Tag Archives: Death

12 TRUTHS LEARNED FROM LIFE AND WRITING – WITH ANNE LAMOTT

If you’ve been around writing—and life—for a while, you’ll know of Anne Lamott. Anne’s the “Shitty First Draft” gal and “Bird by Bird” guru who says more in a phrase than most writers spew in a book. Anne Lamott addresses life’s capital-letter subjects. Alcoholism. Motherhood. Cancer. Community. Alternate Lifestyles. Listening. Faith. Depression. Sobriety. Desperation. Storytelling. Work. Politics. Jesus, Christianity and God. Anne’s also laugh-out-loud funny, and she’s brutally truthful.

Anne Lamott is a Guggenheim Fellow, a U of C prof, a highly-sought lecturer, a Hall of Fame Californian and the multi-time bestseller of fiction and non-fiction alike. To quote Anne, “I write books I’d love to come upon. Ones that are honest, concerned with real lives, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, craziness – and make me laugh.”

And, there’s the progressive social activist side to Anne Lamott. She’s a polished public speaker with a viral TED Talk. With kind permission, here’s Anne’s TED video and transcript.

“My seven-year-old grandson sleeps just down the hall from me, and he wakes up a lot of mornings and he says, “You know, this could be the best day ever.” And other times, in the middle of the night, he calls out in a tremulous voice, “Nana, will you ever get sick and die?”

I think this pretty much says it for me and for most of the people I know, that we’re a mixed grill of happy anticipation and dread. So I sat down a few days before my 61st birthday, and I decided to compile a list of everything I know for sure. There’s so little truth in the popular culture, and it’s good to be sure of a few things.

For instance, I am no longer 47, although this is the age I feel, and the age I like to think of myself as being. My friend Paul used to say in his late 70s that he felt like a young man with something really wrong with him.

Our true person is outside of time and space, but looking at the paperwork, I can, in fact, see that I was born in 1954. My inside self is outside of time and space. It doesn’t have an age. I’m every age I’ve ever been, and so are you, although I can’t help mentioning as an aside that it might have been helpful if I hadn’t followed the skin care rules of the ’60s, which involved getting as much sun as possible while slathered in baby oil and basking in the glow of a tinfoil reflector shield.

It was so liberating, though, to face the truth that I was no longer in the last throes of middle age, that I decided to write down every single true thing I know. People feel really doomed and overwhelmed these days, and they keep asking me what’s true. So I hope that my list of things I’m almost positive about might offer some basic operating instructions to anyone who is feeling really overwhelmed or beleaguered.

Number one: The first and truest thing is that all truth is a paradox. Life is both a precious, unfathomably beautiful gift, and it’s impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It’s been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It’s so hard and weird that we sometimes wonder if we’re being punked. It’s filled simultaneously with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, desperate poverty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together. I don’t think it’s an ideal system.

Number two: Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes — including you.

Three: There is almost nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of lasting way, unless you’re waiting for an organ. You can’t buy, achieve or date serenity and peace of mind. This is the most horrible truth, and I so resent it. But it’s an inside job, and we can’t arrange peace or lasting improvement for the people we love most in the world. They have to find their own ways, their own answers. You can’t run alongside your grown children with sunscreen and ChapStick on their hero’s journey. You have to release them. It’s disrespectful not to. And if it’s someone else’s problem, you probably don’t have the answer, anyway.

Our help is usually not very helpful. Our help is often toxic. And help is the sunny side of control. Stop helping so much. Don’t get your help and goodness all over everybody.

This brings us to number four: Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared, even the people who seem to have it most together. They are much more like you than you would believe, so try not to compare your insides to other people’s outsides. It will only make you worse than you already are.

Also, you can’t save, fix or rescue any of them or get anyone sober. What helped me get clean and sober 30 years ago was the catastrophe of my behavior and thinking. So I asked some sober friends for help, and I turned to a higher power. One acronym for God is the “gift of desperation,” G-O-D, or as a sober friend put it, by the end I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards.

So God might mean, in this case, “me running out of any more good ideas.”

While fixing and saving and trying to rescue is futile, radical self-care is quantum, and it radiates out from you into the atmosphere like a little fresh air. It’s a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, “Well, isn’t she full of herself,” just smile obliquely like Mona Lisa and make both of you a nice cup of tea. Being full of affection for one’s goofy, self-centered, cranky, annoying self is home. It’s where world peace begins.

Number five: Chocolate with 75 percent cacao is not actually a food. Its best use is as a bait in snake traps or to balance the legs of wobbly chairs. It was never meant to be considered an edible.

Number six: Writing. Every writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. That’s the secret of life. That’s probably the main difference between you and them. They just do it. They do it by prearrangement with themselves. They do it as a debt of honor. They tell stories that come through them one day at a time, little by little.

When my older brother was in fourth grade, he had a term paper on birds due the next day, and he hadn’t started. So my dad sat down with him with an Audubon book, paper, pencils and brads — for those of you who have gotten a little less young and remember brads — and he said to my brother, “Just take it bird by bird, buddy. Just read about pelicans and then write about pelicans in your own voice. And then find out about chickadees, and tell us about them in your own voice. And then geese.”

So the two most important things about writing are: bird by bird and really god-awful first drafts. If you don’t know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours, and you get to tell it. If people wanted you to write more warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.

You’re going to feel like hell if you wake up someday and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart: your stories, memories, visions and songs — your truth, your version of things — in your own voice. That’s really all you have to offer us, and that’s also why you were born.

