Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Bruising noted in actress Natalie Wood's autopsy report: Does the pattern prove domestic abuse?

Episode Date: November 28, 2019

Beautiful actress Natalie Wood drowns during a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. Although no one has ever been charged in her death, sister Lana Wood says something sinister was going on behind the scenes. Her autopsy report shows bruising that some experts say is not consistent with falling off a boat. Was Natalie Wood a victim of domestic abuse?An all-star panel joins Nancy Grace to discuss the case today:Lana Wood: Natalie's Sister, Actress Marti Rulli: Author of "Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour" Sheryl McCollum: Forensics Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Not one Christmas goes by that we do not watch A Muppet Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34th Street, the remake and the classic with Natalie Wood. Natalie Wood, just the name evokes glamour, beauty, grace. But even now, decades later, many convinced Natalie Wood didn't, quote, just drown, that Natalie Wood was murdered. I'm Nancy Grace, and this is Crime Stories. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Searchers at Catalina Island found the body of Natalie Wood floating just offshore this morning, an apparent drowning victim. She had sailed to the island with her husband, actor Robert Wagner, aboard the couple's yacht. Authorities said the actress apparently tried an inflatable motor launch. What happened isn't known. The boat was found afloat near the body. Today, Ms. Wood's distraught husband returned to their Beverly Hills home to receive a constant stream of mourners. The couple had been popular fixtures in Hollywood,

grand marshals in the 1979 Christmas parade. As an actress, Ms. Wood rose to prominence with Miracle on 34th Street and through the years had been nominated for three Academy Awards. David Dow, CBS News, Hollywood. In the last days, the death of Natalie Wood has taken center stage yet again. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Not only was Natalie found, her body found floating out in the cold water. According to witnesses, there had been a horrible argument between her and her then-husband Robert Wagner the night before on their yacht. the very latest. Stephen Lampley, former detective, author of I Was the Girl, about his time as an

undercover cop in an underage sex sting. Dr. Brian Russell, psychologist, lawyer, and host of Investigation Discovery's Fatal Vows. Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute and now an expert in the Natalie Wood case. Marty Rooley, author of Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendor on Amazon. And special guest joining me, Lana Wood, Natalie's sister and actress, Bond Girl, the star in over 20 movies and over 300 television shows i want to start with lana wood lana a lot of people don't realize and having prosecuted felony crimes for 10 years and working at the battered women's center at night for nine years i i sometimes feel like I've seen too much regarding battered women, but I feel like it has never been analyzed as it relates to your sister, Natalie.

Lana, can you describe the relationship Natalie had with Robert Wagner starting at the beginning. Natalie was really living her fantasy of being married to a handsome movie star. Natalie, fortunately or unfortunately, really was living her dream. But her dream wasn't exactly what she thought it would be. Their relationship was very difficult at times, very disturbing to Natalie, extremely disappointing, and I use the word extremely because it isn't like little things that disappointed her. Also, just as a momentary aside to let everyone know what Natalie was like is Natalie was very, very concerned with showing her fans and the world that she was Natalie Wood. She never let that down, ever. She would not

show frailties. She would not. She felt she had a certain role to play when she stepped out of her house. And she was very, very concerned with keeping other things private because it didn't match up with what she wanted the world to see. Their relationship was a difficult one. And it's so complicated, I don't really know how easily I can even describe it simply because it wasn't just a young girl falling in love. It was playing another role. It was another role for Natalie as well.

And that's what she knew, and that's what she'd done all her life. And that's also why she had been in therapy for many, many, many years and continued it, is trying to break away from the pretense, the fantasy, and face the reality. Not easy. You know, that's really interesting. Guys, I'm speaking with Natalie Wood's sister, Lana, who I now consider to be a personal friend. Over the years, we have analyzed this case so many times, and it pains me to say over the years, because not that I regret knowing Lana for this amount of time, but that justice has never been obtained for Natalie Wood over all these years. The author of Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendor, which is the name of Natalie's yacht,

Marty Rulli is with me. You can find her, her name, R-U-L-L-I, on Amazon. Marty, I'd like to hear your reaction to what Lana has just said about her sister's relationship with Robert Wagner. Well, it's so true that Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood were such a public relationship. The world had eyes on them. And Natalie, my friend Dennis Duverne, who worked as their skipper on the boat. He saw them in the most intimate weekends of their lives when they got away from the hustle and bustle and took their trips to Catalina Island.

