The Coroner Series

by Thomas T. Noguchi

  The next day friends of Robert Wagner, who had been in seclusion ever since the accident, sought to still the rumors. They circulated word to reporters that there had been no dispute at all on the yacht. Instead, they said, Natalie Wood had been unable to sleep because the dinghy was knocking against the stern of the yacht. She had gone topside to adjust the line to the dinghy, had slipped while doing so, and fallen into the water.

  I found that theory plausible, particularly because it explained her nightgown-and-socks apparel. And yet there was a possible flaw. The dinghy was rubber, and, according to Paul Miller, our expert who owned a similar boat, a rubber dinghy makes little or no noise when it strikes a yacht. Silence is relative, however, and other sailors say that the noise might be amplified to an annoying degree when you are on the inside of the boat.

  I called Miller. “What have you found so far?” I asked.

  “To begin with, I’ve made a preliminary investigation of the yacht and the dinghy, and I’ve got the answers to your basic questions.”

  I listened attentively.

  “No murder,” he said. “There weren’t any signs of a struggle in the yacht or the dinghy. There were fingernail scratches on the starboard side of the dinghy, which shows she was trying to climb into it.”

  “And the swimming step on the yacht?”

  “The algae was untouched. She never tried to re-board the yacht.”

  While I was thinking that over, he said, “But that isn’t the interesting part. It’s how she died.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone, including you and Robert Wagner, seems to agree on one thing: that she fell into the water next to the yacht and drowned. No way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The dinghy would never have been found where it was, on the beach a mile from the bay. There’s no way it could have gotten there unless Natalie Wood took it there.”

  Silence. Then I said, “You mean she rode the dinghy there and then fell out?”

  “Look, it’s more complicated than that. I’ll put the report together with all the facts and then you’ll understand.”

  After I hung up the phone, I was intrigued by the possibilities of Miller’s investigation. But at the same time I was concerned with a new problem. The investigation was obviously turning up new facts—and I was already under attack for releasing too many details at yesterday’s news conference. In fact, the press had reported the conference in such a way that I, not Wilson, appeared to have revealed to the reporters the information from police about the shipboard quarrel. As the Los Angeles Times said, “Interviews with those present, Noguchi said, produced the information that upon the party’s return to the yacht … Wagner and Walken engaged in a ‘non-violent argument.’”

  Hollywood was, of course, steaming with the news. And it seemed, from reports of the rumors that reached me, that many of the movie colony disbelieved Wagner—and actually thought that much more than an “argument” had taken place that night on the yacht. Scandalous stories and weird sexual allegations were spreading like brushfire.

  Thirteen years as Chief Medical Examiner of a county which included Hollywood had given me ample experience with that sort of rumor—beginning as far back as Marilyn Monroe. Because many people believe that Hollywood is a sin capital where glamorous people with too much money are constantly searching for new kicks, they are always eager to believe the worst. And a generation of sensationalist tabloids such as the Enquirer, the Globe and the Star has fattened with profits on this mind-set of the public.

  There may be a kernel of truth in this view of Hollywood, which the tabloids expand to grotesque dimensions. As a medical examiner, I have investigated all kinds of bizarre sex-related deaths, from sadistic to autoerotic to “kinky.” My professional experience had been wide. Yet in this case I believed Robert Wagner. He and Natalie Wood had been married for years. The very evening of the tragedy they had enjoyed a happy dinner at Doug’s Harbor Reef, complete with champagne. The evidence seemed to preclude any scandalous behavior. Yet any wife can become annoyed with her husband at times, and, according to reports, when Natalie Wood was upset she would in fact rush out alone to “get away from it all.”

  The controversy grew even more heated when those in Hollywood who believed Wagner flew to his defense—and I became the main target. On Wednesday of that week, for example, the Times front-page story was headlined DISPUTE BEFORE WOOD’S DEATH NOW IN DOUBT. Its opening paragraphs read:

  A Sheriff’s homicide detective Tuesday disputed coroner’s statements suggesting that Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken were arguing heatedly aboard an anchored yacht when Wagner’s wife, actress Natalie Wood, drowned.

