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Actress Natalie Wood's 1981 death to be reexamined

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Homicide detectives will reopen an investigation into the death of screen icon Natalie Wood three decades after she drowned off the California coast, Los Angeles County Sheriff's officials said on Thursday.

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"Recently sheriff's homicide investigators were contacted by persons who stated they had additional information about the Natalie Wood Wagner drowning," Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said in a written statement.

"Due to the additional information, sheriff's homicide bureau has decided to take another look at the case," the statement said.

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...The story goes that on November 29, 1981, Natalie Wood, her husband Robert Wagner and her Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken were going wild and guzzling the sweet nectar on her yacht Splendour, which was docked at Catalina Island. Christopher and Robert started fighting over Natalie's career (Robert claimed Christopher argued that she should focus on making movies instead of her family) sometime before she tried to secure a dinghy boat that was knocking against the hull. Natalie slipped and went overboard. Natalie, who was 43 at the time, was found dead about a mile away from the yacht. It was officially ruled as an accident, but there's always been whispers about what really happened, because a witness claims she heard a woman screaming for help for 15 minutes straight. Robert told police that he never heard her screaming that night, but the witness claims she heard a male voice calmly saying "Take it easy, we'll be over to get you."

Natalie's sister Lana has always had a side-eye on Robert Wagner, because she doesn't believe his side of the story. Lana says Natalie would've never tried to mess with that dinghy boat, because water scared the fuck out of her and she never even went near a swimming pool. Lana has tried for years to get the Sheriff's Office to reopen the case as a homicide investigation, but she's been unsuccessful every time. TMZ says that a book about that night co-written by the boat's captain is the reason why the Sheriff's Office is taking a closer look at the case. The book came out in 2009, but its co-author Marti Rulli has been in touch with the Sheriff's Office ever since and has been giving them evidence to support the claims made in the book.

Splendour's captain, Dennis Davern, writes in the book that Natalie, Christopher and Robert were high on Quaaludes and several glasses of wine that night. The fun was killed when Robert blew up into a tornado of rage after seeing Natalie and Christopher talking closely. Robert smashed a bottle and screamed at Christopher, "What do you want to do, fuck my wife? Is that what you want?" Captain Davern says that Christopher went to his cabin and Natalie and Robert went to theirs. Captain Davern heard screaming coming from Natalie's cabin followed by a BOOM! Then the boat went silent. A few minutes later, Captain Davern went to the deck and Robert told him that Natalie was missing. Robert didn't want Captain Davern to call the Coast Guard and you know what happened next.

Captain Davern went on Today this morning and admitted to lying to police that night. Then he straight-up pointed at Robert Wagner as being responsible for Natalie's death.

In the 1950s, as Barney Hoskyns has written in Hotel California, Laurel Canyon was home to all “the hippest young actors,” including, according to Hoskyns, Marlon Brando, James Dean, James Coburn and Dennis Hopper. In addition to Hopper and Dean, yet another of the young stars of “Rebel Without a Cause” found a home in the canyon as well: Natalie Wood. In fact, Natalie lived in the very home that Cass Elliot would later turn into a Laurel Canyon party house. A fourth young star of the film, Sal Mineo, lived at the mouth of the canyon, and the fifth member of the “Rebel Without a Cause” posse, Nick Adams, lived just a mile or so away (as the crow flies) in neighboring Coldwater Canyon.

With the exception of Hopper, all of their lives were tragically cut short, proving once again that Laurel Canyon can be a very dangerous place to live.

sunny wrote:I don't know...On the water, 'ludes and 'several' glasses of wine is a recipe for disaster.

DoYouEverWonder wrote:

sunny wrote:I don't know...On the water, 'ludes and 'several' glasses of wine is a recipe for disaster.

And someone who's fucked up on ludes would make a lot of noise falling over board. At least 3 other people on board and no one heard her when she fell in or bothered to see what the noise was about? I lived on board a boat, you notice every noise.

Nordic wrote:I'll confess - I always wanted to try Quaaludes and never got the chance.

Media attention surrounding the drowning death of actress Natalie Wood nearly 30 years ago played a key role in Los Angeles County Sheriff Department's decision to officially reopen the case on Friday, TheWrap has learned.

[...]

Included in his version of the story was the tale of Wagner's open jealousy over his wife's friendship with Walken, and his overhearing the sounds of a physically violent dispute in their bedroom.

But not until the two-year-old book, which slipped under most of the media radar until now, did Davern go so far to say that he’d seen Wagner and Wood outside on the deck just prior to Wagner reporting her missing. Of course, the fact that everyone on board was apparently drunk that night -- including, by his own admission, Davern -- may have contributed to law enforcement dragging their feet on giving the allegations credence,

Davern says in his book that Wagner asked him to identify the body, and when he first saw Wood's corpse, his thought was, “Water doesn’t cause bruises like that.”