And Dennis, so he saw the pleasure part of their life. He had never really seen anything like what happened the weekend Natalie died beforehand, but he also spent a lot of private time with Natalie in the wheelhouse because she didn't like the water activities. So Natalie, she was in therapy, and she told Dennis a lot about her therapy. They confided in each other, and she did explain that there were things about her relationship, because it was so public, that made it more difficult. So I totally understand what Lana is saying. And the one thing, and Natalie didn't want the public to see the problems in her marriage. They were so popular. They were the king and queen of Hollywood at that time. So Natalie not only had to hide certain things, she lived with the fear of the public finding out that everything wasn't perfect in, you know, my advice is get out the first time

because it usually doesn't get better. It gets worse. And Natalie, I don't know what may have happened in, you know, in privacy in their relationship, but I do know what happened that night. So not only was Natalie, the very night that she died, physically assaulted, as her autopsy report shows, bruises all over her body. It's the emotional aspect of it, too. She was so angered that night because Robert Wagner had smashed a wine bottle in front of the face of her co-star, who she was trying to impress in a family way,

taking him on a family cruise with her husband. And here she was totally embarrassed. She was angry. The emotional aspect of it, by the time Robert Wagner got to their stateroom and the horrible fighting started, the physical part of it. Natalie was experiencing emotions that go along with this horrible thing. And then when he probably started abusing her, there was the shock of that. If it wasn't a constant thing in their relationship, I mean, this was a bad fight. It probably got worse. Take a listen to what a witness tells our friend Dr. Phil.

Have you replayed this in your mind? Are you mad at yourself that you didn't do something different? Well, I actually don't think, I think she was dead when she hit the water. She was unconscious, you know what I mean, when she hits the water. I mean, they said there wasn't any water in her lungs. So what is your theory? I think the argument got out of control, and she was knocked unconscious by a physical fight from Robert Wagner,

and put in the water. So you believe when you were standing on the back of that boat and he said, don't turn on that searchlight, you were talking to a murderer? Exactly. You believe Robert Wagner murdered Natalie Wood? I really do. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. There were two lifeguards that handled the initial investigation.

Okay. One of those is dead. Another one is not speaking. He's refused to talk about this case now. He says he's done talking because he doesn't believe justice has been served. And is one Roger Smith? Yes. Okay, because we have some audio of him. One of the lifeguards was Roger Smith,

who led the lifeguard team that searched for Natalie, and he's the one who actually pulled her body out of the water. Here's a clip of his interview on the podcast Fatal Voyage, The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood. Let's listen to it. He said, mysterious death of Natalie Wood. Let's listen to it. public agencies and she might be fooling around on somebody's boat and she often does that. I found out by one of the Marine Science Center students who studies anatomy over there and that worked the chamber with me that she could live three to 5.8 hours hanging under that raft being

blown out to sea before she succumbed to the cold based on what alcohol level she had on her. Hanging onto the safety line that goes along the side of it. Her hands were still pliable, you know, so nothing had set in yet. No rigor mortis? No rigor mortis at all. And her facial, she looked like she had been dead burned. I looked out at the raft.

