Actress Natalie Wood’s death on November 29, 1981, captivated the world. But questions linger over what really happened that night aboard the yacht Splendour.

This investigation takes a closer look at the people who were onboard that fateful night, with new interviews with police detectives and Wood’s sister, Lana. It also explores claims made by the boat’s captain, Robert Davern. Keep reading the article below to learn more about Who Killed Natalie Wood.

In life, Natalie Wood was one of Hollywood’s most alluring actresses, a three-time Oscar nominee for West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause. In death, she remains a subject of mystery. Was her drowning a tragic accident or was something else involved?

In this riveting book, author Michael Franco exposes the conflicting and often false accounts of Natalie Wood’s death. He reveals attempts by Wagner, Walken and Davern to distance themselves from blame with magazine interviews and books intended to shore up their ever-changing stories. He also exposes a meticulous analysis of the investigative report of Deputy Bill Kroll, the sheriff’s first responder who was dispatched to the scene just hours before Natalie disappeared.

At the time of Natalie’s death, Noguchi was Los Angeles County’s chief medical examiner, known as the “coroner to the stars,” having presided over the autopsies of movie stars, musicians and victims of serial killers. Noguchi’s initial report concluded that Natalie Wood had drowned in a boating accident and there was no evidence of foul play.

Noguchi held a press conference shortly after the actress’s death to explain his findings. He said that because Natalie was intoxicated and wearing a heavy jacket, she may have slipped while trying to get into the dinghy or back onto Splendour and dropped into the water. He also said that unexplained fresh bruising found on the actress’s body, including on her face, opened the possibility of assault before drowning.

A woman on a nearby yacht told police that she had heard cries for help in the water, but that she didn’t know who was calling out. She did recall that the person who was shouting seemed to be a male.

In 2011, the sheriff’s department reopened the case after claims in Wagner and Davern’s 2009 book, Goodbye Splendour, that they had seen the couple arguing on the yacht’s deck the night before Natalie went missing. However, a year later, the case was closed again and Wagner has been cleared of any wrongdoing.

Captain Robert Davern

The person who knows what happened to Natalie Wood on the night of November 27, 1981, better than most is her former boat captain. Robert Davern, who co-authored a 2009 book about the star’s death with Marti Rulli, has been in the spotlight since news broke that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is reopening the 30-year-old case and assigning two homicide detectives to it.

In an appearance on Friday’s “Today” show, Davern told NBC’s David Gregory that he made a lot of mistakes in the original investigation and had new information to offer. He also admitted that he lied to investigators at the time about a fight between Wood and Wagner leading up to her disappearance from their yacht, Splendour.

At the time, investigators believed that Wood slipped off the side of the boat and fell into a dinghy, which had scratch marks on it from her nails. She was reported to have been drunk at the time and had a painkiller in her system. The coroner ruled her cause of death accidental drowning and hypothermia.

During his interview with Gregory, Davern said he did not know what caused her to slip off the side of the boat and that he could not explain it. He also did not know why he held off notifying the Coast Guard for four hours at Wagner’s insistence. He did not know that Wagner wanted him to tell police a different story.

Davern says he believes that Wagner wanted to keep the murder of his wife a low-profile investigation. He also said that he believed Wagner tried to take revenge on Walken for telling him that Wood had been obsessed with her career at the expense of her family life. He did not mention that he and Wagner had fought in the weeks before Wood’s death over her career versus his relationship with his daughter. The couple was also arguing over the balance of their personal lives and finances.

Christopher Walken

After making big hits like Miracle on 34th Street, Rebel Without a Cause, and West Side Story, Natalie Wood seemed to fade into relative obscurity. However, in 1981 she was cast to co-star with Christopher Walken in the sci-fi film Brainstorm. It was her last big screen role, and a time that many believe marked the beginning of her downward spiral.

After filming was completed, she returned home to Los Angeles with Walken. While there she began to drink heavily, a habit that eventually turned into an addiction. She also began to have problems at home, mainly with her husband Robert Wagner. He became increasingly hostile to her, excluding her from his life and making her feel alienated. He would rag on her to the media and even dragged her daughter into it, which made her more prone to self-pity.

In her book, Natalie Wood: Goodbye Splendour, her sister Lana claims that he started to act abusively towards her and that she was afraid of him. She says that she was able to convince him to leave her alone, but when he did she was still terrified of being near water. It was this fear that drove her to the boating accident in which she died.

According to her autopsy report, Natalie Wood died from drowning. However, her sister has a more sinister theory about what happened that night. She claims that her sister could not swim, and that she panicked in the face of water, which drove her to jump into the ocean.

While the official verdict was that she drowned, Lana has long suspected foul play. She has based her theory on various accounts from those who were present on the yacht that night, particularly the captain of the vessel. Dennis Davern, a family friend and Navy veteran who was the skipper of the Prince Valliant that weekend, has given numerous interviews over the years and written a memoir about the incident.

He has stated that he and Walken were engaging in political debate for much of the evening, and that when they went to bed he heard the dinghy knocking against the boat. He says that after he heard this, Walken stormed into her room and a blazing row ensued. He then left the cabin and found that she was gone.

Doug Bombard

In the midst of a career that produced hits such as “Gypsy” and West Side Story, Natalie Wood seemed poised to make a smooth transition into family life with her first husband, Robert Wagner. But their marriage was troubled from the start, and by the time she died in 1981 after a yachting accident off Catalina Island, she was an ex-wife with a daughter, her acting career long since receded, and a reputation marred by rumors of drug abuse.

It wasn’t until 2012 that the case of Natalie Wood’s death was reopened, 30 years after her disappearance and presumed drowning. Authorities reopened the investigation after someone told them that the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern, had new recollections about what happened. During the course of the reopening, investigators contacted witnesses who had heard loud voices and arguing coming from the couple’s room on the yacht.

The new evidence led to a change in the cause of death on Wood’s official death certificate from drowning to undetermined factors. The change was a major setback for investigators, and it cast doubt on what really happened to the star. It also left Wood’s daughter from her second husband, Natasha, to wonder if her mother’s death was even investigated properly.

Bombard, who owned the restaurant that Wood, Walken and Wagner had visited before they went to the island that night, said he didn’t believe anything Wagner had to say about what happened. He did, however, think it was implausible that Wood went up on deck with her dinghy and didn’t return. Bombard’s dinghy was parked nearby when he noticed her disappearance, and he went out to search for her in the dark with the help of other dinghy owners.

In his book, “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” Jim Watson explains that Bombard did not give much credence to recent stories about Wagner being responsible for Wood’s death. He remarked that it would be very difficult to motor around the waters off Avalon on the inflatable dinghy that Wood and Wagner were using, especially in the darkness of night. He also didn’t find it believable that Wagner, out of anger over an argument with Wood, would have intentionally sunk her yacht in a fit of jealousy.