EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: New Natalie Wood Earwitness Pins Death on Robert Wagner: 'She Was Pleading For Someone to Help Her'

A new witness to Natalie Wood's death, who allegedly heard the star's horrific cries for help, has told RadarOnline.com he first shared his story with investigators in 2011, only to be quickly ignored.

Now he is desperately trying to convince authorities once more to convene a grand jury and indict the beauty's husband Robert Wagner for "murder."

The witness, whose name we are withholding for his protection, said he heard the West Side Story star screaming for her life before disappearing from a yacht near Catalina Island in California back in 1981.

He told RadarOnline.com: "She was pleading for someone to help her. She was screaming, 'Help me! help me!' Then a few minutes went by, and I could still hear her crying.

"And then she let out a (scream) 'HELP ME!'"

The witness, who was a 17-year-old deckhand on that fateful night, said he allegedly heard an earlier argument between Wood and Wagner.

He claimed: "Anybody within earshot could hear them fighting. It just jolted me. A man and a woman started yelling at each other at the top of their lungs...it was brutal.

"There were some F-bombs from the female saying at the top of her lungs, 'You will not f------ talk to me like that.' But most of the time, he would shout her down."

He added he could allegedly hear a second fight later that night, and said: "As I got up, I heard a woman screaming hysterically, but it sounded very far away or maybe muffled. So I climbed to the deck of our boat to hear better. It seemed to be coming from the direction of (the yacht)."

The man, now 60, said he was shocked investigators dismissed his account.

He explained: "I'm surprised they didn't present the case to a grand jury a long time ago. With all the signs of foul play, it's like, c'mon guys!"

The witnesses came forward after the case was reopened in 2011 and the Los Angeles County coroner changed the cause of death from "accidental drowning" to "drowning and other undetermined factors" the following year.

Author Marti Rulli, who plans to detail the new witness testimony in her upcoming book, Natalie Wood and the Devil She Knew, told RadarOnline.com there was a reason the man did not come forward sooner.

She said: "The reason the witnesses didn't speak out earlier is because, at the time, the case was declared an accident so fast they just ignored what they saw or heard.

"It still bothers him, and he wanted to tell me what he knew."

The man's claim supports testimony by the yacht's skipper, Dennis Davern, who told police the Thanksgiving weekend cruise turned violent when Wagner accused Wood, 43, of having an affair with her Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken, who was also on the yacht.

Davern claimed a raging Wagner smashed a bottle of wine on a table and began brawling with Wood just before she vanished. Her battered and bruised body was found onshore the next morning near an inflatable dinghy.

Wagner's lawyers deny he had any involvement in Wood's death.

In 2022, Davern urged the District Attorney to once again look at the case, as he told RadarOnline.com: "Robert Wagner needs to go before a grand jury (and) they should present the facts."

He continued: "What’s fair is fair, you know. Give Natalie not just a voice but the peace of mind. This guy… he did something bad, he did something wrong, he needs to go before a grand jury, he needs to put his face out there and look at everybody in the face.

"How could [Wagner] sit there and freaking lie? – let the people decide. The guy is a piece of slime."