As I looked at it, I saw some scratch marks on the, you know, they didn't scratch into the material, but like somebody was clawing on the side of it. Staggering. Trying to get up in the raft from the water true natalie wood didn't have to die you were hearing our friend dr phil and his guests including the man that pulled natalie wood's body out of the icy waters at catalina i'm nancy grace this is crime stories thank you for being with us how did she end up in the water to Cheryl McCollum

Cole Case Research Institute director explain Cheryl Nancy she's in her stateroom and then she leaves that which is it goes straight out to the back of the boat where she and Robert Wagner are having an herbal argument to the point Vince Durne with the radio on up in the wheelhouse can hear it. He looks out and sees it and he thought, well, I'm going to give them their privacy, so he looks away. The next thing he knows, Robert Wagner comes to him and says Natalie's missing. But when you

look at the injuries to her body and not just what's written on the autopsy, but the drawing, she's got a mark on her left cheek. She's got injuries around her neck, on her wrist, on her thigh, on her knees, on her ankles, on the front of her legs, both of them, on the backs of her legs. There is no injury, however, to the inside of the palm of her hand. And that's crucial to me because had she been holding on to that rope and that rope fly away from her because the boat gets jerked away in the wind, she might have burned from the rope. They didn't notate any injury where she had been scratching

but this is really important for your listeners to paint this picture the dinghy was not some heavy wooden boat it was filled with air the moment that it got untied, it's like a balloon in the wind. There would have been zero chance she could have reentered that boat from the water. Not possible. So you think if you've ever been pulled like on a kneeboard in the lake, if you fall off that, you can't get back on that. You have to have everything stopped in order to pull yourself

back up on just a small raft. Forget getting in a dinghy. Not going to happen. And your point is? She was not trying to reenter that dinghy. She was not conscious. Let me ask you this, Cheryl McCollum. What about her fingernails in autopsy?

I don't recall them being chipped or broken. None. Her socks are on. Her nightgown is on. The jacket is on. She's dressed fully. And the point is that if, well, we know all these injuries are true because they're on the autopsy report. If she did not sustain them trying to get into the boat, the dinghy, then how did she sustain them? I want to circle back to Lana Wood, Natalie's sister.

Lana, I believe that Natalie was a domestic abuse victim. Agree or disagree? disagree oh i agree completely natalie did did bruise easily and for her to have sustained that many bruises i mean it's quite obvious there's no way i can pretend that it wasn't done to her what about about their history? You are in a unique position to know her history with Robert Wagner. Was there any indication through the years that she had been a domestic abuse victim? Not that she ever admitted,

which is very, very much like Natalie. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Special guest joining me, Lana Wood, Natalie's sister and actress. This month is National Domestic Abuse Awareness Month, but I feel like it has never been analyzed as it relates to your sister, Natalie. Was there any indication through the years that she had been a domestic abuse victim? Not that she ever admitted, which is very, very much like Natalie because she also had a role to play with me. I was her baby sister who was always around. She didn't want me to see really ugly things. We didn't talk about things like that. If I would begin to talk about things like that in respect to myself,

my relationship, she would say she didn't want to hear it. What can you tell me about an incident where Natalie cut her hand? I was a teenager. It was at my parents' home, a small home in Van Nuys. And Natalie appeared at the door very late at night with her hand bleeding badly as she had cut herself with a wine glass that she crushed with her own hand. She was so furious, so shocked, so distraught that she was able to do that and it was because of uh something that she witnessed with her husband robert wagner um that she also then wrote about in her in her own memoir which she was attempting to finish um that it it uh it shook up her entire life. It destroyed everything she believed in in marriage and everything else.

What? What destroyed everything she believed in? Finding her husband with someone else. That was the reason for the first divorce. It was really devastating

to her. Absolutely devastating. Did I mishear that, Marty, really? No, you did not. And you did not mishear anything. And Robert Wagner actually let Natalie, well, Natalie even let the world believe when all of the movie gossip magazines back in the day were saying that the marriage had broken up because Natalie was with Warren Beatty, that an affair had started while she was making Splendor in the Grass. Natalie wasn't even that keen on Warren at first. They became good friends after Natalie's marriage

