker 2: person in both diving and medical situations. What did he
[26:25] Speaker 2: see underwater?
[26:27] Speaker 3: So he was an emergency doctor and you couldn't get
[26:30] Speaker 3: a better, in my view, expert witness than that because
[26:33] Speaker 3: he saw, what he saw was this person lying on
[26:38] Speaker 3: her back. and he said already exhibiting signs that she
[26:43] Speaker 3: was dying. She was still alive, but her limbs were
[26:47] Speaker 3: all splayed out and she was just staring upwards. So
[26:53] Speaker 3: at first he thought he was seeing things. This other
[26:56] Speaker 3: boat I mentioned before was coming from Magnetic Island and
[27:00] Speaker 3: just moored exactly where they were, and the divers were
[27:04] Speaker 3: coming down the rope when they looked over and this
[27:08] Speaker 3: doctor saw, this blonde girl lying backwards. And he was
[27:13] Speaker 3: quite concerned. He didn't know what was going on. So yes,
[27:18] Speaker 3: that was the first thing that anyone recorded as seeing
[27:22] Speaker 3: what was happening.
[27:23] Speaker 2: Was it that same doctor that saw what he described
[27:27] Speaker 2: as a bear hug between the two?
[27:30] Speaker 3: Yes, he did see... Well, that bear hug was interesting
[27:34] Speaker 3: because I think I'm right in saying this, but He thought, yes,
[27:39] Speaker 3: the reason he didn't immediately go to the girl's assistance
[27:43] Speaker 3: was that he saw this other diver and I think
[27:45] Speaker 3: he was described as a very big man and Gabe
[27:49] Speaker 3: Watson was six foot seven or something like that. And
[27:53] Speaker 3: he thought that she, he was, the doctor thought Gabe
[27:57] Speaker 3: was helping her. So that's why he hadn't done something.
[28:02] Speaker 2: And he saw her kind of... Bear hug her was
[28:05] Speaker 2: the way he described it.
[28:06] Speaker 3: Yes.
[28:06] Speaker 2: Like put his arms around her.
[28:08] Speaker 3: Exactly. Put his arms around her and he presumed that
[28:15] Speaker 3: that was him helping him.
[28:16] Speaker 2: What happened next in terms of how Tina came to
[28:20] Speaker 2: the surface? Because it wasn't with Gabe.
[28:24] Speaker 4: No.
[28:25] Speaker 3: So I think the doctor then didn't realise that he
[28:29] Speaker 3: hadn't taken her up, but Wade Singleton... who was the
[28:33] Speaker 3: fellow briefing them all in the morning of the great briefing,
[28:37] Speaker 3: he then looked down and at first thought he was
[28:41] Speaker 3: seeing things and then realised that it was one of
[28:44] Speaker 3: the passengers. So anyway, Wade went down, got her from,
[28:49] Speaker 3: I think he took 92 seconds, what, a minute and
[28:52] Speaker 3: a half to get to the surface with her.
[28:56] Speaker 2: Gabe kind of popped up separately, three minutes apart from them.
[29:01] Speaker 2: So you've got Wade... and Tina kind of appearing in
[29:04] Speaker 2: the surface, and you've got Gabe appearing not as close
[29:08] Speaker 2: on another side. They both end up on different boats.
[29:12] Speaker 2: Let's go to Tina's boat first because what happens there?
[29:16] Speaker 2: They basically try and rescue her.
[29:19] Speaker 3: Yes, so they took her onto the other boat, Jazz 2,
[29:22] Speaker 3: the one from Magnetic Island, and basically straightaway tried doing
[29:28] Speaker 3: everything they could to save her. But... Really, probably at
[29:32] Speaker 3: that point, what that doctor, Dr. Stutz, had seen underwater,
[29:37] Speaker 3: the emergency doctor had been correct. that that was her
[29:41] Speaker 3: completely losing consciousness. So they worked on her for quite
[29:46] Speaker 3: some time and they even used an EpiPen to try
[29:50] Speaker 3: and get her to come round and that was obvious
[29:53] Speaker 3: in the post-mortem but that was another thing. One of
[29:58] Speaker 3: the most obvious things on her body when they examined
[30:01] Speaker 3: her was the epipen going into her neck and causing
[30:04] Speaker 3: that swelling. But, yes, she couldn't be revived. Nothing they
[30:10] Speaker 3: did brought her back.
