Natalie Wood's suspicious Death

Sassycakes

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It has been over 40yrs since Natalie Wood's passed away and it is still a mystery about what happened to cause her death. On the night she died Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken and the ship's captain that they were on were the only other people present at the time. Do you think this case will ever be solved?
 

And another great addition to this forum!

Thank you for adding it, Sas. :)

I think the same as I do with all cases that went cold so many years ago, the more time that goes by, the less chance of solving.

Have to read up on this case again, and in the meantime I'm hoping a few others weigh-in on it.
 
It has been over 40yrs since Natalie Wood's passed away and it is still a mystery about what happened to cause her death. On the night she died Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken and the ship's captain that they were on were the only other people present at the time. Do you think this case will ever be solved?


Not likely, as IMO they have long ago stopped investigating .

There was allot of rumor ? speculation ? the she and Walken were carrying on behind Wagner's back.

I just wonder ...... if it turned physical between the two men and she tried to intervene . She was small, and i can easily see her being brushed/knocked aside and into the water . After that,[if I'm right] who knows?
 
She was known to enjoy a drink so maybe she just fell. Anyone that has been on a boat on the ocean has slipped. We can solve the JFK case easier than the Wood case.

I agree. We will never know what actually happened to her. Too much time has passed, and there wasn't really any credible evidence of what happened anyway. Lots of theories and conjecture, but no hard evidence.

I actually slipped off a small cabin cruiser in the Chesapeake Bay back in my misspent youth. I was stone cold sober, by the way. I've never been sure exactly what happened that caused me to lose my footing. Obviously, they fished me out. Sort of ruined the day, though.
 
She was known to enjoy a drink so maybe she just fell. Anyone that has been on a boat on the ocean has slipped. We can solve the JFK case easier than the Wood case.
LOL - "She was known to enjoy a drink."
I read both of Coroner Thomas Nogouchi's books. He got in trouble for revealing how alcohol played a major part in her death (as well as several other celebrities' deaths).
Falling off the boat was just the beginning. Being intoxicated caused her to make several bad decisions, starting with the fall, when she was too drunk to stand - especially on a boat rocking on the water.
She bumped her head on the boat as she fell, causing a wound that would not have been serious if her blood had clotted. Excessive alcohol thins blood & can cause non-stop bleeding from an otherwise minor injury.
She couldn't feel how cold the water was; that much alcohol in her blood had a numbing effect.
She thought she could swim several miles back to shore. (drunk people often think they can do things they can't.)
She was wearing a heavy down coat that weighed 5 lbs when dry, 150-200 lbs. when wet & it made it impossible to stay afloat.
 
From the words I remember from the ship's Captain, it appears Robert Wagner purposely did not save her, maybe even caused her death but he will never be convicted.

i should add, IMO


I agree with you Gaer. The captain said he heard Natalie and Robert arguing right before anything happened. The Autopsy also showed many bruise marks on Natalie's body. I guess we'll never really know what happened. Robert Wagner is 80yrs old now.
 
Ok, without reading beyond the headlines of each comment, I was not going to get involved in this one for good reason. StarSong and I have been chatting a lot about CA and where I lived and worked on here since her thread re: Wheel of Fortune. I lived in Burbank, CA back in 1954. I was a nurse at St. Joseph's Hospital which was located directly across the street from Disney Studios, a couple of blocks from NBC TV Studios and a couple of blocks up from that was Warner Brothers. Universal wasn't far away and Republic were also in the area. Scattered about were MGM and Paramount, so you can figure many of my patients were from the industry. Or related to member of said industry. The owner of my apartment house was also a manager of Natalie Wood. We had a swimming pool in the front of the house and I was usually in it. One day, he approached me and asked if I was a life guard. I had a bathing suit with a sewn on junior life guard badge and I informed just what that meant. He asked me if I would teach Natalie to swim. She was deathly afraid of the water, but we had a very shallow end for those who did not swim. I told him that I was not a swimming instructor and that he should hire one, but he seemed to think I could get the basics over to her. She was a teenager at the time and when you reach that age fearful of the water, it is almost impossible to convince someone that it is safe. But, the money was great so, I gave it a try. It did not work as I thought it wouldn't. Further, her mother interfered continuously and this kid was so frightened at one point she nearly drowned me. That did it. Now when all this happened years later, and I read that she stepped out into a smaller boat in Catalina Harbor with a fur coat on no less, I thought, no way. She was either plastered to the gills, or someone threw her out there. I cannot for the life of me see RJ doing this at all. He simply is not the type regardless. But this I do know, if she was not impaired, she did not go off that boat of her own volition. That harbor is rough seas I can tell you. It would even deter me and I am a strong swimmer.
 
I really liked her in Splendor in the Grass. I thought her death was suspicious but it also could be a case of just falling overboard and drowning while the others were either asleep or partying. Even if she had bruises doesn't automatically mean she was killed by someone. It's really hard to say but I hope the Police have been on top of this case.
 
I don't believe that for one moment, dobie. He'd never tell the captain something like that. So many lies from that captain as far as I am concerned, he should have been strapped to a lie detector.
 
I don't believe that for one moment, dobie. He'd never tell the captain something like that. So many lies from that captain as far as I am concerned, he should have been strapped to a lie detector.
oh really...you think he was lying. I just don't know.
I do know that when you've been drinking you sometimes do things you might not do ordinarily do when sober,,,,like get near water.
 
This case has "suspicion" written all over it. I haven't read all of the posts, but I'm sure that most of what I know has already been shared here. I watched a show on ID about this case. I think it was either "People's Magazine" did an investigation on it or "The Enquirer."

If I remember correctly, it was stated that Ms. Wood could not swim and was extremely afraid of the water. Also, Mr. Wagner suspected that his wife and
Mr. Walken were having an affair. If they (Ms. Wood and Mr. Wagner) got into a fight, it may have been likely that Mr. Wagner threw her overboard. This was one of the theories.

The pathology report stated that Ms. Wood had numerous bruises on different locations of her body. This may have come from a confrontation with Mr. Wagner or from falling onboard before entering the water. This was another theory. BTW, it has been acknowledged that another couple on another boat some distance away from Mr. Wagner's yacht did hear a female yelling for help.

What we do know for sure is that Mr. Wagner was with Ms. Wood at the time of the drowning, so stated the Captain of the yacht they were on at the time of her death. Mr. Wagner blamed the Captain. That didn't fly due to not having a motive. Mr. Walken was cleared of any wrong-doing early in the investigation, so that only leaves two possibilities. Either Mr. Wagner got into a fight with his wife and threw her overboard or she slipped and fell into the water.

It's all in what you wish to believe.
 


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