Scammer
Banned
[video]http://cnn.com/video/?/video/crime/2010/12/07/vo.gabe.watson.jail.arrival.wbma[/video]
A man accused of killing his new bride on a honeymoon scuba dive in Australia has been returned to Alabama, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office said.
David Gabriel "Gabe" Watson was being held at the county jail Tuesday morning, Sgt. Gregory Fitts said.
Australian media dubbed Watson "The Honeymoon Killer" after his 26-year-old wife, Tina, died in October 22, 2003 while the two were diving at a historic shipwreck off the Great Barrier Reef.
The incident occurred about 9,000 miles (14,500 km) from Birmingham, Alabama, where the couple had married 11 days earlier.
Watson returned to the United States after his wife's death and, five years later, remarried. In that same year, 2008, he pleaded guilty in Australia to criminally negligent manslaughter. He finished his sentence there in early November and was subsequently held in immigration detention.
Then, in late November, Watson was arrested in Los Angeles, California, after a grand jury in Alabama indicted Watson on two counts -- murder for pecuniary gain and kidnapping where a felony occurred -- according to Donald Valeska, an assistant attorney general for Alabama. Those charges are based on the premise that Watson hatched the plot to kill his wife while in Alabama.
It was not clear under exactly what circumstances Watson traveled from Australia to the United States.
Watson's return to the United States had been held up by authorities in Australia, which has a policy of not extraditing suspects to possibly face the death penalty.
The Australian government agreed to deport Watson after getting assurances from U.S. authorities that "the death penalty would not be sought, imposed or carried out," Sandi Logan, a spokesman for the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, said last month.
In a statement released in November, the Birmingham-based law firm representing Watson -- Bloomston and Basgier -- said that Alabama authorities "manipulated a grand jury." The lawyers claimed state authorities based the indictment on testimony from Tina Watson's immediate family and a sole Helena, Alabama, investigator, saying of the witnesses "none could offer more than emotional testimony and hearsay."
Australian authorities investigated Tina Watson's death for years, and according to inquest findings in June 2008, Townsville, Queensland, Coroner David Glascow pressed for charges after determining that the drowning couldn't be deemed accidental.
According to the inquest, Watson told Glascow that his new bride appeared to panic while 45 feet underwater in the reef, 42 miles off the coast of Townsville. But Glascow cited inconsistencies in Watson's statements, saying that investigators found that "some of Gabe's explanations lacked credibility."
Glascow noted that Tina Watson's father, in a sworn statement, said Watson asked her to maximize her life insurance and make him a beneficiary shortly before their wedding. The insurance company confirmed Watson asked about his wife's insurance policy after her death, according to the coroner.
Watson's attorneys have said that their client pleaded guilty in Australia only "for failing to rescue his wife (because) he merely did not do enough to save her."
