Natalie Wood: Death in Dark Water | Full Episode

[Music] i've always been terrified still am of uh of water dark water sea water [Music] do you believe natalie wood was murdered i think it's suspicious enough to make us think that something happened do you believe that robert wagner knows a lot more about what happened to his wife than he's ever said well i think he absolutely does because he's the last one to see her would you like to live alone megan no the wagner wood love story was one of the great hollywood love stories natalie wood and frank sinatra were natalie wood was one of the biggest film stars imaginable my baby don't care robert wagner in a way he was kind of old hollywood he was his popular television star where he was astoundingly successful the story i wrote for vanity fair magazine was about robert wagner and natalie wood's tragic death at sea was just one of the most stunning staggering events in hollywood it was thanksgiving weekend a call goes out from robert wagner saying that someone is missing from their boat six hours later the body of his wife natalie wood was found floating in the pacific ocean at the time of the incident her death was ruled in accident this new information is substantial enough for us to want to take another look at the case so over the last six years have you been able to get even more evidence that makes you question that this was an accident we have there are witnesses who were nearby the splendor that evening she got in the water somehow and i don't think she got in the water by herself it was cold rainy terrible terrible weather conditions i was the captain on robert wagner natalie woods yacht [Music] there was a tremendous fight between them that night the fighting went back to the back of the boat and they just carried on and carried on and then it was quiet [Music] i went down below and she wasn't there and the dinghy was gone and i looked around for her i couldn't i didn't know where she was i believed that robert wagner was with her up until the moment she went into the water we were so in love and we had everything and in a second in a second it was gone i wasn't there i wasn't there for her [Music] there were a number of bruises that appeared to be fresh she slipped and hit the step and then rolled in that's what we think happened she looked like the victim of an assault when this case was reopened lieutenant carina was asked is robert wagner a suspect no has that changed [Music] like [Music] [Music] natalie wood was in life one of hollywood's most alluring actresses in death she still reigns but now is one of its most enduring mysteries actress natalie wood is dead at 43 the apparent victim of a drowning accident off santa catalina island in california [Music] in 1981 natalie wood's death was quickly dismissed as an accidental drowning but rumors and allegations of foul play fueled in great part by the boat's captain dennis de verne have never gone away and i just didn't want my whole life to go by without having the truth come out so in 2011 30 years after woods death duverne and more than 700 others signed a petition addressed to the los angeles county sheriff's department outlining what they consider flaws in the original investigation it was already determined to be absolutely drowning but the information we received made us want to take another look at the case about nine months after the investigation was reopened another stunning announcement the medical examiner's office changed the manner of death from accident to undetermined triggering an avalanche of news coverage and unleashing a flood of new leads because of the press conferences we have we found a lot more clues a lot more evidence a lot more witnesses for more than six years veteran homicide detective ralph hernandez and lieutenant john carina doggedly pursued this case six years later we've followed up on all the clues over 150 clues we've got followed up on talked to a lot of people [Music] these detectives even traveled to hawaii twice to comb the wagner's yacht for clues it was docked there by its new owner 48 hours showed up in hawaii but detectives wouldn't talk then and refused to speak for six years [Music] and then for the first time they spoke publicly about evidence they uncovered and there was a lot to tell does that evidence lead you to believe that whatever happened to natalie wood was not an accident well it does it actually confirms my suspicions even more that what was originally reported isn't exactly what happened they point to the numerous bruises on natalie wood's body that were photographed and noted in the autopsy report it's some of those bruises and where they were located that played a big part in convincing a medical examiner to change the manner of death why are all these bruises suspicious to you because she looked like the victim of an assault another red flag the story the three men on the boat captain dennis de verne actor christopher walken and robert wagner told the original investigators it didn't fit the smell test you know it didn't make sense all three told the police that they assumed natalie had left the splendor on the yacht's dinghy despite the late hour and stormy weather that didn't even make any sense to me why would natalie wood this big movie star tried to go on a dinghy in the middle of night in her socks in her pajamas