Hollywood is the place where dreams are made...but occasionally, the stars and star-seekers that go there find themselves trapped in the middle of a nightmare. Today we're going to take a look at that reality, by putting movies through the lens of one of the most popular trends in podcasts in recent years, true crime, and in particular, investigating unsolved mysteries.
The film community is notorious for scandal, to the point where it's nearly the backbone of the industry, but today's focus isn't just going to be on scandal-it's going to be on murder, or deaths that still seem to be under "suspicious" lens even if they might have been ruled an accident or suicide. I'm not a huge fan of straight crime drama podcasts, where we hear the story of a specific case and then learn who the killer is at the end of it, so we will also be adding a dose of mystery here-all of the crimes or figures we're going to profile today are still unsolved mysteries. Some of them are truly cold cases, crimes that to this day remain unsolved, while others have lingering doubt surrounding their conclusions, with people curious about the circumstances of a specific person's death. This being Hollywood, there are certainly more than twelve such crimes, but I'm going to profile the twelve that I find most fascinating, looking at the "who" of who was involved, the unusual aspects of the death, and why this case still carries such fascination for people entranced by either Hollywood or true crime. Since it's morbid to rank what essentially are real-life tragedies, they are all listed alphabetically.
Note: There are a few names missing here that are arguably involved in some of the most infamous homicides or deaths in Hollywood history. Part of why I didn't include them was either I don't buy into the conspiracy theories at all (Marilyn Monroe), I actually agree with the findings of the criminal justice system and don't really have anything to say (Lana Turner & Johnny Stompanato), or because the crime has been
so discussed in the news at this point it's not even worth bringing up (Nicole Brown Simpson, Bonnie Lee Bakley). But of course no list of the most famous crimes/suspicious deaths in Hollywood would be complete without mentioning them. Also, I go into some of the details of the crimes here and as a result there is some sensitive subject matter for a few of these cases, so if that sort of thing makes you squeamish, proceed with caution.
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| Georgette Bauerdorf |
Georgette Bauerdorf
The Hollywood Connection: During World War II, in order to promote the war effort, film stars Bette Davis & John Garfield created the Hollywood Canteen, which was a place where servicemen could go before they were shipped off to war, and meet famous Hollywood stars. In total, 3 million servicemen walked through the doors of the establishment, and there was even a film made about the canteen in 1944 starring Joan Leslie. A highlight for the men would be that they would get to dance with the beautiful women that were working at the Canteen, which ran the gamut from headliners like Marlene Dietrich & Hedy Lamarr to run-of-the-mill contract players and simply pretty girls who were hoping to get their big break through proximity to Hollywood. One of these young women was 20-year-old Georgette Bauerdorf, an oil heiress who had come to Los Angeles from New York in hopes of getting into the pictures.
The Murder: On October 11, 1944, Bauerdorf supposedly went straight home from work at the Canteen. The day before, she had bought a ticket to visit a soldier she'd met at the Canteen stationed in El Paso (fraternizing outside the Canteen with soldiers was strictly forbidden). She had a snack of green beans and melon, and then went to her bedroom, where, according to authorities, someone was lying in wait for her; others have stated that Bauerdorf let the man in-it's not entirely clear, though green beans were found in Bauerdorf's stomach so presumably she was in her house for a while before the murder took place. Bauerdorf, according to the autopsy surgeon, had put up a fight against the assailant, who had removed the light bulbs from her room so that the lights wouldn't go on; she was bruised & beaten from the attack, and the cause of death was determined to be strangulation. She was found face down in a bathtub.
Why It's Unsolved: There were several leads. Bauerdorf, a pretty girl, had had several men infatuated with her, but none of the men identified as pursuing her was considered a suspect for long, as all had alibis. Bauerdorf wasn't known for entertaining men, and while there was a neighbor who said he'd purportedly heard the struggle, it was never confirmed and he assumed it to be a domestic squabble so he didn't report it at the time. While money and her car had been potentially stolen (her car was found several days later with an empty gas tank and a dent), she had jewelry, silver, and a roll of cash that were in a nearby trunk that weren't taken, so it didn't appear to be a robbery-homicide, or at least it was one that was very poorly executed. To this day no one has come forward claiming to be Bauerdorf's killer, and from what I can find there aren't even a lot of theories as to whom it could be, just who it likely isn't. I will dispel a rumor, though, since it's arguably the most famous tidbit about Bauerdorf-there is no evidence that she ever met Elizabeth Short (whom we'll get to in a second), as Bauerdorf was dead by the time Short had moved to Los Angeles, so if she shared the same killer as Short or any connection to that crime, that would be a massive coincidence.
