The Coroner Series Read online

  Don Whiting, the night manager of the restaurant, was reading a paperbook book in the cabin of the boat on which he lived year round, when the radio beside him crackled and he heard the conversation between Wagner and Miller. Whiting radioed a friend on the isthmus to go to the Wagner yacht at once and report back to him about the situation.

  Thirty minutes later, light beams from Harbor Patrol boats, private boats of the Bay Watch, and Coast Guard helicopters began to crisscross the ocean. The beams illuminated rolling waves and swept over yachts and sailing ships rocking in the swells—but nothing was found in the sea.

  At seven-thirty the following morning a Sheriff’s Office helicopter was heading toward Catalina to aid in the search when suddenly one of the crew members detected a spot of red in the ocean waves below. “Go down,” he shouted to the pilot. The helicopter descended toward the sea, the wind from its rotor blades churning the water beneath them. Face down, in a red jacket, Natalie Wood floated, her hair splayed out in the water.

  The location of her body was no less than one mile south of the Wagner yacht, off an isolated cove known as Blue Cavern Point. The missing dinghy was discovered on the shore, even farther to the south. The key in the ignition of the boat was turned to the off position, the gear was in neutral, and the oars were tied down.

  Police were surprised, because the boat obviously had not been used. Even more startling was Natalie Wood’s clothing. She was clad only in a nightgown, knee-length wool socks and a down-filled jacket. It was apparent that she had not dressed for a boat ride—and yet police believed she must have untied the line which held the dinghy to the yacht. But why had she untied it if she didn’t intend to go out in the boat? That was only one of the mysteries surrounding her tragic death.

  On the day Natalie Wood’s body was found, I dispatched Pamela Eaker, a skilled investigator on the Medical Examiner’s staff, to Catalina. Eaker interrogated Robert Wagner, who told her that after they had returned from the restaurant that night he and Walken went to the wardroom of the yacht for a nightcap while Natalie retired to her quarters. The last time he remembered seeing his wife was at about quarter of eleven. Then, sometime after midnight, Wagner went to their cabin and noticed that his wife was not in bed. When he searched for her elsewhere on the yacht, he discovered that the dinghy was also missing. Even so, he said, he wasn’t concerned at first, because his wife often took the boat out alone. But as time passed and she didn’t reappear, he became more and more upset, and finally radioed for help.

  Eaker asked Wagner if it was possible that his wife had taken her own life. Wagner said that his wife was definitely not suicidal.

  Eaker also spoke to Don Whiting, the restaurant manager, and to various sheriff’s deputies and Santa Monica detectives. Her official report described the findings up to that point in the investigation and concluded:

  Decedent’s body had been taken from the ocean and placed in the Hyperbaric Chamber for safe-keeping. Upon this investigator’s arrival at location, decedent observed lying in “stokes litter.” Decedent is wrapped in plastic sheet, she herself is dressed in flannel nightgown and socks. The jacket that she was wearing when found floating is no longer on the body, having come off when she was pulled from the water. At time decedent was pulled from the water, Sheriff’s personnel say that body was absent of any rigor and they noted foam coming from mouth. Decedent still has foam coming from mouth. Rigor is now present of a 3 to 4 + throughout her entire body. Decedent has numerous bruises to legs and arms. Decedent’s eyes are also a bit cloudy appearing. No other trauma noted and foul play is not suspected at this time.

  Nor did police suspect foul play in Natalie Wood’s death, but by nightfall on that Sunday Hollywood was alive with rumors. Wasn’t it strange that the two men on the yacht didn’t even know that she had left the boat? Hadn’t she spoken to them? Why had she slipped out to the stern of the yacht in the middle of the night, climbed down a ladder, and untied the dinghy? What was she doing? Where was she going? And why?

  In any case of unusual death, it is the first duty of medical examiners to suspect murder. Indeed, some authorities on forensic science argue that the search for murder is our only real mission, and that anything else we accomplish is merely additional service to the community above and beyond that primary duty.