[30:13] Speaker 2: They spent 41 minutes trying to revive her. Where was
[30:19] Speaker 2: Gabe in all of this?
[30:21] Speaker 3: Well, Gabe popped back onto Spoilsport and, And that comment
[30:26] Speaker 3: was made by at least one of the passengers. Like,
[30:29] Speaker 3: if that was you over there, honey, I'd be there
[30:32] Speaker 3: with bells on, you know, working out what was going on,
[30:35] Speaker 3: how you were. He didn't go over to Jazz 2
[30:39] Speaker 3: until basically she was pronounced dead by the doctor. So
[30:44] Speaker 3: that was quite some time. He was wandering around Spoilsport saying, oh,
[30:50] Speaker 3: you know, something's happened to Tina. And also, which I
[30:54] Speaker 3: thought was interesting, telling every man and his dog what
[30:57] Speaker 3: he thought happened, including the chef. He would just start
[31:02] Speaker 3: blurting out, this happened, that happened. So he was giving
[31:05] Speaker 3: these versions already to a number of people.
[31:08] Speaker 2: I know that Gabe had quite a few versions of events,
[31:11] Speaker 2: but what was his basic story that he was telling
[31:15] Speaker 2: people about what happened underwater?
[31:18] Speaker 3: Well, he was basically initially saying that she grabbed, when
[31:23] Speaker 3: he went to try and help her, that they went
[31:26] Speaker 3: swimming off into the distance and then she didn't seem
[31:30] Speaker 3: to be happy. He didn't really mention much initially about
[31:34] Speaker 3: any current, although he did say they had tried to swim.
[31:37] Speaker 3: And he said then he went towards her because he
[31:40] Speaker 3: realised that she wasn't happy, that things were happening, and
[31:44] Speaker 3: she grabbed his regulator. Now, that's... He did say that
[31:49] Speaker 3: consistently to just about everybody on Swarovski after he got
[31:53] Speaker 3: on board the boat they'd been on and he said
[31:56] Speaker 3: that she grabbed his mask and took it off and
[32:01] Speaker 3: he then, the second breathing potentially way to breathe is that,
[32:08] Speaker 3: as I mentioned, that second supply through the second regulator,
[32:12] Speaker 3: which everyone has and every rescue diver is told to use.
[32:16] Speaker 3: because when a person panics, they're out of control. So
[32:20] Speaker 3: if she was doing all those things that he alleged,
[32:24] Speaker 3: and let's not forget that nobody saw any of this,
[32:27] Speaker 3: then he should have given her his second air supply.
[32:31] Speaker 3: But what he says is he actually took that himself
[32:34] Speaker 3: because he thought he would be gone too. So somebody
[32:38] Speaker 3: like your wife is panicking underwater, you have a source
[32:41] Speaker 3: of air supply you can give to her in addition
[32:44] Speaker 3: to the one you're using. even if she's grabbed the
[32:47] Speaker 3: one you're using, even if that's all correct. He was
[32:50] Speaker 3: trained as a rescue diver to go behind for the
[32:52] Speaker 3: very reason that people start flailing and grabbing, go behind
[32:56] Speaker 3: where the tanks are and get the person under control
[33:01] Speaker 3: so they're not grabbing at you. He didn't do any
[33:04] Speaker 3: of those things. So his versions were that he then
[33:07] Speaker 3: tried to find a second air supply and then he
[33:10] Speaker 3: put that in and while he was doing that, she
[33:12] Speaker 3: started falling. And she was falling too quickly, quote unquote,
[33:17] Speaker 3: for him to go after her. And again, remembering this
[33:20] Speaker 3: is not really deep water.
[33:23] Speaker 2: So he made the decision to instead follow her to
[33:28] Speaker 2: head back up to the surface and in his words,
[33:30] Speaker 2: get help.
[33:32] Speaker 3: That's right. So he said at this stage, he realised,
[33:36] Speaker 3: but you know, a rescue diver also knows the critical
[33:38] Speaker 3: time to have actually got her to the surface was
[33:41] Speaker 3: not to watch her going further down, but to get
[33:45] Speaker 3: her up to the surface so she could breathe. So
[33:48] Speaker 3: at that stage she was falling quickly and he didn't
[33:54] Speaker 3: do any of the things he'd been trained to do
[33:56] Speaker 3: at all.
