The husband says he wasn't a good dive buddy because he swam away as his new wife sank to the ocean floor after her scuba tanks failed. His late wife's family and the alabama district attorney say it was pre-meditated murder. That he turned off the air and held her while she died in his arms.
They were married in October 2003. Tina, the excited, smiling bride facing a new life as Gabe Watson's wife. Prosecutors say the groom was already planning her murder before their honeymoon scuba diving in Australia.
That is her body on the reef after Alabama prosecutors say she was killed. Her husband Gabe served 18 months for manslaughter, essentially an unintentional murder.
The sentence outraged people both in Australia and Tina's home state of Alabama.
Undercover video shows Gabe Watson stealing flowers from his dead wife's grave. A private detective was hired by the family to discover the thief.
Two divers demonstrated how prosecutors believe Tina was killed by her husband.
Australia at first would not extradite Watson.
"Australia does not deport people if there is a risk they will be subject to capital punishment," said Chris Bowen, Australia's immigration minister.
Eventually the U.S. State Department and the state of Alabama agreed that Watson would not face the death penalty if Australia would extradite him. He has been indicted for murder for financial gain. There was a small life insurance policy.
Watson is now being kept at the LAPD's 77th Street station. He was flown into Los Angeles International Airport Thursday morning, accompanied by Queensland police officers and two immigration officials. He will remain in LAPD custody until next week.
The dead woman's father often visits the grave in Birmingham, Alabama. It has no stone because the plot belongs to her husband of 11 days, the man now charged with murdering her.
Only months after Tina was killed diving in Australia, her husband remarried. His second wife is said to look a lot like Tina.
Next week Gabe Watson is expected to appear in a Los Angeles court, where a judge will order him extradited to Alabama on murder charges.
