A new report on the 1981 death of actress Natalie Wood raises questions about whether assault was involved in what has been considered an accidental death by drowning, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office released a report Monday citing bruising as an indication that assault was involved. Wood died off Catalina Island in November, 1981, in what was determined at the time to be an accidental drowning. Last year, county coroner’s officials amended the cause of death on Wood’s death certificate from drowning to “drowning and other undetermined factors.”
The new details were not enough to definitively call her death a homicide.
Los Angeles sheriff’s investigators re-opened their inquiry into Wood’s death in late 2011, prompting the coroner’s office to issue the new report, according to the Associated Press. The report was released after the sheriff’s office released a security hold on it. The sheriff’s investigation into Wood’s death remains open.