  “I don’t know where the coroner got that information,” said investigator Roy Hamilton. “We talked to Wagner and Walken and there was no indication that there was any kind of an argument.”

  But it was the next quote from Hamilton which hurt the most. He said, according to the Times, “I think he (Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas T. Noguchi) was juicing it up a little bit.”

  I was no stranger to such slurs. In 1969 I had been on the receiving end of much worse insults when the County Board of Supervisors sought to fire me. But the charges brought against me were so laughable that Los Angeles citizens had rallied to my support and every charge was ruled “disproved.” I remained in my post, and the next twelve years had seen forensic science prosper in Los Angeles. A new Forensic Science Center had been built under my supervision, and Los Angeles was now generally considered a focal point of modern forensic research. A month earlier, medical examiners around the country had made me the president-elect of their national association.

  And then William Holden had died, and I told the truth. His alcoholic level was a factor in his death. But Holden’s friends protested angrily that I should not have revealed his intoxication. And now, only two weeks later, Natalie Wood had perished in tragic circumstances, and I not only reported on alcohol intoxication again but was also accused of “juicing it up a little bit” in a report of the argument which had come not from my department but from the police.

  Thus the controversy surrounding the circumstances of Natalie Wood’s death now grew to include controversy about me. Some Hollywood stars, still fretting over the William Holden report, struck hard at me, as well as at the Times for printing the remarks of the “stage-struck” coroner. Frank Sinatra sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors which said, in effect, that coroners should be seen and not heard. And the Screen Actors Guild dispatched its own wire lambasting me for invasion of privacy.

  When Paul Miller’s report on the real facts of the death of Natalie Wood arrived, I read it—and decided not to release the document to the press. It added details the media would only call “gory” and “sensational.” The report did not alter the official coroner’s conclusion of an accidental drowning. So, rather than create more media indignation over “too many details,” I reluctantly filed away that report. This is the first time the facts it uncovered, which re-create Natalie Wood’s last moments, have been revealed by me. And it is both a tragic and a heroic story.

  Rereading the report today, I can see Isthmus Bay again in my mind’s eye, dark and threatening in the night, the cold rain slanting down upon ships rocking in the water. And I recall the day Miller brought me the report. We sat in my apartment in Marina Del Rey, overlooking the same ocean which broke against the shores of Santa Catalina thirty miles to the west.

  Miller leaned toward me earnestly as he said, “You had it wrong, Tom. Natalie Wood didn’t die like you think. She had class.”

  He drew a map of Isthmus Bay showing where the boats, including Splendour, were moored that night. Then he drew an arrow from the west, passing through the island mountains and pointing toward the ships in the bay. “The basic factor is the wind funnel,” he said.

  From my own observations of the island on my trip three years before, I knew the phenomenon to which he referred. The jet stream
sweeps from the west over Catalina Island, and in the mountains it forms a funnel which blows straight down into the bay where the Wagners’ yacht was moored. Splendour faced into the wind, as did its dinghy tied to the stern.

  “After she untied the line,” Miller continued, “the dinghy would have been blown out toward the mainland. It would never have made a ninety-degree turn and headed down the coast with the wind funnel hitting it from the side. Remember, an inflatable boat in the water is like a balloon with the wind blowing it.”

  It was cold that night when Natalie Wood, dressed only in a nightgown, wool socks and a down jacket, appeared on the deck of Splendour and descended the swimming step to the dinghy. Was she angry at her husband and rushing off alone? Forensic evidence, such as the fingernail scratches on the side of the dinghy, the brush-type abrasion on her cheek, and the untouched algae on the swim step, seemed to indicate that she was trying to board the dinghy, not just adjust its rope, when the accident happened.

