Coroner amends Natalie Wood’s death certificate

The Los Angeles County coroner has amended the 30- year- old death certificate of actress Natalie Wood to change the official cause of her demise to “drowning and other undetermined factors” from accidental drowning, authorities said on Wednesday. The change was made a couple of weeks ago, and comes nine months after homicide detectives for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said they were reopening the investigation into the death of the actress at age 43, sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said. Wood’s body was found floating in a Santa Catalina Island cove off the coast of Southern California in 1981 after she had spent a night of dining and drinking on the island and on a yacht with her husband, television actor Robert Wagner, and actor Christopher Walken. The coroner originally ruled the death of the Oscar- nominated actress as an accidental drowning. The revised record reflects unanswered questions about the death and the fact that authorities regard the matter as an open case.