  I believe that forensic science is—and should be—broader in its horizons. But I concur with those authorities in one particular: every death is a homicide, until proven otherwise. So, even while Pamela Eaker was interrogating people on the island, I was telephoning Paul Miller, my host on that fact-finding mission three years before. I wanted a special investigation to be conducted by an expert to determine the facts of Natalie Wood’s death. And when I learned that Miller had been there at Isthmus Bay that very night, I was convinced his report would be conclusive.

  I gave Miller some specific instructions which were basic to any forensic investigation of such a tragedy:

  1. Examine the stern of the Wagners’ yacht for any disturbance, or evidence of violence, that the police might have missed.

  2. Check the dinghy for any sign of a struggle.

  3. Examine the algae (marine plant growth) on the bottom of the swimming step for signs of disturbance. (Did she try to reboard the yacht?)

  4. Check the sides of the dinghy for fingernail scratches. (Did she try to climb into the dinghy?)

  But these questions should be only the beginning, I stressed to Miller. I was relying on his experience and knowledge for the complete investigation.

  When I hung up, I was pleased that I had commissioned the right man in the right location for the job. But I also knew that his special report might take days, and the public was demanding to know now what had happened to Natalie Wood. That first morning the whispers were of murder, and I could not deny them. But I hoped that with the information contained in Eaker’s fine investigative report, plus the findings of the autopsy to be performed the following day, I would obtain enough data to form a preliminary opinion on the cause of her death, and to replace rumor and speculation with official facts.

  That Monday morning, November 30, 1981, was hectic for me. Dr. Sugiyama and Dr. Ishikawa (who was a classmate of mine at Nippon Medical School) were conducting a seminar in forensic science, and I was scheduled to give a breakfast talk to the seminar. But meanwhile the Medical Examiner’s Office was besieged by the press, demanding answers to the mystery of Natalie Wood’s death. I attended the meeting, said a few words, then apologized for having to leave early.

  By nine o’clock the autopsy was ready to begin. It was performed by Dr. Joseph Choi, one of my most skilled deputy medical examiners and Board-certified forensic pathologists. But in supervising the autopsy, I noted some intriguing facts:

  A recent diffuse (widespread) bruise, measuring approximately four inches by one inch, spread over the lateral aspect of Natalie Wood’s right arm above the wrist. On the left wrist was a slight superficial fresh bruise about a half inch in diameter.

  Numerous small superficial skin bruises measuring approximately a half to one inch in diameter were scattered over the right and left lower legs. They appeared to be relatively fresh. The left knee area showed a recent bruise measuring approximately two inches in diameter.

  The right ankle had a recent bruise measuring about two inches in diameter, and there were small superficial bruises on the posterior aspect of both lower legs, each measuring a half inch to two inches.

  A vertical brush-type abrasion on the left cheek was the only head wound, and there were no deep traumatic injuries to the skull.

  An examination of the clothing Natalie Wood had worn that night revealed other significant facts. More than twenty-four hours after she had been found, the flannel nightgown, the wool socks and the red down jacket were still wet. I picked up the jacket and noted that it was extremely heavy, probably between thirty and forty pounds in its saturated state. I also noted that a report from the toxicology laboratory revealed that the alcohol conte
nt of Natalie Wood’s blood was .14 percent, .04 percent above the intoxication standard as set by the California Vehicular Code.

  From the toxicology report and the bruises we were able to determine the probable cause of death. The vertical abrasion on her cheek told us that Natalie Wood, possibly attempting to board the dinghy, had fallen into the ocean, striking her face. Because she had sustained no deep traumatic head wounds, we knew she had been conscious while in the water. The bruises on her lower legs, I believed at the time, were incurred during her fall.

  The saddest part of the story, as far as I was concerned, was revealed in the clothing she had worn. The reason she drowned was the great weight of the jacket, which had pulled her down when she attempted to climb into the dinghy. If she had just taken off that jacket, she might easily have made it into the dinghy, and survived.