[33:58] Speaker 2: It wasn't just that he didn't do the things that
[34:01] Speaker 2: he'd been trained to do. A lot of the experienced
[34:03] Speaker 2: divers that he was telling this story to, they immediately
[34:07] Speaker 2: were like, well, that didn't happen. Why were they saying
[34:11] Speaker 2: stuff like that?
[34:13] Speaker 3: Well, some of the things he was saying to these two,
[34:16] Speaker 3: particularly American divers, who alerted Tommy Thomas, her father, sometime later,
[34:21] Speaker 3: because remembering when her parents first heard about all this,
[34:24] Speaker 3: they thought a tragic diving accident, and that was what
[34:27] Speaker 3: everyone thought for some time, giving the police notes, you know,
[34:31] Speaker 3: dear me, how tragic. So I think that what they
[34:35] Speaker 3: were saying to him, he was saying to them, was
[34:37] Speaker 3: I couldn't get her because she was too heavy. And
[34:40] Speaker 3: they were saying, but you're not heavy underwater, you're light.
[34:44] Speaker 3: And they were saying, and one of them actually said
[34:46] Speaker 3: to him, this was some of the first things he
[34:48] Speaker 3: told them, they said to Gabe, that's bullshit, those words.
[34:53] Speaker 3: And they said, that's not right. So there was in
[34:55] Speaker 3: the early stages when he first got back on board
[34:59] Speaker 3: after calling the alarm and then Tina surfacing with Wade
[35:03] Speaker 3: Singleton being rescued, The early stages he was saying things
[35:08] Speaker 3: that didn't make any sense. They were experienced divers and
[35:11] Speaker 3: they were calling him out. And the women, their wives,
[35:15] Speaker 3: were talking about how strange the way he was reacting,
[35:19] Speaker 3: that there was things that didn't add up, like he
[35:22] Speaker 3: hadn't gone over to the boat to be with her,
[35:26] Speaker 3: that he seemed to be, I mean, he was playing
[35:30] Speaker 3: cards on the way. back to Townsville when her body
[35:34] Speaker 3: was lying in cabin 14 on the boat. Very strange behaviour.
[35:39] Speaker 2: He also made an announcement to everyone on the boat
[35:42] Speaker 2: home where he once again just used weird language, like
[35:45] Speaker 2: that kind of corny stuff he said with the dad.
[35:47] Speaker 2: He said, my wife died today. This just really sucks.
[35:52] Speaker 2: So just weirdness.
[35:53] Speaker 3: Everyone was so shocked.
[35:56] Speaker 2: Yes.
[35:57] Speaker 3: And the other strange things he was doing was things
[36:01] Speaker 3: like insisting he'd got his dive computer back and he
[36:04] Speaker 3: wanted a receipt and shouting and yelling at the police because,
[36:07] Speaker 3: of course, that's evidence. Exactly, you know, wherever he said
[36:12] Speaker 3: they went, it would have been mapped on the dive
[36:14] Speaker 3: computer because, remember, he did go back up and finally
[36:16] Speaker 3: get his batteries right. So, yes, there was the fact
[36:23] Speaker 3: that he was playing cards and then he said he
[36:25] Speaker 3: wanted to stay on the boat. He didn't want to
[36:27] Speaker 3: get off the boat when they got back to Townsville.
[36:30] Speaker 3: and they couldn't understand the reason for that. Yeah, nothing,
[36:35] Speaker 3: there was things, but unfortunately, all of those sorts of
[36:38] Speaker 3: things that really would have been important for collecting evidence
[36:42] Speaker 3: right away when the boat docked, they weren't mentioned. Some
[36:47] Speaker 3: young constables took the statement from Gabe and the other
[36:52] Speaker 3: people who were on the boat, and they weren't asked.
[36:55] Speaker 3: Like there was a volunteer on board that day, Lou Johnson,
[36:59] Speaker 3: And she went to his cabin with him straight after
[37:02] Speaker 3: the whole thing had happened. And he was saying some
[37:06] Speaker 3: very strange things to her there. And she wasn't asked
[37:11] Speaker 3: about anything. All of that evidence was never in their
[37:14] Speaker 3: statements initially before the court case.
