Wagner ‘spent an hour and a half drinking scotch before searching for Natalie’
36 years after Natalie Wood ‘fell off his yacht’, police say Robert Wagner’s story doesn’t add up Friday’s Daily Mail
HOLLYWOOD star Robert Wagner spent an hour and a half drinking scotch after his wife Natalie Wood vanished from his yacht before seeking help, a new documentary claims.
Detectives said that Mr Wagner sat with the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern, that night in 1981 even though the actress could not swim and the seas were rough.
Last week, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said that Miss Wood’s drowning, which was declared an accident, is now being probed as a suspicious death. It came after CBS News aired an interview with an investigator who said Mr Wagner is considered a ‘person of interest’ in her death.
Yesterday it was claimed that when Mr Davern suggested they call for help on the radio, Mr Wagner allegedly said: ‘No, we don’t wanna call anybody.’
Ninety minutes later, Mr Wagner allegedly asked people in the nearby town to look for her, rather than getting the Coast Guard to search the water.
The startling new claims were revealed in a documentary in which homicide detectives spoke for the first time since they reopened the investigation into Miss Wood’s death in 2011.
They said that it could have been a ‘crime of passion’ because Mr Wagner was jealous about Miss Wood’s closeness to fellow actor Christopher Walken, who was with them on the yacht.
Miss Wood, who at the time was regarded as America’s ‘sweetheart’, drowned off the island of Catalina in California while the group was sailing on 60ft yacht Splendour, which was owned by Mr Wagner.
The 43-year-old star of West Side Story and Rebel Without A Cause was found floating in a cove at 8am the following morning, about a mile from the yacht with its dingy beached nearby. A post-mortem examination revealed bruises and an abrasion on her cheek.
The documentary, called 48 Hours and screened on US TV network CBS, claimed that Mr Wagner was so angry at Miss Wood flirting with Mr Walken the night she died that he smashed a bottle of wine in the yacht and said: ‘What are you trying to do, f*** my wife?’
Mr Davern said that soon afterwards he heard a physical fight coming from below deck – and then nothing. Ten minutes later he went down to the stateroom and found Mr Wagner, now 87, crying and saying: ‘Natalie’s gone, she’s missing.’
In the documentary, lieutenant John Corina, a homicide detective, said that Mr Wagner told Mr Davern to search for her, and when he came back Mr Wagner said: ‘Oh, the dinghy’s now missing as well.’
After saying he wanted to wait and see if she came back rather than call for help, Mr Wagner opened the bottle of scotch and the two men sat drinking until 1.30am.
The CBS documentary says that the new witnesses include two people who heard and saw Miss Wood and Mr Wagner fighting on the yacht.
Mr Corina said Mr Wagner has refused to speak to them numerous times, even when they went to Aspen, Colorado, where he lives with his current wife, actress Jill St John.
Mr Walken, 74, has spoken to the detectives but they did not reveal what he said.
Mr Wagner’s representatives have declined to comment on the documentary.
Mr Wagner and Miss Wood were married from 1957 to 1962 before divorcing. They remarried in 1972.