Thirty years after actress Natalie Wood died after going on a boating trip with then-husband Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken, officials have reopened theinvestigation of her death. For years after Wood’s death — which was ruled an accident — suspicions and theories have been raised about what actually happened on the boat that day. Wood’s death is not the only Hollywood tragedy that has been shrouded in mystery and intrigue.
Bob Crane
The Hogan’s Heroes star was found bludgeoned to death in a Scottsdale, Arizona apartment on June 29, 1978. The murder was examined in director Paul Schrader‘s 2002 film Auto Focus and A&E’s Cold Case Files.
Crane’s case was reopened in 1990 and led to John Henry Carpenter, a friend of Crane’s being tried for the crime. Carpenter was acquitted in 1994.
David Carradine
The Kill Bill and Kung Fu star was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room closet with a noose around his neck on June 4, 2009.
A private autopsy funded by his family concluded that the actor died from asphyxiation, and that the way the actor’s body was bound allowed him to rule out suicide. Bangkok police said that Carradine’s body was in a sitting position, with a rope wrapped around his neck and attached to a closet bar when a maid discovered him.
Elizabeth Short
Elizabeth Short was a 22-year-old aspiring actress who was gruesomely murdered in Los Angeles. Short achieved fame post-humously when her story was sensationalized by the media, and she was dubbed the Black Dahlia.The case was never solved. A neo-noir novel, The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy, was published in 1987 and was made into a 2006 movie directed by Brian De Palma.
George Reeves
The Adventures of Superman star was 45 when he was found dead lying naked in his bed with a single gunshot wound to the temple in his Beverly Hills home in 1959. And, though the death (which was the subject of the 2006 movie Hollywoodland) was ruled a suicide at the time, his mother commissioned her own separateinvestigation. Speculation arose that the actor’s ex-lover, actress Toni Mannix, orchestrated a hit on Reeves.
Jack Nance
A regular in David Lynch projects (Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet), Nance was found dead on Dec. 30, 1996. The cause of death was subdural hematoma caused by blunt-force trauma.
He is believed to have been punched in the head and knocked to the ground during a fight with two men at his local doughnut shop.
Another theory is that he hurt himself in a drunken stupor, as his blood level was 0.24 percent at the time of his death.
JonBenét Ramsey
JonBenét Ramsey was a beauty pageant child contestant who was murdered in her home in Colorado. Astrange and twisted tale unraveled in which Ramsey’s parents said that they had received a ransom note just eight hours before her body was found demanding $118,000 in exchange for their daughter’s return. Suspicion remained on JonBenét’s parents, who insisted they were innocent and published a book in 2000,The Death of Innocence. Ramsey’s mother died just before John Mark Karr admitted that he killed Ramsey. He was later released, however, when DNA tests showed he could not have been at the crime scene. Prosecuters cleared the parents, and claim that DNA points to an “unexplained third
Marilyn Monroe
The actress’ sudden death was officially ruled a suicide in 1962 when she slipped into a coma after overdosing on sleeping pills. But, there has always been speculation surrounding the events of her death, which saw many items allegedly being removed from her home. Theories have included murder by the mafia in retaliation to President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert (both of whom she was reportedly having affairs with, and who have also been discussed as possibly orchestrating the murder), as well as an accidental overdose.
Portable: The Tablet was created by a team of journalists, designers and researchers. It was never made available to the public
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