NATALIE WOOD MISTRESS MYSTERY

Murder motive uncovered after 44 years

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Brainstorm costars Christopher Walken and Natalie were on the yacht at the time of Wood's death. Her body was later found floating in the water

HOMICIDE detectives probing the 1981 drowning of West Side Story actress Natalie Wood investigated a scandalous affair by her Hollywood hotshot hubby Robert Wagner as a potential motive for murder, sources tell GLOBE.

The stunning news comes as the former Hart to Hart hunk, 95, marks 35 years of marriage to onetime Bond girl Jill St. John, 84, who infamously comforted him shortly after Natalie's corpse was fished from the waters off California's Catalina Island.

According to the boat captain, raging Robert Wagner screamed at Natalie Wood to get off the Splendour

Natalie was last seen alive on Nov. 28, 1981, arguing with Wagner aboard the yacht Splendour, and was heard screaming for her life by a witness on a dive boat moored about 100 yards away, sources say.

"Anybody within earshot could hear them fighting," recalls the witness, who was just 17 at the time. "It just jolted me. A man and a woman started yelling at each other at the top of their lungs ... it was brutal."