[37:17] Speaker 2: And why was that? Was it because the police were inexperienced?
[37:21] Speaker 2: Was it because they didn't understand diving, a mixture of
[37:26] Speaker 2: the two?
[37:27] Speaker 3: I think, you know, to have that many people giving,
[37:31] Speaker 3: they want to take statements quite quickly, so they were
[37:34] Speaker 3: all kind of shoveled off and given the opportunity to
[37:38] Speaker 3: give their version. There was a lot of people and
[37:41] Speaker 3: a lot of evidence that one of the passengers said
[37:44] Speaker 3: one constable was taking it all down with two fingers,
[37:47] Speaker 3: so the whole thing took forever to take the record
[37:51] Speaker 3: of interviews. But certainly probably at least three people said
[37:56] Speaker 3: it was just so disappointing because some of their evidence
[38:02] Speaker 3: that went towards pointing the finger at Gabe Watson was
[38:06] Speaker 3: never collected in those statements.
[38:09] Speaker 2: How were the families, and I say families because Gabe's
[38:12] Speaker 2: family and Tina's family, how were they informed about what
[38:16] Speaker 2: had happened?
[38:18] Speaker 3: Well, that was another strange thing that he was told
[38:21] Speaker 3: to ring his parents, and he didn't want to do
[38:25] Speaker 3: that initially, but he finally did ring his parents, but
[38:27] Speaker 3: he wasn't going to ring Tina's parents. Tina's parents didn't
[38:31] Speaker 3: know until 12 hours after the whole thing had happened.
[38:37] Speaker 3: And when he first, when Tommy Thomas got the call
[38:40] Speaker 3: to say something's wrong, it was Gabe asked his father
[38:43] Speaker 3: to call him and he basically said there's been something
[38:48] Speaker 3: terrible happened and then he handed the phone to his preacher.
[38:52] Speaker 3: They were Southern Baptists, the Gabe Watson's family. And the
[38:56] Speaker 3: preacher's the one who told Tommy Thomas. And Tommy was
[38:59] Speaker 3: asking for details, which the preacher didn't have. And in fact,
[39:04] Speaker 3: then the mother, when she was hysterical, understandably, Tina's mother,
[39:09] Speaker 3: realised that Gabe's mother had already booked her flight to
[39:13] Speaker 3: get to Australia. And in fact, her daughter hadn't just died.
[39:17] Speaker 3: It happened 12 hours before and they hadn't even been told.
[39:21] Speaker 3: And Her sister went to work at a restaurant and
[39:25] Speaker 3: everyone knew, the staff knew that word had got out
[39:28] Speaker 3: before the family were even told. and she found out
[39:31] Speaker 3: about it at work so she had to then go
[39:33] Speaker 3: and tell the mother so i mean the and then
[39:37] Speaker 3: their first reaction with thomas's first reaction was how terrible
[39:41] Speaker 3: the game because you know he'd witnessed this awful thing
[39:44] Speaker 3: and lost his wife he just married and There was nothing,
[39:47] Speaker 3: as you can imagine, miles away in Alabama, there was
[39:51] Speaker 3: nothing to suggest that something had happened that was untoward.
[39:56] Speaker 2: Gabe did eventually talk to Tina's parents on the phone
[39:59] Speaker 2: and he, there's no other way to say it, he
[40:02] Speaker 2: lied about certain things in those initial phone calls.
[40:06] Speaker 3: He did. And, I mean, at that point, you know,
[40:09] Speaker 3: he was very... thinking about the dive computer, but he
[40:14] Speaker 3: was also going to give them another one of the
[40:18] Speaker 3: versions that he said happened.
[40:19] Speaker 2: Can you tell us what he lied about?
[40:24] Speaker 3: Well, he lied about the fact that he was with
[40:26] Speaker 3: her basically at the final moments and that she blinked
[40:31] Speaker 3: at him while she was underwater and that she would
[40:35] Speaker 3: have known he was going for help. But also he
[40:37] Speaker 3: lied and said he was there because Cindy asked him,
[40:40] Speaker 3: her mother asked him, were you there? of course, you know,
[40:44] Speaker 3: to help to see if she'd be okay. And he said, yes,
[40:47] Speaker 3: I was there.
