It’s been 37 years since Natalie Wood drowned on Thanksgiving weekend in the chilly waters off California’s Catalina Island. She was on a yacht with her husband, Robert Wagner, and Christopher Walken.
In his 2008 memoir, Wagner says that the death was an accident. But investigators tell 48 Hours that bruises on her body suggest she may have been struck before she fell into the water. Keep reading the article below to learn more about Who Killed Natalie Wood.
In her lifetime Natalie Wood was one of Hollywood’s most alluring actresses, a natural beauty with an ability to capture audiences. Her characters ranged from true-blue to high-strung, but no matter how different she acted on screen, she was always a joy to watch. Then, in 1981 at age 43, she drowned on a nighttime boating excursion off the coast of Southern California. For decades the circumstances surrounding her death have been mysterious. Now, with a new documentary HBO’s What Remains Behind, her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner is digging into the case with brand new interviews that bring to light some very disturbing allegations.
The new documentary opens with a discussion of the physical evidence, including unexplained bruises on her body. It also points out a scratch in her throat, which is consistent with someone biting down on a string. It also discusses the possible causes and timing of a large bruise on her right forearm, which is described as a defensive wound. The documentary’s expert forensic investigator, former Rhode Island chief medical examiner Dr. Christina Stanley, explains that it’s impossible to determine whether she got the bruises before or after she went into the water.
But the movie gets much more personal with a series of interviews with Wood’s family and friends, including Wagner. It was a difficult relationship, which got worse after Wood’s death, when Wagner began to treat her daughter and sister with outright hostility. He would exclude them from dinners and even ragged on her to the press when she sold some of their clothes. He eventually cut Lana out of his life altogether, only allowing her to communicate with him through their lawyer.
In a 2008 memoir, Wagner offered the theory that Wood fell into the water while untying a dinghy that had been banging against their yacht. In 2018, he was named a person of interest by police who reopened the investigation. Davern, who died in 2015, also wrote a book where he alleged that Wagner argued with Wood and then shoved her into the water. He claimed that Wagner prevented him from turning on the search lights or notifying authorities.
Robert Wagner
For years after her death, police questioned Wagner, Walken and the boat’s skipper Dennis Davern but they never got any solid answers. Their stories conflicted and their accounts of the night she died shifted over time. Fresh bruises and scrapes on her body also raised suspicion but nothing ever added up to a convincing murder case.
But that changed in 2011 when investigators reopened the case after a long silence. Then they questioned Davern again, who changed his original story and wrote a book that he hoped would sell to tabloids. Suddenly, police began to think that perhaps Wagner knew more than he’d been letting on and could be the person who killed his wife.
In the new report, detectives noted that the captain of their yacht Splendour and Walken had both told police a different version of what happened on the night Wood drowned. Their accounts of why she was so afraid of the water made it seem unlikely that she’d have ventured close to the dinghy without help, and they also doubted that she’d taken it out on her own.
Moreover, the investigation uncovered a number of inconsistencies in the evidence, including an autopsy that seemed to suggest she was assaulted before her death. Bruises were noted on her body and on the dinghy, but they didn’t match up, and no one was charged with a crime.
Then in 2016, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced they were considering Wagner as a “person of interest,” although they still weren’t certain that he was responsible for her death. Detectives cited the new statements from Walken and Davern, which conflicted with what they’d previously been told by the two actors, as well as a re-examination of the bruises on her body.
In this updated edition, Finstad reveals for the first time how she was able to access secret documents in the official probate file for Natalie’s estate and draws attention to a surprising discovery that adds another layer of motive: money. She consults an expert in wills and trusts to dissect the never-before-seen document and demonstrates that Wagner stood to gain enormously if he was guilty of killing Natalie Wood.
Christopher Walken
Actor Christopher Walken, who starred with Wood in the science-fiction film Brainstorm (1983), has long been the subject of suspicion in the actress’s death. The two had a close friendship, and rumors of their affair surrounded her. The 87-year-old has now been named as a person of interest by investigators in the case, which has been reopened.
The Los Angeles County sheriff’s department has never charged anyone in Wood’s death, but fresh scrapes on her body and a conflicting account from the boat’s captain led to it being reopened. New evidence has emerged, including a never-before-seen video that may shed light on the night of her demise.
Walken, who was married to Wagner at the time of her death, has never spoken publicly about what happened that night on their yacht, The Splendour. But in multiple interviews and a book he co-authored with Marti Rulli, he maintains that he and Wood got into an argument about her career direction and she stormed off to her cabin. Wagner then smashed a bottle against a table. He told investigators that when he went to check on her, she was not in her cabin and that he assumed she took off in the dinghy.
Over the years, he has also said that he didn’t want to turn on the searchlight to call for help because it would draw too much attention to himself and the situation. He has also denied ever being romantically involved with Wood.
Until recently, it appeared that Walken was going to remain silent about the case. But on Tuesday, he told CBS that he was now willing to speak out and had hired a lawyer to represent him in the re-opening of the investigation.
Detectives are hoping to interview Walken this week as part of the re-examination of the case. They are also looking at two top secret new witnesses who have come forward with information they say points to Wagner being a suspect in the case. However, the sheriff’s office says it has no intention of charging either Wagner or Walken.
John Corina
For four decades, the death of Natalie Wood has been one of Hollywood’s most mysterious and enduring murder mysteries. The actress, who starred in classics like West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause, died on November 29, 1981, when she went overboard during a weekend yachting trip with her leading man husband, Robert Wagner, and fellow actor Christopher Walken off the coast of Catalina Island. She was 43. The cause of her death was ruled accidental drowning, but over the years, several reports and investigations have raised questions about what really happened to the star.
Among the most significant issues is the fact that Wood’s body had fresh bruises on it when she was discovered. In addition, a dinghy found near her body contained scratch marks that seemed to indicate she tried to board it. But investigators never matched nail clippings from the dinghy to nails from Wood’s body, and so a determination of whether or not she actually made the scratches cannot be made.
Then there’s the fact that Wood was an experienced swimmer and was known to have dived to rescue stranded animals. Also, she was a woman who loved to go out on boats and was an excellent driver. So the question is, why did she end up on the wrong side of a boat that was headed to an isolated cove known as Blue Cavern Point?
Over the years, many theories have been put forth about her death, including that she fell off the back of the yacht and that she then struggled to get back onboard. But none of them sounded right to Lana Wood, her sister. “None of the things that [Wagner and Walken] said or that the police said at that time rang true,” she told The New York Post in 2009.
In this series, journalist Sam Perroni digs into official records and photographs, exclusive interviews with witnesses and experts, and meticulous analysis of case details to produce the most far-reaching and in-depth investigation of this controversial mystery to date. His research shows that a glossed-over investigation by local law enforcement and the entrance of powerful Hollywood insiders helped conceal the truth for decades.