In Australia right now, there is a coroner’s inquest into Watson’s death. It’s the equivalent to a grand jury investigation here in the United States and will ultimately decide whether Tina’s husband, Gabe, will be charged with murder.

Tina’s best friend from high school still lives in Mandeville and now Amanda Phillips spends part of her days checking the internet for the latest news updates about the inquest. Aussie newspapers have labeled it the “Death Dive.”

Amanda was in Tina’s wedding. It was the last time she would see her friend.

Ten days later, Tina died at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Australia while scuba diving with Gabe, ”What they found is that his ascent was much slower than the ascent of the rescue diver that actually carried Tina from the bottom of the water to the top of the water. The rescue diver was able to do that in half of the time that it took Gabe.”

Gabe is a certified rescue diver and in May FBI agents raided his home in Hoover, Alabama. Now that evidence along with 65 witnesses from around the globe are going before the coroner, four years after the incident according to Phillips, “It’s been hard not having the closure and it’s an open wound every time that something happens you just have to go through the process of this is really happening to me this is not a movie.”

Gabe is not attending the inquest but for Tina’s family who is overseas and for friends still here in Mandeville, it’s a relief to be closer to an end. Phillips says she and Tina’s family have always considered Gabe to be a murder suspect, “Yeah, sadly, but yeah, I do.”

Phillips is expected to testify by phone sometime next week and the entire inquest process is expected to take about three weeks. At the end, the coroner in Australia will have the final determination into whether Gabe will go free or go to trial for murder overseas.

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