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| Bob Crane |
Bob Crane
The Hollywood Connection: While Bauerdorf's connection to Hollywood was slightly more tangential, Crane was in fact a proper star before his murder and the grisly facts surrounding it emerged. Throughout the 1960's, the comedian gained national prominence first as David Kelsey on
The Donna Reed Show, and then for his most iconic role, as Robert Hogan on
Hogan's Heroes, a huge hit for CBS that won Crane two Emmy nominations. By the time of his death, though,
Hogan's Heroes had been off the air for seven years and his career had taken a sharp nosedive. In the years after
Hogan's Heroes, Crane had been introduced by his costar Richard Dawson to John Henry Carpenter, a manager at a local electronics store who specialized in video equipment. Crane, who was later described by his relatives as a "sex addict" would seduce women with his celebrity and then video tape them having sex with he and Carpenter (reports vary on if the women knew at the time they were being videotaped).
The Murder: Crane was found in his Arizona apartment on June 29, 1978 by a costar in the play he was doing at the time. He had been beaten by an unidentified blunt instrument, which was never confirmed, though it was suspected to be a camera tripod. An electrical cord was wrapped around his neck, though the blunt instrument was the cause of death according to the police.
Why It's Unsolved: The discovered video tapes linked Crane to Carpenter, but there wasn't enough evidence at the time to charge him. Blood had been found in Carpenter's rental car that matched Crane's blood type (they did not match Carpenter's or anyone else that Carpenter had claimed had been in the car), but in a pre-DNA testing era, there was no way to confirm precisely that this was Crane's blood. Later it was discovered via a photograph that there had been brain tissue in the car (Crane had been hit in the head), and Carpenter was tried for the murder in 1992. At the trial, there didn't appear to be enough evidence to convict Carpenter with no testable DNA sample; the blood from the car wasn't able to be tested conclusively, the murder weapon was never found, and Carpenter's attorneys pointed out (correctly) that the many women who had been videotaped also had reason to want Crane dead. Carpenter died four years later, and Crane's son eventually stated that he thought his stepmother, actress Sigrid Valdis, may have killed Crane for her inheritance. To this day, the murder of Bob Crane remains unsolved. His life was dramatized in the 2002 film
Auto Focus where Crane was played by Greg Kinnear and Carpenter was portrayed by Willem Dafoe.
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| Thomas Ince |
Thomas Ince
The Hollywood Connection: We jump back a half century to the Silent Era here, to Thomas Ince, a famed film director of the 1910's who was one of the founders of what would eventually become Sony Pictures. By 1924, he was a major player in Hollywood, and there was talk that his new studio would be joining with William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Productions.
The Murder(?): Hearst through a party for Ince's 44th birthday, among those onboard were Hollywood luminaries like Charlie Chaplin and Hearst's mistress Marion Davies. While on the boat, Ince had indigestion (supposedly due to eating salted almonds and champagne, strictly forbidden on his diet), and was taken to a hotel in San Diego County, where he received medical treatment but still died from heart failure, potentially brought on by angina.
Why It's Unsolved: You may be wondering where the problems are here, as Ince simply died of natural causes. However, rumors persist to this day that Ince did not die from heart failure but instead was shot aboard Hearst's yacht, potentially by Hearst himself. It was claimed immediately after Ince's death in the
LA Times that he had been shot, though they quickly issued a correction. Ince's body was cremated, so an autopsy once the rumors became too big to ignore wasn't possible. If you believe Hollywood legend, Hearst wasn't even trying to kill Ince-he was trying to kill Charlie Chaplin, whom he suspected of having an affair with his lover Davies, and missed, shooting Ince instead. After the death, rumors also persisted that gossip columnist Louella Parsons witnessed the shooting, and as a bribe for her silence, Hearst offered her a lifetime contract and a nationally-syndicated column, making her a household name. To this day it is not known whether Ince was murdered or died of heart failure. His alleged murder was portrayed in
The Cat's Meow where Ince was played by Cary Elwes, Hearst by Edward Herrmann, Chaplin by Eddie Izzard, Davies by Kirsten Dunst, and Parsons by Jennifer Tilly.
