Bruises on Wood’s arms, a scratch on her neck and superficial abrasions to her face may have occurred before Wood ended up in the waters off Catalina Island in November 1981, but coroner’s officials wrote they could not definitely determine when the injuries occurred.

The findings have not altered a sheriff’s department investigation into Wood’s death, which a spokesman described as ongoing.

Wood, 43, was on a yacht, the Splendour, with her actor-husband Robert Wagner, co-star Christopher Walken and the boat captain in 1981 before somehow ending up in the water. A dinghy that had been attached to the boat was found along the island’s shoreline, but investigators could not locate it to review it last year.

Investigators initially reported that there were scratches on its hull, but Wood’s fingernails were not preserved for analysis.

The initial autopsy report said it was likely the bruises happened when Wood drowned. “Most of the bruises on the body are superficial and probably sustained at the time of drowning,” the initial autopsy report stated.

Several of the original coroner’s investigators who worked on the case were re-interviewed, and officials attempted to test some items taken during the investigation into Wood’s death and an autopsy, but they could not be located.

Unanswered questions

“The location of the bruises, the multiplicity of the bruises, lack of head trauma, or facial bruising support bruising having occurred prior to entry in the water,” the amended report states. “Since there are unanswered questions and limited additional evidence available for evaluation, it is opined by this Medical Examiner that the manner of death should be left as undetermined,” Chief Medical Examiner Dr Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran wrote in the report completed in June.

Officials also considered that Wood was not wearing a lifejacket and had no history of suicide attempts and did not leave a note as reasons to amend its report and the death certificate.

The report was released on Monday after sheriff’s officials released a security hold.

Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said the agency had known about the findings in the newly released autopsy report for several months and it did not change the status of the investigation, which remained open. He said Wagner was not considered a suspect in Wood’s death.

Wood, famed for roles in such films as and , was nominated for three Academy Awards during her lifetime. Her death stunned the world and has remained one of Hollywood’s most enduring mysteries. The original detective on the case, as well as Wagner and Walken, have all said they considered her death an accident.

Conflicting versions of what happened on the yacht have contributed to the mystery of how the actress died. Wood, Wagner and Walken had all been drinking heavily in the hours before the actress disappeared.

The newly released report states there are conflicting statements about when the boat’s occupants discovered Wood was missing. The report estimates her time of death was around midnight, and she was reported missing at 1.30am.

The updated report estimates that due to the cold temperature of the water and other factors, Wood most likely died shortly after she entered the water.

The renewed inquiry came after the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern, told the television shows and that he heard Wagner and Wood arguing the night of her disappearance and believed Wagner was to blame for her death.

Wagner wrote in a 2008 memoir that he and Walken argued that night. He wrote that Walken went to bed and he stayed up for a while, but when he went to bed, he noticed that his wife and a dinghy that had been attached to the yacht were missing.

“Nobody knows,” he wrote. “There are only two possibilities; either she was trying to get away from the argument, or she was trying to tie the dinghy. But the bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened.”

Wagner’s publicist Alan Nierob declined to comment on the coroner’s findings and an e-mail sent to Walken’s publicist was not immediately returned.