Posted on 06/21/2008 7:04:12 AM PDT by driftdiver
An American tourist was charged with murder yesterday for allegedly drowning his bride of 11 days on a scuba diving trip on the Great Barrier Reef during their honeymoon. Christina Mae Watson, 26, died while diving on a shipwreck near the northeastern Australian city of Townsville while her husband looked on.
Daniel Watson, 31, of Birmingham, Alabama, had claimed during police interviews that his wife had panicked a few minutes into the dive. He said that as she thrashed around in the water, she grabbed hold of his mask and pushed it off his face. He later described seeing her, with her eyes wide and arms stretched out towards him, sink into the deep.
Mr Watson was an experienced diver who had completed a diving rescue course and was acting as a “dive buddy” for his wife, who was a novice. Despite his training, he told police that he decided to go for help rather than attempt to rescue his wife. One of the leaders of the dive trip pulled Mrs Watson to the surface, but attempts to resuscitate her failed.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
The most suspicious thing is that he didn't try to rescue her. If he was a novice diver I could understand. I'm also rescue certified and don't imagine how I could let someone I loved down like this.
I saw this earlier on the news feeds....there was some mention of her increasing her life insurance policy at his request....this murder really disgusted me....hope they throw the book at this guy.
Be careful who you marry.
It certainly doesn’t look good. The photo shows him swimming away and another diver headed in her direction.
I heard his attorney on the news yesterday. He’s trying to establish that the victim’s father hated his client as if that makes him innocent.
I don’t know. The prosecutor will have to prove his acts without any doubt. Stranger things have happened.
Although I sympathize with the family, how did this ever make it into a court room? It doesn’t sound like there’s any evidence that he did it...
His comment that she pulled his mask off is also suspicious. That is a central part of all dive training. It would certainly distract him but takes only a short moment to clear. If he wanted to save her he could easily have at least made an attempt.
He deserves the same treatment, put him down and turn of his air.
“Despite his training, he told police that he decided to go for help rather than attempt to rescue his wife.”
Ah, the ole Ted Kennedy defense.
Rather than trying to save her, he swims to shore to seek help.
I’m sure he thought she would be perfectly fine and healthy as she sank to the bottom.
He should run for Senator of Massachusetts to replace the swimmer when he dies. They both think alike.
Hopefully though justice may at least find the diver creep and stick him in the hole for life w/o parole....or better yet....death w/o parole.
About a month ago they told this story on Dateline or 48 hours or one of those shows. Although he asked her to increase the insurance, apparently her Dad, an insurance agent, told her not to. I don’t know if he knew this. The show was much ado about not so much...the parents were bit bulls and I suspect this is why this is happening now. Not saying he didn’t do it...he did leave her there. And they tried to make him look like a rotten guy, but the woman did marry him. Why do women marry lousy men? Is being alone that horrible that you would rather live with a scumbag than being by yourself? I don’t get it.
He had asked her to increase her life insurance and name him sole beneficiary. She told him she had done so. She hadn’t according to her family. Does Australia have the death penalty?
I dove a few times. The hardest thing is actually putting your face under the water and trusting the equipment with your life. It was a big mental challenge to get over, at least it was for me. I felt kinda stupid because the whole group had to come in early because I was going through my air too fast. I could understand her panic, and you are right, experienced divers know how to deal with us rookies.
“Despite his training, he told police that he decided to go for help rather than attempt to rescue his wife.”
LOL. The groom is a proud graduate of the Ted Kennedy School of Underwater Rescue.
I’m also rescue trained and couldn’t imagine doing something like that. I wonder if he turned her air off when she wasn’t looking. Probably pulled her regulater out of her mouth.
I know that if I was killed under mysterious circumstances and my Father suspected he knew who did it...that guy wouldn’t be around for a court hearing. You know how I know that? He told me so.
Wouldn’t it be great if we started making the punishment fit the crime??
In this case if convicted the perp would be placed in sealed tank and water would be pumped in until it completely filled.
Think about that for a moment. No matter what the guys motive was here or how desperate he may have been. IF HE KNEW, that if convicted this would have been his punishment do you think he would have done this?
Okay so he does it another way. NO PROBLEM. He drugs her and sets the house of fire. If convicted he gets tied to a stake and lit up.
On so on and so on.
Gruesome? Sure. But them so was the wifes death.
Cruel? Who gives a rats ass. The guy is (if convicted) a murdering scumbag.
Life sentences surely do not deter murder. Prisons are oevrflowing with people serving life sentences.
And for those that say the death penalty does not deter muder I say lets try this way for 10 years and then tell me it doesn’t work............
Good proof-reading by the Times/sarc. Who’s Gabriel and who is Daniel? Two different people?
And the story line concocted by the police is that the guy "turned off the air supply of his wife until she was dead, or nearly dead, then turned it back on and let her sink to the seabed."
Uh. Meanwhile, she did no thrashing around...no panicking...nobody else in the dive group noticed anything awry while she was "dying or nearly dying."
OTOH, we have a novice diver and a recently certified diver (read little experience) out in the open ocean near the barrier reef (big, big swells! Can be VERY daunting for even regular divers.)
She panics, he tries to help...and let me tell you...when you're scared yourself, you don't necessarily go grab on to someone who can get you out of control too. That close to death, it's not unreasonable for all societal and human concerns to disappear into pure animal instinct.
So, maybe he did do it. Maybe he didn't but failed to help. But it seem imminently plausable that this is just one of the possible outcomes of a wonderful but very dangerous sport, and the family of the deceased is naturally lashing out and latching on to anything they can for comfort and explanation. Here's a father who gives his daughter away at the altar to a young man he does not know, and then loses her permanently under his care. He's supposed to be understanding if it was an accident?
Seems hard to prove but I’m guessing he did it. All the cases I’ve read about that were accidents were quite different. Loved ones, friends and so forth go to great extent to help. They don’t swim away especially if they are an experienced diver. Rescue dive training specifically addresses this kind of incident and his actions are not compatible.
The fact she’s on the bottom is also suspicious. That means she either dumped the air out of her vest or was overweighted. Possibly both. I can see where he turned her air off, she ran out and panicked. Her training would have been to turn to her dive buddy, him, for his alternate air supply. He could refuse that and she would quickly drown. If overweighted it would make it hard to do an emergency ascent.
In the training and dives I’ve been on women tend to bolt to the surface more often than men. The fact that she didn’t makes it more suspect. If she died from an embolism or the bends from a rapid ascent it would be less suspect.
Hard to prove but his behavior is not typical.
Dive training does not an experienced diver make.
You can get certified in a resort course in these places in a few days.
Seems a little far to go for you to judge his state of mind at that point. She panicked. He panicked. She died.
This is not necessarily murder I.
Only way he could've exonerated himself for some here on this thread was to have gone to the bottom also.
Gallant, sure. But rare when it comes down to it.
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