After Natalie Wood’s sister Lana Wood said she believes Robert Wagner killed the actress, the yacht captain from the night she died said he thinks the same.
“You could hear things being thrown around the state room,” Dennis Davern said on “Dr. Phil” on Friday. “I think the argument got out of control, she was knocked unconscious by a physical fight from Robert Wagner and put in the water.”
“Do you believe Robert Wagner murdered Natalie Wood?” Dr. Phil McGraw asked.
“I really do,” Davern responded.
Davern agreed with Lana Wood’s account that there was a big fight between Wagner and Wood and when Davern went to check in on the couple, Wagner allegedly told Davern to leave.
“When everything got quiet I thought, ‘something just isn’t right,’” Davern continued, saying that he then found Wagner at the back of the boat. “And he looked at me and he said, ‘Natalie’s missing.’”
Wood was married to Wagner from 1972 until her death on Nov. 29, 1981, off Catalina Island in California. The then 43-year-old actress was sailing with Wagner, as well as Christopher Walken and Davern, but was found floating in the water wearing a red down jacket and a flannel nightgown.
In February, Wagner was named a person of interest in the case. In 2011, he was named “not a suspect” by the sheriff’s department. Investigators said Wagner has refused to speak with them since the case was reopened. There has long been speculation surrounding the death of the “West Side Story” star. At first, Wagner, Walken and Davern told detectives that she took a dinghy and went to shore. Over time, investigators said, Wagner and Davern’s accounts shifted.
A spokesperson for Wagner has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.
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