at midnight in rough seas is there any possibility that she would get in that boat and leave no not with a gun to her head that story also makes no sense to natalie's younger sister actress and former bond girl hi i'm plenty lana wood but of course you are plenty out too natalie reportedly had never operated the dinghy on her own and there was that well-documented lifelong fear of dark water i've always been terrified still am of uh of water dark water sea water when i think of her in that water in the dark in the cold and the one thing that she feared was water and that's where she finishes her life i know it's a cliche but she really was america's sweetheart vanity fair magazine contributing editor sam kashner america had grown up with her she was the little doubting girl and miracle on 34th street well young lady what's your name susan walker what's yours and then she was running with a sort of troubled pack and rebel without a cause i'm not going back in that zoo i'm never going back and then of course that incredible performance in splendor in the grass she was in west side story and gypsy i am gypsy rose lee and some of these great iconic films of the early 60s by the time she was 18 natalie had her first of three academy award nominations she was so gifted in 2008 robert wagner also known as rj talked about natalie on the cbs news broadcast sunday morning she was a very very fine actress and people loved her you know they adored her he recalled their first date when natalie was just 18 and rj was 26. i started taking her out after that and that one thing led to another and a year later we were married was natalie in love with rj when they first got married yes she was madly in love with him he was the perfect golden boy but the pressures of living under hollywood's relentless scrutiny weighed heavily on the marriage says close family friend mark crowley they were hounded by the press they were presented as the ideal couple far beyond what any normal human being could live up to and now these investigators say they've tracked down stunning new evidence that wood and wagner may have been more human than anyone knew allegations that natalie fled the couple's house one night in fear for her life a new witness a former neighbor who says he was 12 years old at the time remembers late one night being awakened by somebody banging on the door it was natalie wood she was so afraid of him she ran to a neighbor's house yelling that day he's going to kill me and sit and looking for help and looking for safety and so a neighbor took her in according to the witness natalie stayed the night and returned home the next morning but so far that's the only episode of alleged violence investigators have found [Music] after just four years the couple's first marriage came to a bitter end and natalie began dating hollywood heartthrob warren beatty his career was on fire and our relationship was gone and why not he was in love with her wagner admitted that natalie's stardom and his own insecurities probably tore them apart it was basically my inadequacy that didn't didn't make it work it made me feel very sad and very brokenhearted and i felt that i had failed in the relationship and i never thought that i'd ever get it back again both of them were besotted with each other after they got divorced they went on to other partners and had children but those marriages didn't work out and eventually they found each other again and got back together and got married a second time how did you find out she was going back with rj uh dinner party family only rj was there in the living room and uh she announced that you know r.j and i are going to be remarried wow and all she did was she looked down and she said sometimes it's better to be with the devil you know than the devil you don't wagner sees it differently we felt that we had found something that was so precious to us and it was that we did everything in the world we could to protect it they remarried had a daughter named courtney and were together for nine years until that final fatal voyage to catalina island lana talks about natalie wood's childhood on facebook at 48 hours on a miserable cold and rainy friday in november the splendor departed marina del rey with natalie wood robert wagner captain dennis duverne and one of hollywood's hottest young actors christopher walken as soon as chris walken walked up the gangplank to the splendor in his pea coat with the collar turned up robert wagner took an instant dislike to him chris was fresh off winning the academy award for the deer hunter what is it he was now shooting a film with natalie it's me and there were rumors of an affair you could see a little bit of jealousy from robert wagner it just kept getting more tense every minute of the day he felt that now he was paying way more attention to christopher walken than she was paying attention to him when the splendor docked at catalina island wood wagner and walken went ashore to the town of avalon and began drinking heavily we spoke to dennis duverne in 2011. the jealousy was under the surface until there was so much drinking that it started to come out and it was obvious once back on the splendor de verne says the tension escalated and now for the first time investigators say they have a new witness corroborating de verne's accounts that friday someone on a nearby