The circumstances that surround the death of Natalie Wood on November 29, 1981, while sailing off of Catalina Island, have become the stuff of Hollywood legend and mystery.At the time, her death was classified as an accidental
drowning. Thirty-five years later, the case, which was reopened in 2011,
is still making headlines.
"We continue to look into it and we will continue to look into
it until we can come to some conclusion," Los Angeles County Sheriff Lt.
John Corina tells PEOPLE.
Natalie Wood
Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty
Wood, 43, drowned while sailing with her husband, Robert Wagner, on their yacht, Splendour. Christopher Walken, Wood's then-costar in the movie
Brainstorm, and the boat's captain, Dennis Davern, were also on board.
In Wagner's 2008 memoir,
Pieces of My Heart, he wrote that after a night of drinking, he got into an argument with Walken over Wood's career.
At one point, Wagner wrote, "I picked up a wine bottle, slammed it on the table and broke it into pieces."
As for what caused her to fall off the boat, Wagner wrote it was
"all conjecture. Nobody knows. There are only two possibilities: either
she was trying to get away from the argument, or she was trying to tie
the dinghy. But the bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what
happened."
In his memoir, Wagner also wrote of his grief and shock following her untimely death.
"Did I blame myself?," he wrote. "If I had been there, I could
have done something. But I wasn't there. I didn't see her. The door was
closed; I thought she was belowdecks. I didn't hear anything. But
ultimately, a man is responsible for his loved one, and she was my loved
one."
Three years after his memoir was released, the case took a strange turn when the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department reopened the case
after Davern came forward claiming he lied to investigators about
certain details related to Wood's death. At the time, a sheriff's
spokesperson made clear that Wagner was not a suspect.
Wagner also released a statement through his spokesman
expressing support for the sheriff's investigation, stating his family
would "trust they will evaluate whether any new information relating to
the death of Natalie Wood Wagner is valid, and that it comes from a
credible source or sources other than those simply trying to profit from
the 30-year anniversary of her tragic death."
Corina, who declined to discuss details of the investigation,
says detectives did travel to Hawaii to inspect the yacht. "I can't tell
you what we did because it is still part of the investigation," he
says.
Two months after the case was reopened, a sheriff's department official told the
Los Angeles Times that detectives found no new evidence to dispute the official findings.
"At this point, it is an accidental death," said William
McSweeney, chief of detectives for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department. "Nothing has been discovered to suggest changing that at
this time."
A year later, Wood's death was reclassified from accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors."
Today, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Medical
Examiner's office tells PEOPLE the case will remain undetermined "unless
additional evidence is brought forward," says Assistant Chief Coroner
Ed Winter.
Source