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| Dorothy Kilgallen |
Dorothy Kilgallen
The Hollywood Connection: One of Parsons' rivals during the 1950's and 60's was Dorothy Kilgallen, also a Hearst gossip columnist, who was most well-known for her appearances on the game show
What's My Line. Kilgallen was the first columnist to write about Elvis Presley, carried on a notorious feud with Frank Sinatra, and was well-known for getting involved in court reporting, particularly the trials of Lenny Bruce and Sam Sheppard.
The Murder(?): On November 8, 1965, Kilgallen was found dead in her Manhattan townhouse, just hours after having filmed an episode of
What's My Line. The coroner's report stated that the death was a lethal combination of alcohol and barbiturates, killing the 52-year-old Kilgallen. Her New York funeral was enormous, with show business figures like Betty White and Joan Crawford in attendance, and she was never replaced as a panelist on
What's My Line.
Why It's Unsolved: Like Ince, rumors have persisted for years that Kilgallen's death was "a little too" mysterious. This is almost entirely related to Kilgallen's coverage of the Kennedy assassination, and specifically the trial of Jack Ruby. Kilgallen was a prominent skeptic of the Warren Commission, assuming a conspiracy had been in play about the Kennedy assassination, and was reportedly working on a book that would discuss Ruby's trial. Joe Tonahill, Ruby's lawyer, is on the record saying that Ruby was more impressed by Kilgallen than any other reporter, and Kilgallen did get a private interview with Ruby at one point during the trial, supposedly the only reporter to do so, though the length of that interview is debated. Wherever the Kennedy assassination goes, so too go conspiracies, and Kilgallen's death considering her close proximity to Ruby and claims that she had insider information about the assassination as a result, have fueled conspiracy theorists for years. These theories are further aided by her husband Richard Kollmar
also dying of an overdose six years later, of an apparent suicide; Kollmar was on a different floor of the house the night that Kilgallen died.
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| Virginia Rappe |
Virginia Rappe
The Hollywood Connection: The earliest unsolved case on this list, Rappe was a bit actress in the movies, but was more well-known professionally as a model and fashion designer, but her relationship to Hollywood was pretty tenuous. That is not, however, the case for the man who was accused of murdering her: Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, was in his era the highest-paid & most well-known star in Hollywood, making a then-astronomical $1 million a year as a salary. The trial caused a public sensation considering Arbuckle's considerable celebrity (it'd be the equivalent today of Emma Stone or Leonardo DiCaprio being on trial).
The Murder(?): At a Labor Day party on September 5, 1921, Virginia Rappe was attending a party with Arbuckle as well as several other figures. According to reports, Rappe became ill, but was not taken to the hospital right away, for reasons that remain questionable to this day. Four days later, Rappe died at the age of only 26 from a ruptured bladder.
Why It's Unsolved: Allegations came forward almost immediately after Rappe's death that she had accused Arbuckle of raping, and as a result, murdering her, the night of the Labor Day party. According to Rappe's friend Maude Delmont, Arbuckle assaulted Rappe, which caused her bladder to rupture. Arbuckle alleged that Rappe had a history of "acting inappropriately" at parties with men, and that Rappe had a history of bladder issues, which a doctor later in the court case did confirm. This caused a sensational scandal in Hollywood, with Arbuckle being tried three times before eventually being acquitted of manslaughter for Rappe's death, though his career was essentially ruined afterwards (there was even at one point a ban on Arbuckle's films in certain municipalities). While it became fashionable later on to claim that Arbuckle was the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice, there are still those today who believe he got away with murder. After all, Arbuckle's version of what happened that night doesn't match anyone else's story of the evening (not Delmont, not the maid, not any of the other guests at the party), though as the trials went on multiple people changed their stories, and the third trial seemed to end mysteriously (the jury was out for five minutes, came back not guilty and basically had a letter ready to go criticizing the media for going after Arbuckle, heavily implying that the defense lawyers had written the letter, and perhaps bought the verdict). Arbuckle maintained his innocence for the rest of his life, but nearly 100 years later we still don't know if Virginia Rappe was murdered or died of natural causes.
George Reeves
The Hollywood Connection: Though Reeves had bit parts in a pair of film classics (he's in the opening scene of
Gone with the Wind and had a small role in
From Here to Eternity), his most noted role was as the very first onscreen Superman, first in a B-movie and then in a television series that ran for most of the 1950's. Reeves famously hated the role, but it brought him something that the movies hadn't: stardom. The actor became a hero to young children despite his messy personal life, and even appeared in an episode of
I Love Lucy in character. At the time of his death, Reeves had ended an affair with Toni Mannix, a former showgirl and the wife of MGM fix-it man Eddie Mannix.