boat claims to have been close enough to see and hear a fight between the couple natalie to this witness appeared to be the aggressor in the argument appeared to be intoxicated robert wagner appeared to try and walk away from from the argument at the point that he's walking away she actually fell down to one knee davern says the couple was fighting over whether to move the splendor to the other side of catalina island he wanted to move the boat at night but she didn't want him driving the boat at night it's kind of dangerous to do that especially when it's so rough out there and rainy natalie said she wasn't going to stand for this and would i take her to shore natalie had duverne take her on the dinghy to avalon where she desperately tried to get off the island she did indeed call me on friday night she said um can you come and get me and i said what she couldn't get a boat or a flight out of there because of the weather and the time of night so she had to spend the night there unwilling to return to the splendor that night natalie got two hotel rooms one for her one for duverne and then reportedly spent the night crying on de verne's shoulder she poured her heart out to him about how she was feeling and according to dennis about some of the difficulties in their their marriage that it was becoming increasingly harder for her to deal with his professional jealousy and what did dennis tell you about that she was furious she was talking about leaving him leaving him not just leaving for the weekend no leaving him divorcing leaving he felt that if she had gone back to mainland that night she was so angry she would have divorced wagner the next day the next morning saturday natalie had a change of heart she decided hey let's let's go back to the boat let's let's see if we can smooth everything over here and i'll make a nice breakfast duverne says things did get better at first natalie even agreed to let wagner move the yacht to the other far more desolate side of the island but by that evening things were once again tense says de verne when he and wagner joined walken and natalie who had already gone ashore and were drinking at the bar when rj and i walked into the restaurant and he saw natalie and christopher sitting at the bar laughing and having a wonderful time he started to really really heat up according to the people were there at the bar at the restaurant they described him as irritated he was tense and according to the vern natalie and walken were kind of ignoring him they didn't really acknowledge him and the whole time and they were just kind of having a good time by themselves partying and drinking witnesses say all four were so drunk that when they left the restaurant manager alerted the harbor master he calls the harbor master and says hey you know robert wagner and ellie wood are coming your way they're really intoxicated make sure they get back to their boat okay they got back safely but things were about to turn ugly everything that i've heard from dennis natalie's temper was surfacing rj certainly was it got out of hand in the worst way possible [Music] for more than 38 years the sea has kept her secrets about the night natalie wood died secrets these investigators believe can be uncovered but with all the shifting stories witnesses with failing memories or long dead detective hernandez knows time is running out why does a case that is now really more than 36 years old matter because somebody died and no matter what ultimately that's our job to find the truth detective hernandez and his partner kevin lowe now retired brought their key witness dennis de verne all the way to hawaii where the boat was docked and there he reenacted his version of events they spent a full day photographing measuring researching we wanted to take dennis duverne there just to see what you know kind of jog his memory and see what details and again get his perspective davern is a crucial but problematic witness after initially telling police one thing he changed his story sold it to tabloid magazines and collaborated on a tell-all book but de verne claims he was motivated by his conscience not greed i really don't just want money what i really want is to give natalie a voice you find incredible i find his story in his version of events when you talk to us everything fit makes more sense of what happened and is corroborated by other peop told investigators that problems between robert wagner and his wife building for two days exploded when they returned to the splendor after dinner natalie by then in her flannel nightgown and warm socks joined walken de verne and wagner in the salon the living area of the boat natalie puts on the kettle to have a cup of tea i light a couple candles i opened a bottle of wine natalie and christopher continued to giggle just having fun and then robert wagner out of the clear blue picked up the bottle of wine and smashed it it breaks and goes everywhere and he yells at walking what do you try to do my wife everything just kind of stops natalie she said i cannot take this and she went into her room according to divern christopher walken also went to his room then rj went into the room natalie and rj's room started arguing yelling things being thrown about at that point de verne also leaves and goes up to the bridge at the top of the boat says lieutenant corrina he hears him