  But Miller’s evidence provided the possibility of a third explanation, which, according to my interpretation, confirmed Wagner’s story of the accident. Considering the wind funnel, when Natalie Wood, for whatever reason, untied the boat, the wind was strong and would have pushed it away from the yacht. And it is quite possible that, instead of trying to step into the dinghy, she might have been reaching for it and lost her balance.

  Whatever her purpose, she fell—and the cold water closed over her head. But when she bobbed to the surface, she must have felt there was no danger. She was still only a few feet away from the safety of the yacht. Not only that, she had taken hold of the inflatable boat. The widespread bruise on her right arm showed that she hooked her arm over the side of the dinghy, knowing the boat would hold her up safely until she caught her breath.

  Too late, she must have realized something strange was happening. She and the dinghy were being swept swiftly away from the yacht—ten yards, twenty, thirty. She hadn’t realized the strength of the wind funnel. Within seconds the dinghy was moving farther and farther out in the water, too distant for her to swim back to the yacht.

  She must have called out for help at that point. But her cries went unheard on Splendour, and on other vessels too. The rock music blaring from loudspeakers at the party ashore drowned out Natalie Wood’s desperate calls from the surface of the dark sea. Yet there was still hope. Miss Wayne and her friend did hear her shouts. But when they looked outside, they could see nothing in the dark, and they thought they heard people on a neighboring boat say they were coming to her rescue.

  Now Natalie Wood was no doubt becoming really frightened. Her cries were going unheard. No lights played across the water, no boats started out to her rescue. Still, she felt she was safe because of the dinghy. She could crawl into it, start its engine, and be back to the warmth of the yacht in minutes.

  But it was then that she must have suffered her most terrifying shock. She tried to climb aboard the dinghy which would save her, and discovered she couldn’t do it. The rubber sides of the dinghy were large and cylindrical; it would have been difficult in the best of circumstances for her to reach over them from the water to hoist herself up. Forensic evidence revealed that she may have gone to the rear of the boat and used the motor for leverage. There was a metal frame beneath the motor in which you can place your foot. Swimmers often use this technique: with your back to the dinghy, you place one arm around the motor and a foot in the brace, and push up to board the dinghy from the water. The bruises on the back of Natalie Wood’s lower legs suggested she may have tried to do that.

  But it didn’t work. She couldn’t make it into the boat. Frantically, she attempted again and again to hoist her body up into the safety of the dinghy—but the jacket dragged her back down into the water every time.

  Finally she realized she was being swept into mortal danger as the dinghy pulled her farther and farther out toward the open sea. She might drown or die of hypothermia, the loss of body temperature, in the icy water. What could she do?

  Natalie Wood fought for her life in that cold November ocean. She did not give up. Instead, she began to perform a feat that was both unique and gallant. And she almost achieved a miracle.

  Clinging to a boat being swept out into the open sea, her body already becoming numb in the cold water, she decided that her only hope was somehow to propel that dinghy into the teeth of the wind, back toward the shore of Catalina. It must have seemed hopeless at first. The wind pushed the boat like an air bubble. But, desperately, she started kicking her legs as hard as she could, and paddling the water with her free arm.

  And it worked. The boat ceased its movement out to sea and started, ever so slowly, back toward the island—and safety.

  A mild current of one knot was running south, and, paddling in a dark, windy sea beside the dinghy, she pushed the boat along with the current, edging it ever closer toward the shore. But the southern drift took her away from the safe harbor with its yachts whose lights shone in the distance. In fact, the bay was now behind her. But she was approaching closer and closer to the beach—four hundred yards, three hundred fifty yards. If she could just hang on, she would be safe on the shore.

  But numbness now crept all through her body. The heavy jacket pulled her down, and its weight sapped her strength. Fighting in the ocean, she saw the cove ahead. Blue Cavern Point. No boats lay at anchor there, but it was a haven from the wind which was her enemy. Minutes to go. She must keep paddling.

