Gabe Watson acquitted of wife's murder in honeymoon drowning incident

24.02.2012

Judge rules on a lack of evidence that Watson drowned his wife while scuba diving on a trip to Australia in 2003. Judge Tommy Nail ruled that prosecutors failed to present enough evidence of a crime to send the case to jurors. He ended the two-week-long trial by acquitting 34-year-old Gabe Watson on his own.

Watson had faced a sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of murdering his wife, Tina Thomas Watson, in 2003. He already served 18 months in an Australian prison after pleading guilty there to a manslaughter charge involving negligence.

Nail agreed with defence arguments that prosecutors failed to show Watson intentionally killed the woman. Prosecutors claimed he drowned her for insurance money, but the only eyewitness testified he thought Watson was trying to save the woman.