arguing the argument is getting louder and he hears a lot of thumping he says it sounds to him like there's like a physical fight going on inside there to the point where he's so concerned he he walks back down and he knocks on the door and robert wagner opens the door and he says he has this look crazy look on his face and he says is everything okay boston he's like go away he looks so angry he says i was worried about my own safety that i just i left i went back up to the bridge davern told investigators that his line of sight was blocked by the boat's rain shield but he heard everything fighting continued and then to the back of the boat i was concerned that something really bad was going down because the fighting the arguing was so intense until 2017 de verne was the only person to put both robert wagner and natalie wood outside on the back of the boat arguing saturday night before she died we have received information which we felt was substantial but after the press conference reopening the case investigators got a huge break two new witnesses told detectives they not only heard the fight one of them says she saw it saw figures on the back of the splendor a male and a female whose voices they recognized as being robert wagner and natalie wood arguing in the back of the boat and how credible are these new witnesses oh they're they're very credible they have no reason to lie and they and their story matches what dennis de verne says like davern both witnesses say the argument stopped suddenly and then all of a sudden there was nothing complete silence nothing but the sounds of a rough sea on a cold dark november night says lieutenant carina no one saw anybody go in the water nobody heard splash nobody heard anything they just heard the argument and send silence there was one woman in the months following natalie's death who said publicly that she heard a woman calling for help but lieutenant corrina now thinks she was mistaken and de verne says 10 minutes after the fight ended he finally went back downstairs robert wagner's now in the state room and he says robert wagner is crying and he says natalie's gone she's missing lieutenant carina says robert wagner then tells duverne to go search the boat for her he can't find her anywhere he comes back out and tells him i can't find her robert wagner tells her oh the dinghy is now missing as well karina and hernandez think it's possible that someone could have untied the dinghy while de verne searched the boat i didn't untie it christopher didn't untie it i don't think natalie would have untied it de verne says wagner refused to call for help and rob where tells uh maybe she just went into town i think to uh go to a bar or something i said robert wagner maybe i should turn on the searchlight he said don't do that he says well maybe we should get on the radio and call somebody robert wagner says no we don't want to call anybody let's just wait see if she comes back according to the story de verne told investigators wagner then breaks out a bottle of scotch and the two men sit drinking while more than an hour passes before you know it we're oblivious and it's time we have to call somebody she's gone by robert wagner's own statement he knew she was missing by around midnight but no call no call for help is made till 1 30. right and when you didn't make that call for help it wasn't for hey you need to search the water for her he asked people in town to search for in town whenever they finally convinced robert wagner he needed to call the coast guard and uh kind of he almost reluctantly said okay yeah well i guess we better call them and what do you make of that well if your wife is missing and the dinghy's missing i'm going to go look for her i want to find her right away i'm going to be worried about her especially in seas like that it's dark out she doesn't like the water she doesn't like to swim there's no reason for her to get in that dinghy to go anywhere if she wanted to go somewhere she would ask dennis duverne to take her somewhere like she did the night before when she wanted to go into town he did that's his job it didn't make any sense the story robert wagner was telling and it still doesn't make any sense to me to say that she would get into dinking by herself and just and take off she didn't even know how to start it she wouldn't do it in a nightgown she didn't get the mail in a nightgown after the coast guard was finally called about 3 30 a.m over three hours after natalie was reportedly last seen alive the search went into high gear wagner's friend islander doug bombard jumped in his boat and joined in the hunt at 7 44 a.m he says he saw something red bobbing on top of the water it was about this far from shore where i found the body the body was just basically hanging in that jacket that jacket was boiling her up she had a cotton nightgown on and her hair was floating as you can imagine when authorities arrived bombard headed to the splendor to break the news to his friend a moment robert wagner later recalled in this audio recording of his 2008 memoir pieces of my heart doug pulled up and got out of his boat where is she i asked him doug looked at me she's dead rj my knees went out everything went away from me i remember people coming on the boat saying that they had found natalie wood floating and then she had drowned i just couldn't