Mystery in the deep blue sea

Tommy Thomas: I was pretty concerned about the investigation. And I was just trying to find, well, what are you guys going to do next?

The investigation into the drowning of newlywed Tina Watson had moved from the water police to homicide detectives. In their view, it was no longer just a tragic dive accident. The police were viewing it as a suspicious death. The authorities were troubled by Gabe's apparently evolving stories were at odds with his own dive computer and dismissed by some seasoned divers as literally unbelievable.

Tina's family didn't even want to consider where the investigation was heading.

Tommy Thomas: It was very hard for me to get my head wrapped around the fact that there was any possibility that there could be any wrongdoing. I mean, why would you marry someone, go on your honeymoon and they'll die due to any wrongdoing on your part? It doesn't make sense.

Tensions were high when Gabe returned home to Alabama a week after his wife's death. And what were already fragile relations with Gabe snapped altogether by the time of Tina's funeral.

Brad Flynn: In speaking with the funeral directors, they said in all their years of conducting funeral services, they've never, ever done a service that had the tension and the drama that that one did.

And something very odd was going on at the cemetery. The flowers Tina's family placed on her grave kept disappearing. Tina's father began attaching them to the gravesite with wires. They disappeared again: cut free by a bolt cutter.

Sgt. Flynn had a hunch what was going on so he set up a video surveillance of Tina's grave.

And one afternoon he got this picture: Gabe arriving with bolt cutters and removing the flowers left there by her family.

Brad Flynn: I don't care what kind of issues I have with somebody. A grave is not a battle ground. That's not a place to wage a grudge match with in-laws, former in-laws. That's just dirty.

Dennis Murphy: Does it speak to your case, though -- his inexplicable behavior at the grave site, does that speak at all to what happened underwater in Australia?

Brad Flynn: It makes me look at it from a completely different perspective. I'm not saying that. I can use that to say, "Oh, you know, he's lying." But, yeah, it makes me look at him, his character, from a whole different point of view.

And Tina's father told the cops about Gabe's request to Tina before the wedding. It was about the life insurance policy she had through her employer.

Tommy Thomas: And I'm thinking, "Well, this is an odd time to bring this up."

According to Tommy Thomas, his daughter came to him and said that Gabe told her to increase her policy to the max: a $130,000 payout. And he wanted her to change the beneficiary from her father to him. Tommy told his daughter "tell Gabe that you've already taken care of all that,” but in fact he advised her not to deal with it until she got back from the honeymoon.

Tommy Thomas: I'd been in the insurance business at that time 25, almost 26 years. And I've had a hard time talking to people about their insurance coverage when they've been married for several years, much less before they even get married. So this is kind of strange anyway.

Amanda, Tina's best friend, had initially accepted her death as an accident, but when she got this Christmas card from Gabe just months after Tina's death, she wondered what was going on with Gabe, and severed all ties with him.

Amanda Phillips: It was a picture of Tina and Gabe at their wedding, and on the inside of the card, it said, "Who's that sexy guy standing next to Tina? Oh, yeah, that's me." Big smiley face on there. And at that point, I was done. That was too weird for me.

And all the while, that investigation in Australia was still open. Three years on, the police had decided to stage an underwater reenactment of Tina's drowning. A witness had come forward -- a doctor -- who described seeing Tina and another diver in a bear hug that morning. The police were going to test his story, one that implied foul play.

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