Seven: Publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine. The most degraded and evil people I’ve ever known are male writers who’ve had huge best sellers. And yet, returning to number one, that all truth is paradox, it’s also a miracle to get your work published, to get your stories read and heard. Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, that it will fill the Swiss-cheesy holes inside of you. It can’t. It won’t. But writing can. So can singing in a choir or a bluegrass band. So can painting community murals or birding or fostering old dogs that no one else will.

Number eight: Families. Families are hard, hard, hard, no matter how cherished and astonishing they may also be. Again, see number one.

At family gatherings where you suddenly feel homicidal or suicidal –remember that in all cases, it’s a miracle that any of us, specifically, were conceived and born. Earth is forgiveness school. It begins with forgiving yourself, and then you might as well start at the dinner table. That way, you can do this work in comfortable pants.

When William Blake said that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love, he knew that your family would be an intimate part of this, even as you want to run screaming for your cute little life. But I promise you are up to it. You can do it, Cinderella, you can do it, and you will be amazed.

Nine: Food. Try to do a little better. I think you know what I mean.

Number ten: Grace. Grace is spiritual WD-40, or water wings. The mystery of grace is that God loves Henry Kissinger and Vladimir Putin and me exactly as much as He or She loves your new grandchild. Go figure.

The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and heals our world. To summon grace, say, “Help,” and then buckle up. Grace finds you exactly where you are, but it doesn’t leave you where it found you. And grace won’t look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, regrettably. But the phone will ring or the mail will come and then against all odds, you’ll get your sense of humor about yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness. It helps us breathe again and again and gives us back to ourselves, and this gives us faith in life and each other. And remember — grace always bats last.

Eleven: God just means goodness. It’s really not all that scary. It means the divine or a loving, animating intelligence, or, as we learned from the great “Deteriorata,” “the cosmic muffin.” A good name for God is: “Not me.” Emerson said that the happiest person on Earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot and look up. My pastor said you can trap bees on the bottom of mason jars without lids because they don’t look up, so they just walk around bitterly bumping into the glass walls. Go outside. Look up. Secret of life.

And finally: death. Number twelve. Wow and yikes. It’s so hard to bear when the few people you cannot live without die. You’ll never get over these losses, and no matter what the culture says, you’re not supposed to. We Christians like to think of death as a major change of address, but in any case, the person will live again fully in your heart if you don’t seal it off. Like Leonard Cohen said, “There are cracks in everything, and that’s how the light gets in.” And that’s how we feel our people again fully alive.

Also, the people will make you laugh out loud at the most inconvenient times, and that’s the great good news. But their absence will also be a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you. Grief and friends, time and tears will heal you to some extent. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate and moisturize you and the ground on which you walk.

Do you know the first thing that God says to Moses? He says, “Take off your shoes.” Because this is holy ground, all evidence to the contrary. It’s hard to believe, but it’s the truest thing I know. When you’re a little bit older, like my tiny personal self, you realize that death is as sacred as birth. And don’t worry — get on with your life. Almost every single death is easy and gentle with the very best people surrounding you for as long as you need. You won’t be alone. They’ll help you cross over to whatever awaits us. As Ram Dass said, “When all is said and done, we’re really just all walking each other home.”

I think that’s it, but if I think of anything else, I’ll let you know. Thank you.

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Anne Lamott’s Barclay Agency Biography:

Anne Lamott writes and speaks about subjects that begin with capital letters: Alcoholism, Motherhood, Jesus.  But armed with self-effacing humor – she is laugh-out-loud funny – and ruthless honesty, Lamott converts her subjects into enchantment.  Actually, she writes about what most of us don’t like to think about.  She wrote her first novel for her father, the writer Kenneth Lamott, when he was diagnosed with brain cancer.  She has said that the book was “a present to someone I loved who was going to die.”

In all her novels, she writes about loss – loss of loved ones and loss of personal control.  She doesn’t try to sugar-coat the sadness, frustration and disappointment, but tells her stories with honesty, compassion and a pureness of voice.  As she says, “I have a lot of hope and a lot of faith and I struggle to communicate that.”  Anne Lamott does communicate her faith; in her books and in person, she lifts, comforts, and inspires, all the while keeping us laughing.

Anne Lamott is the author of seven novels, Hard Laughter, Rosie, Joe Jones, Blue Shoe, All New People, Crooked Little Heart, and Imperfect Birds. She has also written several bestselling books of nonfiction, including, Operating Instructions, an account of life as a single mother during her son’s first year; Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son; and the classic book on writing; Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. She has also authored several collections of autobiographical essays on faith; Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith,  Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, and Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. In addition, she has written, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, Stitches; A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair,  Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace, and Hallelujah Anyway; Rediscovering Mercy. Her most recent book is Almost Everything: Notes on Hope (October 16, 2018, Riverhead Books).

Lamott has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has taught at UC Davis, as well as at writing conferences across the country. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Mock has made a documentary on Lamott, entitled “Bird by Bird with Annie” (1999).  Anne Lamott has also been inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

THE TERRIBLE TRUTH ABOUT ADOLF HITLER’S REMAINS

The name “Adolf Hitler” is synonymous with evil. Pure evil. Hitler, or the Fuhrer as he self-titled, ruled Germany as chancellor and dictator from the rise of Nazism in 1933 until his death by suicide in 1945. During that time, millions of civilians and soldiers died and the Motherland was destroyed — a truly atrocious era in human history. Horrific as that time was, today there’s a terrible possibility a new monster could arise from Adolf Hitler’s remains.