The Murder(?): Reeves died from a gunshot wound to the head on June 16, 1959. A party had been happening with several of Reeves' friends, including his fiance Leonore Lemmon, socialite Carol van Ronkel, and neighbor William Bliss. Late into the night (past midnight), Reeves allegedly shot himself upstairs while his guests drunkenly were partying on the first floor. Bliss found the body, and based on its position most assumed Reeves had been sitting down and fell backwards after the bullet killed him. Reeves' fiance Lemmon blamed the suicide on Reeves failed career, stating he was tired of being pigeonholed into playing Superman.
Why's It Unsolved?: There are a lot of unanswered questions around Reeves death. First, why didn't anyone at the party think to call the police immediately-this has been blamed on inebriation, but we're not talking about a Prohibition-era party like the Thomas Ince incident-someone must have realized that their friend dying meant a need to stop the drinking? There also was no gunpower residue on Reeves hands and there were no fingerprints on the gun, though that may have been due to the gun being recently oiled. There were three bullet holes, despite everyone at the party claiming they heard only one shot from the gun, and there was no test of whether or not there was gun residue in Reeves' skull, which would have been present if he'd indeed killed himself at short range. Rumors have persisted that Reeves might have been murdered in a fight with his fiancee Lemmon or perhaps Eddie Mannix, as retribution for the affair that had just been ended (by Reeves) with Mannix's wife, had arranged for the death; years later the entire sequence was dramatized in
Hollywoodland with Ben Affleck as Reeves, Diane Lane as Toni, Bob Hoskins as Eddie, and Robin Tunney as Lemmon. Whatever, the reason, there's a sense of irony in the man who was once "faster than a speeding bullet" being killed by a bullet that no one can explain.
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| Elizabeth Short |
Elizabeth Short
The Hollywood Connection: She's been so enmeshed into pop culture at this point as perhaps the country's most famous murder victim that it's sometimes hard to remember Elizabeth Short was once just a regular person. She's arguably both the most famous Hollywood murder and the one that is the least connected to Hollywood. By some accounts she was an aspiring actress, though unlike virtually every other person on this list save Beaurdorf, she never actually appeared in any film or television programs. Her connection to Hollywood would come posthumously, when she was named by the papers after the Veronica Lake/Alan Ladd film
The Blue Dahlia: "The Black Dahlia."
The Murder: Because of the fame surrounding Elizabeth Short (we could genuinely do an entire article just devoted to her, or quite frankly a series of articles devoted to this crime and its impact on Hollywood), it's very hard to get an accurate depiction of what precisely happened to Short. What we do know is that her body was discovered on January 15, 1947, six days after she was last spotted leaving the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge near the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Her body had been mutilated to the point where the woman who initially discovered the corpse thought it was a mannequin, with her body severed at the waist and her face slashed to form a "Glasgow Smile" (it's too gross for me to link what that is, but use Google at your own discretion here). Her body had clearly been washed and staged, so there had been a risk that the murderer would be caught with the corpse, though this part of Los Angeles was underdeveloped at the time. The precision with which she was killed made many then-and-now believe that the killer had had some sort of medical background.
Why's It Unsolved?: The death caused a media firestorm, and that press storm actually lead to several clues from Short's killer. A package was sent to the
Los Angeles Examiner containing Short's belongings, including her birth certificate and an address book with the names of multiple men, including Mark Hansen (whose name was embossed on the book), but all had alibis. A $10,000 reward was posted for information leading to the killer, but no one was found, and several more letters were sent to the police or the
Examiner. In the years that followed, there were hundreds of men that were accused of the murder, including George Hodel, a physician whose son said after his death that his father had been the killer. Indeed, Hodel had been accused previously of having killed his secretary, but his son's book also states that his father was the Chicago Lipstick Killer and the Zodiac Killer who terrorized the Bay Area in the 1960's, so it feels a stretch of the imagination to assume he was the killer of all of these people in very different styles. Even celebrities like Woody Guthrie, Orson Welles, and Bugsy Siegel have been accused through the years of being the killer, though in all cases with tenuous evidence at best. To this day the case remains unsolved, but a source of much public speculation, including a 2006 film with Mia Kirschner as Elizabeth Short (though that ends with a fictionalized solving of the crime).
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| Jean Spangler |
Jean Spangler
The Hollywood Connection: Spangler like a number of people on this list, didn't have a particularly strong connection to Hollywood, and would not be famous were it not for the mystery around her death. Spangler was an extra in several films in the late 1940's, appearing in films featuring Betty Grable, Celeste Holm, and Kirk Douglas in
Young Man with a Horn.
