Today's Birmingham News reports, "Gabe Watson's prosecution in wife's Australian honeymoon death ends with judge's dismissal." It's written by Eric Velasco.
A Jefferson County judge acquitted Gabe Watson on a state capital murder charge Thursday, ending his prosecution in the scuba-diving death of Tina Thomas Watson during the couple's Australian honeymoon in 2003.
Circuit Judge Tommy Nail ruled there was no evidence that a reasonable person could consider to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Watson, 34, committed an Alabama crime.
Watson served 18 months in an Australian prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter there in 2009.
And:
The prosecution rested its case Thursday after a lunch break. Then Bloomston asked Nail to dismiss the case, a routine motion that normally is denied.
Bloomston argued that the only witness who saw Gabe and Tina Thomas Watson together underwater testified he thought Gabe Watson was trying to save his wife's life.
"The state is relying on speculation, suspicion and opinion," Bloomston told Nail. "The state failed to show Gabe Watson received any economic gain or attempted economic gain in this jurisdiction."
Earlier coverage of the case begins at the link. In 2010, then-Alabama Attorney General Troy King called for a death penalty proscution of Watson. Australia agreed to extradite Watson only after Alabama agreed to drop a death penalty prosecution.
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