US murder charge dismissed in honeymoon drowning
An Alabama judge on Thursday acquitted Gabe Watson, a US citizen accused of murdering his wife in 2003 while the couple scuba dived during their honeymoon in Australia.
Jefferson County circuit judge Tommy Nail said the evidence was too weak to support charges that the 34-year-old Watson plotted the crime to collect his wife's life insurance.
The judge's decision "gives closure for everyone," Brett Bloomston, Watson's attorney, told The Birmingham News.
Tina Thomas, Watson's first wife, drowned on October 22, 2003.
Watson already has served 18 months in prison after an Australian court found him guilty of negligent homicide for failing to help his wife while she struggled for air under water.
Alabama authorities extradited him on a suspicion the alleged homicide was plotted in the United States, which could have brought him life in prison without a chance of parole.
The extradition was granted on a condition that Watson not be given the death penalty, which has been abolished in Australia.
During the two-week trial in Birmingham, Alabama, prosecutor Andrew Arrington told the jury that Watson wanted to kill his wife to obtain $200,000 from her life insurance policy. The prosecutor accused him of taking off her oxygen tank while the couple scuba dived and then holding it in deep water until she drowned.
Before the jury reached a verdict, Nail dismissed the charges on a motion for acquittal by the defense, saying, "The evidence is sorely lacking that it was an intentional act. The only way to convict him of intentional murder is to speculate. Nobody knows exactly what happened in the water. I'm sure we'll never know."
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