The Murder(?): While it's morbid to play favorites with such things, this is the case I find most interesting of these twelve. Spangler, a film extra, had dropped her daughter off with her sister-in-law and claimed that she was working a movie that night and might not be back until later. Spangler also said she was going to go talk to her ex-husband about a child support payment-neither of these things ended up being true, as reportedly Spangler never went to talk to her husband and the Screen Extras Guild didn't have Spangler scheduled for work that night. Spangler was spotted at a Farmers Market early in the evening of October 7, 1949, just after dropping off her daughter-it was the last time anyone could confirm having seen Jean Spangler alive. A missing person's report was filed, and three days later Spangler's purse was found in a park with a note that read, "Kirk: Can't wait any longer, Going to see Dr. Scott. It will work best his way wile (sic) mother is away." Despite an exhaustive nationwide search, 26-year-old Jean Spangler was never seen or heard from again.
Why's It Unsolved?: Rumors abound about what exactly it was that made Jean Spangler lie to her sister-in-law that night, abandoning her daughter, and then disappear forever. Rumors ranged from her being swept up in the mob (an accusation her sister vehemently denied) to trying to get an illegal abortion, as several of her friends were convinced she had been pregnant at the time, and had confessed to her friend Robert Cummings that she was having an affair with a married man. Some even worried that the beautiful Spangler had fallen to the same man who killed Elizabeth Short. Because of the contents of the letter, and the fact that she was making
Young Man with a Horn at the time, Kirk Douglas became involved in the case, claiming initially that he'd never met Spangler, and then after being pressed, stating that he had joked with her onset but didn't know her personally and had been in Palm Springs at the time. Sightings of Spangler were reported across California, Arizona, and Mexico in the years that followed, but no one ever found her, and as a result, never discovered why and how she disappeared.
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| Inger Stevens |
Inger Stevens
The Hollywood Connection: Stevens was a beautiful blonde actress from Sweden who came with her family to the United States before running away from home, finding success on the burlesque circuit, and then eventually getting her big break opposite Bing Crosby in
Man on Fire. While she was most famous in her era for her work as the lead on
The Farmer's Daughter (for which she won a Golden Globe), she is best known to modern audiences for her work in the classic
Twilight Zone episode "The Hitch-Hiker."
The Murder(?): If you believe Hollywood lore, Inger Stevens had a bad habit of sleeping with her male costars, as Crosby, Anthony Quinn, Harry Belafonte, Dean Martin, and Burt Reynolds all reportedly had affairs with her. After the relationship with Crosby, she reportedly considered suicide and eventually did attempt suicide in the late 1950's (an action she later called "stupid"). Despite this assertion, after her death at age 36, the coroner stated that her death had been a result of suicide by barbiturates. She died on her way to the hospital, after having tried to tell her roommate Lola something but being unable to speak.
Why's It Unsolved?: The problem with suicide being the culprit is that Stevens was on a career upswing. At the time she had just been cast as the lead in an upcoming series from Aaron Spelling, and was generally thought to be quite happy. Now, "seemingly happy" people do commit suicide, but it's worth asking questions over when it does happen, particularly since there was no way that Stevens had taken the pill overdose accidentally (you don't "accidentally" take 25-50 pills). Stevens family didn't buy the suicide argument, and there was evidence to back them up. There were bruises on Stevens' arm, indicating some sort of abuse, and the pill bottle didn't have her name on it. Stevens, famously vain, didn't put on her makeup before she killed herself, instead being found in ratty slippers. Some conspiracies even revolve around actor Burt Reynolds, who saw Stevens the night of her death, and has admitted to having been physically abusive to the actress during their relationship. Even if she did kill herself, her death still brought about strange occurrences. After she died, film producer Ike Jones claimed that he had secretly been married to Stevens, and eventually inherited her estate.
William Desmond Taylor
The Hollywood Connection: William Desmond Taylor is, of the
confirmed murders on this list (rather than all of the cases where it could be murder or could be suicide/accident/other causes), arguably the one with the strongest hold on Hollywood. During the 1910's and 20's, he was a significant film director and actor, working with actors like Mary Pickford and Wallace Reid, as well as his protegee Mary Miles Minter. His death was a huge scandal in Hollywood, and one of the main causes of the eventual Hays Code.