From the moment Adolf Hitler expired, rumors circulated about what really happened to the Fuhrer’s body. Many witnesses were at Hitler’s death scene. Most saw his deceased form, and some admitted to help dispose of Hitler’s earthly evidence. Despite sworn statements and hard medical facts, few details were released to the Allies and the western world. That was because Russians did the investigation. Red Army Intelligence officers processed forensics that included autopsying and conclusively identifying Hitler’s cadaver.

Because of a lack of released information, speculation of Hitler’s survival soon started. Concocted conspiracy theories began, and there were sightings of the Fuhrer reported on every continent including a secret submarine base near Antarctica. Nazi hunters followed clues across Europe, in Asia, Africa, America and deep into Argentina. None paid off because the truth was the Russians had Hitler all along.

The truth is also that Hitler’s corpse made a remarkable journey from one hiding spot to another. He was buried and dug-up at least five times over a twenty-five year period. Today, tangible parts of Adolf Hitler still exist, and that leads to a modern biological possibility the Fuhrer could live again. Here’s the terrible truth about Adolf Hitler’s remains.

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Adolf Hitler entered the world in 1889. His birthplace was near Linz which was then part of the Austrian-Hungarian alliance. Hitler moved to Germany in 1913 and worked as an aspiring architect but amounted to no more than a starving artist.

He served in the German Army during World War 1 and rose to a corporal rank. He was injured while running messages and spent most of the First World War on the sidelines. Following Germany’s surrender, Hitler immersed in trade union politics with the German Workers Party and soon got himself in trouble.

Hitler was jailed as a political prisoner after he led a failed coup. His lock-up during 1923 and 1924 gave him time to write Mein Kampf (My Struggle) which was his manifesto outlining his plan to gain dictatorial power in Germany and expand Aryan racial interests. Hitler also met Rudolf Hess who had significant influence in solidifying anti-Jewish hatred in Hitler’s psyche.

By the early 1930s, Adolf Hitler attained sufficient control through the National Socialist Party which were the Nazis. Hitler surrounded himself with particularly nasty men and used brute force to gain and maintain authority. Some were ideological psychopaths such as Heinrich Himmler. Others, like Herman Goering, were crass opportunists.

Hitler managed to establish massive support from the German population which included the Caucasians and excluded other races and cultures, especially the Jews. He formed plans to expand Germany’s empire and gain space for the blond-haired, blue-eyed pure Aryans. But, his 1939 action of annexing Poland started the Second World War and began his undoing.

One of Hitler’s massive mistakes was declaring war on Russia. From a historical point, there was no need to do this for Hitler to execute his manifesto. It seems Hitler went slowly mad and his delusions caused him to fatally overextend his armed forces’ capacity and the world turned on him through an unlikely Russian and western alliance.

By April of 1945, the war was nearly over and Hitler denied it. He was probably insane by this time which is backed-up by accounts of his inner circle who stayed with Hitler in his Berlin bunker until the Russians arrived. There were reports of Hitler collapsing in tearful rages and hysterically ordering non-existent army units into combat action.

On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler married his long-time mistress, Eva Braun, in the Fuhrer bunker. After a minor champagne celebration and dictating his last will and testament, Hitler and Braun retired to their chambers and committed joint suicide. Exactly how they did it and what became of their bodies turned into a world-class mystery. Some describe it as a parlor game full of crazy conspiracies.

The best evidence of what really happened to Hitler and Braun comes from two sources. One is eyewitnesses who were in the bunker at the time. The other is scientific material carefully collected by the Russian government. The first information pool has the usual witness fallibilities. The second source has credibility issues due to Russian misinformation, concealment, and cover-ups.

There is absolutely no doubt Adolf Hitler died on April 30, 1945. That is uncontested by any credible opinion. Most accounts have Hitler using the “pistol and poison” method where he ingested prussic acid, or hydrogen cyanide, while putting a handgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. All accounts indicate Evan Braun was not shot. Rather, she also took a cyanide dose.

Hitler clearly expressed his wish to have their bodies cremated. He’d learned of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s public execution where Mussolini’s body was hung by the feet and mutilated by the crowd. Adolf Hitler did not want that happening to him. He specifically instructed his staff to take his body out of the bunker and set in on fire in the garden.

This act is well recorded and supported by now-released evidence. Hitler’s aides poured some sort of petroleum fuel over the Fuhrer and Eva Braun. However, they were unable to create sufficient heat to consume the corpses and the cadavers were only charred.

There were several attempts to increase the inferno, but time ran out. The Russians were on their doorstep and lobbing artillery rounds into the garden and at the bunker. Aides hastily dug a shell crater into a shallow grave and covered up Hitler and Braun’s burnt bodies.

The bunker occupants surrendered and quickly disclosed where Hitler and Braun lay buried. Russian medical experts arrived on May 4, 1945, and exhumed the grave. They took both bodies to a facility at Buch in Berlin and stored them above ground. Two Russian pathologists performed autopsies on May 10, and their report was publicly released under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act in 2000.

Hitler and Braun were superficially scorched to the point of visual non-recognition. However, they were skeletally intact which included their organs being suitable for dissection. Braun showed no bullet wound but did exhibit post-mortem shrapnel damage. One pathologist noted this probably happened as an artillery round exploded while she was on fire. Glass shards and cyanide traces were in her mouth, and they listed Eva Braun’s cause of death as suicide by poison.

Adolf Hitler showed no conclusive sign of disease or any sudden medical event. As rumors always said, Hitler only had one testicle. His brain was biologically unremarkable, but it was traversed by a bullet passage. The pathologists could not identify an entrance wound and theorized it was probably through the mouth. There was also no notable exit wound or bullet slug itself. The report says Hitler’s upper cranial bone was missing, and they assumed it was blown off by the gunshot force.