believe it news of natalie wood's sudden death at the age of 43 quickly spread across the globe family friend mark crowley will never forget getting the call when i picked up the phone it was r.j and he just screamed into the phone [Music] she's gone i just couldn't believe it things like that don't happen and they don't happen to my sister my family and they don't happen to natalie wood it's not real but it was all too real for dennis duverne soon after the movie star was found floating face down in the waters off blue cavern point robert wagner and christopher walken left the island in a police helicopter leaving de verne the grim task of identifying natalie wood's body robert wagner asked me if i would identify her body because he didn't want to it was the eeriest feeling i've ever had in my life to look at her laying there lifeless it was so disturbing you would think he want to stick around and identify his wife and make sure her body was taken care of that would be maybe what i would do maybe he's different karina understands that grief can do strange things to people but that doesn't explain why according to de verne wagner immediately came up with a story and told the men on the boat to stick to it robert wagner was very serious about having the stories being the same it was kind of like here we are okay dennis christopher me this is what it is do you got it that's what it is okay if all the stories are the same there's there's really not too much to investigate de verne says he now regrets going along with it but lieutenant carina says he understands how it could have happened duverne back then people mischaracterize him as the captain of the boat he's not the captain of the boat he's a caretaker of the boat robert wagner's the guy who pays him and he's that's his meal ticket if you look at robert wagner's statement at the time they almost paired each other all three men initially told dwayne razor the original detective that they thought natalie had taken the dinghy ashore the detective told 48 hours in 2011 that he believed them i didn't doubt anything robert wagner told me at that time christopher walken he basically told me the same story it was pretty well confirmed they assumed that she went ashore there was no mention of a fight i saw the shattered glass in disarray and i questioned robert wagon about that and says it happened sometime during their travels just due to the rough seas i had no reason to question them any further detective razer who has since died only interviewed wagner one more time it was the day after natalie's funeral at the actor's bedside with his attorney present when i interviewed robert white there was no indication of any jealousy no problems there was no sign of foul play in my mind it's a tragic accidental drowning coroner thomas naguchi agreed two weeks after the actress's death the case was officially closed but dennis de verne says his nightmare was just beginning i felt like i was a prisoner duverne says wagner insisted he move into his guest house in beverly hills i was to stay indoors at all times not communicate with anybody i wasn't sure for my life because you never really knew what could happen eventually de verne left california for the east coast but was never able to escape the past i think he was in a way hunted down by his own conscience he really seemed like a hunted man in the early 90s lana wood says a tormented seemingly inebriated dennis de verne started calling her what specifically did he tell you he said it wasn't an accident he said it was ugly lana says she didn't want to believe it at first i don't want to think that but there are so many things that are just facts she has since become one of rj wagner's harshest critics going so far as to publicly accuse him of foul play do you think she was pushed in the water yes you believe it was her husband r.j wagner absolutely yes like duverne lana who has a long bitter history with wagner has been accused of exploiting natalie's death for money and attention something she denies it's just time for the truth it's time to stop the lies and the deception and the finger pointing it's just not right do you think robert wagner's ever told the truth of exactly what happened i haven't seen it i haven't seen him tell the details that match all the other witnesses in this case he's changed his story a little bit and his version of events just don't add up to the evidence and the witnesses we found robert wagner has never conceded that he had a fight with natalie on the boat that night but in his memoir he did come clean about smashing that wine bottle the one he originally told the police broke in rough seas walken and i got into an argument at one point i picked up a wine bottle slammed it on the table and broke it into pieces natalie was already below decks at that point in wagner's version of the story he didn't smash that bottle in a jealous rage as de verne claims but in an argument with walken over natalie's career in fact he says she wasn't even in the room i looked below i saw natalie was doing something with her hair she was going to go to bed and she shut the door and chris and i were still talking when i went down below she wasn't there she the dinghy was gone and i looked around for her i couldn't i didn't know where she was originally he told the detective he thought natalie