The Murder: Taylor was found dead on February 2, 1922, in his home in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Taylor had been shot, upon medical examination, in his side, with the bullet being lodged in his neck. It had been at close range, probably by someone shorter than him. He had $78 in his pocket (the equivalent to over $1000 today), a silver cigarette case, a locket, and a pocket watch, so it was unlikely that robbery had been the reason for his murder.
Why's It Unsolved?: The newspapers at the time, coming off the deaths of Virginia Rappe and Olive Thomas, had a
field day with the murder, printing so much gossip along with the facts that based on what I ended up reading about this case, I struggled to find all of the facts. The most interesting suspect, to me, was Edward Sands, a valet of Taylor's who some believe was his secret brother, someone whom he was covering up (Taylor's previous name and marriage had been hidden by him when he was a star, but it all came out once he was murdered); Sands disappeared after the murder, never to be seen again. More salacious to the media were the women in his life, including Minter, Minter's mother Charlotte Shelby, and comedienne Mabel Normand, all of whom were linked to the murders and were rumored to be having affairs with Taylor, though Normand & Minter denied this (and there were rumors at the time that Taylor was having an affair with a man). Actress Margaret Gibson confessed to the murder in 1964 on her deathbed, but she was never a suspect at the time (though she was in Los Angeles the night of the murder), and since all of the evidence had long since been destroyed, there was no way to confirm Gibson's claims.
Thelma Todd
The Hollywood Connection: In the early 1930's, before Jean Harlow, before Carole Lombard, before Ginger Rogers...there was Thelma Todd. Todd, with her bleached blonde hair and comic wit, became a headlining star in the earliest days of the talkies, best known for her work in the Marx Brothers classics
Monkey Business and
Horse Feathers.
The Murder(?): Todd died on December 16, 1935. She had spent the previous evening at a party hosted by actress Ida Lupino, and had had a fight with her ex-husband Pat DiCicco. She was found in her car, no apparent sign of struggle and no suicide note, outside the home of her married lover Roland West.
Why It's Unsolved?: The official description of what happened on that fateful night in 1935 is that Thelma Todd died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning, a tragic accident or possible suicide. However, with the success of her club at the time, it seems unlikely that Todd was suicidal, and there were people who could have gained from her death, namely Roland West or his wife Jewel Carmen. The conspiracy theories range from West killing her on the famed yacht
Joyita (which decades later would be the host of one of the most puzzling maritime unsolved mysteries of all time) & putting her in the car or that simply Carmen or West had shut the garage door with the car still running on a sleeping Thelma Todd. The papers were so obsessed with the death of this beautiful blonde woman that it's next-to-impossible to find the truth of what happened that night even from an historical perspective, much less trying to decipher whether Thelma Todd was murdered or simply died from an unfortunate accident.
Natalie Wood
The Hollywood Connection: You'll note that while there are recognizable names on this list, none of them are particularly famous, none of them would be all that well-remembered today except for their shocking deaths. That is not the case for our final figure, Natalie Wood. A child star, she was a three-time Oscar nominee who had starred in iconic films like
Miracle on 34th Street, Rebel Without a Cause, and
West Side Story before a freak accident (or perhaps something more nefarious) caused her to die at the age of 43.
The Murder(?): On November 28, 1981, Wood went on her husband Robert Wagner's yacht with actor Christopher Walken and ship captain Dennis Davern. The next day, after a party the previous night, Wood's body was found washed up a mile away from the boat, with bruises on her arms and a cut on her left cheek. Though Wagner claimed that he had had a fight with Wood that night (reportedly he had been jealous of Wood flirting with Walken), he said that he went to bed alone, and the next morning Wood was found near a dinghy, with the assumption being that Wood had gone out on the dinghy, returned, and in an inebriated state (alcohol combined with some medication), slipped and drowned while trying to re-board the boat.
Why It's Unsolved?: There are a lot of questions surrounding Wood's death, to the point where just last year Wagner was named a "person of interest" in the investigation into her death. Wood, according to her sister Lana, was deeply afraid of the water and her sister claims would never have gone out alone on the boat. There were also witnesses who claimed they heard a woman's screams on the nearby boat. Davern, one of the only four people on the boat, has claimed that he thinks Wagner is responsible for Wood's death, and that Wagner refused to turn on the lights and that he held off on notifying the authorities. Some forty years later, Wood's death remains a mystery, with many wondering whether in a jealous rage, her husband (who is still alive and working) got away with murder, or whether he's been unfairly maligned for decades for the strange circumstances of Natalie Wood's death.
