June 5, 2009

Man killed wife on honeymoon

SYDNEY - AN AMERICAN salesman pleaded guilty Friday to the manslaughter of his bride while scuba diving on their honeymoon on Australia's Great Barrier Reef more than five years ago.

Bubble wrap salesman David Gabriel Watson, known as Gabe, admitted to the charge during a court hearing in the eastern city of Brisbane in connection with the October 2003 death of his new wife Christina, 26.

Ms Watson, 32, was on honeymoon with his new wife when she drowned during their diving trip at a shipwreck off the city of Townsville 11 days after their wedding in the United States.

A dive instructor found novice scuba diver Ms Tina Watson lying on the bottom of the ocean after Gabe, an experienced diver trained in rescuing panicked divers, had surfaced.

An inquest into her death heard earlier that a fellow diver saw Gabe Watson bear-hugging his wife underwater before he re-surfaced while she sank to the ocean floor.

In mid-2008 a coroner found it was likely Watson killed his wife by holding her underwater and turning off her air supply.

He was later charged with murder but told the court he would plead guilty to manslaughter. Prosecutor Brendan Campbell accepted the plea.

Mr Campbell told the court the manslaughter plea had been accepted on the basis that Watson had failed in his duty as her dive buddy by failing to give her emergency oxygen when she needed it.

Watson allowed Ms Tina to sink to the ocean floor without making any serious attempt to rescue her and also failed to inflate her buoyancy vest or remove weights from her belt to allow her to surface, Mr Campbell said.

Watson told police his new wife had knocked his mask off and then sank too quickly for him to save her. Prosecutors rejected that argument saying it would not have been possible for her to have sunk so rapidly.

Prosecutors sought a five-year jail term for Watson, with the possibility of parole after 18 months. He was due to be sentenced later Friday.



I feel that Mr Watson is unreasonable because if he just married Ms Tina, why would he kill her?At first, when i read this article, i could not accept that Mr Watson killed Ms Tina on their honeymoon but then, i thought of some possible reasons:

1) They just fought over something
2) Ms Tina did something and hurt Mr Watson
3)Mr Watson hates Ms Tina for some unknown reasons