had taken the dinghy and gone ashore but that like so many other details has changed to what is now called the banging dinghy theory natalie was in the master cabin and heard the dinghy banging against the side she got up to retie it she slipped on the swim step on the stern and was either stunned or knocked unconscious and rolled into the water the loose dinghy floated away my theory fits the few facts we have that story is a 100 false the dinghy really wasn't banging because it was tied off with two lines securely to the boat the reality is what was the evidence show she wouldn't go back and that's not her that's not her job she would never go worry about the dingy she gonna tell dennis duverne hey can you go tie that dinghy down it's making noise that's his job six years of investigation four new key witnesses two determined investigators with a lot of questions for robert wagner as we've investigated the case over the last six years i think he's more of a person of interest now we know now that he was the last person to be with natalie before she disappeared investigators talk about working this high profile hollywood mystery online at 48hours.com for the first time in the more than 36 years since natalie wood drowned off catalina island investigators called her husband a person of interest [Music] but they stopped short of calling him a suspect we have not been able to prove that this was a homicide and we haven't been able to prove that this was an accident either the ultimate problem is we don't know how she ended up in the water the statutes of limitations have run out on all crimes except one murder and to prove murder there has to be evidence that someone intentionally put natalie in the water falling in by accident wouldn't count if people knew that natalie wood was in the water and they didn't save her they could have saved her and they didn't save her would that be enough to bring charges in this case no that's not believe it or not there's no duty to act believe me if she had called out or she had made any uh noises or if we'd have heard anything there were three of us there we would have done something nobody heard anything still investigators remain troubled by the evidence they do have the witnesses who talk about a fight on the back of the boat and the number and locations of fresh bruises on natalie's body i think i've been a cop long enough to see those appear to be assaultive in nature could the bruises have instead come from a drunken fall perhaps but investigators think the circumstantial evidence the fight the alcohol the jealousy may suggest another scenario someone can get so enraged they can't control their anger like a crime of passion it just happens and they didn't mean for it to happen and then later on they're sorry about it but it's too late for his part christopher walken has remained largely silent through the years we have to ask you about nallywood because as you know they've reopened the case you were there that night what do you think happened christopher well you know i stopped talking about that 30 years ago and there's so much information books and okay internet anything you want to know just go look he did however interview with the new investigation i'm not going to go into what christopher watkins said that what he told us was in confidence at least for now investigators did tell us that walken is not a person of interest despite several attempts to re-interview robert wagner including a trip to aspen where wagner lives with his wife actress jill saint john the investigators say the actor has refused to speak with them robert wagner of course we want to talk to him and get his side of the story and try to clarify things he's refused time and time again to talk to us one part of robert wagner's story has never changed he continues to insist natalie wood's death was an accident but there is a part of him that blames himself when you're in love you're responsible for the other one she's responsible for me and i was responsible for her and you know this accident that occurred i wasn't there i wasn't there for her and that's always within me in february 2021 robert wagner turned 91 [Music] this past july natalie would have been 83 a sad milestone for those who loved her it really does pay me to this day to know that she is gone and she really had a whole life in front of her i was 35 when natalie died and i am now 71. before my life is over i would like to put natalie's to rest by knowing the truth [Music] by speaking out lieutenant carina and detective hernandez are hoping new witnesses will come forward either someone who saw something heard something or was told something someone who will help answer the question once and for all how did natalie wood end up in the water like any cold case they intend to work it until it's solved we're not ever going to close it until we get to the truth [Music] a modern-day indiana jones hit a treasure chest and left clues if you've been brave i give you title to the goals but was the cost of the quest too high this treasure hunt did claim at least five lives he could have stopped this madness it wasn't worth it 48 hours next on cbs [Music] you

Channel: 48 Hours

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Id: sBAeUZZ8ZV4

Length: 43min 0sec (2580 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 09 2022