The pathologists conclusively found glass shards and cyanide traces in the Fuhrer’s mouth. They listed his cause of death as a combination of cyanide poisoning and a gunshot wound to the head. Something else they discovered in Hitler’s mouth was crucial to identifying his body. That was Adolf Hitler’s unmistakable dentition.

Hitler’s teeth were in terrible condition. His upper and lower mandibles were a mess of bridges and crowns with a sprinkling of natural enamel that enclosed tooth pulp. His gums were inflamed, and he had several extraction gaps that weren’t replaced. It was an odontologist’s dream when it came to making a postmortem identification.

The Russian pathology team located Hitler’s dentist and assistant who were thoroughly familiar with every part of the Fuhrer’s mouth. They viewed the dental work from the cadaver and produced Hitler’s complete records. They established there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever these dental works belong to the now-deceased Adolf Hitler.

Joseph Stalin, the Russian dictator, wasn’t so sure. Stalin was paranoid that his nemesis Hitler would come to haunt him by people believing Hitler was alive and hidden or having his body become a future Nazi shrine. Stalin stalled and ordered Hitler’s body temporarily buried with the dental work brought to Moscow for his inspection.

It’s not clear from historical records where Hitler’s body was temporarily interred. It seems he was stored in the Russian-occupied sector of Berlin. Once Stalin was satisfied Hitler was dead, and the dental work was conclusive identification, he began a misinformation campaign to deny this. Stalin’s motives for fooling the west have gone to the grave with him, but Stalin wasn’t finished with Hitler’s body.

On June 3, 1945, Stalin ordered Hitler’s remains exhumed from temporary storage and moved to a highly-secret and secluded spot. This was in the Brandenburg forest area southwest of Berlin. Hitler, and presumably Braun as well, were buried in wooden caskets which were more like shipping crates. They lay undisturbed for several months until Stalin had a change of plans.

For whatever reason, Stalin ordered Hitler dug-up again. On February 21, 1946, Stalin directed that Hitler be put under the ground at a parade square inside a Russian-held military base at Magdeburg, Germany. This spot was southwest of Brandenburg, but in a high-traffic area instead of a remote forest.

Joseph Stalin died in 1953. Russia carried on as the Soviet Union and entered the cold war. By 1970, Russia began turning occupied territory over to the East German government which was communist friendly. That included the Magdeburg base going back into German hands.

Yuri Andropov, who went on to be the Soviet Union leader, was the KGB head in the early 70s. Andropov knew Hitler’s body was under the Magdeburg parade square, and the last thing he wanted was a future German regime breathing life into Hitler’s memory by turning that site into a Neo-Nazi Mecca. Andropov had Hitler exhumed again and finally dealt with.

In the middle of the night on April 3-4, 1970, a secret shovel squad extracted what was left of Adolf Hitler’s bones and burned them. There are conflicting stories about what happened. Andropov is on public record stating the ashes were scattered in the nearby Elbe River. Work-party members state the bones were so dry that they vanished in smoke. And a few reports hint that Adolf Hitler was dumped into the city sewer system.

What finally took place with Hitler’s cadaver may never be known. However, there’s one thing for certain. Adolf Hitler’s teeth remain locked in a Kremlin vault. They’re resting there today.

What’s also certain is Hitler’s natural teeth contain his DNA. Those molecules stay preserved in the pulp. Hitler’s biological profile is encased within the enamel practically forever, and DNA can be cloned. Cloning Adolf Hitler was the plot in the 1978 blockbuster The Boys From Brazil. Back then, it was science fiction. Today, technology of DNA extraction and cloning zygote embryos into a surrogate mother is not sci-fi. It’s very, very, very real.

All it would take is some evil crackpot doctor like Joseph Mengele to steal Hitler’s tooth, saw it open, and start cloning away. That’s the terrible truth about Adolf Hitler’s remains.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN NATALIE WOOD’S DEATH?

As Hollywood mysteries go, Natalie Wood’s suspicious death tops the list. On November 29, 1981, the 43-year-old movie superstar was found floating off Santa Catalina Island, 25 miles southwest of Long Beach, California. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Coroner’s Office quickly concluded Wood died from an accidental drowning. But that’s no longer the case. Today, Natalie Wood’s manner of death is officially ruled a “drowning from undetermined factors”. Now her then-husband, actor Robert Wagner, is officially a police “person of interest” for causing Wood’s death.

The question of what really happened in Natalie Wood’s death has never been answered. It’s never disappeared from public interest and that’s for good reason. At the time, Wood was one of Hollywood’s hottest stars. So was Robert Wagner. Together, the pair was a celebrity sensation­—a mix of love, hate, beauty, sex, scandal, jealousy and violence. No wonder there’s still a fascination in this unsolved case after nearly four decades.

That Natalie Wood died by drowning is indisputable. That’s crystal clear. But, how she ended up in the water is murky as hell. The circumstances stink like an old, rotten fish and the balance of probabilities says Wagner threw Natalie in after a night’s drunken fight. This is what the LA sheriff detectives also think. They recently did an hour-long episode on CBS 48 Hours called Natalie Wood—Death in Dark Water to rock the boat and surface new evidence. Likely, here is what really happened in Natalie Wood’s death.

