Mystery in the deep blue sea

Cindy Thomas: You're laying in bed at night. You're seeing your daughter in the water. You're seeing her going down. And you can't help her. And you're thinking, I don't care what you tell me, nobody's doing anything. I would just go through those pha-- phases.

Tina Watson's parents had stayed on the Australian authorities. They'd made four trips there in the years since their daughter's drowning, trying to keep the investigation from going into the cold case file.

Finally, at the end of last year, an inquest was held to determine the cause and circumstances surrounding the young woman's death.

If the court determines there is enough evidence, it could send the case on for criminal trial.

Gabe Watson, the husband, was on the inquest's witness list.

Brad Flynn: They offered to pay all of his expenses to bring him to Australia to get him under oath to tell his story. He didn't show. Why? Not only that, it's the inquest into the death of his wife. Why don't you go? Even if you don't testify, why don't you go?

It was Gabe’s right not to testify, so his taped police interview was played instead. His conflicting statements were reviewed, and close to 70 witnesses testified. The inquest lasted four weeks, with the Thomases in court every day.

Tommy Thomas: I don't think I'll ever know exactly what happened. But I do believe that there is a version of events that were presented through the reenactment that could be very close to telling us the true story.

The reenactment became a primary piece of evidence for the inquest. Police divers spent three days diving over the wreck of the Yongala. In a series of dives, they attempted to reenact the circumstances of Tina's drowning.

Brad Flynn: They wanted everything to be as close to that day, the conditions, the equipment as they possibly could.

In the police reenactment video, a male diver about Tina's size was outfitted with the same gear she had on the day she died.

The divers began by laying down some markers: number one, the place on the ocean floor where Tina was found.

Then lines were laid out along the length of the wreck itself, replicating the course that Gabe and Tina swam that day, as he'd told the story in his police statement. The underwater path starts at the bow and ends a quarter of the way over the wreck by the ruins of the ship's mast -- as far as he said they got that morning.

The diver representing Tina went into a limp free fall, as Gabe had described her descent. They did it three times. And the question of the exercise was this: falling, with the current as it was, where would Tina have come to rest?

Tommy Thomas: If Gabe had been where he said that he was when the two of them parted, she would have landed on the deck--

Dennis Murphy: Of the wreck?

Tommy Thomas: Of the wreck. Probably on the cargo hold.

And that's what the police found in their recreation. Each time the diver playing Tina was released, she ended up on or near the cargo hold of the sunken ship.

But that's not where Tina was found.

Tina was actually found 45 feet away from the rail of the ship.

Brad Flynn: Gabe’s version of what happened, of what where he said they were, and where Tina's body should have ended up, didn't add up. It didn't match up. It didn't mesh.

The only way Tina could end up where she did was if she swam out there away from the bow, or if someone took here there.

The inquest had also heard from a diver from a different boat than Gabe and Tina's. He'd testified that he'd seen a man giving Tina a face-to-face bear hug.

Sgt. Flynn: And he held her there for several seconds. She was motionless and let her go.

Murphy: Released her?

Sgt. Flynn: Released her.

The police recreation divers replicated what that witness said he'd seen, and they were also testing a theory of foul play that would explain why Tina simply dropped to the bottom without so much as a kick of the flippers.

Face-to-face, pinning the smaller diver's arms, the male diver would have been able to reach around, in theory, and turn off the other's air supply on the top of her tank. Tina's autopsy suggested that she might have suffered oxygen deprivation prior to drowning.

Tommy Thomas: What -- keeps running through my mind is something had to prevent her from going to the surface on her own. I think if she had been able to get there on her own, she would have done it, because she'd already demonstrated quite a survival instinct in her dive training.

This was the nightmare scenario in the theories of Tina's death. Had her air supply been turned off? Did she struggle and dislodge the mask of the person holding her? Did he momentarily lose his grip as she became unconscious and started falling? Did that other diver then see that divers from a second boat were in the water and coming toward him? Did that person turn Tina's air supply back on so that her gear would be found later to be in good working order?

That was exactly the theory offered to the inquest court by the lawyer for Tina Watson's parents.

Dennis Murphy: Is it still possible we're talking about a moderately competent diver here who just panicked?

Brad Flynn: Sure. But if that happened, why don't you tell us? Why don't you get that off your chest, you know. Why do you engage in this behavior? It just doesn't add up.

Detective Flynn, like most investigators who've looked at the facts, has trouble understanding a motivation for foul play here. They were newlyweds, with a seemingly bright future, and there was never a payout to the surviving husband.

Brad Flynn: We seem to believe that to have a murder, you have to have a motive of sex or money. None of that really comes into play here. But that doesn’t rule anything out. I have to follow the evidence regardless of where that leads me.

Last June, after hearing all the evidence, the inquest issued its  findings.  It determined that Gabe Watson should stand trial for murder. He was indicted, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was ordered to appear in court last February but he never showed.  Then 3-weeks ago the Thomas family received a phone call.
Gabe had turned himself in to Australian authorities.

This past Monday, Tommy Thomas, his daughter Alanda, best friend Amanda and Detective Flynn all left Alabma and flew to Australia.  Cindy Thomas was ill and unable to travel.

Gabe Watson--after five-and-half years--was in an Australian courtroom today to answer the charges against him.

What would he say about the mysterious events that ended his bride's life on the bottom of the Coral Sea?

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