Gabe Watson, dubbed the "Honeymoon Killer" has been deported to the U.S., from Australia.
He was immediately taken into U.S. custody and faces retrial for drowning his newlywed wife, while scuba diving near Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
Watson, 33, a U.S. citizen and Alabama native, has just completed an 18-month prison term, in Australia. He was sentenced, after pleading guilty, to the manslaughter of his wife Tina Watson, 26, in 2003.
The couple had been married only 11 days before the incident occurred. Australian prosecutors claim Watson shut the valve on his wife's air tank while scuba diving.
Watson's deportation had been delayed because Australia strongly opposes the death penalty. The country feared Watson would face death if convicted in Alabama.
It only agreed to return him, after the U.S. government pledged it would not impose a death sentence.
Alabama Attorney General Troy King said Watson will face two murder counts once he extradited to the state.
Australian authorities took nearly five years to charge Watson with murder in 2008.
They had to prove she hadn't died after panicking underwater - which is what Watson claimed had happened.
Prosecutors said he was an experienced rescue diver and could have saved her. They allege the motive for killing her was money: her life insurance policy.
"It's been devastating," his wife's mother, Cindy Thomas, told ABC News early this month. "You never think your daughter will leave for her honeymoon and her husband will kill her."
Autopsy results found no pre-existing medical condition that could have explained the women's death and tests indicated that there was nothing wrong with her diving gear.