  Natalie Wood, a brave young woman, tragically lost her fight against the specter, death, less than two hundred yards from shore. Hypothermia caused her to lose strength, then consciousness, then finally her last feeble grip on the boat. She sank beneath the waves and drowned.

  Only minutes later, the boat she had so painfully and courageously maneuvered for a mile landed safely on the beach.

  2

  * * *

  Getting Started

  Even as the controversy surrounding Natalie Wood’s death subsided, the attacks on me for “exploiting” both her death and William Holden’s multiplied, and suddenly I knew I was facing the deepest crisis in my professional life. Criticism came not only from the Hollywood community concerned about the privacy issue, but also from public officials who were disturbed about the way I was performing my job. Was I a “ham,” “juicing it up” for “personal publicity,” as some said, or a medical examiner fighting for a principle?

  My career of twenty-one years’ service would teeter on the brink when that issue was finally adjudicated. But I’ll admit there were times in the early days of my legal struggle when I began to wonder if I had made a mistake by leaving the home of my ancestors, Japan. And at moments like that I always took courage from my memories of my father.

  Wataru Noguchi came from a farming family on the little western island of Shikoku. In those days in Japan, the influence of the caste system was still strong, even though the shogun era had ended in the 1860s. If you were born a farmer, you remained a farmer. If you were born a samurai warrior, you stayed a samurai. (The grandfather of my mother, Tomika Narahashi, was a samurai, the chief swordsman to the regional lord of Oita, a district of Kyushu Island.) There was no way to break out of your heritage, no matter what it was.

  Yet my father did it. He simply decided he wanted to be an artist, not a man tilling the soil. His family and neighbors were aghast when he abandoned the farm of his ancestors and departed for Tokyo. As the oldest son, he would have inherited the land. Instead, in 1910 he gave it all up to his relatives and left for a life of art, becoming a painter in the Impressionist tradition.

  Not that my father was ever “bohemian,” as artists in those days were sometimes described. Far from it. My relationship to him, as a child, was always formal in the Japanese tradition. For example, if I wanted to talk to him, I would say, “Honorable father, may I speak?” “Yes, you may,” he would reply. But my father was, in his way, a completely free spirit, incredible in Japan in that era.

  One day a littl
e boy came to him crying. There was dirt in his eye, and my father struggled to help, but could do nothing to relieve his misery. Finally he escorted the boy to a doctor, who simply placed a small drop of medicine in the child’s eye and cured the pain.

  At that moment, my father saw a new path of knowledge. Raised as a farmer, he had broken the mold to become an artist. Now he saw the wonder of healing and desired to know more about it. So, at the late age of thirty-three, he decided to enter medical school. He was forty years old by the time he became a doctor. But the age problem didn’t faze him any more than the caste tradition had done years before. He was invited to be the chief of the eye, ear, nose and throat department in a hospital in Yokosuka, and in 1940 he opened his private practice in that city.

  I was then thirteen years old. All through my school years 1 had strained my teachers’ patience with my love of mischief, but I received good grades and because I idolized my father I decided that I too would become a physician. Another factor entered into that decision. My younger brother Kazuo suffered from birth from cerebral palsy. For years I carried my crippled brother three miles back and forth to school, strapped to a bicycle I had specially rigged. And I helped him get around in school because he couldn’t move unaided. If I became a doctor, I thought, I might be able to find a cure for that mysterious disease. But then when I was thirteen another event occurred that would have a lasting effect on me and play a role in my ultimate choice of career.

  My father had asked me to bring something from home to his office. He was treating a young man when I arrived, and I sat down in the outer room and waited for him to finish. Suddenly a buzzer startled me. The nurse at the reception desk jumped when she heard my father call her. And I could hear terrible sounds of gasping as I ran pell-mell after her into my father’s office. There I saw him kneeling beside his patient, who was on the floor, and giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Then he stopped. I came closer and observed the young man lying perfectly still. It was the first dead body I had ever seen.