page_title: Death of Tina Watson
section_title: Investigations
hierarchical_section_title: Death of Tina Watson / Investigations
caption_attribution_description: Above water wreck of SS Yongala off Townsville
context_page_description: Christina Mae "Tina" Thomas Watson, was a 26-year-old American from Helena, Alabama. She died on her honeymoon on the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia in 2003. She had only been married to her husband, David Gabriel "Gabe" Watson, for 11 days when she died. The doctor who performed the autopsy said she drowned in a scuba diving accident.
  Six years later, Gabe Watson was charged for murder and manslaughter. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sent to prison for a year by an Australian court. Six months were added to the prison sentence after an appeal that took place just six weeks later. The appeal was held as soon after the trial as possible because of concerns raised by Tina's father with the trial itself. However, the appeal judges had agreed with the trial judge on most of the issues except the six month increase in the prison sentence.
  Tina was a Southern Baptist and a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She worked as a departmental manager at the small Southern department store chain, Parisian. She was buried at the Southern Heritage Cemetery, in Pelham, Alabama, USA.
context_section_description: While scuba diving at the site of the SS Yongala, a passenger ship that sank in 1911 in the main southern shipping channel to the Australian port of Townsville, Tina Watson either lost consciousness or died and then sank 24 meters (79 ft) to the sea floor below. Tina's death of accidental drowning was not a criminal investigation in itself in Australia. It was a coronial enquiry. Mr Watson gave evidence to the Coronial Inquiry through his lawyers. He returned to Australia voluntarily and spoke to investigators on a number of occasions. Some of these interviews are available on the Internet. At trial, prosecutors said that Mr Watson had made a mistake in not trying to rescue his wife. They said that mistake was the same as manslaughter (see: Court of Appeal Judgement). Tina's father testified that, immediately before their wedding, Gabe had asked Tina to increase her life insurance policy to the maximum possible and make him the sole beneficiary.
  After hearing that flowers and gifts left for Tina at her grave were being destroyed or were disappearing, even when held down by a chain, Sergeant Flynn investigated it. On a hidden videotape, he saw Gabe Watson taking them away with bolt cutters and then throwing them in the trash angrily.  Gabe then married Kim Lewis on August 15, 2008.
caption: A shipping buoy marks the site of the SS Yongala shipwreck.
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