Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said actor Robert Wagner‘s version of events portrayed to the media in the unexplained 1981 drowning of his wife, actress Natalie Wood, “don’t add up” to what authorities have found.
“Yes of course we want to talk to Robert Wagner, you bet,” Corina said.”The version of events he’s portrayed in the media, I think… he told the original investigators and what he’s portrayed since then, really don’t add up to what we’ve found and what we’ve found talking to other people that weekend.”
READ MORE: Robert Wagner officially a ‘person of interest’ in Natalie Wood death
Los Angeles County homicide detectives have named Wagner a “person of interest” in the probe of the unexplained 1981 drowning of Wood, saying he was the last person with her before she vanished off southern California.
“Person of interest” is a term used by U.S. law enforcement in referring to someone believed to possess information that would help investigators but has not been arrested or formally charged with a crime, and is not necessarily a suspect.
Reuters was referred by Wagner’s publicist to his lawyer, who did not reply to requests for comment.
Wood‘s body was found floating in a Santa Catalina Island cove on the morning of Nov. 29, 1981, after a night of dining and drinking on the island and on a yacht with her husband Wagner, fellow actor Christopher Walken, and the boat’s captain.
READ MORE: Did Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken argue the night of Natalie Wood’s death?
Wood who was 43 and said to have had a lifelong fear of drowning and dark water, was found dressed for bed in a long nightgown and socks, but wearing a red down jacket over her nightclothes.
The coroner originally ruled the death of the Oscar-nominated actress, who starred in West Side Story and Splendor in the Grass, as an accidental drowning.
In 2012, her death certificate was amended to list the cause of her demise as “drowning and other undetermined factors.”
Months earlier, the sheriff’s department had officially reopened its investigation, though detectives said then that Wagner, now 87, was not a suspect.