The Case of Natalie Wood, Death by Drowning has been reopened by the LA County Sheriff's DepartmentNear the 30 year anniversary of the death of Natalie Wood, one of America's legendary actresses, new evidence has prompted the new inquiry surrounding the circumstances of her death on November 29, 1981...At the time of her death there were three other people aboard the yacht which she owned with herhusband, Robert Wagner, the star of the television series Hart-to-Hart...Some of the inconsistencies in the stories of the persons on board the yacht, Splendour, surround whether she had gone to her stateroom before her husband and others and whether or not the family's guest
Christopher Walken had retired before Natalie had...Her husband, Robert, has claimed that he last saw her alive in their state room as she was doing something with her hair...He then returned to the deck area to socialize more with their guest, Mr. Walken...
Mr. Wagner's version of the tale of that night's unfortunate turn of events changed in regards to how the bottle of wine was broken...While the main person with a completely different narration of events was the captain of the boat for the evening, Dennis Davern...Mr. Davern has worn many hats in respect to his relationship with Robert Wagner and his deceased wife Natalie Wood...Dennis Davern has been reported as having been a bodyguard to Natalie and a confidante...Other times he has been described as a former roommate to Robert Wagner...And right now he wears the hat of co-author of a book with
Marti Rulli entitled,
Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour...Mr. Davern's most recent account of that fateful night involve accusations, arguments and unexplained bruises...
Natalie Wood's drowning occurred as the Splendour was anchored just 50 feet off the coast of Santa Catalina Island...There was heavy drinking by all parties onboard the Splendour that terrible night...Dennis Davern's latest version of events states that he and Robert Wagner discussed exactly what they would tell the investigators after Natalie's disappearance from the boat, to be certain their narrations matched up to ensure that there would not be any need for a more thorough investigation into her death...And of course, Natalie's death was ruled to be accidental drowning (see archived CBS News video below from 1981)...Not only has Mr. Davern's eyewitness account probably instigated the investigation into the cause of Ms. Wood's death being reopened, another witness, Marilyn Wayne says she heard a woman repeatedly screaming for help that night...Ms. Wayne says she tried to contact authorities on the night that Ms. Wood died, but there was no answer...The last scream that she heard in a woman's voice was around 11:45 pm that night...After Ms. Wood's body was found, a medical examiner said that Natalie Wood's finger were still pliable, meaning that rigor mortis had not set in...This fact alone leads him to believe that if they were alerted sooner she could have been saved...Natalie Wood's body was recovered six hours after she was reported missing...
In Mr. Davern's new account, he says that Mr. Wagner did not want the search light turned on and that he waited before placing the call to report his wife missing...Everyone associated with the couple considered them to be deeply in love...This was the second time they had been married to each other...Some, including Mr. Davern say that Mr. Wagner was extremely jealous of and over his wife...Mr. Davern recounts on that evening Ms. Woods and Mr. Walken, her co-star from the movie
Brainstorm, were getting a tad bit too chummy, for Mr. Wagner...And his anger is what led to Mr. Wagner breaking the bottle of wine on the coffee table...Originally Mr. Wagner told investigators that the bottle fell and broke as a result of the yacht being tossed about in the waters...Later in a book authored by Robert Wagner, he says that he broke the bottle while having a heated discussion with Mr Walken...
The crazy sordid details that have been uncovered by investigators of both
Vanity Fair's contributing editor
Sam Kashner and CBS's
48 Hours investigative reporting team likely contributed to the investigation being reopened by the LA Sheriff's Department...The original article was published in Vanity Fair ten years ago, around the 20th anniversary of her death...And
Reuters reports that an attorney out of Washington D.C. has been petitioning for a reopening of the case...
Natalie Wood appeared in 56 films for both the big and small screens, from the age of four or five up until her death at age 43 on November 29, 1981...She shared the screen with notables such as Orson Welles, James Stewart, Bette Davis, Bing Crosby, James Dean, John Wayne, Warren Beatty, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Peter Falk, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Sir Laurence Olivier, Christopher Walken and of course Robert Wagner, just to name a few...Some of her most acclaimed roles were in
Tomorrow is Forever,
Miracle on 34th Street,
Rebel Without a Cause,
Marjorie Morningstar,
West Side Story,
Splendor in the Grass,
Gypsy and
Love with the Proper Stranger...Her last film, which she co-starred in with Chris Walken, was
Brainstorm...
Brainstorm was released September 30, 1983...Natalie Wood's name at birth was Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko and she was fluent both Russian and English because she was the daughter of Russian immigrants...She and Wagner had one daughter together when they remarried and she had another daughter from a previous marriage...