Nordic wrote:I'll confess - I always wanted to try Quaaludes and never got the chance.

Authorities Amend Natalie Wood's Death Certificate

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Natalie Wood's death certificate has been changed to reflect some of the uncertainties and lingering questions surrounding the actress' drowning more than 30 years ago in the Pacific Ocean off Southern California.
The document was amended earlier this month and shifts Wood's death from an accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors," according to a copy of the certificate obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
The amended document also now states that the circumstances of how Wood ended up in the waters off Catalina Island in November 1981 are "not clearly established."
The changes occurred nine months after sheriff's homicide investigators renewed their inquiry into Wood's death shortly before its 30th anniversary.
Chief of Detectives William McSweeney said the decision to amend the death certificate was ultimately made by the coroner's office, which has been instructed by detectives not to discuss the case. "I would just say undetermined is descriptive," he said.
McSweeney said detectives still have work to do on the case, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a major shift is coming.
"We don't close these cases," he said. "These cases have active periods and more passive periods. We're moving toward the end of an active period."
The changes to the death certificate were approved by Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran in late June, but they were not formally recorded until Aug. 1. The certificate wasn't made public until just recently.
Conflicting versions of what happened on the yacht shared by Wood, her actor-husband Robert Wagner and their friend, actor Christopher Walken, have contributed to the mystery of how the actress died on Thanksgiving weekend in 1981. Authorities have said Wagner is not a suspect in his wife's death.
Investigators re-opened the case last November but have released few details about its progress. They traveled to Hawaii to inspect the Splendour, the yacht the trio was aboard on the night of Wood's disappearance.
The renewed inquiry came after the boat's captain, Dennis Davern, told "48 Hours Mystery" and the "Today" show that he heard Wagner and Wood arguing the night of her disappearance and believed Wagner was to blame for her death.
Wagner wrote in a 2008 memoir that he and Walken argued that night. He wrote that Walken went to bed and he stayed up for a while, but when he went to bed, he noticed that his wife and a dinghy attached to the yacht were missing.
Wagner has said through a spokesman that he expects the sheriff's department to conduct a fair investigation. An email seeking comment Tuesday was not returned.
Wood was nominated for three Academy Awards during her lifetime. Her death stunned the world and has remained one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries. The original detective on the case, Wagner, Walken and until recently, the coroner's office, have all said they considered her death an accident.
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thurnundtaxis wrote:

Authorities Amend Natalie Wood's Death Certificate

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Natalie Wood's death certificate has been changed to reflect some of the uncertainties and lingering questions surrounding the actress' drowning more than 30 years ago in the Pacific Ocean off Southern California.
The document was amended earlier this month and shifts Wood's death from an accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors," according to a copy of the certificate obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
The amended document also now states that the circumstances of how Wood ended up in the waters off Catalina Island in November 1981 are "not clearly established."
The changes occurred nine months after sheriff's homicide investigators renewed their inquiry into Wood's death shortly before its 30th anniversary.
Chief of Detectives William McSweeney said the decision to amend the death certificate was ultimately made by the coroner's office, which has been instructed by detectives not to discuss the case. "I would just say undetermined is descriptive," he said.
McSweeney said detectives still have work to do on the case, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a major shift is coming.
"We don't close these cases," he said. "These cases have active periods and more passive periods. We're moving toward the end of an active period."
The changes to the death certificate were approved by Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran in late June, but they were not formally recorded until Aug. 1. The certificate wasn't made public until just recently.
Conflicting versions of what happened on the yacht shared by Wood, her actor-husband Robert Wagner and their friend, actor Christopher Walken, have contributed to the mystery of how the actress died on Thanksgiving weekend in 1981. Authorities have said Wagner is not a suspect in his wife's death.
Investigators re-opened the case last November but have released few details about its progress. They traveled to Hawaii to inspect the Splendour, the yacht the trio was aboard on the night of Wood's disappearance.
The renewed inquiry came after the boat's captain, Dennis Davern, told "48 Hours Mystery" and the "Today" show that he heard Wagner and Wood arguing the night of her disappearance and believed Wagner was to blame for her death.
Wagner wrote in a 2008 memoir that he and Walken argued that night. He wrote that Walken went to bed and he stayed up for a while, but when he went to bed, he noticed that his wife and a dinghy attached to the yacht were missing.
Wagner has said through a spokesman that he expects the sheriff's department to conduct a fair investigation. An email seeking comment Tuesday was not returned.
Wood was nominated for three Academy Awards during her lifetime. Her death stunned the world and has remained one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries. The original detective on the case, Wagner, Walken and until recently, the coroner's office, have all said they considered her death an accident.
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