The Wood—Wagner Relationship

Natalie Wood was a true child acting prodigy. She was born Natalia Zakharenko in San Francisco to Russian and Ukrainian immigrant parents. Wood’s first role was at age 4. By 8, she co-starred in the 1947 Christmas Classic Miracle on 34th Street, and at sixteen she was nominated for an Oscar alongside James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. 2 more Academy Award nominations followed for Splendor in the Grass and Love With the Proper Stranger. Other successes included West Side Story and Gypsy. By 25, Wood’s natural beauty and acting talent were in high demand.

Robert Wagner claimed most of his success and fame in television roles. Wagner was the handsome leading man in the 70s and 80s shows It Takes a Thief, Switch and Hart to Hart. However, he had many A and B-list movie roles pre and post-TV. Wagner is now 88 and lives in Aspen, Colorado with actor wife, Jill St. John.

Wood admitted to having a childhood crush on Robert Wagner who was eight years senior. They married in 1957 when she was 19 and he was 27. That ended in a 1962 divorce with Wood suing Wagner for “mental cruelties”. They remarried in 1973 and were still legally attached when Wood died. That union was again shaky. Wood was rumored to be having an affair with actor Christopher Walken during their relationship filming the movie Brainstorm.

Thanksgiving Weekend, 1981

Wood and Wagner planned to spend the 1981 Thanksgiving weekend on their 60-foot motor yacht Splendour moored at Two Harbors on Santa Catalina Island. Catalina lies 25 miles off the California coast between Los Angeles and San Diego. The harbor sits at the Isthmus of Catalina where this popular southern California boating spot narrows. Being on the east side of Catalina, the Two Harbors moorage is protected from the open Pacific Ocean.

It’s not clear why and when, but Wood invited her Brainstorm co-star, Christopher Walken, to join them on the yacht for the weekend. That didn’t go over well with Wagner. He’d already suspected intimacy between his wife and Walken. A few weeks earlier, Wagner flew to the South Carolina Brainstorm film site to check on them. Also accompanying this triangle to Catalina Island was Wagner’s boat captain, Dennis Davern, who also served as Wagner’s caretaker.

The foursome arrived at Two Harbors on Friday afternoon, November 27. The weather was cool, rainy and windy. Davern tied the Splendour to moorage buoy N1 at the center of Isthmus Cove, then detached the yacht’s 13-foot Zodiac inflatable dinghy named Valliant. At about 4 pm, Wood, Wagner, Walken and Davern rode the dinghy from the moored yacht and tied up at the Two Harbors main wharf. They hiked a short distance to a bar/restaurant called Doug’s Harbor Reef, sat down, and began drinking.

Witnesses, including the bar manager Don Whiting, later reported the group seemed in good spirits, and there was no sign of tension. Wood and Walken appeared to be flirting, but Wagner didn’t appear upset. About 10 pm, the four left the bar and took the Valliant dinghy back to the Splendour. There, things got tense. Wood and Wagner began to argue—apparently over how she was reacting to Walken’s attention and Walken’s views about Wood’s acting career—but there was no sign of violence.

Wood stated she had enough from Wagner and asked boat skipper Davern to take her ashore in the dinghy. It was around midnight when Wood checked into a motel room and paid for a separate one for Davern. The next morning, Saturday, November 28, Davern drove Wood back to the yacht where she and Wagner acted as if nothing had happened. Wood made breakfast for the group and everyone appeared pleasant.

At approximately 3 pm on Saturday afternoon, Davern drove Wood and Walken ashore in the dinghy. Wagner stayed on the Splendour attending to personal matters. Davern returned to the yacht, then skippered Wagner ashore about 4:30 where they joined Wood and Walken in the Harbor Reef. Wood and Walken were already into the champagne and carried on, seeming to ignore Wagner and Davern. The four ordered dinner around 8:00 pm and stayed until between 10 and 10:30. Again, all appeared on good terms while inside the bar.

They left as an intoxicated group. Their drunken condition was significant enough for manager Whiting to call Harbor Patrol guard Kurt Craig asking to keep a watch for his departing guests, making sure they got safely back on their yacht, which they did. What happened next is unknown. Somehow, Wood ended up dead—her seriously bruised body face-down in the water. Over the years, the three male survivors have made elusive, inconsistent and changing statements.

Finding Natalie Wood’s Body

Robert Wagner made a marine radio call reporting a missing person at 1:30 am on Sunday, November 29. Don Whiting, who lived on a nearby boat, heard the call. He noted the time. Soon, a search began including Whiting, the Harbor Patrol, the Coast Guard and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Weather conditions were rainy, cool and windy. Search efforts were hampered by darkness with no moon or star light.

At first light, a Sheriff’s helicopter joined the search. Airborne observers quickly spotted a bright red object floating approximately 1mile north-east of where the Splendour was moored. It was approximately 200 yards off a land tip called Blue Cavern Point. At 7:44 am, a surface vessel reached the object and confirmed it was Natalie Wood, deceased.

Wood was in a suspended position with her face in the water, arms outstretched and long hair floating on the surface. Her torso, legs and feet were downward. The only thing keeping her from sinking was her red down jacket which acted as a buoyancy compensator or flotation device. Aside from the jacket, Wood was only dressed in a blue and red flannel nightgown and calf-length, blue argyle socks. She had no shoes or underclothes.

Searchers pulled Wood from the water and placed her on a “Stokes-Litter” search & rescue basket. Her body was transported to a Harbor Patrol shelter and placed in a hyperbolic chamber used for decompressing divers. She was held for safe-keeping while an investigator from the LA County Coroner Office arrived to transport the body back to the mainland for an autopsy.

The missing dinghy Valliant was also found near to where Wood’s body was located. It was resting against the shore at Blue Cavern Point. An examination found the Zodiac’s outboard motor lowered in the water, the control in neutral, the key in the “off” position and the oars fastened down. It appeared never used.