had deteriorated after that incident. And then Warren had been engaged to Joan Collins, and that engagement had broken up. So Warren and Natalie started confiding in each other, and their relationship grew. But the movie magazines were attacking Natalie for ruining the marriage by having an affair with Warren Beatty and poor Robert Wagner. That's not the case. Natalie caught her husband, Robert Wagner, in a compromising position and went home to her parents' house and allowed, and she does write about it. She doesn't describe it, but she writes about her extreme emotional devastation over that incident in her diary. To Cheryl McCollum, in my mind, and you and I have worked on so many domestic

violence cases that end in homicide, in my mind, adultery is a form of emotional abuse, especially when your spouse, your partner knows it's happening and you continue to do it. That's abuse. It's abusive. But Nancy, if this was my case and I was coming to you at the courthouse to lay it out and tell you what we have,

I would start with when they met, you know, he's eight years older, might be, but he could control her a little bit. When they met, he was a bigger deal at first than she was. Then she took the lead. She became the movie star. And not just in movies. She was in the blockbusters at the time.

Three Academy Award nominations. I mean, she's living the dream. She's on TV. And in that world, there's a distinction. So there's jealousy there. There's other things that might play in. And one thing that I would bring to you at the courthouse, I would say, Nancy, she died on this night,

but let's talk about the night before. Because you cannot discount the fact she was either so upset and angry and wanted to get away from Robert Wagner so bad. The night before she died, she got Dennis DeVern to take her to a hotel on shore. She did not spend the night on the slender. She's absolutely right. To Lana Wood natalie's sister and star in her own right uh you don't have suddenly an explosion one night a battering

situation and the person is killed when there is not a history leading up to it. Okay. Now what Cheryl McCollum is saying is absolutely correct. Just like when Nicole Brown Simpson was trying to leave home. Okay. Because she had been battered. That night before she was killed, Natalie Wood had Davern, the captain, take her to shore, leave the yacht like so many womenendor and stay on shore and ask Dennis to please stay by her side. She asked him to please stay with her. Marty Rooley, author of Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendor on Amazon. What do we know about the night before she died. That night bothers me to this day because the reason Natalie left the yacht that night, everything was fine that night. She, Christopher, and RJ had spent time on the island in Avalon and they had lunch, they had some drinks, and did some early Christmas shopping, which was one of Natalie's reasons for wanting to

spend that weekend at Catalina. She was into the holiday spirit. She was in good spirits. But after they returned to the boat on Friday night of the cruise, Black Friday that was, they had dinner aboard the boat. And then suddenly R.J. wants to move the boat across the island to the remote part of the island where there's the only one restaurant, which is closed It was cold. It was raining. And Robert Wagner, suddenly he's running around. He's pulling anchor. He's demanding that Dennis go to the wheelhouse and get the engines going. They're going to the other part of the island. Why? And that was Natalie's question. He was angry. He was boiling over with probably jealousy. And that's when Natalie said, Dennis, I don't like this. Take me ashore. Dennis did, and she was so upset that night. They stayed up almost all night long while she confided in Dennis that she was not going to tolerate this anymore. She was tired of R.J.'s jealousies, which does have a history.

One time, and Robert Wagner himself writes about this in his memoir, that he was, well, it was actually in Gavin Lambert's autobiography about natalie and that when she starred with william devane and wagner was very jealous of william devane in from here to eternity and one night they were in a hotel room and rj wanted to throw himself out of an eight-story hotel window over his jealousy but there were other people in the room that night. Natalie had gone to bed, and they all calmed RJ down. So there was a history of his jealousies and his not trusting Natalie. But on this night, the Friday night that Dennis spent the night with Natalie, she was very afraid. Now, I believe that she asked Dennis to stay with her so she could vent to him, and also because she was afraid.

