My comments on GMA Interview

You can watch the 09/23/08 GMA Interview with Wagner at YouTube and I posted it here at the blog last week:


In the 09/23/08 GMA Diane Sawyer interview with Wagner, what is most upsetting is that Diane Sawyer doesn't have her facts organized for proper questions so she puts her questions into inaccurate statements, and Wagner sure doesn't stop to correct her misinformation.

Example: Sawyer states that Natalie went missing while "you and Chris Walken argued on the deck"

Both avoid commenting on what the argument was about, Wagner doesn't deny arguing, but he also doesn't correct her that he and Walken's argument was not "on the deck" but that the argument occured in the main salon, and that Walken really wasn't arguing anything. Wagner makes no attempt in this interview to claim what they argued about. This is incompetence on an interviewer's part to not ask what the argument was about, but I'm fairly certain it was preestablished that those kind of questions are off limits.

Example, Sawyer STATES in reference to the arguing that Natalie "went downstairs" -- this conjures the image of Natalie distancing herself all the way down the stairs that do not exist on Splendour. The master stateroom is right next to the main salon, ONE DOWN STEP away toward the rear deck. Chris's guest room was a few steps away from the main salon toward the front of the boat.

In the interview, Wagner says the dinghy was banging into the hull (LOWER outside of boat) but that is impossible for many reasons, but Sawyer doesn't know enough to ask more detailed questions about this.
(I am not using nautical terms such as aft and starboard, port, etc do this is more comprehensible for non-boaters)

Wagner says a few times in interview "we never heard anything" then he clarifies who "we" means: he and Chris Walken. I suppose Dennis Davern is a non-person when Wagner tells the little he tells of the fateful Thanksgiving cruise.

Wagner mentions Natalie's bruises. On the head, hip and legs is what he mentions. Again, nothing is said about the 25 superficial black and blue marks, the 4-inch wrist bruise, the scratches at the neck and ankles, and the large facial abrasion's implications. But this interview is for his book tour, not an inquest into Natalie's death, so I wouldn't expect details about her bruises, but I don't even think Wagner realizes that it's what Sawyer wants to talk about most: and I give Sawyer credit for pushing the envelope in bringing up the Warren Beatty episode, where Wagner waited for Beatty with a gun. Wagner brushes it off but gets in the insult that three men in a relationship doesn't work. Anyone who knew Natalie, knows that three in a relationship was NEVER her style. Wagner had a tendency to consider the men Natalie co-starred with as men invading their relationship, as he also did with William Devane in later years. His own insecurities are what I see, even with THIS 2008 interview, to make it appear as if Natalie had a tendency to cheat on him with her co-stars.

I noticed at YouTube that one comment a viewer left of this video said the look on Wagner's face is priceless as he watches an old video of himself and Natalie that Sawyer shows. In my opinion, the expression on his face is sheer terror: he doesn't know what's coming and I do commend GMA on catching this, as they the camera flashes back to him watching and you only see his half-smile appear in relief that it's only an innocuous clip of something lighthearted between him and Natalie.

All of his obvious inflections and word-phrasing, image-enhancing propaganda is something experts one day will study I'm sure. I am only offering my opinions of this video, watching it from the viewpoint of my own amateur investigation, but certainly not amateur involvement. I say this with no implication other than its truth: no one has delved more into EVERY aspect of this tragic event than I have, and maybe that's because it all started for me with an eye and ear witness to all the circumstance revolving around Natalie's tragic death, but it certainly took me to areas of the case where no one has gone. THIS CASE NEEDS TO BE RE-OPENED!

And lastly, what bothers me more than anything, and Wagner uses it in virtually every interview: He always refers to Natalie's death as "when she left us." Maybe that's exactly what Natalie did that night. She "left HIM" -- maybe she said, "This is it, RJ, I'm DONE." But one thing for sure: she didn't intentionally leave that boat.

Input welcome.