[40:48] Speaker 2: So during all of the CPR, all of that, he
[40:51] Speaker 2: kind of said he was present.
[40:53] Speaker 3: Exactly.
[40:54] Speaker 2: There was a lot of tension that started bubbling between
[40:58] Speaker 2: Gabe and Tina's families during the process of bringing Tina's
[41:02] Speaker 2: body home, organising her funeral, the funeral itself. Can you
[41:06] Speaker 2: touch on some of that and how that kind of
[41:10] Speaker 2: bubbled over?
[41:12] Speaker 3: Yes, well, there were plots that Cindy right away said,
[41:16] Speaker 3: you know, we've got plots when Gabe can be next
[41:19] Speaker 3: to Tina.
[41:20] Speaker 2: So funeral plots.
[41:22] Speaker 3: Funeral plots that their family had organised and that was
[41:27] Speaker 3: never going to be. And in fact, right up even
[41:30] Speaker 3: until this present moment, as far as I know, Gabe
[41:32] Speaker 3: hasn't given any of her belongings back and he announced no,
[41:37] Speaker 3: that she was going to their family plot. So there
[41:40] Speaker 3: was a lot of, angst even around what was going
[41:45] Speaker 3: to happen to her now that she had died and
[41:48] Speaker 3: what they were going to do with her body.
[41:52] Speaker 2: After the break, we look at why both the police
[41:55] Speaker 2: and Tina's family started to grow suspicious of Gabe Watson
[41:59] Speaker 2: and his ever-changing story. So Tommy and the family were
[42:05] Speaker 2: starting to kind of get a little bit suspicious. They'd
[42:07] Speaker 2: started talking to some of the dive passengers and about
[42:11] Speaker 2: their suspicions. At this point, were police investigating foul play?
[42:17] Speaker 2: Was it an open investigation or like what was happening there?
[42:21] Speaker 3: No, I don't think it was. I think police had just,
[42:25] Speaker 3: there was even comments made on the notes, no suspicious circumstances.
[42:29] Speaker 3: So I think if it hadn't been for these, obviously
[42:33] Speaker 3: these guests, other guests going home and thinking about it,
[42:37] Speaker 3: and they just felt bad about it from the word go,
[42:40] Speaker 3: like they thought there was something wrong. So I think
[42:45] Speaker 3: police had kind of left it, let it be. And
[42:47] Speaker 3: I guess the Thomases as well thought, you know, they're
[42:51] Speaker 3: so far away, what had happened, she was a beginning diver.
[42:54] Speaker 3: There was conversations about the current that Gabe started feeding
[42:59] Speaker 3: in fairly early on.
[43:00] Speaker 2: To the media.
[43:02] Speaker 3: To the media. So that was another sudden thing that
[43:05] Speaker 3: he talked about and this strange thing like an earache
[43:09] Speaker 3: that he had and there was no evidence that he
[43:10] Speaker 3: had sore ears so there was suddenly this other stuff
[43:13] Speaker 3: coming in at one point but the currents I guess
[43:17] Speaker 3: from their perspective from the Thomas's they knew how scared
[43:20] Speaker 3: she was probably about diving they knew it was an
[43:23] Speaker 3: ocean dive that was said to be dangerous which you
[43:26] Speaker 3: know there had been information that the currents could get
[43:29] Speaker 3: extremely strong but there was a lot of evidence that
[43:32] Speaker 3: the spoilsport staff checked all of that before she went in.
[43:35] Speaker 3: But it certainly wasn't a day where you're just swimming
[43:38] Speaker 3: along like in a swimming pool. So I think for
[43:42] Speaker 3: all of those reasons the Thomases believed that, you know,
[43:47] Speaker 3: their daughter had died in tragic circumstances. But then I
[43:51] Speaker 3: think when these questions were asked and one of the
[43:56] Speaker 3: guests rang Tommy, I think things started changing. and that
[44:00] Speaker 3: he started recalling all of these other things that were happening.
[44:04] Speaker 2: Four years after Tina's death, so we're talking 2007, there
[44:08] Speaker 2: was an inquest held in Townsville around the circumstances of
[44:12] Speaker 2: how she died. Why did it take that long? And
[44:16] Speaker 2: why wouldn't the next steps for police in Australia be
[44:19] Speaker 2: something like arresting Gabe, going down that route of suspicion?