  The reason she hadn’t removed the killing jacket was suggested in the report from the toxicology lab. That .14 percent of alcohol in her blood was, I believed, a deadly factor. She couldn’t have been thinking clearly, or she would have slipped off the jacket at once.

  On the basis of the autopsy and the other tests we had completed up to that point, I concluded that Natalie Wood had drowned as a result of that wet jacket. I surmised that the untied dinghy, and her body, had drifted a mile away from the yacht on the current. But a question haunted me. When she first fell off the swimming step into the water, why didn’t she simply swim a few strokes and reboard the yacht by way of the step? It must have been only a few feet away from her. Even with the heavy jacket, she could have accomplished this effort easily, it seemed to me, for the step, unlike the dinghy, was stable.

  Perhaps my investigator on the scene, Eaker, would provide an answer to that mystery. I sent word for her to join me in my office at noon, along with Dr. Ronald Kornblum, the deputy chief of the forensic medicine division, and Dr. Choi, who had performed the autopsy.

  My office was on the second floor of Los Angeles County’s Forensic Science Center, and we met there as scheduled. The two senior pathologists, Richard Wilson, my administrative chief of staff, and investigator Eaker sat across from me as I outlined my preliminary finding of an accidental drowning, adding that alcohol had played a significant role in Natalie Wood’s death. One of my staff said, “What the reporters out there are really interested in, Dr. Noguchi, isn’t so much whether Natalie Wood was intoxicated or not, but why she left the yacht in the middle of the night.”

  I nodded. The question tied in with my own. Why hadn’t she climbed back aboard the yacht when she was only one or two feet away? Both actions seemed to indicate that she was determined to get away from the yacht. It was then I was told that one of the sheriff’s deputies had apparently reported that Wagner and Walken were quarreling in the main cabin that night. In theory, it was possible that Natalie Wood became disgusted with them and tried to take off in the dinghy just to get away.

  Silence filled the room. All of us were taken aback by the implications of this idea. It fed right into the hands of those who had been speculating that some “scandal” on the yacht had contributed to the famous star’s death.

  I’ve attended many dramatic news conferences after the deaths of world-famous motion picture stars, but none so tense as the one following Natalie Wood’s death. Rumors of foul play, as well as of sexual scandal, were rocketing through the movie colony. And it was my responsibility to produce the facts that would rebut or substantiate those rumors.

  Ironically, an almost identical scene had greeted me only two weeks before when I announced my findings concerning the accidental death of another famous movie actor, William Holden, who had been the intimate friend of Stephanie Powers, Robert Wagner’s co-star in the television series Hart to Hart. Now the reporters listened no less avidly as I stated our preliminary findings on Natalie Wood’s death: “She slipped and drowned accidentally while attempting to enter an inflatable boat to leave the yacht.” I said there was no evidence of foul play. A scrape on her left cheek was consistent with her falling and having struck the dinghy as she went into the water.

  Then, fully mindful of the William Holden case, I hesitated. I didn’t relish another storm of criticism like the one that had been launched against me when I revealed that alcohol had contributed to Holden’s death. But now, with almost the same facts in my possession in Natalie Wood’s case, I couldn’t lie. The toxicological tests had been performed. By law they must be included in the official public record. And every reporter who saw the .14 percent blood-alcohol reading would immediately know that it was well above the .10 percent alcoholic level which is defined as legal intoxication by the California Vehicular Code.

  Nevertheless, I tried to soft-pedal the information. I said there had been only “recreational” drinking going on that Saturday evening when the Wagners went ashore on Catalina Island for dinner. “I don’t believe drunkenness caused her to fall into the water in the first place,” I continued. “The point one four level of alcohol in the blood means she was only ‘slightly intoxicated.’ She apparently was having wine, champagne—perhaps seven or eight glasses. That would certainly not cause a person to be drunk.”