Why would he want to move that boat at that late time at night to the remote part of the island where the next night Natalie ended up in the water, exactly at the same spot he wanted to travel to on Friday night. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Lana Wood, Natalie's sister and actress. Lana, their relationship was fraught with explosive arguments and threats and jealousies and all-night drinking. What do you know about their arguments over the years? I mean, it led to one divorce, and then they got back together. Well, as I was listening to Marty, it also brought back to me when Natalie was filming Peeper with Michael Caine,

and he was just a family friend, Michael. But Natalie and I were in her trailer, and she was getting ready to go back out on the set, and RJ arrived. He walked up the steps and, you know, came into the trailer. We were not expecting him. And he instantly started this kind of, I want to say snide sort of bickering about, you know, oh, you better make sure your mic is turned on. When the sound man put on your microphone and set everything up, was he turned on?

Did you let him see anything? I mean, it was rather, because I was standing there, it was sort of done in an undertone, but it was very cruel, and it was weird. It was just odd that he would become jealous of the guy who sets up her microphone um that sort of thing would go on from time to time always but he uh he would try to cover up um most of the time when they would start that kind of bickering and Natalie would get very upset she did not

lash back she did not say anything uh that would further his his uh strange behavior his thoughts um and generally I I would excuse myself and say, hey, if they wanted to have dinner later, give me a call back. And I would leave because it was very unpleasant. So the jealousy. Was that common in their relationship, these arguments? Yes, that type of behavior was common. There seemed to be some sort of a jealousy that was not, that had no basis. So I don't know psychologically if that was something that he just simply enjoyed or if that was his way of upsetting Natalie. Let me ask you this, Lana Wood. During her marriages to Robert Wagner,

first and second, did you ever suspect that she was a victim of either physical or emotional abuse? Emotional, yes. Yes. The physical, no, I didn't really. Natalie always had bruises, but whenever I'd say, what happened there? The answer would be, oh, I don't even know.

You know, I'd bump into things. Okay, that's interesting to me, to Marty Rooley, author of Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendor, that people actually noticed Natalie Wood's bruises. Well, she was an active person, and you can acquire bruises. And a lot of people, as an excuse later, you know, explaining the bruises on her autopsy report said, well, when you're boating, that can happen. Not the type of bruises that Natalie had, especially at the ankles.

The ankle bruises that she had actually looked like fingerprint marks, which, you know, I am an amateur when it comes to the medical field in respect to a coroner's report. But I did markings on a makeshift body, and those bruises at Natalie's ankles on her autopsy exactly fit the handprints of being pulled by the ankles, probably dragged along the deck, which is how she acquired her facial abrasion, which just had non-skid applied to the deck, you know, closing it up for the winner, the boat. And so, but in actual every day-to-day life,

I did not know Natalie or ever see Natalie, but Nalana just said that she a lot of times had bruises. Who knows where they came from? I want to follow up on something you're saying with Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, regarding the bruises on Natalie's ankles. Nancy, you have to ask yourself first, are her injuries consistent with a fall? If you answer no, that's why we're here. That's why the autopsy results have been changed from accidental drowning to undetermined, because they're not consistent with a fall.

There's no way. This is unusual, but my daughter Caroline is exactly Natalie Wood's height. Caroline could no more from the back of that boat reach that thingy, pull it toward her and enter it without help. And here's what's key to me. The night before when she's mad and upset and angry and wants to get away from him, she don't jump in that boat and take off. She gets Dennis to take her. The next night, you want me to believe that Natalie Wood, who was flawless, I have personally looked at over 1,200 photographs of Natalie Wood. There ain't a bad one. There is only one that I have found.

She's in a bathing suit, walking down the beach. Her smile is perfect. The bathing suit is perfect. The way her legs are positioned, walking is perfect, but her eyes are closed. That is as close to a bad picture of her that I have found. The reason that's key, I am never going to believe that Natalie Wood got in a boat by herself that she was petrified of, the water that she was petrified of, a boat she never

drove, and went to town in a flannel nightgown. Did not happen. I agree, that would never have happened. Natalie Wood would not even want people to believe she owns flannel. She was a movie star all the time. It wasn't

playing Natalie. She was. We wait and hope for justice. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.