The Preliminary Investigation

Pam Eaker from the LA Coroner’s Office and Detective Duane Razier from the LA County Sheriff’s Department were the preliminary investigators in Natalie Wood’s death. Eaker was an experienced death investigator as was Razier. They only made a brief examination of Wood’s body by examining rigor mortis and photographing it for identification. They noted some bruising to Wood’s left knee but couldn’t see much of her skin due to being covered by the high socks and knee-length nightgown. Wood was lying face up and they didn’t examine her posterior. They also noted foam coming from Wood’s mouth which is typical in drownings.

Eaker’s report indicates when searchers pulled Wood from the water, rigor mortis was minimal. However, when Eaker did a cursory exam at 1:00 pm, Wood was in nearly full rigor. These investigators recorded equilibrium air and water surface temperatures of 62 degrees Fahrenheit and Wood’s internal temperature at 65° F. Eaker’s field investigation report is publicly available but not the police report. It’s unclear if any formal statements were taken at this time.

Eaker reports she spoke to Robert Wagner who stated he last remembered seeing his wife at 11:45 pm. When Wagner realized Wood was missing, he made a radio call for help. Eaker’s report does not record what time Wagner claims he found Wood missing. The report defers to Don Whiting who she interviewed. He was clear the radio call occurred at 1:30 am as he noted the time.

Whiting also provided information about the Wagner/Wood party being intoxicated when they left the bar between 10 and 10:30 pm. He expressed concern for their welfare on the water due to obvious drunkenness, but he made no claim there was tension among the group. It appears Whiting was the only independent witness interviewed. It makes no reference to other occupants onboard the Splendour and appears Davern and Walken were not formally interviewed.

The only reference to Dennis Davern is that he identified Natalie Wood’s body. Robert Wagner did not view his wife’s body at Catalina Island. Rather, he flew back to Los Angeles with Walken on board a sheriff’s helicopter, leaving Davern to deal with the Splendour.

Natalie Wood’s Autopsy

Natalie Wood’s autopsy started at 1:30 pm on Monday, November 30th in the LA County morgue. Dr. Joseph Choi, Deputy Medical Examiner, did the postmortem exam which was overseen by Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. Noguchi was a high-profile medical examiner well-known as the “coroner to the stars” for work on celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Bobby Kennedy, John Belushi, Sharon Tate and Janis Joplin to name a few. Noguchi has also been well-criticized for seeking fame over fact in his pathology career.

The autopsy report and follow-up toxicology report are well-detailed and publically published. Autopsies follow a regular procedure starting with external observations and full-body X-rays. Wood had no broken bones, fractures or head trauma. However, her arms and legs were a mass of bruises as well as notable abrasions on her left cheek and above her left brow. These were superficial contusions rather than lacerations and entirely consistent with mechanical or manual pressure application. They were also antemortem injuries and occurred before death.

Natalie Wood’s internal examination showed a healthy, early-middle-aged woman. There were no natural disease processes evident—nothing natural to cause a medical event which led to her accidentally falling in the water while unconscious. Her lungs were heavy with seawater, and her airway was obstructed with foamy froth. Clearly, Wood’s medical cause of death was due to drowning. However, that did not explain how she got in the water. Nor did it account for her considerable bruising. These are the surface trauma injuries noted Wood’s autopsy report:

  • Superficial abrasion and contusion on left cheek and forehead in upward motion.
  • Diffused bruise over lateral aspect of right forearm measuring 4” x 1” above the wrist.
  • Prominent deformity of left wrist on lateral condyle of the ulna bone.
  • Superficial bruise in deformity approximately ½” diameter.
  • Numerous bruises over right and left lower legs ranging from ½” to 1” in diameter.
  • Significant bruise to anterior of left knee measuring 2” in diameter.
  • Bruising to right ankle area measuring 2” in diameter.
  • Many smaller superficial bruises to anterior and posterior lower legs and thighs measuring approximately ½” to 2” in diameter with no particular pattern.

Photos of Wood’s bruising don’t appear available on the internet like some celebrity death images are. However, Wood’s autopsy anterior and posterior sketches, or face sheets as they’re called, are attached to the autopsy report. They indicate over 50 separate bruise markings.

There’s a significant note in the autopsy report that skin sections of the significant bruises were removed from Wood’s body. These were microscopically examined from histopathological slides and confirmed to be subcutaneous hemorrhages that can only occur while the subject was alive. They were also “very fresh”, indicating they occurred immediately before Wood’s heart stopped by drowning. These injuries were not the result of earlier trauma that was healing.

Additional in Wood’s autopsy report is mention of her estimated time of death. Dr. Choi’s conclusion reads:

“The autopsy findings are consistent with drowning in the ocean. The time of death is difficult to pinpoint, but it appears to be about midnight on November 28/29, 1981. Most of the bruises on the body are superficial and probably sustained at the time of drowning.”

Choi based his estimated time of death based on three factors. One is that approximately 500 ccs of undigested food remained in Wood’s stomach. Based on the witness evidence that she’d eaten around 9:00 pm, that digestive sequence is consistent with a 3-hour period before her digestive system stopped. Second, the water temperature and Wood’s physical size (120 pounds) would have quickly brought on hypothermia. Third, the rigor state was consistent with death occurring about 8 hours before her body was found.

Rigor mortis is mostly dependent on ambient temperature and body size. Generally, the warmer and heavier a body is—the faster rigor sets. Wood was small and died in a cold environment. It’s expected her rigor process would be delayed while suspended in chilled water. It’s also expected rigor would rapidly fix once removed from cold water and placed in a warmer hyperbolic chamber.