[44:28] Speaker 3: Yes, because that's four years after the whole event, which
[44:32] Speaker 3: was October 2003. I think, to be honest, the initial
[44:38] Speaker 3: police investigation was just expecting, which is not how police
[44:42] Speaker 3: should operate, and I'm not saying they didn't do a
[44:46] Speaker 3: good job, but I think they just expected it to
[44:49] Speaker 3: be a dive. There are a number of people, by
[44:52] Speaker 3: the way, that do dives. on snorkelling expeditions, on boats.
[44:57] Speaker 3: I mean, we run boats, we hear about it. It's
[44:59] Speaker 3: not necessarily making the media. And most of those are
[45:02] Speaker 3: natural causes, heart attacks, people. But it did take till 2007.
[45:08] Speaker 3: And finally, there was the inquest, as you said. And finally,
[45:14] Speaker 3: there was the coroner pointed finger at Gabe.
[45:17] Speaker 2: There were 62 witnesses at that inquest, 12 points of
[45:21] Speaker 2: concern for police. We've touched on a few of them,
[45:24] Speaker 2: but I want to run through some of them just
[45:26] Speaker 2: to kind of give listeners an idea. So we've got
[45:29] Speaker 2: obviously the conflicting stories to different people. There was the
[45:32] Speaker 2: apparent malfunction of the dive computer, the slow rate of
[45:37] Speaker 2: ascent given the emergency of Gabe coming to the surface
[45:42] Speaker 2: and given it only took Wade, you know, 92 seconds
[45:45] Speaker 2: or something like that, took him several minutes. And then
[45:49] Speaker 2: Tina's heart condition was also a part of this inquest
[45:52] Speaker 2: because obviously she'd had heart problems as a child and
[45:55] Speaker 2: that was investigated as to whether it could have been
[45:57] Speaker 2: a condition that caused her to die. What was found
[46:02] Speaker 2: in terms of that?
[46:03] Speaker 3: That's right. So she had had that operation and she'd
[46:07] Speaker 3: been given the all clear and that was found not
[46:10] Speaker 3: to have been the cause of death because a couple
[46:13] Speaker 3: of things that the people said on Spoilsport were that
[46:17] Speaker 3: The only thing that could have happened and caused her
[46:21] Speaker 3: to die was that there was no air when she
[46:24] Speaker 3: was found, but Wade Singleton had found that there was
[46:27] Speaker 3: air in the tank. They didn't know about her heart condition,
[46:31] Speaker 3: the people on spoilsport, but certainly the post-mortem said that
[46:36] Speaker 3: that wasn't a cause of death.
[46:37] Speaker 2: And they also found her with the regulator still in
[46:41] Speaker 2: her mouth and it was all functioning.
[46:44] Speaker 3: Yes, that's right. Everything... The only, it was interesting because
[46:49] Speaker 3: these two experienced divers said that's the only reason for
[46:52] Speaker 3: the cause of death.
[46:54] Speaker 2: There's also this infamous photo, which we haven't mentioned yet.
[46:58] Speaker 2: It's the most famous image from this case. And it
[47:02] Speaker 2: has a diver in the kind of foreground smiling at
[47:05] Speaker 2: the camera. And in the background, you can see Tina. Yeah.
[47:11] Speaker 2: And that photo actually was used in the inquest as well,
[47:15] Speaker 2: wasn't it? What did it show?
[47:17] Speaker 3: Well, that was chilling because the other honeymoon couple, he
[47:21] Speaker 3: was so proud of his new camera and it had
[47:24] Speaker 3: gone digital way back in those days, 2003. And he
[47:28] Speaker 3: was photographing his wife, Dawn, I think her name was.
[47:32] Speaker 3: And she was turning back to Wade Singleton to get
[47:35] Speaker 3: an idea of how deep they were. So he took
[47:38] Speaker 3: a photo of her and it wasn't until they were
[47:40] Speaker 3: sitting on a sports board actually looking through the photographs
[47:43] Speaker 3: and he was saying, oh, I didn't get really good ones,
[47:45] Speaker 3: you know, I didn't realise how to focus. And then
[47:47] Speaker 3: suddenly he came across this one of Dawn, it was
[47:50] Speaker 3: one of the better photos. He said, what's that behind her?
