Bruises and scratches on her body lead to new questions about his wife’s death
A retired Texas law enforcement official was highly critical of my statement that “Wagner’s refusal to cooperate in the reopened investigation could lead one to suspect that he kicked the shit out of Natalie Wood and then threw her overboard.”
He said, “When a person refuses to be interrogated by the police we should not accept that as a strange way for someone to act.
I don't know all the details of Natalie Woods death, but if the police came to me after 30 years and wanted to re-interview me, I would say no. Memories fade with time and the only thing the police can do during an interview is try to make a suspect slip up on a small detail. Once they have the slightest variation, they hammer the suspect. The police have the statements in front of them. Not the suspect.
Who told the press that Robert Wagner would not submit to an interrogation? I would argue that it was the police because when people don't talk with the police, society believes they have something to hide.
Why would the witness [the boat captain] come forward after 3 decades? It could be a classic shakedown gone awry. Even if the witness didn't hear anything, all he had to do was threaten that he did.
As for the bruises and marks, once a body has been in the water no one can say what happened to it. Even recovery of the body can leave damage, because there is no easy way to pull a body into a boat [without damaging the body].
After the introduction of DNA evidence we have found quite a few people lingering on death row for crimes they did not commit based on faulty eye witness testimony and police interrogations.
If Robert Wagner murdered his wife, I hope they catch him. But if I were him, I'd have nothing to say.”
He went on to point out the Texas case of Michael Morton. “This man served 24 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. He thought he was helping police by cooperating. They twisted his words and convicted him.”
From the Houston Chronicle:
Michael Morton was falsely convicted of murdering his wife on Aug. 13, 1986, in Williamson County.
Christine Morton’s body was found in her bed, bludgeoned to death by a wooden club. A bloody bandana was found 100 yards away from the crime scene. Morton’s toddler son, Eric, was present during the murder, insisting that his father was not home and the murderer was a “monster.” Police records indicated that Christine Morton’s missing credit card was recovered in a San Antonio jewelry shop and that neighbors claimed that a man repeatedly had parked a green van near the Morton home and walked to the woods nearby. None of this evidence was presented in court or disclosed to Morton’s attorneys.
For years, Williamson County had denied Morton’s request to have the evidence in his case tested. Finally on Jan. 8, 2010, Morton was successful in getting investigators to perform DNA testing on the bandana found near the crime scene. The results showed that the DNA sample belonged to a convicted felon in California who had been in Texas during Christine Morton’s murder.
Morton subsequently was released from prison on Oct. 4, 2011, and the former Williamson County district attorney who prosecuted Morten’s case, Ken Anderson, is facing a special court of inquiry investigating official misconduct. “I don’t want his head on a stick. I don’t want him to go to prison for forever and a day,” Morton said in regard to Anderson. “What I want to do is do what I can to make sure this doesn’t happen to anybody else.”
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