LA County sheriff’s detectives say they’re making last effort to „solve“ mysterious death of movie star Natalie Wood nearly four decades later.
Did YOU see or hear something off Santa Catalina Island on Thanksgiving weekend 36 years ago? If so, Los Angeles County detectives want to talk to you.
And if you can help them figure out why movie star Natalie Wood drowned that night — and especially if any current persons of interest had something to do with it — then maybe investigators won’t press you too hard on why you didn’t say anything in 1981. On Thursday, detectives once again named her then-husband actor Robert Wagner a „person of interest.“
Or in 2011,30 years after the still-mysterious death, when investigators reopened the case and got the county coroner to change the cause of death from accidental drowning to „drowning and other undetermined factors.“
On Monday, following another boost in lurid publicity about the case provided by CBS News‘ 48 Hours on Saturday, a team of sheriff’s detectives appeared at a press conference in Los Angeles to appeal for somebody — anybody — to come forward to help them explain the case they’re convinced is „suspicious“ but they’ve been unable to solve for nearly four decades.
More A primer on Natalie Wood’s death: Natalie Wood’s ’suspicious‘ death: What you need to know about this Hollywood mystery
It’s their last chance, Lt. John Corina told reporters.
„We’re doing our last shot here, seeing if anybody else comes forward with any information,“ Corina said. „Time is our enemy. We’re reaching out one last time.”
They’ve done this kind of press conference before, including in 2011 when they reopened the case on the 30th anniversary of Wood’s death. More than 100 people came forward with information since then that helped re-create the timeline but it still wasn’t enough to bring any charges.
And now lately the number of witnesses coming forward has been reduced to a trickle, Corina said.
So investigators returned to a tried-and-true strategy: Goose up the publicity with the help of the media and wait for new tips to come rolling in, despite the length of time that has elapsed. And never mind that CBS’s 48 Hours: Death in Dark Waters report on Saturday shed little new light on the mystery after all the pre-broadcast hype.
Corina did not explain why anyone who might know something didn’t come forward in 1981 or in 2011, and whether that failure might undermine their credibility all these decades later.
„When the tips all dry up, then I guess we move on to the next case,“ Corina told reporters. He said investigators have received numerous calls since 48 Hours aired, and that new information has “made us more suspicious of what happened that weekend,” he said.
The result remains the same as it was in 1981 and in 2011: Investigators still think the death is „suspicious“ (but not a murder case yet) and Wagner is still a „person of interest.“
„He’s a person of interest because he was the last person with her, before she went in the water,“ Corina said. He told CBS: “(Wagner) changed his story a little bit. His version of events just don’t add up.”
Wood, a former child star-turned-Oscar-nominated actress ( Splendor in the Grass, Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story) was 43 when she died. Wagner, now 87, was mostly known as a TV star and is still a working actor ( NCIS).
Her body, clad in a down jacket, nightgown and socks, was found floating in the ocean a mile from the couple’s yacht, The Splendour, following a weekend boating trip to the island (about 50 miles southwest of Los Angeles) with actor Christopher Walken (with whom she was co-starring in a film) and the boat captain Dennis Davern on board.
All three men said at the time they don’t know how she got into the water but it must have been an accident; Davern has changed his story (in paid interviews with tabloids) over the years.
The detectives say that since 2011 they have interviewed „new witnesses“ (unnamed) who say they overheard the couple’s loud and drunken argument on the yacht, but no one heard her go into the water or calling for help.
Wagner has refused to talk to detectives this time around, Corina said, noting that the actor has the right to do so. Wagner’s publicist, Alan Nierob, has declined to comment on his behalf.
Five years ago, Wagner’s attorney, Blair Berk, issued a statement saying that neither Wagner nor Woods‘ daughters had any new information to offer and decried the exploitation of her death anniversary.
„Mr. Wagner has fully cooperated over the last 30 years in the investigation of the accidental drowning of his wife in 1981,“ Berk said at the time. „Mr. Wagner has been interviewed on multiple occasions by the Los Angeles sheriff’s department and answered every single question asked of him by detectives during those interviews.“ Contributing: The Associated Press