[47:53] Speaker 3: Is it coral? And then they realised it was actually Tina.
[47:56] Speaker 2: And was there something about the fact that Gabe wasn't
[47:59] Speaker 2: in that photo and that was used as evidence?
[48:03] Speaker 3: Well, they actually had the photo of, Wade Singleton, they
[48:07] Speaker 3: could see his fins going down. So how quickly he
[48:11] Speaker 3: reacted when he realised that this was someone at the
[48:17] Speaker 3: bottom and he had to get her up.
[48:18] Speaker 2: That inquest came to an end kind of mid-2008 and
[48:21] Speaker 2: it basically found that Gabe should be charged with murder.
[48:27] Speaker 2: Was that a shocking thing to have happened in an inquest?
[48:32] Speaker 3: It was shocking given that not anyone had really looked
[48:36] Speaker 3: at the facts in that way before and also that
[48:40] Speaker 3: it was four years after she died. But I think
[48:44] Speaker 3: that what happened then, he ended up getting a sentence
[48:48] Speaker 3: of manslaughter, really upset the family because they said that
[48:53] Speaker 3: there was definitely enough evidence. The more they were hearing,
[48:55] Speaker 3: they flew to towns where they hired a lawyer. The
[48:58] Speaker 3: more they were hearing about what went on, the more
[49:00] Speaker 3: horrified they were.
[49:02] Speaker 2: Gabe arrived in Australia May 2009. He was arrested as
[49:08] Speaker 2: soon as he got here. And then the next shock
[49:11] Speaker 2: that kind of came to everyone was that he entered
[49:13] Speaker 2: a plea when he turned up in court, not guilty
[49:16] Speaker 2: to murder, but that he would plead guilty to murder.
[49:21] Speaker 2: And basically he'd made a deal with the DPP. How
[49:25] Speaker 2: did that even come about? Did he know before he
[49:28] Speaker 2: got on that plane that if he came, he could
[49:32] Speaker 2: just plead guilty to manslaughter, get not the murder charge?
[49:36] Speaker 3: It's like a plea deal. And I think plea bargaining,
[49:40] Speaker 3: the prosecutors said that they basically had looked at all
[49:44] Speaker 3: of the evidence. There's still not the evidence that he
[49:47] Speaker 3: actually caused her death, which was the problem they faced
[49:50] Speaker 3: with the murder charge. And as you said, the initial
[49:54] Speaker 3: investigation hadn't uncovered anything untoward and there was a number
[49:58] Speaker 3: of years went by before this all ended up in court.
[50:02] Speaker 2: He agreed to a manslaughter charge. which was a sentence
[50:06] Speaker 2: of four and a half years. But initially that was,
[50:09] Speaker 2: most of it was suspended. So it was about a
[50:12] Speaker 2: year in prison. And what was the reaction to that?
[50:17] Speaker 2: Not just from Tina's family, but from investigators, from the internet.
[50:23] Speaker 2: How did everyone react?
[50:25] Speaker 3: Well, I suppose the fact that, well, the parents and
[50:30] Speaker 3: the family were just really upset, as you can imagine.
[50:35] Speaker 3: He was basically found guilty of being a bad dive buddy.
[50:39] Speaker 3: But then he was extradited, as you know, to Alabama.
[50:46] Speaker 2: Because they basically wanted to pursue murder charges again, didn't they?
[50:51] Speaker 3: That's right. They did. But the issue then was could
[50:56] Speaker 3: Australia give somebody up? to be extradited if they face
[51:02] Speaker 3: the death sentence, which is what in Alabama they still
[51:04] Speaker 3: have capital punishment, as you probably know. So they were
[51:09] Speaker 3: in a very difficult position to give him up, but
[51:13] Speaker 3: they ended up getting assurance that he wouldn't be put
[51:16] Speaker 3: to death if he was found guilty in America.
[51:19] Speaker 2: That didn't end up happening, did it? The case in
[51:21] Speaker 2: America was abandoned.
[51:24] Speaker 3: That's right. Halfway through the evidence, the judge came in
[51:28] Speaker 3: and dismissed the jury and said, there's not enough evidence,
[51:33] Speaker 3: I find, to find him guilty. And he walked free.