Despite questionable bruising, the Los Angeles County Coroner concluded that Wood accidentally drown while intoxicated and falling into the ocean as she tried moving the dinghy. Wood’s blood-alcohol content was 0.14% which is significant for a slight person. There was no sign of illicit intoxicants like cocaine or opiates. She was simply high on alcohol which may have contributed to an early expiration in the water.

In mid-December, 1981, the LA County Coroner Office released its findings. Natalie Wood officially drowned after some mishap with the dinghy. They attributed her extensive bruising to the struggle with a rubber boat. No foul play occurred, they said, and the Sheriff’s Department agreed. Natalie Wood’s death was declared accidental, and the case was closed.

Dennis Davern’s Confession

That conclusion never sat well with the media and the public. For years, speculation and rumors swirled that there was more to Wood’s death than officially concluded. The conclusion never sat well with two other people. One was Natalie Wood’s sister, Lana Wood. The other was Dennis Davern. Together, they petitioned the coroner and police in 2012 to reopen the case. The triggering factor was Daven confessing to police that he’d lied during the 1981investigation. He claimed his conscience finally got to him.

Davern stated he’d been coerced by Wagner to keep quiet. At the time, Wagner was Davern’s boss and sole meal ticket. According to Davern’s new statement, there’d been tension for two days between Wagner and Wood, and it was jealousy over Chris Walken. Davern stated when they got back to the Splendour on the Saturday night, Wood and Walken were very cozy. Finally, Wagner snapped. He grabbed a wine bottle and smashed it, yelling at Walken, “Jesus Christ! What are you trying to do? Fuck my wife?”

Wood was drunk and flipped out. It became a screaming match but there was no physical violence yet. Wood stormed off, saying she was going to bed. She went below to her stateroom, changing into her bedclothes. Walken slipped to his room in a forward cabin while Davern quietly went up to the bridge. Davern places the time as just before midnight.

Within a few minutes, Davern claims he heard Wagner and Wood fighting again. This time, there was physical violence as he could hear banging, crashing and thumping. Then the pair went out on the open stern deck where the dinghy was tied up, floating astern. Davern claimed more physical fighting took place, and he heard Wagner scream at Wood, “Get off my fucking boat!” More fighting took place and, suddenly, everything went quiet.

Davern is clear he did not hear a “sploosh” or Wood splashing or crying for help in the water. He claims he waited a few more minutes, then went down and found Wagner alone in the salon. Davern states Wagner appeared distraught, nervous, sweaty and shaking. He told Davern that Wood “was gone”. Wagner’s story was she took the dinghy and went to shore like she did the previous night.

Davern didn’t buy it for a minute. For one thing, he never heard the dinghy’s noisy outboard engine start. For another, Davern knew Wood didn’t know how to operate it. As well, he knew she wouldn’t go out alone in dark, stormy conditions. If she truly wanted to leave, she’d have asked Davern to drive her as before. And, Davern knew Wood was terrified of dark sea water.

Davern claims he wanted to start an immediate search. Wagner refused, saying they’d wait for a bit and see if she’ll return. Wagner broke open a bottle of scotch and shared it with Davern over the next hour and a half. Despite Davern’s pleadings to start a search, Wagner refused. Finally, at 1:30 am, Wagner placed the first radio call. During this time, there was no contact with Chris Walken. Apparently, he stayed in his room till morning.

Davern makes another astounding claim. He states after Wood’s body was found, but before investigators arrived, Wagner had a closed-door meeting with Davern and Walken. Davern alleges Wagner laid out a common story they were all to stick with. Daven doesn’t allege Wagner admitting throwing Wood in the water. Rather, the story he wanted them to relay is no one saw her leave and there was no fight. Daven states Wagner ended the session with, “That’s the story. Okay? Everyone got it?”

Natalie Wood’s Death Case is Reopened

Based on Dennis Davern’s information, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department reopened Natalie Wood’s death investigation in May 2012. They held a joint meeting with the current Chief Medical Examiner who reviewed the medical evidence. Dr. Choi was now dead and Dr. Nagouchi was long retired. This review concluded Wood’s cause of death was still from drowning. However, they gave the opinion that Wood’s bruises were far more consistent with a multi-person fight onboard the yacht rather than a sole struggle in the water.

The LA County Coroner amended Wood’s death certificate from an accidental drowning to “Drowning and Other Undermined Factors”. They stopped short of ruling it a homicide which requires proof the death was caused by another human being. However, they could no longer support an accidental conclusion.

The new investigators with the LA Sheriff’s Department also stop short of claiming foul play. They describe their investigation as being a suspicious death where the full truth has not been revealed. They are also tactful about calling Robert Wagner as a murder suspect. They classify him as a person of interest who they’d like to interview.

Lieutenant John Corina and Detective Sergeant Ralph Hernandez state they’ve made ten attempts to interview Wagner. Each time, he’s refused. Now, they’re appealing to the public for any information pertinent to the Natalie Wood case. Corina and Hernandez gave a candid look at their investigation during the CBS 48 Hours documentary aired February 5th, 2018. They claim to have new witnesses come forward corroborating Davern’s claim of a fight on the Splendour’s back deck. Conclusively, they say, it was Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood.

No one, however, states they actually saw Wood go into the water. As Lt. Corina puts it, “She got in the water somehow, and I don’t think she got in the water by herself”. Corina adds, “This doesn’t meet the smell test. Wagner’s version makes absolutely no sense. We’d love to hear his side, his truthful version of the events. What he’s told original investigators and what he’s portrayed since then really don’t add up to what we’ve found.”

