Gabe Watson, second left, hugs members of his defense team after the charges in his capital murder trial were dismissed at the Mel Bailey Criminal Justice Center in Birmingham, Ala., Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/The Birmingham News, Tamika Moore)BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Prosecutors encountered legal hurdles just getting Gabe Watson into an Alabama courtroom to face a murder charge in the death of his wife, who drowned during a honeymoon dive off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef eight years ago. In the end, a judge decided they didn’t have enough evidence for jurors to even bother deliberating.
A state judge on Thursday agreed with a defense motion and acquitted the 34-year-old Watson in the death of his wife of 11 days, Tina Thomas Watson.
The defense – which contended that 26-year-old Tina Watson’s death was an unintended, horrible mishap – never even got started after prosecutors finished. Jurors filed out of the basement courtroom without having a chance to weigh in on the case.
Watson buried his face in his hands at the decision; he had faced a sentence of life without parole if convicted. He hugged his mother and father, who blamed the prosecution on Alabama politics, and his second wife, who accompanied him throughout the trial.
Watson’s former father-in-law, Tommy Thomas, appeared shell-shocked.