  What I said was true, but I was purposely modifying the facts. I didn’t remind the reporters of one significant forensic detail. The alcohol level, of course, had actually been higher than .14 percent at the time Natalie Wood fell into the water.

  A reporter asked, “Did intoxication play any role in her death?”

  I thought of the soaked jacket that could have been shrugged off and said, “The intoxication was one of the factors involved in the fact that she was not able to respond well to the emergency, after she was in the water.”

  Thus I toned down the toxicological evidence as best I could, while still telling the truth. But then the questioning turned to an even more controversial area. I believe it was the NBC television reporter who inquired why Natalie Wood left the yacht in the first place.

  I said I didn’t know and suggested we might learn through a “psychological autopsy” why she felt she should separate herself from her husband and Walken that night.

  No luck. The bombshell question exploded, showing that the press already knew. “Dr. Noguchi, was there a dispute on that yacht between Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken that caused Natalie Wood to leave?”

  I held up my hand. “Just a moment,” I said and turned to Richard Wilson, whom I had asked to attend the conference. He was in charge of press liaison and had received information about the argument. So, as the reporters watched, I called him to my side. I was seated behind a microphone as he knelt beside me, and I don’t think he was aware that he could be heard over the microphone. “Yes,” he told me, “there was an argument.”

  I turned to the press, knowing they had already heard Wilson’s statement, but repeated it for the record.

  “What kind of an argument?” one reporter shouted.

  I nodded to Wilson, who said, in a lower voice, “Nonviolent.”

  I said, “It was a nonviolent argument.”

  By then the room was in an uproar. The dispute was big news. An argument, nonviolent or not, could mean that Wagner had indirectly contributed to his wife’s death. That would be front-page copy. And it was only the beginning. The quarrel might open the door to further speculations of a sensational nature about what had actually taken place among these three “beautiful people” on that yacht.

  By now the reporters knew that Richard Wilson was the man with the information, and they battered him with questions. But Wilson said he didn’t know what the dispute was about, only that it was a heated conversation on a variety of subjects. In response to another question, he replied that the dispute was not over Natalie Wood.

  “They were arguing for general purposes,” Wilson said. “We don’t know exactly why. There was no physical altercation. Each of the two gentlemen was examined.”

  Still the questions came. “Did she try to leave the yacht because she believed she was physically
endangered?”

  “According to the information we have, no,” Wilson said. “She felt no danger at all. The argument was not over her.”

  As the reporters hammered away at Wilson, I grew more and more uneasy. The question of the quarrel had bothered me before the press conference, and now it bothered me even more.

  The reasons for my unease were twofold. One, the information was thirdhand, as far as I was concerned. A deputy sheriff had apparently told a staff member, who informed me, that there had been an argument. And secondly, there was the consideration that always bedevils all medical examiners: how much information should be revealed if it is not directly relevant?

  In this case, a shouting match between Wagner and Walken which caused Natalie Wood to leave the yacht, even if true, was a peripheral matter as far as I was concerned. But the law charges medical examiners with discovery of “the manner, cause, and circumstance of death”—and such an argument could be construed as a part of the “circumstance.”

  Still, the dispute, true or not, was, I believed, a fringe circumstance. It might provide a reason why Natalie Wood wanted to take a lonely boat ride that night. But the actual reason for her death was her accidental slip. In more familiar terms, it’s as if a husband and wife engage in a verbal fight, and the wife angrily runs out of the house, drives away in a car, and is killed in a crash because she accidentally steps on the accelerator instead of the brake. The husband is not guilty of murder.

  But the press was hot on the Wagner trail, determined to discover what had really transpired on that yacht during the night which caused Natalie Wood to leave in such a hurry that she didn’t even dress. And they had already picked up the scent from other sources. Sergeant Sue Maher of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau told a Los Angeles Times reporter that “investigators confirmed that there was some kind of interaction between Wagner and Walken—but we don’t know whether it was heated or whether they were just joking around.”