HOOVER, Alabama (2 May 2007) -- Tina Watson had been dead almost two years when a backhoe dug into her grave. Two police officers watched to make sure nothing was disturbed, but it wasn't a law enforcement agency behind the gruesome task of moving the honeymoon scuba diving victim. The exhumation was the work of Ms Watson's husband of 10 days, Gabe, the last man to see her alive before a drowning that has been under intense scrutiny from investigators on two sides of the globe. "It was like having her buried all over again, but without the dignity of a funeral," said Ms Watson's father, Tommy Thomas, speaking for the first time about an event he had desperately tried to stop through the courts. Ms Watson, 26, died while scuba diving off Townsville on the Great Barrier Reef with Gabe in October 2003. The couple, from Alabama, were in Australia on their honeymoon. Protracted investigations into the death culminated in a surprise raid on Mr Watson's home in Hoover, Alabama, on Monday. Two Queensland detectives had secretly flown to the US to spearhead the raid, conducted jointly with the FBI and Hoover police. Armed officers with weapons drawn surrounded the home and a battering ram was at the ready, filmed by television crews. A stunned Mr Watson denied any involvement in his wife's death through his lawyer, Bob Austin. But the raid came less as a surprise and more as a relief to Ms Watson's parents, who have lobbied ceaselessly for Queensland detectives to travel to the US to complete their inquiries. Mr Thomas and wife Cindy twice travelled to Queensland to demand answers from everyone from Commissioner Bob Atkinson to Police Minister Judy Spence. The untold story behind their efforts is a growing gulf of suspicion and mistrust between Ms Watson's blood relatives and husband. This was no more evident than on the day Ms Watson's body was dug up. The original burial and funeral was at the Southern Heritage Funeral Home and Crematory on November 5, 2003, in a plot said to have been chosen in consultation between her husband and her parents. "There was enough room for Cindy and I to be buried on one side of Tina and for Gabe to be buried on the other. Our understanding at the time was that Gabe's parents were going to be buried at Gabe and Tina's feet," Mr Thomas said. "Then something changed and he made several attempts to move her." Mr Thomas went to court to try to stop the exhumation, but Alabama law gives husbands far more power than parents. When the day came for the body to be moved in October 2005, Mr Thomas says he was not officially informed and found out only through a tip-off. "She was dug up, loaded on the back of a truck, moved across the cemetery and put in the ground," he said. "The only people there were me and a friend of mine and Gabe's father and his attorney, Bob Austin. "Gabe was not there. There were also two people from the police there to make sure that nothing was tampered with, I think at the request of Australian authorities." Neither father spoke a word to each other as the body was moved. Mr Watson and his family are believed to have bought or reserved about 12 plots together in the cemetery. Tina's new grave site is among them. "It's a situation where we couldn't get a plot next to her if we wanted to, I have checked on that," Mr Thomas said. Other issues deeply trouble the Thomas parents. Among their concerns is that their daughter's grave has no headstone and they cannot impose their own. Flowers and other gifts would mysteriously go missing from her grave. And they also believe there were unfair demands to hand over her possessions to her husband before she was buried. Lawyer Bob Austin confirms the exhumation had involved moving Ms Watson's body "about 100 yards as the crow flies". But he says if the exhumation was traumatic, it was only because Ms Watson's parents made it so. "It was just a matter of not liking the spot that was picked out first and not getting a large enough plot that they wanted for the family. "Would it be possible for Tina's parents to be buried there? This is my opinion – nothing more, nothing less, I'm not speaking for Gabe – I'm saying if they had treated me the way they have treated him, I would not be in a position to grant them any wishes." Police onboard the Mike Ball Dive Expeditions 'Spoil Sport' liveaboard early in the investigation of the death of Tina Watson. | | Gabe and Tina Watson. The couple had been married for just 11 days when novice diver Tina died while scuba diving with Mike Ball Dive Expeditions in strong currents at Yongala Wreck. TROUBLE between the two families started, he said, when Ms Watson's parents tried to take control of her funeral arrangements. "The first thing they did was send a power of attorney for him to sign giving them total control over her funeral, which of course he didn't do. "There has been not one civil word said to Gabe by them since her death." As the families continue their stand-off, both sides await the results of the police investigation. To obtain their search warrant, police had to detail the reasons in a sworn affidavit that remains sealed under court order. But investigations by The Sunday Mail found the raid followed a week-long police re-enactment testing Mr Watson's version of events. In September last year, police divers and forensic and scientific officers conducted a dive at Yongala wreck, where Ms Watson died, in similar weather and water conditions experienced by Ms Watson on the day she drowned. Police divers used information downloaded from the couple's dive computers to help reconstruct the event. Inquiries included timing how long it took Mr Watson to surface after he separated from his wife. Mr Watson has told police his wife came into difficulty and panicked, knocking off his mask and air regulator. His wife was being swept away faster than he could reach her and he decided to head to the surface to enlist the help of other divers. A fellow diver found her body and took her to the surface, where desperate attempts to revive her failed. It is understood Mr Watson told police in 2003 that he surfaced so quickly he was surprised he did not get the "bends". However, the re-enactment and data from the dive computer indicated he took longer to surface. It also has emerged that a police diver who re-enacted Ms Watson's movements ended up in a different location to where her body was found. Police sources said investigators had been trying to make sense of how her body was found "up-current" and about 10m away from the wreck in the opposite direction. "The whole point of these drift dives is you go with the current and drift down along the wreck," one source said. University staff helped plot the information and measurements on a computer program. Police say they also discovered Mr Watson was a trained rescue diver, leading them to question why he went to the surface rather than continuing to try to reach his wife. Ms Watson is also believed to have been reluctant to do the dive because she felt she was too inexperienced. For now the case is officially classed as an "unexplained death" investigation, with detectives saying they will present all information to a coroner to determine exactly what happened. The answer won't come soon enough for Mr Thomas, who visits his daughter's grave every weekend. "I always kiss her grave before I leave. I miss her," he said. 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