Det. Sgt. Hernandez states, “She (Wood) looked like the victim of an assault.” Corina goes further, saying, “She’s seriously bruised on the arms, legs and face. Then she goes to get in the dinghy and into town—in her pajamas, socks, in the middle of the night. It’s raining out and midnight when she can’t see, but she’s going to take the dinghy, which she never drives, probably doesn’t know how to drive, and take it to town. That makes no sense at all.”

Corina and Hernandez discuss their witness evidence credibility. They rate their two independent witnesses as “very credible” and call Davern “credible” based that he originally misled investigators but now his new version is corroborated or backed up by the independent people. As for what Christopher Walken has said, Corina states, “He’s cooperating, but we’ve agreed to keep his information confidential. For now.”

When asked if they’ll ever solve the Natalie Wood case, Corina answered, “We’re closer to understanding what happened, but critical questions remain. Time is our biggest enemy here with over 36 years passing since it happened. We’re reaching out one last time to see if anyone will come forward with information they may know.”

How Natalie Wood Likely Went in the Water

To think Natalie Wood went in the water voluntarily is preposterous. She never went for a relaxing swim. She was not suicidal by any stretch of the imagination. And it’s highly unlikely she was trying to stealthily flee by untying the dinghy and slipping into a guideless tender. It’s even crazier to think a movie star headed for some free fun on a small town at midnight, soaking wet in pitch black with no shoes and no underwear.

No. There’s only one explanation. Someone dragged Natalie Wood off that boat into the water—kicking and screaming. That was her husband, Robert Wagner. Nothing else makes sense.

The key to understanding what physically took place is examining Wood’s bruise pattern recorded at her autopsy. These are in no way consistent with thrashing about in the water while trying to climb into a flexible dingy. Natalie Wood’s bruises are entirely consistent with being gripped by her wrists and around her legs and arms. Her face abrasion is consistent with being dragged face-down, backward, along the yacht’s rear deck. Nothing else fits.

What’s really telling is the damage to the outside of Natalie Wood’s left wrist. By stating there’s a very prominent deformity to the lateral condyle of the ulna with no fresh fracture means her wrist was dislocated but not broken. That requires a lot of force—a painful force—an external force. *Note – there is some indication through comments sent to me that Natalie Wood may have had this deformity to her left wrist for some time before her death however the autopsy report reads that this was a dislocation which would have been painful if not treated and reset.*

All evidence—physical, medical and witness observations—indicates Wood and Wagner were in an intense fight. That alleged statement, “Get off my fucking boat!” is something a witness just doesn’t make up. That statement has to be truthful. The “my boat” phrase sums their relationship, and Wagner was making sure “his” property was going off “his boat” one way or another.

At the end, Wood was prone on the deck, holding on to something for dear life. Wagner was gripping her legs and thighs, trying to free her. He ripped her wrists, possibly dislocating one. Then, Robert Wagner wrestled Natalie Wood by the legs, thighs and whatever lower extremities he could to shove his wife to her death in dark sea water.

The Problem with Homicide Charges

On the surface, it definitely seems Robert Wagner is hiding what really happened in Natalie Wood’s death. You’d think if Wagner was clean, he’d scream for an inquest to find what happened to his love, never mind clear his name of suspicion. But he’s keeping quiet. That’s understandable, given that—if dirty—he’d spend years in jail even if convicted of manslaughter rather than first or second-degree murder. However, reasonable suspicion based on a balance of probabilities is a lesser test than the state proving an accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Here’s the wording from the California Penal Code on the directions a judge must read to the jury regarding reasonable doubt.

Given the evident factors of intoxication and relative spontaneity, it’s hard to argue Wagner planned and intended to kill Wood. It’d be a tough row to hoe proving he clearly meant for her to drown as required for a second-degree conviction. Manslaughter is the best homicide ruling the prosecution could hope for in this situation.

But there’s no smoking gun in the Wood/Wagner case. That’d be a credible witness seeing the event or an admissible confession from Wagner. As long as he keeps his mouth shut, he’s unlikely to hang himself. That only leaves fresh evidence or a good portrayal of circumstantial evidence.

But what about Robert Wagner’s obvious neglect in searching for Wood as soon as he realized she was missing? It sounds like gross negligence leaving a half-clad, drunken woman out in the dark, cold and rain. However, he can’t be prosecuted for anything other than homicide charges due to California’s Statue of Limitations. That passed three years after Natalie Wood died.

The LA County District Attorney may be able to convince a grand jury to indict Robert Wagner on homicide charges. A coroner’s inquest may also be coming. That may be part of the strategy behind doing the recent CBS 48 Hours show, and they may have some strong new evidence as the detectives hinted at. But, a homicide conviction requires convincing a jury that Wagner is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of deliberately causing Natalie Wood’s death. That’s a tough challenge for even excellent detectives like Lt. Corina and Det. Sgt. Hernandez.

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DyingWords Followers — I’d really appreciate your comments about how you see the likelihood that Robert Wagner deliberately threw Natalie Wood in the water and caused her death. Please rate them on a scale of 1 (none) to 10 (definitely). It’ll be an interesting poll of public opinion.

Here are some links if you’d like more information on the Natalie Wood death investigation:

CBS 48 Hours Documentary Released February 2018.

Natalie Wood Autopsy Report and Supplementary Opinions from LA County Coroner Office

Natalie Wood Forensic Examination from Los Angeles Times