[51:39] Speaker 3: And in Alabama, they don't have a right to appeal.
[51:43] Speaker 3: So the parents could do absolutely nothing to revisit the case,
[51:49] Speaker 3: get another judge on the case. So it was almost
[51:53] Speaker 3: like at every turn between the body of their daughter
[51:57] Speaker 3: being exhumed, this terrible set of events unfolding about how
[52:02] Speaker 3: she died, the culpability of her husband who had been
[52:07] Speaker 3: found guilty of manslaughter, at least in Australia. There was
[52:13] Speaker 3: really nothing else that they could do.
[52:18] Speaker 2: Because the only extra kind of rope they got was...
[52:21] Speaker 2: Instead of a year in prison, they appealed and managed
[52:24] Speaker 2: to get a year and a half. So a year
[52:26] Speaker 2: and a half in prison was what Gabe Watson kind
[52:29] Speaker 2: of served. And then he went home to America and
[52:34] Speaker 2: he had a new wife. Do we know what he's doing?
[52:37] Speaker 2: Have we heard anything in the last few years?
[52:40] Speaker 3: I've got an alert on his name, but there was
[52:45] Speaker 3: certainly evidence that the new wife was very much a
[52:48] Speaker 3: lookalike for Tina. which was quite chilling. So I don't
[52:54] Speaker 3: suppose he's been up to anything particularly bad because I
[52:59] Speaker 3: think we would have heard about it in the media. But, yes,
[53:03] Speaker 3: I mean I fail to see after writing this book
[53:05] Speaker 3: and spending all this time and going to America and
[53:08] Speaker 3: doing all the interviews, I just cannot understand why women
[53:12] Speaker 3: would stay with someone that all your friends and all
[53:16] Speaker 3: your family are saying, This isn't right. He's not the
[53:19] Speaker 3: right person for you. You know, throwing a pizza at
[53:23] Speaker 3: his face in the middle of a restaurant. Now, again,
[53:26] Speaker 3: I do hasten to say he is a free man
[53:30] Speaker 3: and he's been found not guilty. But at the time
[53:34] Speaker 3: we were writing the book, certainly that wasn't the case.
[53:37] Speaker 2: Do you think that that goes to the heart of
[53:40] Speaker 2: why this case has been so... popular in the media.
[53:46] Speaker 2: You know, you and your co-author had completely differing views here.
[53:50] Speaker 2: And I feel like that is what was happening on
[53:52] Speaker 2: a world kind of stage where people were just obsessed
[53:57] Speaker 2: with going over the details and being against each other
[53:59] Speaker 2: and in Gabe's corner, not in Gabe's corner. And that's
[54:03] Speaker 2: why it kind of captured everyone.
[54:06] Speaker 3: I think very much so. And I think this is
[54:09] Speaker 3: often the case in murder cases that to actually prove,
[54:14] Speaker 3: you know, I saw him hold up a knife and
[54:17] Speaker 3: stab someone in the back. That is not the case
[54:20] Speaker 3: in rape cases, you know, her version versus his version.
[54:24] Speaker 3: I think ultimately even, and he's walking free now. So, yes,
[54:30] Speaker 3: it does fuel that whole idea. I think there are
[54:33] Speaker 3: people that adamantly, she was absolutely adamant that he hadn't
[54:38] Speaker 3: done it. And yet we'd done the same interviews. We'd
[54:42] Speaker 3: door-knocked Gabe's place where he lived. We'd spoken to people
[54:45] Speaker 3: at the dive instructor. We'd, you know, interviewed all these people.
[54:50] Speaker 3: So she was exposed to the same information I was.
[54:54] Speaker 3: We're both journalists. So I think that says everything that
[54:58] Speaker 3: at the end of the day, yeah, we probably did
[55:00] Speaker 3: reflect that ambivalence about or the, you know, the disagreements
[55:07] Speaker 3: that did he do it or didn't he.
[55:12] Speaker 2: Thanks to Lindsay and Jennifer for helping us to tell
[55:15] Speaker 2: this story. True Crime Conversations is hosted and produced by me,
[55:18] Speaker 2: Gemma Bass, and Tali Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Round.
[55:23] Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening. Claire Murphy will be back
[55:26] Speaker 2: next week with another True Crime Conversation.
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