Man sentenced in wife's diving death
BRISBANE, Australia - An American man pleaded guilty and was sentenced yesterday for the manslaughter of his wife, who drowned during their honeymoon scuba diving trip in Australia. Her body was found on the ocean floor.
In move that outraged the victim's family, David Gabriel Watson will serve just one year of the 4 1/2-year sentence in the death of his wife of 11 days, Christina Mae Watson. She died in 2003 as the couple dove off the coast of Queensland. The suspended sentence is not unusual in such crimes in Queensland.
Watson, from Birmingham, Ala., was to stand trial for murder, which carried a potential sentence of life in prison, until the prosecution accepted the guilty plea to the lesser charge.
Prosecutors said manslaughter plea was accepted on the basis that the 32-year-old Watson - trained to rescue panicked divers - failed in his duty as her dive buddy by not giving her emergency oxygen. 