MovieChat Forums > Robert Wagner Discussion > Named as 'person of interest' in Natalie...

I've always thought Wagner killed her. I never liked him, so I could be biased. That said, they need to let it go. Any conviction now would be based purely on opinion. Too many people go to jail for that. The prosecutors create a believable story and the mindless hurt buys it. This is why so many innocent people get convicted.

I'm of the mindset that 1000 guilty people should go free instead of one innocent person going to jail. Maybe that will force prosecutors to use facts alone, and not embellished fables.

Like I said though, I think he's guilty, but I don't believe any of the existing evidence should be enough to convicted him. He got away with it. Move on.

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Here were some of the original archived newspaper articles and the "official story" as it was reported after her death in 1981:

http://documents.latimes.com/natalie-wood/

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I think he was responsible for her going over the side, but that it was probably an accident. I don't think he actually meant to kill her.


😎

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Interesting.

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They looked at him when the drowning occurred. He cooperated fully. He was cleared of any wrongdoing.
They reopened the case in the late 1980's. He answered their questions and they cleared him.
In the 1990's they changed her cause to "Unknown" instead of accidental. They investigated. Again, he was cleared.

Now they're doing it to him again. This time he said he's had enough, and he'll talk through his lawyer. At 90 years old I don't blame him.

Natalie's own daughter, Natasha Gregson, professes that she believes he is innocent.


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He's been cleared. Again.

https://pagesix.com/2022/05/27/robert-wagner-cleared-as-natalie-wood-case-goes-cold/

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it was a tragic accident.

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Not being able to charge him does not mean that he is cleared.

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It means the police won't bother him again, but of course the people who want to believe he murdered his wife will still believe what they want to believe.

It was probably an accident, with a possibility of manslaughter, nobody's ever going to know because the people involved will take the secret to their graves.

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Her death is no longer officially considered an accident, and that has not changed. The case is still open. The current detectives choosing not to pursue this case as of now doesn't mean that things can't change in the future. The lead detective retired last year, which was what led to the questionable reports of Wagner being "cleared", but this retired detective, Ralph Hernandez, has stated that he will continue to seek justice for Wood as a civilian, and there are others invested in this case who vowed to not give up. Time will tell.

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Nothing more is going to be done on this case, because there's never been any solid evidence, no new information is going to come out, and nobody's career is going to benefit from putting a 93 year old man on trial.

Sorry, this is going to stay an unanswered question.

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Maybe, maybe not. There were witnesses who overheard Wood and Wagner having a loud, agitated argument on the boat deck just before she "disappeared", which corroborates the account of the boat captain, Dennis Davern. Wagner has never admitted to this argument. He has told at least three different versions (in books and interviews) of what happened that night.

A 97-year-old former concentration camp prison guard was convicted of war crimes he committed back in the 1940s. Cold cases are solved, and people are charged and sentenced, years after the fact. Even if Wagner is never charged, the truth coming out and him at least being held accountable is better than nothing.

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Is this Dennis Davern the same captain who told the police that Wagner never left the boat deck after Natalie went below, back when it first happened? You know, when he wasn't trying to sell his story?

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A loud argument doesn't mean murder, people have loud arguments without killing each other all the time. It could mean that the original theory re an accidental death was correct, and that she left the boat of her own free will because of the argument, and had trouble when she was alone in the raft.

She died 42 years ago, without known witnesses. The people who were nearby are now old, some will have died or lost memory capacity, and no judge in the LA Basin will send a 93-year-old famous person to jail, and he may be too infirm to stand trial anyway. Don't expect closure.

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Here's something else people don't want to confront - the claim Wood was scared of water; I call BS. She owned a yacht. She was on it. When she wanted to leave she used the dinghy.

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She liked being on the water, not in it. There's a difference. People who knew her at the time that she never swam in the ocean as her husband, children, and friends. She could barely swim, which is a fact.

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Ok, she was drunk in a dinghy and fell out.

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But why didn't he admit to it? He never has. Natalie was terrified of water, and she wasn't wearing underwear and was in a nightgown. This was very out of character for her. Nothing would have changed her fear of water. Wagner was known to be jealous and violent, especially under the influence (and he was drinking that night).

Many of those people were interviewed during the re-opened investigation. I have enough closure knowing that Robert Wagner is a person of interest in this case (which has not changed) and the two lead detectives never cleared him and believe he is guilty. Just because the LASD chose to throw in the towel (money and celebrity talks), doesn't mean the case is resolved.

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If he really is guilty, he isn't going to confess, not even posthumously. He had a child with Natalie, that alone would keep him from even considering something like a posthumous confession, nobody wants their daughter to hate them after their gone.

No, there's too little evidence, no known witnesses, and too much time has passed, there will be no closure.

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Maybe on his deathbed (not holding my breath).

I believe he's guilty, just because the LASD wimped out on charging him won't change my opinion. Even if more information (or confirmation) doesn't surface until after his death, it's better than nothing.

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I don't think he'll confess on his deathbed or after, like I said he has children, one of them Natalie's child. Plus, I presume, an ego and a concern for his legacy.

So it's going to be one of those cases where there's no proof of anything, and people go on believing what they want to believe. Enjoy.

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Ego is definitely a big thing with him.

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Actually, he has been officially cleared over a year ago. There were four independent investigations, different investigators and different prosecutors. Wagner cooperated with them fully each time. Every one came to same conclusion: No evidence of wrongdoing.

https://pagesix.com/2022/05/27/robert-wagner-cleared-as-natalie-wood-case-goes-cold/

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#StopMakingSense

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He did not fully cooperate. The detectives in the re-opened investigation repeatedly stated that Wagner refused to speak with them.

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That was the fourth time they reopened the case. He was 90 years old and didn't want to deal with a prosecutor just trying to make a name for himself. He told him to talk through his lawyer. They did and he answered their questions. As you can see from my post, they still cleared him.

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It's not the fourth time the case was re-opened. It was re-opened once in 2011.

Again, the lead detectives on the case never cleared Wagner. When they retired (one of them had to retire early for medical reasons), the LASD decided to throw in the towel, the case is still open. Robert Wagner remains the one and only person of interest in this case. That has not changed.

The police did not do a proper investigation in 1981, and the re-opened investigation showed that. 'Nuff said.

https://radaronline.com/p/robert-wagner-natalie-wood-death-retired-detective-cold-case/

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Initial Investigation: no evidence of wrongdoing
1980's Case reopened: no evidence of wrongdoing
1990's Case reopened: Cause change from accidental to "Unknown"
2011: Don't know about that one
2017: Case Reopened, Wagner cleared as person of Interest

So, if you are right about 2021, that actually makes five. Different prosecutors and investigators each time. Results always the same. Even with the captain flipflopping depending on who's willing to pay the most for his story.

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No, her death cause was changed in 2012 from accidental to "drowning and other undetermined factors", not in the 1980s. The case was re-opened (for the first time) in 2011.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/03/natalie-wood-death-murder-robert-wagner-book

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/nov/18/natalie-wood-case-reopened

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/natalie-woods-death-certificate-changed-from-accident-to-undetermined/

Notice that one of the links about the re-opened investigation is dated 2011. The other states that 2011 was when the LASD re-opened the case. The link regarding the cause of death change states 2012.

You could at least get those details right by using Google.



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He knows where the bodies are buried...or at least he knows where Natalie's is buried.

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Of course he does. It's on the internet. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1124/natalie-wood

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Everything everyone writes here is no more than speculation. Fan fiction. And after more than four decades, the cops can't do much, if anything, more than that themselves. Rumors about this case come up again and again, every few years or so, and it goes nowhere. Time to move on.

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